October 26, 2024 • 36 mins
"If they're not applying creative and intuitive thinking in addition to critical and judgmental thinking, then they're not creating new knowledge for the organisation. They're just taking old knowledge and rearranging it. And for me, that's not adding value." Jackie Eaton
Jackie Eaton shares her unique career path from obtaining a mathematics degree to working in operational research for NATO. She discusses her affection for solving complex problems, her initial struggles to discover a career-fit and the compelling nature of public service. Jackie and I chat about gender dynamics in the workplace, the challenges and rewards of working in a male-dominated, multicultural environment, the importance of effective communication, the role of psychology in leadership and the impact of AI on analytical work. Jackie shares insights on maintaining optimism and tips for those aspiring to work in organisations like NATO.
Jackie Eaton works at NATO. She is a specialist in analysis of public sector issues including defence and health sectors or anything else messy and complex with excellent communication and interpersonal skills. She describes herself as an eternal optimist, smart problem solver, data geek and psychology nerd. She is also a mentor, trainer and ray of sunshine in the office.
Connect with Jackie
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Resources Mentioned
Leading Beyond the Numbers by Susan Ní Chríodáin
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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 a lifebeyond the numbers today.
I am absolutely delightedto welcome Jackie Eaton.
Two.
Life beyond the numbers.
Jackie.
You're so welcome.
Thank you so much, Susan.
It's lovely to be here.
So,
great.
Now, I think you're a guest that manypeople will wonder, how on earth did you get a job with this type of organization?
(01:42):
And Jackie, You work with NATO and I don'teven know if people know what NATO is.
So what attracted you to publicsector, and in particular, NATO?
Absolutely.
so I have a mathematics degree, and,I went after my mathematics degree to do a master's in operational research.
(02:04):
And, during that degree, I was focusedvery hard on finishing the degree and doing a good job of it, and I missed all of the application rounds for the management consultancies.
And, I got to the end of the degree andI was like, Oh, I haven't got a job.
And one of the only places that was stillkind of recruiting for new graduates at the time was DSTL, which is the Defense Science Technology Laboratory.
(02:29):
And not only were they recruiting fornew graduates, but they explicitly were asking for mathematicians.
And I thought, ah, this looks quiteinteresting because with a maths degree, every single person was constantly telling me, do you want to be an accountant or a teacher?
These were the options opento mathematicians at the time.
(02:52):
and I didn't really wantto do either of them.
So when I saw this science andtechnology place that wanted mathematicians, I thought, ideal, this is going to be a good fit for me and I applied and I got the job.
and so that kind of started me onthe trajectory of working in defense science and technology as an analyst.
but being a civil servant, itwasn't particularly well paid.
(03:15):
So I was always lookingaround for other options.
And then I saw these analystjobs coming up at NATO.
so NATO is a.
international organization, it has 32member countries now, and it stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
And it has at its core the missionto provide safety and security to the populations of its member states in the North Atlantic.
(03:38):
So it's most of Europe, WesternEurope and Eastern Europe, and also North America and Canada and the USA.
it's a political military alliance,which delivers basically round the clock surveillance and military security solutions to protect our populations.
(03:58):
And when I moved to NATO, one interestingthing for me in terms of the motivation was actually, it's really nice to work for a multinational organization like that, looking out for the interests of all of the nations and not just one nation.
You just feel very connected tohow NATO has delivered peace in Europe for all of the time that it's existed since the fifties.
(04:26):
there is this sense of purpose inworking for an organization like that, which of course is very important.
if I'm going to be completely honest andselfish, the reason I like working in public sector is their problems are messy.
And that always, always difficult.
And I really love a nice, juicy,difficult problem to get my teeth into.
(04:47):
when you work in money, there's alwaysthe revenue, the profit and the loss.
And there are a few numbersdescribing everything and you never have numbers to explain your return on investment when you work in an organization in the public sector.
So how do you put a financial value onthe fact that there hasn't been a major war in Europe since NATO was formed?
(05:10):
how do you say how much that's worth?
