What it Takes to Win Hearts, Minds, and Speaking Awards with Adele Bates - 324

Hello, you are watching and listening to Sarah Archer and episode 324 of The Speaking Club podcast, and I want to open this show with a quote from the fabulous Brené Brown: If we want meaningful change, we have to make room for discomfort. I started this podcast for 2 reasons: because I want to help people recognise the power of stories and humour in speaking, and because I believe it's your message that counts, not the number of ums and ahs you use. There are some organisations that want to create robot speakers. They want you to sacrifice your personality in order to speak perfectly. I want to let you know that you can be yourself and a sensational speaker. So if you want to be a speaker that connects and engages authentically through stories, a speaker that gives value as well as a great performance, then welcome home. Hey, welcome to the show. And in this episode, I have brought on another speaking award winner. This time I have brought in the winner of the other category that I was judging at this year's Speaking Awards. And that is Adele Bates, who won Best Storyteller. And when I saw her entry, it really stood out and grabbed my attention. It was powerful. It was authentic. It was captivating. And it was because she didn't just tell the story, she performed it. She brought it to life. She added characters in. She created dialogue and just, yeah, really helped to bring it alive for the audience and leading them to see a situation from a new perspective, which is what storytelling is all about. And based on the performance and the fact, as I say, she went on to win the award, I knew that I had to bring her on the show to share a bit about what she does, but also how she put that together, how she shifted into paid speaking so that you could get some insights and some inspiration for your own speaking and storytelling. And basically, Adele has over 20 years' experience working in some of the most challenging educational environments, mainstream, special, and alternative provision. Her journey has taken her from classrooms where she's had juice poured over her head and been hit by a skateboard, and to research trips across the globe to Dominican, to other places, and then to keynotes and international stages. She is also the author of a book called Miss I Don't Give a Shit: Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in schools, and today she also works with organisations and leaders to tackle challenging behaviour in the workplace too. Now, whether you're a speaker who is looking to uplevel your craft, a leader, educator, or changemaker that's looking for some insight into how to shift groups and difficult people, Adele's stories and insights will challenge your thinking, maybe, to shift your empathy, perhaps, and also to give you some practical tools for connection and communication. So, without further ado, let's shift over to the episode and the interview. Welcome to The Speaking Club, Adele Bates. Thank you very much.

Happy to be in the club.

5 feet. You are definitely in the club. 2 feet and more in the club. But we'll come on to that. First of all, before we talk about your speaking, I want to talk a bit about what you are known for in a sense. Now, you've had some extreme moments in the classroom, and particularly one I'm intrigued by, but juice poured on your head, skateboard attacks.

Mm-hmm.

What I'm interested in first of all is what part did those moments play in setting you off on your quest, an international quest, to find the answer to a Presumer question? Hmm.

That's such a profound question. It makes you wanna cry already. Dear me. So the, to give context, yes. So I've worked in settings with young people who are on the edge of society, I would say. From my practitioner point of view, I would talk about being some of the most vulnerable children and some of the most high needs. What society might call them are the most, inverted commas, troubled children. So I've worked in alternative provisions, people referral units, schools for young people with SEMH, social, emotional, mental health issues. And these are the places that young people are supported when they can't fit in in mainstream education. And that comes with a load of fun. I mean, I love these kids. They are so, for me, they are so much fun to be around. They have, they really say it how it is. You can't get away with anything. And as those anecdotes demonstrate, and I think it's important to say my experience is yes, I've had juice poured on my head. Yes, I've been whacked by a skateboard, and I've taught an 11-year-old child how to read their very first word. And that's the bit that propels me because I know that for every one of those young people whose behavior can be fruity and antisocial and aggressive and violent and self-destructive on themselves as well, Mm-hmm. As well as those around them. But I know that for each one of them, there is an unmet need, a story, a background. And my bigger value and raison d'être, I suppose you'd call it, of what I do is about helping different communities to understand one another. So I strive to erase this us and them kind of rhetoric that happens in society that I see as being so destructive in any sphere, you know, pick any that are going on right now.

Right now.

This us and them mindset I find can be really destructive. And so I've always seen it. There's actually a very pivotal moment when I knew that that would be my purpose. I've always seen it that I'm either Building bridges or removing barriers. So, in terms of speaking and speaking about the experiences I have with these young people and behavior more generally, like if we go into the workplace as well, it's about removing the barriers for one group of people to understand another group of people better. Because when we understand one another a bit better, then we get, ah, things like compassion, Things like shared purpose, things like giggles, things like moving forwards in a similar direction, even though we're different.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's about building bridges or removing barriers. And so a lot of those young people that I've worked with in the past, they're never gonna have a platform that I've got. They're never gonna be invited to speak on international stages in front of thousands of people. And so I very much, that's another part of both my organization and my own personal direction is to get on the platform. As me mum says, bang your drum about one of your things, which I've always done, but then make the platform bigger and invite different voices on. So it's like, okay, I'm here. Great. Now who is not being heard? Let's get them in.

Yeah.

And that's me sharing a story or whether sometimes that's my own podcast, bringing people on or different places where I've been able to bring in those voices as well.

Yeah. So, it's about holding space for other people to creating and holding space for other people to be able to be heard. So, let me take you back. So, first question, this is an important question. As a skateboarder or aspiring skateboarder, first question is, was it a longboard A normal skateboard or a penny that hit you? Because that will make a difference. Was it a big one?

Sarah, I don't know. You're such a professional. I feel so inadequate right now.

I bet it hurt. I bet it hurt. But so, so, so what was that? You've, you've been all over the world. You went to Finland, you went to, uh, I think Dominican Republic, in Costa Rica, I think. What was the question that you were hoping to answer around this issue from what they were doing in those countries?

