December 21, 2024 • 43 mins
In this year-end episode of 'Life Beyond the Numbers,' I explore the theme of going beyond the status quo. The episode features a compilation of interviews and stories from previous episodes focused on creating a more fulfilling work life by emphasising the human side of our work-lives. I share a selection of snippets with insights on topics such as the importance of avoiding short-termism, the value of shifting perspective, the impact of intentionality and care in interactions, fostering high-performing teams, and the crucial link between psychological safety and innovation.
Approximate timings:
05:00 Kevin Chevis on Beyond the Short-Term
14:00 Alison Smith on Shifting Perspectives
21:00 Marc Haine on Intentional Interactions
26:00 Liz Jarman on Building High-Performing Teams
33:00 Helen Joy on Psychological Safety & Innovation Previous Episodes:
#176 Trust with Kevin Chevis
#178 A Metaphor for our Lives with Alison Smith
#190 A Couple of Centimetres of Care with Marc Haine
#187 Willing to Take Risks with Liz Jarman
#170 Leaping Forwards with Helen Joy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello, and welcome to life beyondthe numbers, the podcast, for those curious about creating a more fulfilling work life.
Every business boils down totwo basics people and money.
Here we focus on the human side.
Numbers masher, but people matter most.
(00:23):
And people drive performance.
I'm Susan On your host, a coachconsultant, facilitator, and author of leading beyond the numbers.
It brings me joy to speak to peopleand explore together how, although we share many similarities as humans each of us navigates the world through our own unique lens.
(00:51):
This adds intricacy to ourinteractions and contributes to both the depth and difficulties of interpersonal relationships.
Join us for stories, strategies,and insights to help you lead your life beyond the numbers.
(01:16):
Hello, and welcome to episode 192.
All of life beyond the numbers.
And this episode is going outon Saturday, December 21st.
2024.
And I don't know about you.
But if you're based in thesame hemisphere as I am.
(01:38):
It seems to me that thiswinter was darker and drearier.
Than any other.
And I said that to a friend ofmine recently, and she said, my mother says that every year.
So maybe that's just asign of how resilient.
We all are as humans in one way.
(01:59):
Because we forget that the winteris dark and dreary every year.
And this one seems more so somehow.
The wonderful thing aboutDecember 21st, 22nd is.
It's the end of it.
Isn't it.
It's the shortest day.
(02:19):
And.
New beginnings.
R a foot.
It will start to get a bit brighter inthe mornings and stay a bit brighter, a bit longer in the afternoon.
And I just find that shift into.
(02:42):
New energy.
Exhilarating.
So it's the end of 2024 what a year?
There was a lot packed into this year.
And some changes in life as well,certainly in life, beyond the numbers, because I've reduced.
(03:05):
The amount of episodes that go out.
So.
Life beyond the numbers goesout every two weeks now.
Not really doing solo episodes.
Not many.
I may do one, two.
Welcome in the new year.
Let's see.
And.
My book is out in the world,leading beyond the numbers.
(03:27):
And thank you to any ofyou who have purchased it.
And any of you who have sent mecomments about it or NAFTA reviews.
And if you have for the book.
And haven't left to review.
It would be amazing if you could takea couple of minutes and to do that.
(03:49):
If you can leave a review on Amazon.
Or if you'd rather not writeanything, you can also just rank it.
And all of these reviews really help.
Apparently.
Amazon reviews are like gold.
I think we just need tokeep feeding the algorithm.
(04:09):
So, yes.
That would be amazing.
Thank you so much.
So this week.
The last episode of 2024, I haveput together a compilation episode.
And.
I did a compilation episodeearlier in the year, back in March.
So this one covers the periodApril through December.
(04:32):
And it's always interesting to dothese compilation episodes and.
Find a theme that ties them together.
And the theme that cameup for this one was.
Beyond the status quo.
Hence the title.
And I've got clips from five differentepisodes for you to listen to today.
(04:58):
the first episode we're goingto hear from is episode 176 with Kevin Chevys and this episode.
Whereas released in June.
And in this clip, Kevinshares a reflection.
On the trap of short term ism.
(05:18):
And how stepping bank.
To focus enables us to think about.
What impacts the business in thiscase, or indeed our lives, the most.
And it's also about the importance ofhow we communicate with one another.
(05:40):
And I think that's the keyphrase there, the longer term.
we focus a lot on the results of the nextquarter or this year or the relationships now, when actually, if you're in business for the longer term we plan on longer term yet we don't treat our businesses as if they're there for the longterm or our relationships either often.
(06:03):
Yeah.
I think there's a trap people fall into.
you do a plan, you do a next yearand you do the five year plan.
And the five year plan, while it'sdifficult, who knows what we'll be doing in five years time, because things change, events happen, political initiatives, alter all those things, impact your business, which you can't necessarily foresee.
So there is always a tendencyto focus on the month end.
(06:26):
and the quarter end the half year,September, and then the end of the year, and you can get lost in that and forget these other things are really crucial to success.
I always used to, get to the end ofthe year, And I used to sit down, not deliberately, but I used to think, yeah, we've got our plan.
We've got our budget.
(06:47):
We've got this, we've got that.
What actually am I going todo in the next 12 months?
Of course, there's loads of things.
There's hundreds of things you could do.
There's hundreds ofways to spend your time.
I found it helpful to say, Well,what impacts our business the most?
in a positive or negative way thatmay or may not even impact the numbers in the next 12 months and try and find a simple way to write that down.
(07:18):
And then I'd have that in my mindand I'd start the year saying, I'm going to focus on these things.
Now, of course you have to focus on yourmain shareholders topics, your day to day topics, but these other topics are things which can make a real difference.
and they often take time to implement andtime for the benefit to come back to you.
(07:41):
But if you don't focus on these things,then you're just going to try and do the same thing month after month after month.
And honestly, my experience has beenwhere you don't get very far doing that.
and then there's a balance.
it was quite interesting.
You did some work withus, a year or so ago.
And one of my topics from my Christmasbreak was, you know, we make a lot of silly errors, which have an impact.
(08:11):
On all sorts of things, performancewith the client, our own satisfaction and pride, our monthly figures, all those sorts of topics.
And I, felt frustrated.
Well, why does this happen?
And we did some work with you andHelen Joy came in for, to help us during our management days.
(08:32):
And we discovered a number of things.
And there were twoimportant things I realized.
The first one was about people and that wespent very little time focusing on how we interact, how do people want to interact?
How do they like to interact?
What turns them on?
What turns them off?
What gets them negative?
(08:54):
what inspires them and, thiswas quite an interesting session
and in my own experienceworking with my CFO at the time, we're quite different people.
But we've got the same objective.
We want to be successful in a good way.
And we want to achieve and wewant to deliver and surpass the plans we put forward and support.
(09:18):
But I realized that the wayhe operated was somewhat different than how I operated.
he wanted to spend time with the detailand explain that to me at some length, and I just wanted to get to the end as fast as possible and make a decision.
And there were moments where therewas tension, it wasn't bad tension, but there was certainly tension.
(09:39):
one of the things I learned during thattime was, I do need to give him some opportunity in a constructive way to let him go through and explain to me what he needs to do, because it's important.
It's important to him that I got it.
and others in the team andthe rest of the company.
and it was also important for him torealize that sometimes you can't go through endless detail for hours on end.
(10:04):
sometimes you've got experience.