And there are, there are so many waysto look at numbers like that as well.
I mean, we can't put a price on peace.
And we wouldn't want to.
It is invaluable that welive safely, mostly in the countries that we are in now.
(05:37):
And I loved what you said aboutdelivering peace and being part of that.
And, and, and, When I thinkof NATO, that wouldn't be the first thing that comes to mind.
I would think about the defence, but ofcourse, you're from the inside looking out, and I think you can connect to that delivering peace, peace, very nicely.
(06:01):
you mentioned messy problems.
Is that where the love of data andmaths and figuring things out connects to messy problems as well, Jackie?
Yeah, absolutely.
so with my background, I actuallywork as an analyst in the Analysis and Lessons Learned Center.
(06:24):
the work that we do is, aboutunderstanding in depth how the organization works, how it ticks, what's making things work well, what's making things work badly, and what do we need to improve and change for the future?
I've always reallyenjoyed, problem solving.
and in fact, going back to my lifestory of the education at the end of the math degree, I really was very lost.
(06:47):
I went to see the careers advisor andI'm like, I don't know what I want to do.
I don't want to be A teacher, Idon't want to be an accountant.
And she said, have you heard of thisthing called operational research?
And I was like, no,I've never heard of it.
And she said, well, if you likeproblem solving, you'll love this.
And that's the application ofmathematics and scientific method to solving business problems.
So it was just right up myalley and I just absolutely loved my degree, my master's.
(07:13):
although.
For me, it was so natural.
I used to tell people I wasdoing a master's in common sense.
'cause it was just so natural tothink, if you can mathematically model this, you can optimize it.
Like it's just such an obvious thing.
Yeah.
Obvious to you!
And as, and as somebody once said to me,common sense is knowledge and experience.
(07:38):
So I think sometimes what we take forcommon sense has got to do with the way our own brains work and the way we see things and make connections and I mean, the more I go through life, the more I realize how different we all are in the way we approach things.
But, it's brilliant to workin the field of common sense.
(08:01):
Now, maths, I mean, I hated mathsin school, funnily enough, and I'm the one who did accountancy.
for me, maths was never about numbers.
I was much more inclined towards thenumbers, but it's also a field that is typically seen as male dominated.
(08:25):
dominated perhaps So I wondered whenyou joined an organization, okay, you'd done operational research, but with the maths background, were you in a minority?
yeah.
I would say like the minoritything started at university with the maths degree.
(08:45):
Right.
buts.
I wasn't in a minority until we splitup between the statisticians and the pure and applied mathematicians.
and all the girls went to dostatistics and all the guys went to do pure and applied and I did a bit of everything because I figured it'd be easier to get a good grade if I did everything and nothing.
(09:06):
And then when I started mymaster's, that was very balanced actually with males and females.
So I think when it comes tothe application of mathematics for problem solving, it really starts to become more balanced.
when I joined my organization,DSTL, they had recruited a lot of young women graduates at the time.
in my cohort, it was 50, 50, ormaybe even slightly more women, but the organization as a whole.
(09:30):
Was definitely male dominated, but nowherenear as male dominated as the military organization I joined when I joined NATO.
And for the first, I'm going to say eightyears working in NATO, I was the only woman in the kind of operational side of the house in a 50 strong organization.
(09:51):
So the only other woman there was, the,personal assistant to the commander.
so it was the only one there.
but it's interesting becauseit's never really bothered me.
I've since thought back to, was itsomething my parents did or said or the environment I grew up in?
But like the fact that I like mathsand science and I've always pursued them and I've always been in the minority of women in the room just never ever hit my radar until other women started working with me and complaining about being unfairly treated.
(10:27):
And then I suddenly started to think,maybe I've been unfairly treated or maybe some of the things that I struggle with at work are not actually my struggles, maybe they are the struggles of being the only female in this room full of men.
But none of this had really occurred tome, honestly, until really quite recently.
It's interesting.
(10:48):
And I was thinking about what youwere saying about the military and civilian, because I worked for an organization, MAG, and we cleared landmines and unexploded ordnance.