I love this question. So, there is, I've discovered, we have an island mindset in the UK, and I discovered this even more 14 years ago, I fell in love with my partner who happens to be Bulgarian. She's from Eastern Europe. And it was fascinating. I mean, she also happened to be a woman, which is the first time I'd ever fallen in love with a woman, but that's not the question you asked. But the point is I suddenly started to see my own country from a different point of view because I watch now Bulgarian news, right? And I suddenly realized, even though I don't identify as like an imperialist, that's not really the kind of gang that I tend to hang out in, not usually, that we really just have this quite closed mindset. And I think we have a slight arrogance as well, you know, rule Britannia, rule the waves. We've got this great legacy, especially of education and economy and innovation. And yet I look at the education system that I was working in at the time and going, but this system's no longer fit for purpose. We all know this, right? It was built in the Victorian times, the education system in the UK. The Education Act came in in 1879 that started to go on that process of making education compulsory for all. And so think of the other Victorian systems we have in our country. The railways, the plumbing, So, you know, those companies, you think, well, they're all falling apart and so is the education system. And so what I wanted to do is find out what else is available. Like, is it really that a school has to look and feel like this? Is this what learning has to look and feel like, even though it is not supporting an increasingly increasing amount of young people? I mean, the amount of young people who are no longer fitting in mainstream education, it just proves that the education system is no longer fit for purpose. So, it was about exploring what else is going on, what else is available. And the Finnish model in particular is super interesting. In the 1970s, they consciously restructured their social justice system, their health system, and their education system. And so, it means that their education system is only from the '70s. Hang on, how many years is that? What, Jovian? That's only 50 years old.

As old as I am.

Thank you. And so, you can tell that it's so much more fit for today's world. It's not perfect. And there's various blog posts you can read on my research out there. So, that was super interesting finding out that. And there was one piece actually, I have to say that we were better at than them, which was quite satisfying. If you work in education, you know that Finland's known for being one of the top places. And we do have this slight kind of, oh, Scandinavia kind of thing. And what was fascinating is in so many ways they are just, oh my goodness, so much more advanced than us in terms of inclusion, in terms of pedagogy, in terms of just things like by law, they're not allowed to have more than 22 in a class, by law. Special schools are not allowed because everyone has to be supported in mainstream. They have to, by law, have 5 master's qualified SENCOs, so teachers who support special needs in every class. Like, just, there's so much stuff. And not to mention the psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers that are all compulsory in Finnish schools. Now, of course, they have a completely different social model, but it was fascinating to watch that even within that, there were areas they weren't great at, particularly, I have to say, immigration. an integration of people from different countries coming to live in Finland. We are actually way ahead of them in the UK. And then over in the Dominican Republic, oh my goodness, that was amazing. I got to work for a whole month there. I was working in the school in the day and then training the staff in the evening, working on team culture, behaviour, supporting them with the behaviour of the kids, et cetera. And this school, It's called The Hive and it's run by a brilliant woman, Kate McAllister. And she's often in the UK as well. She kind of floats about. She's written a couple of books and she runs a self-directed education space. So, self-directed learning. That was such an un— I mean, that's a whole other podcast in itself, but that was such an interesting unlearning of what I thought school meant and what learning was. And I went over there thinking, I'm pretty liberal. I'm looking at different models of education. And yet when I was there, it was such an, yeah, just this process of realizing that, but where's the school bell? Like no one's on time and there's no school bell. We need a school bell. And I'm like, wow, that really comes from the Victorian model of education. And I'm holding onto it. And it's very interesting going back to the first point about us and them, when we're faced with difference, often one of the things we do is clamp down even more on what we know, or we think, or we believe to be true. And so you have to be in a really safe space to be able to let go of what you believe if you're going to have a chance to even think in any kind of different way or learn anything new.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting. So having had that experience, uh, combined with the experience that you had previously had working in the classroom. What do you think is the biggest misalignment between behaviour policy in the UK and actual classroom culture? And how do we fix that?

So, I think, and this is This is almost part 2 of the previous question. When I got back from each of those trips, one of the things that was really important for me, and this really goes back to my speaking, kind of my intention with my speaking as well, is that when I come back, I'm a breath of fresh air.

Yeah.

Possibility for all of those people who can't take a couple of months out to go to Finland and spend time in loads of different schools or pop over to the Dominican Republic, for everybody who can't physically do that at the moment yet. Again, it's that building bridges thing. So, in my speaking and training work, it's about supporting staff to see that other opportunities are available and to enable people to get curious and re-excited with the industry and society increasingly. And so, going back to this question about behavioural biases and classrooms, et cetera, Often, it's really interesting. We work with schools. My organization works with schools. We do big year-long, sometimes longer collaborations with colleges and schools at the moment. And we've actually just redone a behavior policy with a school, a huge piece of work, big collaboration with the whole school. And I think the biggest thing that goes wrong is, and this happens in workplaces as well, is that the SLT, so the senior leadership, We'll create a policy. So in this instance, it's a behavior policy and it looks really shiny and it's really cool, right? Brilliant. It doesn't work in practice.

No.

You have to get the people who are going to be using it in at the creation stage. It does you a favor because they see the problems before you can. And so, there are so many schools and then in workplaces, I'm thinking of like the kind of team culture policy documents, all those kind of things where they sit on a digital dusty shelf, whatever that's called in the digital world. And they don't really get, they're not realistic documents. They're not actually helpful. They're just a ticking box exercise. And so that's one of the pieces of work that we support is helping organizations to take it from that dusty document that no one looks at until maybe appraisal time, if you're lucky, to a document that actually helps practice and supports the values that the organization has set.

Yeah.

And you'll have seen it as well, Sarah. There's so many organizations that say things like, we want everyone to thrive. We're inclusive. We want to be productive and supportive with our wellbeing, blah, blah, blah, pick all these words. And then you get, so in a school you might get behavior policy then that doesn't support that. So it's a lot of joining up those dots as well. It's like, if these are your values, what does that value look like in your sickness policy? What does that value look like? Do you have a period policy? Do you have a menopause policy? All these kind of things. It's like, how is what you say you're doing actually happening day to day? And I think that's the kind of piece of work we do because then going back to your specific of your question, then once you get in the classroom as a practitioner, as a teacher or support staff, if you've got a document that's actually helpful, you can use it and your classroom practice is better.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think this is the thing. I think this is, I'm not, my background before I do what I do now was as an HR director. And so many times I saw You know, it's almost like platitude bingo and lip service. Like, it's like, we'll, we'll walk, we'll, we'll say the right things, but we won't do. And, and those, and it, and it actually has the opposite effect. It antagonizes people. It, it disaffects employees and undermines trust. And, and as you say, the very least of things, it doesn't get used. And so, I think that's a really important point that you've made, you know, how, how do we actually live and breathe these things? And then how do we transpose those things into useful tools that our people can use to advance everyone's cause? That's a good one.