You've got to trust your gut and yourinstant reaction, you've got to do something, you've got to do it today.
and so sort of realizing that, evenwith those two characters, those two roles, I think that was really helpful, and certainly post that exercise, I can't speak for him, but I certainly felt our working relationship became more productive.
(10:28):
because it was lesstrying to beat the other.
It was actually being more collaborative.
so that was the first thing that came out.
and the second thing that came out,I was frustrated by sometimes things didn't happen in the organization that should have happened and there was no real reason why they didn't.
(10:52):
as a leader, you look into this, yousay, well, why, what are we doing wrong?
why?
Why is this occurring?
And we had a whole series of workshopsand ideas put together, and rather than the senior level management team leading those, we let people the next level down lead them.
And we said to my team, youcan be in each of the groups, but you're not to take it over.
(11:19):
and, if I remember correctly, theidea was, how can we inspire and work with our management and the next level management down to, improve performance, reduce errors, and ultimately improve the financial performance.
And I, one thing that cameout, which did surprise me.
(11:41):
Was the fact that people throughoutthe organization didn't really get what their contribution was to the organization, because they didn't fully understand what we were trying to do, and I was a bit shocked by that because I thought, well, I'd like to think I'm reasonably good communicator.
(12:06):
and we did spend time each month havinga monthly call with, 40 or 50, 60, maybe sometimes a hundred people in the organization to say what we were up to, what the plan was and all that stuff.
So you think, yeah, tick in the box,but in actual fact that has a place, but it wasn't actually effective.
(12:26):
And what I actually realized we weredoing was we were giving the management of the company, the information that we supply to our main shareholder group.
And whilst it has a relevance,it didn't have much context.
And what the people said was, some peopledon't know why what they do is important.
(12:51):
and I think this is quite a big topicactually, because it's not easy to say to everybody in the company, this month.
If you do this, it'll be great.
And we'll achieve the following becausethere's just too much detail, but what we started to do is try and find some ways to communicate on a fairly regular basis, where these are the key topics that affect what we're doing right now.
(13:20):
and try and flow thatdown in the organization.
So it's not for me, for example, to telleverybody, Hey, here's the 27 things that make a difference this month.
if we do them all, it would be great.
It's actually for the management, nextlevel, next level, all the leaders.
whatever level to make sure theyunderstand the context cause they're closer to everything.
(13:42):
They know what's goingon much more than I did.
they're able to say, Hey, thisneeds to be done right now.
Well, this needs to be stoppedor this needs to be changed.
they can then make some decisionsand push things however they want to do it and make a real difference.
(14:05):
And if somehow we then can recognizethat, then, you suddenly start to develop a motivated and dynamic workforce
so Kevin's perspectivethere sets the scene.
Well, I think for the next clip,which is from episode 178, A metaphor for our lives with Alison Smith.
(14:31):
And this episode also went out in June.
Alison takes us even further,I guess, exploring how.
Shifting our focus literally,and metaphorically can open up some unexpected.
Directions.
(14:52):
I also say it's about allowing our innerwisdom that so much we're sort of stuck in the logic, we're stuck in our mind, and there is an inner knowing, there is an inner wisdom, whatever we call that.
some would say that that's the part ofus that does talk in metaphors anyway, so we're opening up the dialogue with that part of us that doesn't have words, but enables us to go, I'm walking along a path, I look one way, and it's just brambles and no paths and horrible, and I look the other way, and there's openness, And you suddenly realize, Oh, I'm looking at the brambles all the time.
(15:31):
And if all I have to do is turn roundand all the paths that I need are not in the direction I'm looking, I just need to change direction.
And that's so freeing when you getthat insight, I mean, that's so often comes up and on the podcast, What I did for the first series was sort of sit at my desk and do it a bit from historically this is what's happened.
(15:55):
I just, I got a bit bored.
So the second and third series is megoing out and embodying uphill struggle.
Can't see the wood for the trees.
but every, episode, there's me gettingexcited at some point about that.
Oh my God, I didn't know that!
oh my God, isn't that obvious?
I'd never realized that.
(16:17):
and that is what happens, we see somethingbecause we're not just going for a walk.
Our brain is already, or our mind,or our inner wisdom has already said, oh wow, you're going to notice this.
here's a new, acorn, because it's lastyear's acorn that's still not, gone in the ground, but then right next to it is a little sapling of an oak tree, and then right next to it's a big oak tree, and somebody might get something from that, and somebody else might get something from the path.
(16:50):
it's.
Amazing, if you think of ourworkplaces, we're, almost tied to our desks and our computers and our words that have to be transcribed.
Professional or technical or whateverphrase you want, whereas actually the freedom that comes from allowing the mind to wander a little bit and allowing that breakthrough to have the space to come through.
(17:25):
Could actually move mountains, so
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and, you might not be ableto move the mountains out there, but you can if you're drawing them.
so I had a vision setting day with ateam because their head office was sort of in the middle of nowhere and they all went off in different directions.
And one team came back and said,oh, we went to the graveyard.
(17:48):
And you're thinking, Oh my God,I wonder where this is going.
And they said, well, somebodywas proud enough to put their profession on the gravestone.
And we would like that.
We would like to beproud of our profession.
And it sort of took theminto a different place.
than there had been the other teamwent down this country road and it was going to be a dead end.
(18:12):
There was grass growingin the middle of the lane.
And so somebody turned to somebody andsaid, Oh, we're coming to a dead end, we're in a rut and they all nodded and I think that for them when they came back and told the story, everybody went, Yeah, yeah, that's how our team within the organization is feeling.
(18:32):
But what then happened, and I wish I'd gotsomebody to take a picture at the time, is that they spied a hole in the hedge.
And so somebody said, well, if we continuethe way we're doing, it's a dead end.
So we need to go through this hedge.
So they're there in theirsuits because I hadn't warned them they were going outside.
So they push through the hole inthe hedge and then they went up the hill and then they got to the top of the hill and then they could just see for miles, miles and miles.
(19:02):
And it was as if they went from feelinglike the organization was stuck in a rut, we're headed for a dead end, to being able to see for miles.
So when they came back with that mindset.
and then you've got another teamadding to it saying, Oh, well, we want to be proud of what we do.
between them, they were then able tocome up with sort of a more motivating vision for where they were taking the team than previously, because they just had time to, allow nature to coach the really rather than just do it all in their heads and go, what did we say last time?
(19:40):
Yeah, that's what we want.
Yeah.
Yeah, or sit in a meeting roomwithout windows and just get upset and frustrated and, yeah.
Yeah, that.
We hear it so much about how peoplehave their best ideas in the shower or out on a walk and yet, We resist that as a tool, effectively, a free tool.
(20:08):
Where's the disconnect,Alison, do you think?
where my head's gone, I don't knowwhether it's the reason you asked the question, but where my head's gone is what I talk a lot about is that we leave our humanity at the door of the office.
and we sort of put on thestereotype of what we think.
(20:32):
I've got a set of cards with wordson, sometimes get people to pick the cards at the beginning of the session.
how is the word on the cardgoing to be useful for you today?
And somebody turned around and they calledkindness, and they said, oh, I didn't know I could bring kindness with me.
Whoa.
I think it's not to underestimatewhat we think we can't bring into the office with us.
(20:57):
Alison's jolts into nature and her.
Memorable take on perspective.
Reminds us, I suppose, thatclarity often lies just outside our normal frame of view.
(21:18):
And from that.
Mark Haines, our third clip.
Which is from an episodethat went out in November.
When 190, a couple of centimeters of care.