And we had a lot of ex militarywithin the organization and and I was usually the only woman in the room and the only woman on the senior management team and and so on.
(11:12):
But yeah, I don't know if Iwas treated unfairly or not.
And I think.
At the end of the day, if we enjoywhat we're doing, we're probably not really looking around at a lot of that environment as well.
But you and I met at a gender hackathonwhere we went a little deeper into maybe some of the reasons why.
(11:39):
That as we progress throughorganizations, women are in the minority.
Yes, this is true.
this was a really goodexperience when we met there.
And, and we were presented with a report,remember, where we were given this really shocking statistic that women are leaving after their first job in an organization, leaving the organization, whereas men are staying, more often.
(12:06):
And everyone was like, oh yeah,it's because they get pregnant.
And then we looked at the statisticsbecause we like numbers and we realized that actually it really wasn't then because this generation that have been subject to this study were leaving at age of 25, 26, when actually generally women are not having babies until their thirties now.
(12:30):
And so it really wasn't the babies drivingthis exodus right from organizations.
And we did not find an answer, but wedid come up with a number of things.
And one, I think we, I remember discussingat the time was the pay gap was that where a man is being paid the same or has better career prospects than when a woman's in a relationship with that man and one of them has to move because someone's been given a promotion or a new job.
(13:00):
The woman will often give up herjob, find a new job somewhere else because the man has got the better pay and the better prospects.
So it just makes sense.
but then there was the other thing thatoccurred to me also more recently was about this concept that is, I guess, my concept of secret tasks, which is.
Something that I definitely do, and I'vedefinitely observed others doing at work, which is women just picking up tasks and doing work that needs to be done without any fuss whatsoever and just getting it done quietly, without any fanfare.
(13:33):
And it is definitely something thatI've seen where Women tend to use their initiative more to look at what needs doing in an organization, get on with it.
Whereas managers see the tasks thatthe men do in the organization more because they have to ask them to do it.
(13:55):
so I wonder, to be honest, whetherwomen at that point, where they're in the same pool for promotion as men and at the same age and the same experience, There's just not as much visibility from the management chain of the contribution that they've made.
And yet that contribution is perhapsmore obvious on their CV and on their application form for another job where the woman will write everything down to prove that they deserve the job.
(14:22):
and I wonder whether the stuff justnot seen in terms of what women contribute in the organization, because we do secret tasks.
Yeah, hidden tasks and tasks that aren't,they're not the glory ones as well.
They're not often theones to just shout about.
(14:42):
They're just the stuffthat has to get done.
I think that's an interesting observation.
Of course, a generalization as well,because huge generalization, but it does make me think about I remember hearing this woman speak years and years ago, actually, and it's just, I just thought of this now, I think she used to work remotely, which is probably a barrier to women progressing even more so, I would imagine now, but she used to work
(15:10):
remotely, and this is going back years,but she said, every Friday, She would write a list of all the things she did that week to send it to her boss so that the boss was aware of what she was doing and I think Oftentimes when we do stuff we we don't take the credit for it We don't look for the recognition and actually it's important to do both
(15:36):
It really is and it's somethingperhaps that needs to be brought into schools because I do think it starts at a very young age where we just get on and do things.
it would be interesting, I musthave a chat with a guy about this one sometime and see what their perspective would be on this.
I think it could be quite interesting.
you mentioned the, multinationalenvironment that you worked in, which is of course multicultural then as well, Jackie.
(16:04):
And on LinkedIn, you describeyourself as a psychology nerd.
So how does that influence yourapproach to this type of environment?
Well, yeah.
in many ways, very few peopleactually where I work know how well read I am on psychology and leadership and decision making and organizational change and culture.
(16:27):
but yeah, I mean, it influencesall aspects of the work that I do.
Especially I would say liketrying to understand effective communication models, understanding how to motivate team members and.
In the work that I do, becauseit is effectively about change management, understanding what kind of recommendations are going to be useful and are going to make sense.