At ABE, my organization, one of our team values, we've got things like audacity in there. We're breaking down barriers and all this kind of stuff. But alongside all those types of words, you'll also see we realism. And realism obviously means different things to different people. And I know sometimes it can be a limiter, but I think alongside things like the big visions that we have and the big goals that we have as an organization, as a company, to have realism there is so important to me. And the title of my first book is Miss I Don't Give a Shit.

Yeah.

And it was quite a fun game with the publishers, getting that past the publishers, especially the ones in the US. They had more problems with it. But the point is, if you have worked in schools with young people with behavior needs, that's the real— that is it. The getting whacked by a skateboard, miss, I don't give a shit. Like, that is it. And so, it's also about when we're supporting organizations and also when I'm speaking, it's like, you've gotta meet people where they're at if you're gonna take them somewhere or support them or inspire them to go somewhere. You've gotta meet them where they're at first.

Yeah.

And you've got to do that by listening. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's, it's, I'll come back to audacity, which is actually, audacity is one of the things that I encourage the people that I work with to use in their speaking because you've got to challenge, you know, and you've got to grab attention and, you know, we'll come back to that. Let's carry on, on this theme for the moment. Now, you've worked in a variety of settings. We've just been talking about values. And how, and your values particularly, but what I'm interested in, regardless of whether it's mainstream education, special education, or alternative settings, what are the core beliefs and values that guide your work?

The first one is that piece that I've already mentioned, meet people where they're at. There's no point doing anything other. And there was a beautiful example of that, actually, really a wonderful, I'm sure everyone listening will have an example of this. So, I was training in a school and this chap put his hand up, science teacher. Now, if you work in education, there are stereotypes, but anyway, science teacher. He put his hand up and you saw the entire rest of the room sink. A couple of inches. And he said to me, there's something I need to tell you. And I thought, okay, great. Lovely. Good. And he said to me, we have had so many speakers come in to try and motivate us around various topics, including behavior. And he said, they've left us this 1, 2, 3 of their method of how to do it. We've failed. What's gonna make yours different?

Oh, that's a gift, isn't it?

And that is that beautiful moment. And I'm just gonna speak into this. I'm just gonna really slow this moment down because as a speaker, 'cause I speak and I train, this was more of a training setting, but in that moment, There's so much work and support that you have to do before that moment to not shrivel in the corner and hide. Because it was, you know, a poignant moment and the reaction of everyone else in the room told us that. And I felt a little bit of rise and then I was able to reground. And this comes to answer your question of the values. I was honest with him, which is the same as I do with the kids, which is the same as I do with my team. And I said to him, I don't have a whizzy 1, 2, 3 method because if that really worked, No school would ever have a detention ever again. We'd have found the solution. Nobody'd be in prison and I wouldn't have a job. But that's not the case because we're all human. We're ever-changing. Our contexts are changing. Our relationships are changing. Our group dynamics are always changing. I said, what I'm here to do is to learn more about where you are at. And share the tools that I know have worked in many, many settings, and then support you to use those tools, give them a go and see what works and which ones you want to keep and which ones you don't. And more importantly, in the process of doing that, and I think this speaks into change management in general, in all organizations, it's going to get messier before it gets clearer. Because you are undoing a system that you had. Now that system, some of it may be working and you might be trying to keep bits of it and change bits of it. And some people will be upset, all this stuff. It gets really messy. And we really experience this when we're supporting organizations on a longer-term project. There's the really messy bit. And I said, it is going to get like that before you find the clarity.

Mm.

That's why we're here to support you through it. And the whole room was holding their breath to hear what he said. And bless him, he just said, you're the first person who's honestly given me an answer. Thank you very much. And at the end of that training, he came up to me with loads of ideas that he could do in his science department. He wanted to see what I thought of them. He was really motivated. And that just, changing hearts and minds in that way.

Yeah.

So exciting for me because I kind of do it as the kind of unofficial ABE tagline is, we're preventing wars. Like that's my overall aim in life. A slight overachiever. Preventing wars. But it kind of sums up the essence of what we do and what I value. It's like, If we can support him to be motivated, to give new things a go, to be looking for ways to support children better, he is going to be more open to working with his colleagues. And it was just clear, like you're all thinking of a person at work, aren't you? Who is that person, right? It was very clear he was a job's worth and made people's lives very hard. I also observed him doing some teaching. He wasn't the most open to Young people with needs, let's put it that way.

Yeah.

So, if something that we can do as a company, or myself as a speaker can do, can open someone to the possibility that there are more productive ways of working together, then they're less likely to argue and they're less likely to get angry with one another or cause harm to each other, Or if they happen to be a person with a big red button and a lot of control in this world, start a war. But yeah, that's my aim. Fantastic. Cool.

No, that's helpful. And I will come back. There's a couple of things that you've mentioned there that I will come back to touch upon. Let me just ask you as a sort of next step, what's the outcome of your work so far that you've been most proud of? I can tell That, that's a little, you know, that obviously means a lot to you, able to shift him to see more possibilities. What else have you—

On a big scale, I think it's a big one. When the book came out, that was huge. Um, I was one of the, I think I was the bestseller of new authors for my publishers that year, which was amazing. And what it meant was Staff had that support, readily available, accessible, get it from the library kind of thing. That's very important for me within my business model, that there's support available at every price point. I think the way I'm going to answer this is what am I proud of right now today? Because there's so much there. What I'm proud of right now is I create jobs. I've got a team now. Now this work started 8 years ago and it was just me going around gigging, like doing the odd speaking gig here and there, doing a little bit of training with the school. I had no idea that 8 years later I'd be running a limited company. We turned over nearly £300,000 last year and that shows how many schools and impact and everything we're getting to make. And the bit that I'm most proud of is creating the work because I've got this radical idea that if we day-to-day were able to do activities, whether that's work or, you know, whatever's filling our time, that fulfilled us and we got to work and play in a satisfying way. Again, it's like, then we'd all have less to grumble about, right? And I love my team and I am really growing into that leadership space with them. It's challenging. I have a lot, a lot of support around me, but what I'm really proud of now is my team reflect back to me how much, firstly, they enjoy working in the organization, and secondly, how much impact they feel they are personally making for positive change in the world. So, like, I've been able to create this space In which, in which now not just me is doing it, but like, I've got a gang. I've got a gang of better. And then the impact they get to make when they go out in the world and work with our different organizations and clients and events. I mean, the possibilities are endless.