Tells a great story about.
Orlando airport in a heat wave.
(21:40):
Being able to interact with peoplelike you're putting on a show has been the catalyst of my background now, and this is what I talk on, forever, because it's all about this idea.
I know you said you readthe first bit of my book.
my first chapter is called experienceexpectations, and that's all about understanding what are the touch points in our businesses and how can we look at the touch points and make them extraordinary rather than just the day to day transaction.
(22:06):
our expectations are generally quitelow, in a lot of our one on one interactions in a superMarcet or in a train station or in an electronic store, perhaps different when we're sitting having a meal or on a plane.
We have different expectations, butI think they're easily met if there's some intentionality, like you're saying.
(22:33):
Yep.
And all we have to do is just care.
Just care like on an airplane.
Just care that people are on a plane.
it's a routine that mostof us don't do very often.
So why can't we make that extraordinary?
I just found a post on Instagramon the Orlando airport.
During the heat wave, There were peoplein the airport giving out free ice cream.
(22:56):
When we think about airports,we're thinking, Oh my goodness, I was just at LAX.
Oh, it's a terrible airport.
Oh, Toronto, PearsonInternational Airport.
Oh my goodness, if I could stay awayfrom Pearson, that would be great.
Right?
We have all these different picturesin our heads about what airports we like to go to and which ones we want to avoid like the plague.
But here you have, Orlando airports,just because it was a heat wave, I don't know what it cost them.
(23:21):
Maybe it's 50 cents per person, butthere was somebody handing out ice cream.
And so now you have a group of people,travelers inside the airport, all of a sudden getting surprised by this little token that is so minuscule and yet made such a big impact.
It's so true, isn't it?
And what you were saying about avoidingplaces like the plague, it's not the place, it's the experience that we had.
(23:49):
And it's the people often, unfortunately,that have created that experience.
And we remember As, like, youhave the Maya Angelou quote in your book, and so do I.
We remember how people make us feel.
Yes.
Absolutely.
100 percent of the time.
100 percent of the time.
And you might not evenremember people's names.
(24:09):
You might not even remember thewhole context of the experience.
You just remember when I went to thisone particular thing, I had a great time or when I went here, it was terrible.
And my wife is always calling meback and saying, Oh no, we went to that restaurant 10 years ago.
Do you remember how long we had to wait?
Oh, I don't want to go back.
That was 10 years ago, but that'show ingrained these memories be.
(24:32):
Within our psyche to make surethat we don't hurt like that again.
and isn't it the same in ourworkplaces as colleagues as well, Marc, that we care for one another
The big difference I think is goingfrom transactional to relational.
(24:52):
we have to stop thinking in the wayof, okay, I've got this customer.
I'm going to serve this customer.
Now that's done.
Next.
I have a colleague.
He wants something.
He's standing in my doorway.
Okay.
As soon as I'm done this, Ican get onto my next thing.
that's not the way that weinteract as human beings.
Naturally, nature doesn't work that way.
what you're saying thereis not rocket science.
(25:13):
In fact, it is simple, it'sbasic, Is that why we overlook it?
It's because, again, we'retransactional, we get into the grind, and we forget to care.
You
you're going to keeptelling me this, aren't you?
I am because because ultimatelythat's what it boils down to.
It's that intentionality.
(25:34):
I mean, we've always seen whenwe felt that somebody cared about what was happening to us?
It always made us perk up and take notice.
when somebody does an act of kindness Youdon't forget that but at the same token when somebody does something in civil or cruel You won't forget that either the protagonist will like the aggressor will forget about it like I forget that, you came in and it's like, Oh, my goodness.
(26:02):
Are you wearing that to work?
And you know, you're like, Itook time to pick this out.
it's a seagull moment where they come in.
They poop on everything.
They squawk and fly away.
And they don't even remember.
Yes, that was definitely.
Beyond the status quo.
(26:23):
I think mark demonstratesthe value of caring, of being intentional in our interactions.
Rather than being transactional.
Next we hear from.
Liz Jarman and lasers episode,willing to take risks.
(26:44):
Number 187 went out in October.
And ladies.
As a reflection on culture.
And building high performing teams.
And Liz, you talked about thatquestion that the board member asked you, your mentor about your legacy.
(27:09):
So what is your legacy for living goods?
Well, we've evolved alot as an organization.
when I took over, we just got abig influx of funding, but that funding needed match funding.
So it was a big pressure to raise a lotof money, but then get a lot of money.
So we were scaling really rapidly.
(27:32):
So part of I think what I have focusedon was how do we scale in a sustainable way with and how do we maintain our culture, which is, I think, quite a unique culture in the not for profit world.
Because a lot of us, myself included,come from the private sector.
(27:53):
And so we have a bit of a privatesector mindset on how we work, how we focus on return on investment, results, and quick testing and pivoting.
we have a lot of what wecall unrestricted funding.
So it's almost like you develop a businessplan and then you fundraise against it rather than do projects that are funded.
So that requires a really strong culture.
and so I really focused on.
(28:15):
improving our culture and makingsure it stood throughout COVID, but also with rapid scaling.
So culture is one areathat I'm really proud of.
culture to me includeshigh performing teams.
I think they go hand in hand.
It's not just, Oh, it'sa nice place to work.
it's high performing teams, but largelydriven because it's a great place to work.
(28:36):
To get results, you need people to behighly engaged and feel very valued.
So I think when I became CEO, I reallyrecognized I had a responsibility.
just to bring that to life when Ibecame CEO and it was announced.
And as I said, this was six plusyears ago, and it was a surprise to me as well as the organization.
(29:00):
And I had so many emails.
mainly from women in my organization,quite junior, saying, I never thought I'd be led by a woman.
I, I'm so, impressed thatyou've been promoted within.
It gives me hope for my career.
And I was like, Oh my goodness,I've got all this responsibility.
People are looking up to me.
(29:22):
And so I really took that on andparticularly the women thing., I've been very fortunate in my career not having too many barriers and I thought, wow, especially in the African continent where I was at, this is so critical.
So part of what I really wantedto do culture wise was show up and spend time and be intentional about spending time with the team.
(29:43):
And of course, as a planner, thatmeant I had to really plan to be able to fit that in, because I think the first six months, I thought, how am I going to do any of this?
I'm just spending time on callswith funders and trying to do this and trying to do that.
So, I joked, I know exactly when I'm goingon holiday every year because I plan.
I'm visiting Burkina Faso here,Kenya here, Uganda here, US here.
(30:03):
I've got this bigmeeting, this big meeting.
And so for me it was about reallydedicating time to different levels of the organization and doing that in a systematic way so that they knew that two or three times a year I'm visiting and I'm spending time with these groups of people.
And that to me makes a huge difference.
(30:25):
and obviously, even during COVID I thenwould do it in a virtual type of way.
but I think I was also able tobring in some of the private sector.
investments like a big organizationthat Sainsbury's has done into a quite a relatively small organization.
And so that was about having a highperforming executive team that required making some tough decisions on some people, investing in executive coaching, leadership courses, just really working together, and having retreats, as teams, as we never did before.
(30:59):
I really then.
started to work on particularly inthe last two or three years on the level below my executive team because a we need that succession thinking there and it's tricky And also the feedback continued to come through.
So I did external surveys.
We call them voices surveys every yearand it continued to get feedback about not understanding how decisions were made.
(31:27):
So then being very clear that we wouldhave steer codes for certain decisions, and we'd have a mixture of people, but then introducing something called RAPID, which is a way of making decisions.