(16:56):
understanding how organizations work, howdecisions are made, especially some of the more emotional side of decision making, that isn't always very informational based and is quite intuitive.
and also in terms of how we do ourresearch and analysis, like trying to train and trying to, encourage creative and intuitive thinking in our staff, because if they're not applying creative and intuitive thinking.
(17:27):
in addition to critical and judgmentalthinking, then they're not creating new knowledge for the organization.
They're just taking oldknowledge and rearranging it.
And for me, that's not adding value.
So yeah, it comes in, in a lot of ways.
And I think it also supports my generalpatience with working in the organization, because it can be super frustrating when you're butting up against people who have different value systems or different cultural backgrounds.
(17:59):
And the more you understand about thecultural differences and the value of diversity and what that brings to an organization, more patient you can be, and the more you can actually make space for that to shine through and to deliver some value for the organization.
And it's understanding as well, isn't it?
That we all come to work with these,like you say, different value systems, but also different cultural backgrounds, different understandings, and it's, It's like, well, the Canadians describe their culture as a melting pot, and it is.
(18:32):
It's often a hodgepodge of so manydifferent backgrounds, and it's drawing the best, then, out of each of those, which does require a lot of patience, I'd say, and persistence, probably.
Yeah.
And, and exactly like you say, and I thinkmy colleague has that sign on her door.
(18:55):
She's like, you don't know what'sgoing on with me, so don't judge.
Right.
And you just don't know.
And, for the staff here, nearly no onehere is living in their home nation.
So we're all away from home, we'reall in a strange environment.
And so, it has to be more of afamily environment in the workplace, then you would get in perhaps.
(19:20):
a commercial entity or in a local entity,because there has to be that element of feeling like you're part of one team and you're all working together.
and that, the people you work with,they're not just your colleagues, they are your friends and family as well, because you're missing your friends and family.
You're away from home.
That's very true, and Then you're goingto have the turnover of staff as well, like you said, because I guess people get seconded from their different countries to serve in NATO over time.
(19:52):
So it's a constantchange environment then.
It is.
Yeah.
So the military staff typicallycome for three years from their home nation, and then they return back to the home nation afterwards.
And so there is just constant change.
(20:12):
and someone told me this when Ifirst started working in defense and they were talking about the UK.
So I'm not quite sure if they'd everexperienced NATO, but they said the only thing constant in defense is change.
most of the NATO bodies will haveone nation providing the commander, the lead of the NATO body, but we actually have two different nations providing ours on an alternating basis.
(20:37):
So we're not only flipping fromindividual differences, but we are also flipping with cultural differences in our leadership team.
so there's a lot going on.
Wow.
But you describe yourselfas an eternal optimist.
and a ray of sunshine in the office.
Are these easily maintained qualities?
(20:57):
They're fantastic qualities.
Are they easily maintained?
well, as my current boss said,I did have a sense of humor failure early today, so not,
it's not absolutely, 100 percent all thetime I'm in the office with a big grin on my face saying everything's great.
(21:18):
But my previous boss did tell me thatI had a remarkable ability to have a terrible day and come in the next day and be like, you know, We can fix it.
We can have another go.
We can try again.
Let's try another strategy.
Let's try this.
Let's do something.
I think that's perhaps my doggedpersistence in problem solving, shining through that, you know, I've never really come across anything that is insurmountable there.
(21:46):
You just have to, like I say, havepatience and persistence and Collaborate, work together, figure out what it's going to take to find the solution, right?
So
And an open mind, it sounds like, Jackie,because, It goes back to almost what you said right at the beginning, the messiness, you enjoy the messiness, and I think that requires a certain amount of curiosity as well, and, an open mind to, well, what can we do, rather than, oh, this is never going to work.
(22:22):
Yeah.
I think that's critical, in my job asan analyst looking to make improvements and change across the organization.
It's critical that I bringthat growth mindset, right?
Because if I'm wandering aroundand I'm like, oh yeah, it can't be fixed, Well, I've failed before I even started the research, right?