That's brilliant. Yeah, definitely. It's like the ripple effect is magnified.

And I also love that. It's really interesting. I wonder if you've come across this. Right at the start, there was this big question of like, do I be a CIC or a charity or a business? I am so glad I am a business. I'm so glad I'm a business. I have smashed women in business usual statistics, which is very satisfying. And not just women in business, but all starting out businesses. But what I also love is this year, we managed to 10 times our charity contributions. We've now got a charity partner, which is an organization, Brighton called Flourish Mentors, and they support 18 to 24-year-old young women and non-binary folks. Um, it's a lot of them who've been in care. So that kind of age group, you know, when, um, social services kind of, they kind of fall off that, that bid and they're no longer supported. And it's just like, I've created this organization in which not only is the work we do really exciting and impactful, but then— We are now getting to give money back because I've got a business model in which that's possible. And I don't, believe it's quite as easy when you've got a charity and all the rest of it. My brother used to run a CIC. I was on the board of directors. So, that's my other thing I'm really proud of right now, having a charity partner. It's been a dream goal of mine for a long time for my work to be able to support a charity in that way.

That's brilliant. So, more like impact beyond the impact. That's brilliant. That's cool. Okay, good. So, Now, the reason that I got you on the— I came across you in the first place was because I was a judge in the Speaker Awards and you were in the storytelling category. And obviously you started out in the classroom and you've evolved into a keynote speaker. Now, from something you said before we started recording, I feel like there may have been something before classroom practitioner, but the question I had for you in this, weave it in, in whatever way works, but what were the biggest sort of internal and external challenges you faced in making that leap from classroom practitioner to keynote speaker?

It was really easy because my first career, I was an opera singer.

Ah, okay.

So, I trained at Rose Bruford. And then did my master's in Brighton in contemporary opera and music theatre. So, when I was 15, it was, yeah, it was the '90s and we had these disgusting things called the National Record of Achievement that we had to do at school. And there was this faux, I've got such a visceral memory. There were these faux plastic folders, plastic leather folders that you had to put in your CV. You're 15, but anyway, and your ambitions and all this. And I found it a few years ago when I was working with a coach, and I'd written at 15, I'm going to be a singer and an actress. At 35, I'm going to sort out the British education system, but I'm gonna be a singer and actress first so that I have some life experience to give back.

Interesting.

And it was funny because I was about 35 at the time when I saw it. I was like, okay, wow. We're on track. On track. So really, I never stopped speaking. And what has been the most joyous thing about becoming an international keynote speaker is I get to use all of my theatre background for a purpose. And I think that was what was always missing in theater. I worked in various theater companies and I also had an immersive opera act, which was taking opera to spaces that don't usually have opera and sometimes singing with hip-hop lyrics. It was a lot of fun, a lot of fringe festivals, Edinburgh, et cetera. And then I also did what I would call straight opera, which Really wasn't my world. It's yeah, a very formulaic world, and I just got to a point where I was like, "This is lovely." Like I can sing "Oh mia bambina caro," and I can make somebody cry. They can hire me for their wedding, but that's not. And I was like, "But it's not enough." Like I, I want to save the world. Like, and I realized that that is ridiculous. But that was the driver. And so, it was this very conscious decision. So, I'd started teaching. I mean, I've always taught. I set up my first drama school when I was 13 for primary school-aged children. That was before DBSs existed. It was like the early 2000s. I put those children through exams. We did shows. They won places at festivals. So, I'd always taught performing arts. That had always been alongside. And that's what got me into the people referral units because I was teaching performing arts in that space. And I worked in a school with young people with profound disabilities for 2 years in London. And I was working in a theatre company 4 days a week. So yeah, I was doing the TAing 4 days a week and working in the theatre company 4 days a week, which doesn't add up, but it was my early 20s, so it was fine. So, it just got to this point. It was late 20s, nearly, yeah, nearly 30, where I was like, you know what? I'm enjoying the teaching more than I'm enjoying the performing because I just feel like the performing, for me, but for me, was just not quite scratching that social justice, that positive impact thing that I wanted, that I knew I wanted to pursue.

Mm-hmm.

And so, interestingly, by the time I trained to be a teacher, I'd actually been teaching for 14 years. And it was brilliant. I got this feedback off a kid once when I was teaching mainstream and she said to me, Miss, the thing is with you— oh no, hang on, that's what it was. I was asking them what my nickname was because you always have your nickname. And she goes, yeah. And my last name is Bates. And they said, oh yeah, we call you Miss Lates. And I was like, oh, well, there are a lot worse ones than that, aren't there? I said, why do you call me Miss Lates? And they said, because at the end of every lesson, you insist on doing a big speech and you always let us out late.

Oh no.

And it would be something like, now you might think your GCSEs are not worth studying for, and you're probably right. They don't mean that much in a lot of ways, but let's think of the young people who don't get an education in our world. I'd go on that thing. I also used to run an Amnesty International club in the schools. So, I think the, in answer to your question, it was actually very easy because it was almost like a coming home.

Yeah.

Um, of being able to be back on, on stage, but with even more, um, joy in it personally, because now I get to be on stage for positive social impact.

Yeah.

And I feel like I won at the job lottery. So that's brilliant.

That's brilliant. It's interesting. Yeah. So I almost did the reverse of that. So Getting stuck in the corporate— I auditioned for drama school, uh, they said go and get some life experience, then I get stuck in the corporate treadmill, and then I left that behind and now have a theater company alongside this stuff that I do.

Very cool.