So RAPID is about, you have a recommender,you have somebody who agrees to the recommendation, you have input into that, recommendation, and then the decision, and then the performance.
(31:49):
it's actually harder than it sounds andeven now we're not quite there, but it starts to get the team below to come up with recommendations, be very clear on who they've got input from, who's agreed to it, and proactively thinking who needs to make this decision at what level.
this evolved to also havinga much stronger delegation of authority and decision making frameworks which we put in place.
(32:13):
So a lot of effort on decisionmaking, both the process, the transparency, and who.
Still not perfect, but alot of work around that.
I think the other thing that I investedin, particularly post COVID, because I think people hadn't been together like in many places, but it was really tough in Uganda as one really tough lockdowns there is we also try to do a lot more work on safe spaces to speak up, particularly when you got a lot of my stuff are remote working in quite rural areas.
(32:46):
And we've had this facilitatorwho's really supported having uncomfortable conversations.
and, that exercise of psychologicalsafety and having those conversations.
And I've been in a room and seen thingsput on the board, which is horrendous.
And, my leaders around me, I've said,look, I could take that and say, I want to resign tomorrow because it's failed.
(33:07):
Or I can say, wow, thank goodnesspeople are willing to say that.
And what can we do about it?
So trying to lead by example,being present, but having a lot of these frameworks in place, has been really important.
This doesn't settle for status quo either.
Does she?
And I think what I really like aboutthis is, is the impact of demonstrating how everyone's voice matters.
(33:36):
And that acting on whatpeople say is what counts.
And she also introduced this wholeconcept of psychological safety, which sets us up really nicely for the last clip with Helen joy.
And this is from episode 170.
It went, I was way back in April.
(33:57):
And this episode was called leapingfor words, which is a wonderful way to think about how you might.
Challenge your own statusquo Going into 2025.
the link between innovation andpsychological safety, is that something that people are aware of, I'm just thinking back to a job I had, and that's what's coming into my head now, is I was in this organization that was, even though my team, there was psychological safety in this for sure.
(34:33):
From the leadership side ofthings, there just wasn't.
It was a very psychologically unsafeenvironment and yet we were always getting together to be innovative.
It never worked, funnily enough.
it's like a catch 22.
(34:54):
When you're not in a psychologicallysafe environment, you cannot explain to leadership why there's no innovation.
So it's chicken and egg or catch 22.
What do you do in that situation?
if you are responsible for thatdepartment, you're responsible for the psychological safety And that's where you've got to start.
(35:14):
If that innovation is not happening,you've got to absolutely understand why.
if there's no psychological safety,that might be really hard to do, because nobody is going to tell you the brutal honest truth for fear of the punishment, the judgment, the ridicule, all of those things.
(35:36):
So where you've got to start, you'vegot to go right back to the beginning, and you've got to nurture those relationships one on one and create that trust so that you can build on top of that trust, that psychological safety.
And the only way you can do that is bycreating situations where you can prove.
And evidence your trustworthiness.
And that will be different for everybody.
(35:57):
And that takes time.
And that's the problem you getsometimes in organisations is that people who are put into those positions to do that are not given the time to create the environment where people can feel psychologically safe.
So they can even tell you that'sbeen the problem or where the problem actually is, because sometimes it can be one individual in a team that can completely undermine and ruin everything.
(36:28):
as a leader in there, youshould be able to spot that.
If you sit in a room and you are watchingthese people interact with each other and you're watching who's doing the talking, who's obviously got things they wanna say, what they don't, looking at the different ways that those ideas are brought into that room for a start, is it the case that everyone writes their ideas down and somebody else is responsible for them and people don't have to own up to the ideas,.
(36:52):
But it's observing what is happening.
Identifying the behaviors that areundermining that psychological safety and dealing with that first and foremost, because it doesn't matter how well you build these relationships, if that behavior is still enabled and allowed people will never get beyond that and then they'll walk because they'll go well I told you that that was a problem
(37:15):
and that's the challenge is that ifyou don't have the time to to do that or you don't deal with the problem straight away you will never create the psychological safety you need to create the innovation for your team to continue to do what it needs to do and what will happen is you get a churn of leaders who go through the same process
(37:35):
and that reminds me of an organizationwhere one of the leaders in the organization, that team did not have psychological safety at all.
But that team leader, director,was bringing in lots of clients.
So they were able to bring in themoney and therefore nobody wanted to do anything about that particular person but then you just had complete turnaround of staff because no one wants to stay working there.
(38:06):
yeah
So you're leaving a lot of value, I think.
unrealized value and really allyou're going to do is churn out crap.
When you could actuallyreally change the world,
oh you know when I worked inrecruitment there was one particular team, one office that had a salesperson who was billing probably a quarter of a million pounds a year.
(38:33):
So that's quite lot ofmoney for one individual,
but they were toxic and they stoleall the great clients and they lied and they trampled all over their colleagues and their teammates with no respect for anyone else.
And really thought they werethe big guy out because they had been, lauded and applauded.
(38:53):
For years for being amazing.
and they got a new manager because nobodyelse in the team could build more than, 60, 000 pounds a year, which is not enough in that environment in a big city.
And
when they got this new manager in,they spent that time, they observed and they saw the behaviors and they spent time getting to know the rest of the team and recognizing.
(39:23):
what they could bring, what theyhad, why they didn't perform to the levels they should be doing.
they'd spotted that this person wasthe, the problem and, but the feedback eventually started to come through that actually was, or these were some of the backhanded sly things they were doing.
And they started the process tomanage the performance of this individual, not on results.
(39:45):
But on behaviors, and they
got a lot of pushback from a senior level,what are you doing, if you lose them, but they'd had this massive churn in the rest of the team, nobody got past nine months, this person was like, well, I've been told I've got to do what I've got to do to get this, and this person eventually left because they didn't understand that their behaviors were wrong.
(40:07):
They didn't understand the impact theywere having on the rest of the team.
They felt that everything theywere doing was right because they thought about themselves.
And they eventually left becausethey didn't feel valued and they went off somewhere else.
And within six months, theperformance levels of the rest of that team had obliterated.
(40:28):
that quarter of a million pounds thatthat one individual was bringing in.
And it was an environment and ateam that everybody wanted to join.
and the feedback they started gettingfrom the clients from this person as well, which was, well, we absolutely hated him, but he found us the right candidates.
(40:49):
And certainly in sales environments,that kind of behavior still is people can't see beyond the money and
the numbers.
This is it.
They can't see beyond the numbers attachedto that person's head, and they don't see the potential it's exactly as you said, the money they're leaving on the table.
(41:13):
I just love how Helen brings in seeingbeyond the numbers right there at the end.
That was the compilation episodeabout going beyond the status quo.
And as I said, we'd heard fromKevin Chevys, Alison Smith, mark cane, Liz Jarman, and had enjoy.
(41:39):
And all of those episodes.
Are referenced in the show notes.
And are still available to listen to.
Us are the hundred and 91.
Other episodes.
I started this podcast inSeptember, 2020, and I had.
(42:00):
No idea.
What it was going to.
Morph into,
And.
For any of you have beenlistening since then?
Thank you.
I appreciate that you keepcoming by and listening to more.
And for any of you that havejoined us along the way.
(42:21):
Thank you for joining.
I always love to hear what peoplehave to say about the episodes.
And it's brilliant to get notesfrom people every now and then.