(22:42):
so I always have to be thinking andgrowing and learning new things.
And of course we've got AIon our doorstep right now.
this is a huge area I can imaginethat the way we do analysis next year will already be fundamentally different from how it is this year.
I don't know what it's going to looklike, but we need to be ready and open minded to take on these new technologies.
(23:07):
Yeah, with some jobs and roles, I cansee how AI can make a huge difference.
If I just take accounting, for example,there's so many routine tasks that just, if AI can come in and do those, it can free people up to do more critical thinking, be that intuitive and creativity that you talked about, which I don't believe, I And I hope AI doesn't develop those skills.
(23:35):
So I wonder, it will make changessurely, but in the type of work you do, you still need that human element.
Yeah.
So this is something I actually boughtup in my recent talk at our lessons learned conference, because I spoke about future tools and technology, but I opened the talk with a quote from Douglas Adams, where he says human beings are remarkable in their ability to learn from others and equally remarkable in their disinclination to do so.
(24:11):
And.
I honestly just, I was like, thisis the point of lessons learned.
we're not talking aboutoptimizing our computer systems or our cars or our machines.
We're talking about optimizingour human systems and the way that the humans interact with these tools that we have been given,
(24:32):
As long as there isn't a general AI,the singularity, all of that, as long as there are human beings involved, there'll need to be human beings involved in the analysis of the lessons because it's a fundamentally human thing to learn how to work in these systems.
(24:53):
Who knows though, when there'llbe an actual human like AI.
Yeah,
I'm not ready to quite go there yet.
But you've talked about effectivecommunication skills, and I can imagine again in the organization you're in, they are critically important, but just in general.
(25:16):
For people wondering aboutwhat we're talking about now, being able to communicate with another human on a human level.
How important are they, Jackie, inlife and in an organizational life?
I think that absolutely critical, because
(25:36):
Without good communication skills thatyou're just prone to misunderstanding and misunderstanding causes problems and everything kind of stops.
And so, picking up the phone, and talkingto someone and understanding where they're coming from and caring to understand where they're coming from is really important
To being able to keepeverything moving effectively.
(25:59):
Right.
And any kind of breakdown incommunication is also associated with breakdown in productivity.
when team members aren't talking toeach other or they're angry with each other, then that, that just stops work.
So, it is, very important.
in my organization, we've been strugglingrecently with a problem with internal communication and it is rife in the kind of problems that are being caused by that.
(26:25):
it opens the door for gossip.
It opens the door for.
yeah, just all kinds of issueswith people working together and feeling like one team when there isn't clear, open communication.
transparency I think is important,caring to understand what everyone else is wanting to communicate is important.
(26:48):
And it's something I've always beenvery interested in myself when, I mean, when I listen, I listen very carefully and I take everything in.
I don't always let people know that.
A math teacher once, he was like,she's going to fail the year.
She's never paying attention.
It turns out I got the best gradebecause I took everything in.
(27:08):
I just never nodded when he looked at me.
this is my training that I'velearned with my communication is that I do need to occasionally let someone know I am listening back.
I do think it's very critical inorganizations that communication's transparent, it's open, it's honest, and it, it's respectful.
I think that is, is a huge problem in
(27:34):
like mine where lots of peopleare working in a second language.
Because it can sometimes takepeople a really long time to say what they want to say.
And I daily basis see people talkingover each other, trying to finish their sentences and fill in the gaps and not having the patience to let someone who is trying to express themselves in another language, get all the way to the end of what they want to say.
(28:01):
That's Oh, there's a few things in there.
I really like what you said.
Respectfulness is huge, Jackie, and peopleare speaking in a second language, but then it's also a collection of people speaking in a second language, which even makes it more complicated, I think, almost, to keep up with everything.
(28:21):
And, and not keep up, but tunein to the nuances, perhaps, in how we speak and what we say.
The speaking over peoplehappens everywhere.
I don't think I've ever goneto a meeting where people haven't spoken over one another.