So that's, uh, but I'm with you, it's so important to feel like your work is more than just entertainment. Because I think that's a big important factor is to check whether you're speaking, whether you're creating theater. And I think this is for anyone that wants to speak is that there's more to just entertaining people. It's about moving people. And one of the things that you said to that science teacher was around, you know, I have a set of tools, but I think what you do And what great speakers do is that you are shifting perspectives. You talked about hearts and mind. You can't, they won't get to the tools. They won't consider the tools unless you've shifted their perspective and you can't shift their perspective until you've met them where they are, which is exactly, you know, what you were talking about in the first place. And I love the way it's, you know, As I said, you won the— I was the judge. You won one of the judges. You won the Best Storyteller category. And what stood out for me, for you, from you, from the other entrants, was the performance element, which obviously you had a kind of head start. And I worry in some ways that people listening to this will feel that that is out of reach for them because you already had that in your toolkit. I don't believe that is true, but it is somewhere where people who want to speak need to get to, I think, which is to bring in the, the using the body, using pro— you know, creating, um, pictures and bringing scenes to life and using dialogue. Um, one of the things that I wanted to ask you was, You know, you'd had the opera, you had the speaking, it, you know, regardless of that, you know, advantage, if you like to put it that way, in terms of the performance, you still had to put that talk together and it needed to have an impact as well as to captivate and all of that good stuff. How did you set about putting that talk together and You know, how did you weave in the choreography and the bits and pieces that most people miss out, but I think makes the difference between a speaker that is A, booked, B, remembered, and C, has that transformational ability on an audience?

Thank you. I'm just going to speak into the first bit that you said.

Yeah, there was a lot.

About a year and a half ago, I hired my first associate. So, this is somebody now who works in my organisation for me, goes out, does training and speaking on behalf of my organisation. Heath, annoyingly, he also has the same last name as me, which is Bates. Really annoying for the marketing. And we did ask him to change his name at the interview. Now, he is nothing like me. He is, and he won't mind me saying this, he describes himself like this, a pessimistic Welshman.

Right.

He is, um, he describes me as being, what does he call me? Emotionally effusive. He is the opposite. And it was really important to me when I hired him as a speaker for my company that he didn't try to be a mini-me because it wouldn't work. And I actually learned that from a fellow opera singer. Years ago when I was auditioning for something and he said to me, don't try and be me, do it your own way. And the way that Keith speaks is so different from me. And I sit there as a performer going, oh my goodness, I wish he'd use more dramatic pause, or I wish he'd be a bit more expressive here. But what's really fascinating, Sarah, it's really, I've had to be humbled and learn here. When I look at his feedback from the audiences and when I watch him, He can tap into a different type of audience than me. I'm aware I'm not for everyone. And I'm gonna let you into a little secret. That space where I performed or did the speaking that actually won the award, that event, I think it was about 400 people. It was an education conference. One of the pieces of feedback I got was, not my cup of tea. I don't like so many dramatic pauses. Now, I got that feedback from that event knowing that I was going to put that video in for the award. But I really had to do a talking to myself because I was like, all this kind of, oh, well, I can't send it, in terms of the next part of your question, how did you put it together? I'm sitting there thinking, well, somebody in the audience didn't like it, so this probably isn't good enough to enter for an award. And then it's that real, and again, this comes from all the support I have, my coaching, therapy space that I've had over the years, the different people I have very, very intentionally built around me to support me in these moments. But I was able to sit with it and go, right, that's one person's opinion on one day, on one thing, on what, you know, da da da da da. And what I really, I have to say what I really liked about the way the Speaks Awards application was created, it was a very supportive way of doing it and very like, you know, talking back into that audacity piece, it was like, do what you really wanna share, share what you really wanna share and don't censor And so, I had to kind of make a decision. Do I let this one negative comment stop me from applying with this material? And I made the decision not to. As me nanny used to say, I thought, boom to him. You know, he's obviously not my audience. That's okay. And so, then what you saw actually, because for the awards, you had to send in 5 minutes, I believe.

That's right. Yeah.

And the talk, I think, was an hour and a half. So, you've got editing in there. That was challenging. So, the actual story that I shared, I often use that as a framework because I know the power of story and I know that I have a skillset that can tell a story. I often use a story to then hook all the other facts on. You will see in my talks often, I may have one tokenary slide with some stats on. Stats don't speak to me personally, but I am aware they speak to other people. I'm thinking of that science teacher. So, I do try to, it's probably a teacher thing, but I do try to make the medium as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. Some people need the stats to be able to hold onto what you're sharing. I often couldn't give a hoot about the stats, but tell me that this child came into the classroom for the first time in the final term because of the relationship you built with them, and that's, I'm away. So, in terms of how do you put it, how did I put it together? It was a talk that I've done quite a few times. That story I've used in lots of different talks in slightly different ways. And you as a performer will be able to see that by the way I performed it. I'm guessing, you know, that the physicality I love— for those of you who haven't seen it, I do a kind of dialogue between me as a teacher and a very, very stroppy 15-year-old lad who's about 2 foot taller than me. And I have so much fun doing that, of being in teacher pose and character, and then— Doing that physicality of arms and legs everywhere and corbiost and that kind of thing. So, I've spent quite a lot of time playing with that as a kind of, I guess you'd almost call it like a sketch, wouldn't you? That kind of thing. But what you got to see in the recording was all the story bits mashed together. What was taken out was all of the, what do you call it when you go off on one? Decoy?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Diversion.

Yeah. So, what we can learn from this scenario, what this kid is doing here, what you can do in your practice or what you can do in your team is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And here's the theory and here's the quote and this is what you could do. And then what I'll do, and that isn't theatre at the best, then what I will do in that talk is I will go into perhaps something more of a kind of traditional training speaking piece. And then at one point I will just I'll have the audience listening. I will turn and I will turn back into the teenager. They know that, okay, we're back on the story now. And it's that kind of episodic structure for the whole talk. Yeah.

And I think this is the thing, and this is something that I talk about quite a bit, and you'll be able to relate to this, that the best talks are the ones where, you know, as an actor and you, or as any sort of performer where you are doing something, You learn it, you get to the point where you rehearse it so much that you hate it.

Oh, yes.

But then you go through into the space where you can, you know it so well that you can start to play with it. And it's at the point where you can play with it that this level of performance and you know, comes through. And I feel like this is something that most speakers miss is that you can't, it's not about learning words. It's about learning them, let go of them, and then become the words. And it's something everyone can do if they commit to that sort of rehearsal process, but then letting go and literally You know, being playful and natural and authentic and audacious with it, which, which you are. It reflects how you— Repeat that again?