So I really appreciate that.
So, To end 2024.
(42:42):
And to look forward into 2025.
Is it time for you tochallenge your status quo?
What might that look like?
If you were to go beyond the status.
Cool.
Let me know.
(43:06):
Thank you for joining me todayon life, beyond the numbers.
If something in this episode resonatedwith you, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
And if you've enjoyed this conversation,Please take a moment to leave a review.
It helps others like us.
I discover this podcast andjoin in our conversation.
(43:30):
Until next time.
Keep exploring thehuman side of work life.
Hello, and welcome to life beyondthe numbers, the podcast, for those curious about creating a more fulfilling work life.
Every business boils down totwo basics people and money.
Here we focus on the human side.
Numbers masher, but people matter most.
(00:23):
And people drive performance.
I'm Susan On your host, a coachconsultant, facilitator, and author of leading beyond the numbers.
It brings me joy to speak to peopleand explore together how, although we share many similarities as humans each of us navigates the world through our own unique lens.
(00:51):
This adds intricacy to ourinteractions and contributes to both the depth and difficulties of interpersonal relationships.
Join us for stories, strategies,and insights to help you lead your life beyond the numbers.
(01:16):
Hello, and welcome to episode 192.
All of life beyond the numbers.
And this episode is going outon Saturday, December 21st.
2024.
And I don't know about you.
But if you're based in thesame hemisphere as I am.
(01:38):
It seems to me that thiswinter was darker and drearier.
Than any other.
And I said that to a friend ofmine recently, and she said, my mother says that every year.
So maybe that's just asign of how resilient.
We all are as humans in one way.
(01:59):
Because we forget that the winteris dark and dreary every year.
And this one seems more so somehow.
The wonderful thing aboutDecember 21st, 22nd is.
It's the end of it.
Isn't it.
It's the shortest day.
(02:19):
And.
New beginnings.
R a foot.
It will start to get a bit brighter inthe mornings and stay a bit brighter, a bit longer in the afternoon.
And I just find that shift into.
(02:42):
New energy.
Exhilarating.
So it's the end of 2024 what a year?
There was a lot packed into this year.
And some changes in life as well,certainly in life, beyond the numbers, because I've reduced.
(03:05):
The amount of episodes that go out.
So.
Life beyond the numbers goesout every two weeks now.
Not really doing solo episodes.
Not many.
I may do one, two.
Welcome in the new year.
Let's see.
And.
My book is out in the world,leading beyond the numbers.
(03:27):
And thank you to any ofyou who have purchased it.
And any of you who have sent mecomments about it or NAFTA reviews.
And if you have for the book.
And haven't left to review.
It would be amazing if you could takea couple of minutes and to do that.
(03:49):
If you can leave a review on Amazon.
Or if you'd rather not writeanything, you can also just rank it.
And all of these reviews really help.
Apparently.
Amazon reviews are like gold.
I think we just need tokeep feeding the algorithm.
(04:09):
So, yes.
That would be amazing.
Thank you so much.
So this week.
The last episode of 2024, I haveput together a compilation episode.
And.
I did a compilation episodeearlier in the year, back in March.
So this one covers the periodApril through December.
(04:32):
And it's always interesting to dothese compilation episodes and.
Find a theme that ties them together.
And the theme that cameup for this one was.
Beyond the status quo.
Hence the title.
And I've got clips from five differentepisodes for you to listen to today.
(04:58):
the first episode we're goingto hear from is episode 176 with Kevin Chevys and this episode.
Whereas released in June.
And in this clip, Kevinshares a reflection.
On the trap of short term ism.
(05:18):
And how stepping bank.
To focus enables us to think about.
What impacts the business in thiscase, or indeed our lives, the most.
And it's also about the importance ofhow we communicate with one another.
(05:40):
And I think that's the keyphrase there, the longer term.
we focus a lot on the results of the nextquarter or this year or the relationships now, when actually, if you're in business for the longer term we plan on longer term yet we don't treat our businesses as if they're there for the longterm or our relationships either often.
(06:03):
Yeah.
I think there's a trap people fall into.
you do a plan, you do a next yearand you do the five year plan.
And the five year plan, while it'sdifficult, who knows what we'll be doing in five years time, because things change, events happen, political initiatives, alter all those things, impact your business, which you can't necessarily foresee.
So there is always a tendencyto focus on the month end.
(06:26):
and the quarter end the half year,September, and then the end of the year, and you can get lost in that and forget these other things are really crucial to success.
I always used to, get to the end ofthe year, And I used to sit down, not deliberately, but I used to think, yeah, we've got our plan.
We've got our budget.
(06:47):
We've got this, we've got that.
What actually am I going todo in the next 12 months?
Of course, there's loads of things.
There's hundreds of things you could do.
There's hundreds ofways to spend your time.
I found it helpful to say, Well,what impacts our business the most?
in a positive or negative way thatmay or may not even impact the numbers in the next 12 months and try and find a simple way to write that down.
(07:18):
And then I'd have that in my mindand I'd start the year saying, I'm going to focus on these things.
Now, of course you have to focus on yourmain shareholders topics, your day to day topics, but these other topics are things which can make a real difference.
and they often take time to implement andtime for the benefit to come back to you.
(07:41):
But if you don't focus on these things,then you're just going to try and do the same thing month after month after month.
And honestly, my experience has beenwhere you don't get very far doing that.
and then there's a balance.
it was quite interesting.
You did some work withus, a year or so ago.
And one of my topics from my Christmasbreak was, you know, we make a lot of silly errors, which have an impact.
(08:11):
On all sorts of things, performancewith the client, our own satisfaction and pride, our monthly figures, all those sorts of topics.
And I, felt frustrated.
Well, why does this happen?
And we did some work with you andHelen Joy came in for, to help us during our management days.
(08:32):
And we discovered a number of things.
And there were twoimportant things I realized.
The first one was about people and that wespent very little time focusing on how we interact, how do people want to interact?
How do they like to interact?
What turns them on?
What turns them off?
What gets them negative?
(08:54):
what inspires them and, thiswas quite an interesting session
and in my own experienceworking with my CFO at the time, we're quite different people.
But we've got the same objective.
We want to be successful in a good way.
And we want to achieve and wewant to deliver and surpass the plans we put forward and support.
(09:18):
But I realized that the wayhe operated was somewhat different than how I operated.
he wanted to spend time with the detailand explain that to me at some length, and I just wanted to get to the end as fast as possible and make a decision.
And there were moments where therewas tension, it wasn't bad tension, but there was certainly tension.
(09:39):
one of the things I learned during thattime was, I do need to give him some opportunity in a constructive way to let him go through and explain to me what he needs to do, because it's important.
It's important to him that I got it.
and others in the team andthe rest of the company.
and it was also important for him torealize that sometimes you can't go through endless detail for hours on end.
(10:04):
sometimes you've got experience.
You've got to trust your gut and yourinstant reaction, you've got to do something, you've got to do it today.
and so sort of realizing that, evenwith those two characters, those two roles, I think that was really helpful, and certainly post that exercise, I can't speak for him, but I certainly felt our working relationship became more productive.
(10:28):
because it was lesstrying to beat the other.
It was actually being more collaborative.
so that was the first thing that came out.
and the second thing that came out,I was frustrated by sometimes things didn't happen in the organization that should have happened and there was no real reason why they didn't.
(10:52):
as a leader, you look into this, yousay, well, why, what are we doing wrong?
why?
Why is this occurring?
And we had a whole series of workshopsand ideas put together, and rather than the senior level management team leading those, we let people the next level down lead them.
And we said to my team, youcan be in each of the groups, but you're not to take it over.
(11:19):
and, if I remember correctly, theidea was, how can we inspire and work with our management and the next level management down to, improve performance, reduce errors, and ultimately improve the financial performance.
And I, one thing that cameout, which did surprise me.
(11:41):
Was the fact that people throughoutthe organization didn't really get what their contribution was to the organization, because they didn't fully understand what we were trying to do, and I was a bit shocked by that because I thought, well, I'd like to think I'm reasonably good communicator.
(12:06):
and we did spend time each month havinga monthly call with, 40 or 50, 60, maybe sometimes a hundred people in the organization to say what we were up to, what the plan was and all that stuff.
So you think, yeah, tick in the box,but in actual fact that has a place, but it wasn't actually effective.
(12:26):
And what I actually realized we weredoing was we were giving the management of the company, the information that we supply to our main shareholder group.
And whilst it has a relevance,it didn't have much context.
And what the people said was, some peopledon't know why what they do is important.
(12:51):
and I think this is quite a big topicactually, because it's not easy to say to everybody in the company, this month.
If you do this, it'll be great.
And we'll achieve the following becausethere's just too much detail, but what we started to do is try and find some ways to communicate on a fairly regular basis, where these are the key topics that affect what we're doing right now.
(13:20):
and try and flow thatdown in the organization.
So it's not for me, for example, to telleverybody, Hey, here's the 27 things that make a difference this month.
if we do them all, it would be great.
It's actually for the management, nextlevel, next level, all the leaders.
whatever level to make sure theyunderstand the context cause they're closer to everything.
(13:42):
They know what's goingon much more than I did.
they're able to say, Hey, thisneeds to be done right now.
Well, this needs to be stoppedor this needs to be changed.
they can then make some decisionsand push things however they want to do it and make a real difference.
(14:05):
And if somehow we then can recognizethat, then, you suddenly start to develop a motivated and dynamic workforce
so Kevin's perspectivethere sets the scene.
Well, I think for the next clip,which is from episode 178, A metaphor for our lives with Alison Smith.
(14:31):
And this episode also went out in June.
Alison takes us even further,I guess, exploring how.
Shifting our focus literally,and metaphorically can open up some unexpected.
Directions.
(14:52):
I also say it's about allowing our innerwisdom that so much we're sort of stuck in the logic, we're stuck in our mind, and there is an inner knowing, there is an inner wisdom, whatever we call that.
some would say that that's the part ofus that does talk in metaphors anyway, so we're opening up the dialogue with that part of us that doesn't have words, but enables us to go, I'm walking along a path, I look one way, and it's just brambles and no paths and horrible, and I look the other way, and there's openness, And you suddenly realize, Oh, I'm looking at the brambles all the time.
(15:31):
And if all I have to do is turn roundand all the paths that I need are not in the direction I'm looking, I just need to change direction.
And that's so freeing when you getthat insight, I mean, that's so often comes up and on the podcast, What I did for the first series was sort of sit at my desk and do it a bit from historically this is what's happened.
(15:55):
I just, I got a bit bored.
So the second and third series is megoing out and embodying uphill struggle.
Can't see the wood for the trees.
but every, episode, there's me gettingexcited at some point about that.
Oh my God, I didn't know that!
oh my God, isn't that obvious?
I'd never realized that.
(16:17):
and that is what happens, we see somethingbecause we're not just going for a walk.
Our brain is already, or our mind,or our inner wisdom has already said, oh wow, you're going to notice this.
here's a new, acorn, because it's lastyear's acorn that's still not, gone in the ground, but then right next to it is a little sapling of an oak tree, and then right next to it's a big oak tree, and somebody might get something from that, and somebody else might get something from the path.
(16:50):
it's.
Amazing, if you think of ourworkplaces, we're, almost tied to our desks and our computers and our words that have to be transcribed.
Professional or technical or whateverphrase you want, whereas actually the freedom that comes from allowing the mind to wander a little bit and allowing that breakthrough to have the space to come through.
(17:25):
Could actually move mountains, so
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and, you might not be ableto move the mountains out there, but you can if you're drawing them.
so I had a vision setting day with ateam because their head office was sort of in the middle of nowhere and they all went off in different directions.
And one team came back and said,oh, we went to the graveyard.
(17:48):
And you're thinking, Oh my God,I wonder where this is going.
And they said, well, somebodywas proud enough to put their profession on the gravestone.
And we would like that.
We would like to beproud of our profession.
And it sort of took theminto a different place.
than there had been the other teamwent down this country road and it was going to be a dead end.
(18:12):
There was grass growingin the middle of the lane.
And so somebody turned to somebody andsaid, Oh, we're coming to a dead end, we're in a rut and they all nodded and I think that for them when they came back and told the story, everybody went, Yeah, yeah, that's how our team within the organization is feeling.
(18:32):
But what then happened, and I wish I'd gotsomebody to take a picture at the time, is that they spied a hole in the hedge.
And so somebody said, well, if we continuethe way we're doing, it's a dead end.
So we need to go through this hedge.
So they're there in theirsuits because I hadn't warned them they were going outside.
So they push through the hole inthe hedge and then they went up the hill and then they got to the top of the hill and then they could just see for miles, miles and miles.
(19:02):
And it was as if they went from feelinglike the organization was stuck in a rut, we're headed for a dead end, to being able to see for miles.
So when they came back with that mindset.
and then you've got another teamadding to it saying, Oh, well, we want to be proud of what we do.
between them, they were then able tocome up with sort of a more motivating vision for where they were taking the team than previously, because they just had time to, allow nature to coach the really rather than just do it all in their heads and go, what did we say last time?
(19:40):
Yeah, that's what we want.
Yeah.
Yeah, or sit in a meeting roomwithout windows and just get upset and frustrated and, yeah.
Yeah, that.
We hear it so much about how peoplehave their best ideas in the shower or out on a walk and yet, We resist that as a tool, effectively, a free tool.
(20:08):
Where's the disconnect,Alison, do you think?
where my head's gone, I don't knowwhether it's the reason you asked the question, but where my head's gone is what I talk a lot about is that we leave our humanity at the door of the office.
and we sort of put on thestereotype of what we think.
(20:32):
I've got a set of cards with wordson, sometimes get people to pick the cards at the beginning of the session.
how is the word on the cardgoing to be useful for you today?
And somebody turned around and they calledkindness, and they said, oh, I didn't know I could bring kindness with me.
Whoa.
I think it's not to underestimatewhat we think we can't bring into the office with us.
(20:57):
Alison's jolts into nature and her.
Memorable take on perspective.
Reminds us, I suppose, thatclarity often lies just outside our normal frame of view.
(21:18):
And from that.
Mark Haines, our third clip.
Which is from an episodethat went out in November.
When 190, a couple of centimeters of care.
Tells a great story about.
Orlando airport in a heat wave.
(21:40):
Being able to interact with peoplelike you're putting on a show has been the catalyst of my background now, and this is what I talk on, forever, because it's all about this idea.
I know you said you readthe first bit of my book.
my first chapter is called experienceexpectations, and that's all about understanding what are the touch points in our businesses and how can we look at the touch points and make them extraordinary rather than just the day to day transaction.
(22:06):
our expectations are generally quitelow, in a lot of our one on one interactions in a superMarcet or in a train station or in an electronic store, perhaps different when we're sitting having a meal or on a plane.