In the application and also when I'm working. I don't know whether you noticed specifically, but at one point during it, some teenagers or young people went past the auditorium and shouted. They were like, rah! And the audience laughed. And, oh, this is my favourite bit. This is your contact. This is your improvisation. This is your live teaching. Because what I did is went, oh, sounds like one of Max's mates are there. And Max was the teenager I was talking about in my story. And, but the thing is that firstly, I love playing in that way because it's exactly as you say, you can only do that once you are, what I would say, off script.

Through the other side. Yeah.

But, It's also a great philosophy for the way that we work with each other in organizations, because we can have the behavior policy, we can have the work discipline policy, we can have all these things. But actually, if the team member that I am currently managing is having something completely off the book that I can't see any guidance for anywhere, then what it requires me to do in leadership or in a teacher in a school or whatever scenario, Is to be in a space with another human being. And I think that goes back to, there's the messy bit. There is really the messy bit, but also it's the bit where the magic happens.

Absolutely. That's exactly what I, yeah, exactly that. It's, it's where the magic happens when you are present, when you are with your audience, but you know, you have the confidence and the comfort of knowing your stuff inside out. And also, most of the time as a speaker, it's lived experience that, you know, and so, yeah, that's really helpful to have your take on it. And I think the point that you made about, is it Keith or Heath?

Keith?

Keith, yeah. Yeah. I think that's the other thing is that it is Horses for courses. Not everyone is going to like you, your style or whatever, but it isn't about you. It's about a message at the end of the day. I'm glad that you submitted it and didn't let that one seed of doubt faze you. Looking back, what's one piece of feedback or critique that's had most impact? I was going to say on your speaking, but I feel given your background, it may be also in the performance space that you were in. And how did you act on it?

It's a bit of a left-field answer, and it feels the most poignant right now. When I was in my early to mid-20s, I started getting some symptoms around my menstrual cycle that my mum had got. And she ended up having a hysterectomy when she was 49. And I started having those symptoms and I went to the doctors and they told me there was nothing wrong with me. And essentially I was making it up. There's a load of stats about women being believed in the NHS and the funding available for women's health anyway. But I ended up finding quite by chance, it's another story, but Red School who support women and non-binary people with menstruation, menarche, and menopause. And I went to a workshop with the brilliant Alexandra Pope. So it's her and Sharnae Hugo-Wurlitzer who run that organization. And Alexandra now is in her 70s, and she had this incredible superpower to be able to see, it was terrifying, see through me, right? So in my 20s, I was really headstrong. Like you think I'm headstrong now, it's like I was really in that kind of, I am going to say it, that kind of really big thing. And we did this process. It was about creativity and the menstrual cycle. That was the theme of the workshop. And she stopped and she looked at me and I was 26 at the time. And she said, If you don't learn how to stop, you are not going to make it to 35.

Oh.

It was a really pivotal moment for me. And it's not that everything changed overnight. Unfortunately, my life is not a musical, however much I tried to make it. It's not. It was a series of many, many, many years. So I started practicing menstrual cycle awareness. Because I was working as an opera singer at the time, I then did a lot of study around the menstrual cycle with how it affects the voice. That is fascinating and a whole other topic. I ended up researching that for my master's. But I think the key thing is here, I learned that I couldn't just go, as Minna used to say, like a bullet, a gate at everything. Because I could at that age, And because I was privileged enough to be in circumstances that allowed me to, but that sustainability, longevity, impact, legacy, and also that piece that we've come back to a few times about meeting someone where they're at. You can't do that if you're a 24/7 children's TV presenter trying to save the world. Like it doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. And then interestingly, when I did my PGCE, which is the teacher training course, My tutor there said to me, Adele, your hardest lesson you're going to find being a teacher is that you can't save them all. So, both of those messages, but really, really the first one, that is the bit that when I think about my speaking, it does so, it gives me so much more space because you're always going to have some rubbish ones, right? You're always gonna have some ones that just don't go as well as you'd like. They just don't. Actually, another singing teacher of mine, she gave me a great thing. She said, sorry, I'm giving you about 3. She said, your worst performance needs to be 80%. So, you work at your skills, you work at your craft, you work at your knowledge, you work at your resilience, et cetera, et cetera, so that your worst performance is 80%. So that, you know, even on a bad day, you're 80%, and then on the good days, and then on the excellent days, you can go above that. And I think that's also really, really useful. But the point is what the whole, you have to learn to stop, did to me was enable me to take myself less seriously. For a start. Realize that much to my chagrin, I probably won't save the world. The world doesn't need saving. That's probably the first point, but also that I get to work with other people. I don't have to do this on my own. I think particularly as a speaker, speaking can be lonely, really lonely. And the opera act that I had as well was a solo act. So, it was a really similar world. It was like travelling to random places across the country, getting your costume out, performing, like, you know, sharing loads of emotions and and holding an audience and then getting back on a train and going home. Like really, really similar pattern. And so, when you kind of go, oh, okay, but what else is around that? And where's the support? And who do you get to play with? And how do you get to enjoy it while you're doing it as well? I think that's another big thing. If you are a speaker with a big mission or very driven, It can be so easy to get like blinkered. My partner often says to me like, you know, are you watching another program with one of your isms or one of your issues like feminism, like socialism, trans identity? And it's like another point you said earlier about entertainment. I've really come full circle with entertainment. My appreciation for entertainment now is so much higher.

Yeah.

Than when I was working in entertainment, ironically. Whereas now I love it because I'm like, yes, entertain me. I need you to entertain me so that I can go out and have really difficult conversations with people and support headteachers or organisation leaders who are in tears because of what's happening in their workplace. Like, for me to be able to do that work, I need to be entertained. Please entertain me. So, yeah, it is really that A really simple message of being able to stop and enjoy it.

And also, I think there might be, I don't know, it's your, your story, but is there an aspect of this that it's stop, slow down to go faster?

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the magic I have created in my organization, the growth that we've had, In the last couple of years is just, I mean, we're now in conversations with government who want to work with us. I mean, that to me, that's a huge growth, very, very short space of time, but you're absolutely right. It's because, it's because we've also got the ability to slow down.

Mm-hmm.

And I think there's The busyness of the capitalist society we're in is addictive. It's the norm. And learning that pause. And I think that really did, I do have to give that credit. It really started with what Alexandra said to me and the menstrual cycle awareness that if you have something like a menstrual cycle, it can be other things for other people.

Yeah.

That's something that enforces you to stop. And you honor it, you know, different religions have different days, don't they, where they're forced to stop. And if you honor it, oh my goodness, the magic that can come out of that and propel you. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Absolutely. Cool. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for sharing your journey and all of the things, the sort of tips that you've shared so far. I've got some standard questions to ask you before I let you go, if that's okay.

Yeah.

We might have alluded to one of them. So, the first question is, what's the best thing that speaking has done for you?

Made me happy.

Nice. Nice. I like that. That's good. It is, it is a bit like, I think people don't appreciate this. I find, and you may have experienced this with the people that work in your organisation, I find people who start off saying, I'm petrified of speaking. I don't think that I can do it. When they step on the stage, when they have that experience of being with an audience, of being able to shift an audience, it's exciting and addictive, and there's not often a high that can match it, and they want to go straight back out and do it again. Have you found that with the people that you've worked with?

So, about a year and a half ago, I got elected as a Green Party councillor. In my local town. And there we broke loads of records. It's brilliant. The Green Party won the administration. We've got our first, we've got the most women now in that we've ever had. We've got our most LGBT+ people in that we've ever had. And we've also got our first Muslim councillor that Hastings Borough Council's ever had. And Councillor Eunice Smith, and he was terrified of public speaking and you have to do public speaking as a councillor. And watching him, and it's only been a year and a half, realize that him being able to communicate a message is changing the world in the way that, you know, that him and we want to see it. And he's now, he's since been interviewed on the telly, on our local news and things like that. And he was I think he was talking about recycling, but it kind of doesn't really matter. Whatever you're speaking on, whatever makes you passionate, but it's been beautiful to watch. And I think it's particularly poignant for me. I've never been scared of public speaking. I started drama lessons when I was 4. That scares me a lot. I mean, it's funny, isn't it? People say to you, oh, I don't know how you stand up in front of thousands of people. And I think, what's the worst thing that can happen? I look stupid. Like, do you know there are people who walk into fires to save people? Like, that sounds way more scary to me.

Or people.

Or, you know, like, I'm just like, I literally, the worst thing that can happen is that I look stupid and there's a whole media campaign and I'm canceled. Like, no puppies are gonna die, right? But when I've watched Eunice, Councillor Smith, who has come from being one of those petrified, like really, I can remember the first time that I worked with him to support him. He was shaking, you know, it was weird. But now I just see him at every opportunity, every event, there he is speaking. And it's so powerful. So powerful. Yeah.

I love that. It's funny. So my background was standup comedy for 20 years and I taught standup comedy and I used to get people who were like, you know, doing a standup gig. And one of the things that I used to say to them was put this in perspective. This is literally 5 minutes. You're not in a war zone. You've got a meal, you've got food on the table. But it is, I guess it maybe is easier for us to say that because we have that performance background. But I think it is a tool for people to use to say, well, what is that? What is the perspective on this really?

Stand-up comedy is on my list. Um, clowning. I want to do more clowning.

Oh, I was very good at that too. Yeah.

I don't think I was old enough when I did it. I was like 19 and I didn't really get it, whereas now I really want to play at clowning and I really want to play at stand-up comedy, but sometimes there aren't enough hours in the day.

That's right.

Were you part of Funny Women Awards?

Were you like— I did do the Funny Women Awards, yeah, years and years and years ago. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, but clowning, you know, all of these things— there's a slight detour here because I'll come back to the questions, but Clowning is a great tool for speakers to use. So, what clowns do is that when they get a reaction from the audience, they will double down on what they did to get that reaction from the audience, laughter mostly. But the timing is really important that you don't overstep and keep doing it beyond the point where you're going, all right, you've done that now. That's enough now. Like, you've got to get the time. It's all Comedy and clowning is so much about timing, but I think you've got, you know, there's a lot of that you'll have naturally. But cool. Right. Let me ask the second question. Otherwise, you and I could be here forever. Got a lot of things in common, I think. What's the book that's had most impact on your life and why?

Oh, that'll be Wild Power, which is a book that Red School wrote.

Okay.

About the menstrual cycle awareness and the impact of that on our world. They now also have Wise Power that supports menopause. But yeah, for me it was Wild Power. It's the one that I go back to again and again and again and again.

Interesting. I've not heard of it or come across it. I will, I'll check it, check it out. Okay. What's— oh, this was the second question, which I didn't ask. Has there been a time when you've had a really bad speaking experience? Oh gosh, loads. Are you up for sharing one? And the purpose of this is to show that we all have them, like you said, but you get back on the horse.

Yes. I think the worst one was where, so interesting, I let my own standards down and it came back to bite me. So, when people speak with, want me to speak, we have a briefing call for me to get to know them, to know who the audience is, to know what's needed, et cetera, et cetera. And the agent that I work with, that's her policy anyway. But I happened to, and it's so rare that I do it. God, it's always when you let your guard down. I happened to be working via another organization.

Okay.

And the gig came in. And I'd actually worked for the client the year before, and we were looking to get the briefing call and they just kept putting it off. They were busy. This is happening. That's happening. And then I just got a message, just do the same as last year. And so I did, and it did not work. And I got the worst feedback I've ever had. And it was really infuriating because I was just so, but if we'd have had the briefing call, which is what I was asking for. And one of their pieces of feedback was, That you didn't match our audience. And I'm like, well, that's because I didn't know who you were. But I mean, that took some big undoing and there was various other discrimination that actually was involved in the feedback. But in unpicking it, it was really clear to me the lesson here for me is my standard is there has to be a briefing call.

Hmm.

I do speak for you unless I have that. And it's interesting nowadays, as I'm developing the team, I'm trying to help them understand these boundaries and they're kind of going, oh, should I just do this for this client? Because, you know, it'd be nice to. And I'm going, no, we've got to keep our own boundaries and standards because it's what enables us to give the best, for want of a better phrase, like service or product or whatever you want to call it, speaking. Or training. And it was because I'd kind of gone, oh, okay, they haven't got time. Oh, I'll try and be nice for them. And it actually came back to bite me on the bum. Really annoying. So yeah, that was a big lesson though.