We have different expectations, butI think they're easily met if there's some intentionality, like you're saying.
(22:33):
Yep.
And all we have to do is just care.
Just care like on an airplane.
Just care that people are on a plane.
it's a routine that mostof us don't do very often.
So why can't we make that extraordinary?
I just found a post on Instagramon the Orlando airport.
During the heat wave, There were peoplein the airport giving out free ice cream.
(22:56):
When we think about airports,we're thinking, Oh my goodness, I was just at LAX.
Oh, it's a terrible airport.
Oh, Toronto, PearsonInternational Airport.
Oh my goodness, if I could stay awayfrom Pearson, that would be great.
Right?
We have all these different picturesin our heads about what airports we like to go to and which ones we want to avoid like the plague.
But here you have, Orlando airports,just because it was a heat wave, I don't know what it cost them.
(23:21):
Maybe it's 50 cents per person, butthere was somebody handing out ice cream.
And so now you have a group of people,travelers inside the airport, all of a sudden getting surprised by this little token that is so minuscule and yet made such a big impact.
It's so true, isn't it?
And what you were saying about avoidingplaces like the plague, it's not the place, it's the experience that we had.
(23:49):
And it's the people often, unfortunately,that have created that experience.
And we remember As, like, youhave the Maya Angelou quote in your book, and so do I.
We remember how people make us feel.
Yes.
Absolutely.
100 percent of the time.
100 percent of the time.
And you might not evenremember people's names.
(24:09):
You might not even remember thewhole context of the experience.
You just remember when I went to thisone particular thing, I had a great time or when I went here, it was terrible.
And my wife is always calling meback and saying, Oh no, we went to that restaurant 10 years ago.
Do you remember how long we had to wait?
Oh, I don't want to go back.
That was 10 years ago, but that'show ingrained these memories be.
(24:32):
Within our psyche to make surethat we don't hurt like that again.
and isn't it the same in ourworkplaces as colleagues as well, Marc, that we care for one another
The big difference I think is goingfrom transactional to relational.
(24:52):
we have to stop thinking in the wayof, okay, I've got this customer.
I'm going to serve this customer.
Now that's done.
Next.
I have a colleague.
He wants something.
He's standing in my doorway.
Okay.
As soon as I'm done this, Ican get onto my next thing.
that's not the way that weinteract as human beings.
Naturally, nature doesn't work that way.
what you're saying thereis not rocket science.
(25:13):
In fact, it is simple, it'sbasic, Is that why we overlook it?
It's because, again, we'retransactional, we get into the grind, and we forget to care.
You
you're going to keeptelling me this, aren't you?
I am because because ultimatelythat's what it boils down to.
It's that intentionality.
(25:34):
I mean, we've always seen whenwe felt that somebody cared about what was happening to us?
It always made us perk up and take notice.
when somebody does an act of kindness Youdon't forget that but at the same token when somebody does something in civil or cruel You won't forget that either the protagonist will like the aggressor will forget about it like I forget that, you came in and it's like, Oh, my goodness.
(26:02):
Are you wearing that to work?
And you know, you're like, Itook time to pick this out.
it's a seagull moment where they come in.
They poop on everything.
They squawk and fly away.
And they don't even remember.
Yes, that was definitely.
Beyond the status quo.
(26:23):
I think mark demonstratesthe value of caring, of being intentional in our interactions.
Rather than being transactional.
Next we hear from.
Liz Jarman and lasers episode,willing to take risks.
(26:44):
Number 187 went out in October.
And ladies.
As a reflection on culture.
And building high performing teams.
And Liz, you talked about thatquestion that the board member asked you, your mentor about your legacy.
(27:09):
So what is your legacy for living goods?
Well, we've evolved alot as an organization.
when I took over, we just got abig influx of funding, but that funding needed match funding.
So it was a big pressure to raise a lotof money, but then get a lot of money.
So we were scaling really rapidly.
(27:32):
So part of I think what I have focusedon was how do we scale in a sustainable way with and how do we maintain our culture, which is, I think, quite a unique culture in the not for profit world.
Because a lot of us, myself included,come from the private sector.
(27:53):
And so we have a bit of a privatesector mindset on how we work, how we focus on return on investment, results, and quick testing and pivoting.
we have a lot of what wecall unrestricted funding.
So it's almost like you develop a businessplan and then you fundraise against it rather than do projects that are funded.
So that requires a really strong culture.
and so I really focused on.
(28:15):
improving our culture and makingsure it stood throughout COVID, but also with rapid scaling.
So culture is one areathat I'm really proud of.
culture to me includeshigh performing teams.
I think they go hand in hand.
It's not just, Oh, it'sa nice place to work.
it's high performing teams, but largelydriven because it's a great place to work.
(28:36):
To get results, you need people to behighly engaged and feel very valued.
So I think when I became CEO, I reallyrecognized I had a responsibility.
just to bring that to life when Ibecame CEO and it was announced.
And as I said, this was six plusyears ago, and it was a surprise to me as well as the organization.
(29:00):
And I had so many emails.
mainly from women in my organization,quite junior, saying, I never thought I'd be led by a woman.
I, I'm so, impressed thatyou've been promoted within.
It gives me hope for my career.
And I was like, Oh my goodness,I've got all this responsibility.
People are looking up to me.
(29:22):
And so I really took that on andparticularly the women thing., I've been very fortunate in my career not having too many barriers and I thought, wow, especially in the African continent where I was at, this is so critical.
So part of what I really wantedto do culture wise was show up and spend time and be intentional about spending time with the team.
(29:43):
And of course, as a planner, thatmeant I had to really plan to be able to fit that in, because I think the first six months, I thought, how am I going to do any of this?
I'm just spending time on callswith funders and trying to do this and trying to do that.
So, I joked, I know exactly when I'm goingon holiday every year because I plan.
I'm visiting Burkina Faso here,Kenya here, Uganda here, US here.
(30:03):
I've got this bigmeeting, this big meeting.
And so for me it was about reallydedicating time to different levels of the organization and doing that in a systematic way so that they knew that two or three times a year I'm visiting and I'm spending time with these groups of people.
And that to me makes a huge difference.
(30:25):
and obviously, even during COVID I thenwould do it in a virtual type of way.
but I think I was also able tobring in some of the private sector.
investments like a big organizationthat Sainsbury's has done into a quite a relatively small organization.
And so that was about having a highperforming executive team that required making some tough decisions on some people, investing in executive coaching, leadership courses, just really working together, and having retreats, as teams, as we never did before.
(30:59):
I really then.
started to work on particularly inthe last two or three years on the level below my executive team because a we need that succession thinking there and it's tricky And also the feedback continued to come through.
So I did external surveys.
We call them voices surveys every yearand it continued to get feedback about not understanding how decisions were made.
(31:27):
So then being very clear that we wouldhave steer codes for certain decisions, and we'd have a mixture of people, but then introducing something called RAPID, which is a way of making decisions.
So RAPID is about, you have a recommender,you have somebody who agrees to the recommendation, you have input into that, recommendation, and then the decision, and then the performance.
(31:49):
it's actually harder than it sounds andeven now we're not quite there, but it starts to get the team below to come up with recommendations, be very clear on who they've got input from, who's agreed to it, and proactively thinking who needs to make this decision at what level.
this evolved to also havinga much stronger delegation of authority and decision making frameworks which we put in place.