Yeah, it's a really good point. I heard a speaker recently who is embracing AI to the point where he has an AI twin going in to do briefing calls. And I was just like aghast at that. Like, I don't know, I don't, that would be a step too far, but anyway, good. Right. Back to, back to this interview. So last couple of questions. What's the best bit of business advice you've had and why?

Okay. It's from my coach, Susie Ashworth. She helped me to understand that you don't just make a decision once in business. You make it again and again and again and again and again. So, if you have a goal, whatever it might be in your business, it's all well and good going, yay, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna speak in front of 5,000 people. Let's say I wanna speak in front of 5,000 people in the next 3 months. It's like, great, you've made that decision, but then you have to make that decision the next day and the next day when it's hard and the next day when you get a no and the next day when you get negative feedback and the next day. But you've got, it's like you've got to decide and decide and decide and decide and decide. And if you are finding it difficult to keep deciding, that's when you get support in to help you remember where you're going and your own brilliance.

Interesting. It's about, that's about recommitting to it, isn't it? I guess the other thing is that if you find yourself not doing it, you have to question, is this still what I want?

Yeah. Yes.

Interesting. Oh, I like that. That's a really good piece of advice. Okay, cool. Last question then. If you could have one mentor and they can be alive or dead, fictional or non-fictional, who would you choose and why? I'd be interested. I, I, I'm, yeah, I'd be interested.

I'm gonna pick my, my, what do I call her? I have the world-class best coach mentor that I could have ever asked for right now. Her name is Anthea Bell.

Cool.

Uh, she's an embodiment coach, leadership coach, magnificent woman of the universe. Um, and I've been working with her now for a year and a half, and I never knew that support got to feel so safe.

Cool.

She has completely, I wanna say rocked my world, but it's way more, it's a lot less kind of dramatic than that. She has, she's enabled me to find much stronger roots, really much stronger roots. And yeah, she's got a podcast, Finding Your Way Home.

Cool.

Yeah, she is a beautiful, wonderful person who supports a lot of women in forward-facing leadership type positions as well, or women in business. And that's often her clientele. And yeah, I've got the best one already.

I did wonder if your nan might come up because you've quoted your nan quite a few Or your gran quite a few times in this interview. And I was, I was going to make the bet.

I'm coming back at you, Will. You don't know if you're coming or going.

Cool. Well, look, Adèle, thank you so much for giving us an insight into your speaking, into your journey in education and behavioural, the stuff that you do and the changes that you want to make to the world. Really appreciate it. If people want to book you to speak, if they want to work with you, where's the best place for them to go?

Very simply, on my website, adelebateseducation.co.uk, and you can fill in the form.

Excellent. Excellent. And are you on social media at all?

I am. I'm on LinkedIn. That's probably my most social media space. And I also have my podcast, which is called, you'll be unsurprised to hear, Change the Narrative. Excellent. Love that. And it is, it's all around what we've been talking about here, really, the possibility of breaking down barriers and building bridges and bringing different people together, whether that's in education or social justice impact, et cetera. Nice.

Brilliant. Well, thank you so much again, and the best of luck with everything that you're doing.

Thank you very much for having me.

Well, that is probably one of the longest episodes that I've recorded, but time flew by. I mean, we had a lot of common ground in terms of the performance backgrounds and the fact that we're looking to use speaking to shift hearts and minds and behaviour. And Adele is clearly a woman on a mission. And I'm pretty sure she's going to achieve whatever she sets out to do. And she's also, I think what also sort of came across to me is that she's a great example of having that passion that runs like a golden thread through multiple evolutions of career. The performance and the education, And teaching is something that's always been there and just, she's shifted into different environments and curiosity as well, that comes across. What did you think? Did you have any insights or aha moments through listening to this show? I think the other thing that was fascinating to hear her shift on, her take on how to shift people. And I was also, you know, very curious, as I said at the top of the show, to hear her process, how she crafted that piece of story that won the award. And I hope that it's sparked some ideas for you on how you could integrate other characters and dialogue into your speaking, your keynotes, and all sorts. But whatever you took away from this episode, I hope that it's helped you in some small way to take the next step forward in sharing your message. And if you did enjoy what Adele had to share, then do let her know. She's on LinkedIn, she's got her website, drop her a message. I'm sure she would be delighted to know that it's had some impact on you. And thanks for watching and listening to The Speaking Club. You know, I know that there's so many different things that you could be choosing to spend your time on, and it's nice to be with you here. So, yeah, thanks again. If you are a regular listener of the show, but you haven't yet left a rating or review, then do so. If you're watching the show, do subscribe to the channel. We've got some amazing guests coming up. Very excited to share the next one with you in a few weeks' And yeah, do feel free to pop a comment below. If you've got any questions, I can answer those for you there. If you've got any suggestions for other things that you want me to cover or guests to cover in the show, then do pop them in the comments too. Well, until next time, all that's left for me to say is don't forget to go out, grab your life by the nuts, And get cracking. Bye-bye. It's a nightmare. You're an expert with so much to say, but now that you've been booked to speak, you're struggling to know exactly what to talk about. You want a talk that engages the audience and wins you new clients without you losing your personality or anyone feeling pitched to. But what happens when you sit down to create that talk is that you end up staring at a blank page for ages, or worse, surrounded by hundreds of sticky notes with content that you could include. With so much material, you just don't know where to start or finish. Don't worry, because many experts like you face exactly the same challenge, and that's why I created the Blank Page to Stage Guide. In just 15 minutes, this breakthrough resource is going to help you identify the big idea of your message, make it relatable for the audience that you're speaking to, and convey it all in a way that gets the audience inspired and on board with your idea. And it works even if you have tons of material or your subject feels less than exciting. If you want to cut through swathes of content and get a talk that you're excited to share, your audience loves, and wins you new clients, then grab your Blank Page to Stage Guide from saraharcher.co.uk/newguide-tsc. Oh, I forgot to say, it's completely free.

Enjoy!