(32:13):
So a lot of effort on decisionmaking, both the process, the transparency, and who.
Still not perfect, but alot of work around that.
I think the other thing that I investedin, particularly post COVID, because I think people hadn't been together like in many places, but it was really tough in Uganda as one really tough lockdowns there is we also try to do a lot more work on safe spaces to speak up, particularly when you got a lot of my stuff are remote working in quite rural areas.
(32:46):
And we've had this facilitatorwho's really supported having uncomfortable conversations.
and, that exercise of psychologicalsafety and having those conversations.
And I've been in a room and seen thingsput on the board, which is horrendous.
And, my leaders around me, I've said,look, I could take that and say, I want to resign tomorrow because it's failed.
(33:07):
Or I can say, wow, thank goodnesspeople are willing to say that.
And what can we do about it?
So trying to lead by example,being present, but having a lot of these frameworks in place, has been really important.
This doesn't settle for status quo either.
Does she?
And I think what I really like aboutthis is, is the impact of demonstrating how everyone's voice matters.
(33:36):
And that acting on whatpeople say is what counts.
And she also introduced this wholeconcept of psychological safety, which sets us up really nicely for the last clip with Helen joy.
And this is from episode 170.
It went, I was way back in April.
(33:57):
And this episode was called leapingfor words, which is a wonderful way to think about how you might.
Challenge your own statusquo Going into 2025.
the link between innovation andpsychological safety, is that something that people are aware of, I'm just thinking back to a job I had, and that's what's coming into my head now, is I was in this organization that was, even though my team, there was psychological safety in this for sure.
(34:33):
From the leadership side ofthings, there just wasn't.
It was a very psychologically unsafeenvironment and yet we were always getting together to be innovative.
It never worked, funnily enough.
it's like a catch 22.
(34:54):
When you're not in a psychologicallysafe environment, you cannot explain to leadership why there's no innovation.
So it's chicken and egg or catch 22.
What do you do in that situation?
if you are responsible for thatdepartment, you're responsible for the psychological safety And that's where you've got to start.
(35:14):
If that innovation is not happening,you've got to absolutely understand why.
if there's no psychological safety,that might be really hard to do, because nobody is going to tell you the brutal honest truth for fear of the punishment, the judgment, the ridicule, all of those things.
(35:36):
So where you've got to start, you'vegot to go right back to the beginning, and you've got to nurture those relationships one on one and create that trust so that you can build on top of that trust, that psychological safety.
And the only way you can do that is bycreating situations where you can prove.
And evidence your trustworthiness.
And that will be different for everybody.
(35:57):
And that takes time.
And that's the problem you getsometimes in organisations is that people who are put into those positions to do that are not given the time to create the environment where people can feel psychologically safe.
So they can even tell you that'sbeen the problem or where the problem actually is, because sometimes it can be one individual in a team that can completely undermine and ruin everything.
(36:28):
as a leader in there, youshould be able to spot that.
If you sit in a room and you are watchingthese people interact with each other and you're watching who's doing the talking, who's obviously got things they wanna say, what they don't, looking at the different ways that those ideas are brought into that room for a start, is it the case that everyone writes their ideas down and somebody else is responsible for them and people don't have to own up to the ideas,.
(36:52):
But it's observing what is happening.
Identifying the behaviors that areundermining that psychological safety and dealing with that first and foremost, because it doesn't matter how well you build these relationships, if that behavior is still enabled and allowed people will never get beyond that and then they'll walk because they'll go well I told you that that was a problem
(37:15):
and that's the challenge is that ifyou don't have the time to to do that or you don't deal with the problem straight away you will never create the psychological safety you need to create the innovation for your team to continue to do what it needs to do and what will happen is you get a churn of leaders who go through the same process
(37:35):
and that reminds me of an organizationwhere one of the leaders in the organization, that team did not have psychological safety at all.
But that team leader, director,was bringing in lots of clients.
So they were able to bring in themoney and therefore nobody wanted to do anything about that particular person but then you just had complete turnaround of staff because no one wants to stay working there.
(38:06):
yeah
So you're leaving a lot of value, I think.
unrealized value and really allyou're going to do is churn out crap.
When you could actuallyreally change the world,
oh you know when I worked inrecruitment there was one particular team, one office that had a salesperson who was billing probably a quarter of a million pounds a year.
(38:33):
So that's quite lot ofmoney for one individual,
but they were toxic and they stoleall the great clients and they lied and they trampled all over their colleagues and their teammates with no respect for anyone else.
And really thought they werethe big guy out because they had been, lauded and applauded.
(38:53):
For years for being amazing.
and they got a new manager because nobodyelse in the team could build more than, 60, 000 pounds a year, which is not enough in that environment in a big city.
And
when they got this new manager in,they spent that time, they observed and they saw the behaviors and they spent time getting to know the rest of the team and recognizing.
(39:23):
what they could bring, what theyhad, why they didn't perform to the levels they should be doing.
they'd spotted that this person wasthe, the problem and, but the feedback eventually started to come through that actually was, or these were some of the backhanded sly things they were doing.
And they started the process tomanage the performance of this individual, not on results.
(39:45):
But on behaviors, and they
got a lot of pushback from a senior level,what are you doing, if you lose them, but they'd had this massive churn in the rest of the team, nobody got past nine months, this person was like, well, I've been told I've got to do what I've got to do to get this, and this person eventually left because they didn't understand that their behaviors were wrong.
(40:07):
They didn't understand the impact theywere having on the rest of the team.
They felt that everything theywere doing was right because they thought about themselves.
And they eventually left becausethey didn't feel valued and they went off somewhere else.
And within six months, theperformance levels of the rest of that team had obliterated.
(40:28):
that quarter of a million pounds thatthat one individual was bringing in.
And it was an environment and ateam that everybody wanted to join.
and the feedback they started gettingfrom the clients from this person as well, which was, well, we absolutely hated him, but he found us the right candidates.
(40:49):
And certainly in sales environments,that kind of behavior still is people can't see beyond the money and
the numbers.
This is it.
They can't see beyond the numbers attachedto that person's head, and they don't see the potential it's exactly as you said, the money they're leaving on the table.
(41:13):
I just love how Helen brings in seeingbeyond the numbers right there at the end.
That was the compilation episodeabout going beyond the status quo.
And as I said, we'd heard fromKevin Chevys, Alison Smith, mark cane, Liz Jarman, and had enjoy.
(41:39):
And all of those episodes.
Are referenced in the show notes.
And are still available to listen to.
Us are the hundred and 91.
Other episodes.
I started this podcast inSeptember, 2020, and I had.
(42:00):
No idea.
What it was going to.
Morph into,
And.
For any of you have beenlistening since then?
Thank you.
I appreciate that you keepcoming by and listening to more.
And for any of you that havejoined us along the way.
(42:21):
Thank you for joining.
I always love to hear what peoplehave to say about the episodes.
And it's brilliant to get notesfrom people every now and then.
So I really appreciate that.
So, To end 2024.
(42:42):
And to look forward into 2025.
Is it time for you tochallenge your status quo?
What might that look like?
If you were to go beyond the status.
Cool.
Let me know.
(43:06):
Thank you for joining me todayon life, beyond the numbers.
If something in this episode resonatedwith you, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
And if you've enjoyed this conversation,Please take a moment to leave a review.
It helps others like us.
I discover this podcast andjoin in our conversation.
(43:30):
Until next time.
Keep exploring thehuman side of work life.
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