And I don't know whether peopleare conscious that they're doing it or how it happens, but it does.
(28:46):
But what I really liked was whatyou said about caring to understand.
So it's not just even about listening.
It's listening, wanting to understand,listening and caring enough to respect what the other person has to say.
I'm That's quite a finedistinction, I think, in listening.
(29:11):
Yeah, I think so.
I think most of us, most of the timeat work, we really only tune into the information channel on the listening.
I've just come back from a initiationtraining week on coaching and mentoring.
I'm just about to undertake thatcertification and it's talking about the different levels and I was like, Everything is always at the informational level in the workplace.
(29:34):
I do really subscribe to what's in yourbook and what you're talking about with like, we need to bring our emotions to work because if you're only dealing at the informational level, then you kind of understand like what's happening underneath the And that is actually Potentially blocking something that you're trying to get done, or, causing a relationship problem between people.
(30:00):
And, if you're not addressingthat, if you're just pretending it's not there, then.
You're always going to fail tryingto solve the problem because you're not really getting to the root cause
Yeah, and you're just burying it further.
It's like a, a spade of sand everytime you don't listen because that probably doesn't change for people.
(30:21):
And
so coaching and mentoring, very cool,because you do a lot of mentoring at work.
you've worked as a mentor and trainer.
So for someone listening today whomight like to work in an organization like NATO what would you say to them?
(30:41):
so the advice I give people who want ajob in NATO, because a lot of people want jobs in NATO, is do something different.
Because
90 percent of the CVs that we look at forjobs here have international relations or political science as the degree and that's really what they've done.
(31:04):
I think I had a reasonably unconventionalentrance to NATO, just coming from UK MOD.
but I walked in actually very youngon my grade and I didn't realize at the time that I managed to like, amazing job because I didn't really understand the grade structure.
but I believe it's because I hadthe scientific training behind me and it made my CV stand out, from the 90 percent that basically had the normal set of qualifications.
(31:33):
I do think it makes a differencewhen you're trying to get into an organization that has.
thousands or hundreds of thousands ofapplicants to have something that sets you apart from the crowd, to get in, something that shows that you understand as well, the work that you're applying for.
Because that is often missing fromapplications and from CVs that you kind of read what's written and you're like, you have not really comprehended what your day to day work's going to be like, and what the purpose of the role that you're applying for is.
(32:08):
And I think that's something that isalways impressive when you can see that someone trying to get into an organization has really understood what it means to work for that organization.
it's funny because it's counterintuitivealmost, and maybe from the background I come from, if you're looking for somebody with an accounting background, then that's exactly what you're looking for.
(32:34):
And if you see somebody withsomething else, you may not want them.
But I think what you're saying about
how does what you bring fit into the jobyou're going to be doing requires another level of listening and understanding.
And perhaps people rely on AIto do their job applications for them and miss that part.
(33:00):
So again, the human side canstand out once we apply it and it's really good to know
CVs will stand out.
That it's not just being,screened for certain things.
But actually, if you are a bit different,you have as good a chance as anyone.
(33:23):
Yeah, I mean, it depends.
So being a little part of NATO, tuckedaway in Lisbon, because of the specialist nature of the jobs for analysts here, we do have a smaller number of applicants.
but the, yeah, but if you want to getinto NATO headquarters, good luck.
Because that is the hardest placeto start your career in NATO.
(33:47):
So that would be the other advice is lookfor something in one of the smaller NATOs.
Get some experience, build yournetwork and then go for the NATO headquarters because that is the the money on for NATO because that's the the brain center of the organization is where everyone wants to work.
(34:07):
Nearly everyone or everyone?
Well,
not, not everyone, clearly.
But I know what you
most people, most people who havethe ambition to work for NATO when they think working for NATO they think working in Brussels in NATO headquarters, I would say.
(34:28):
But yeah, it's not everything and thereare really interesting things NATO does all over Europe and North America.
So have a look at what else NATO doesand see if there's something that fits your profile if you're interested.
Yeah, and I think it's the same for alot of big or multinational, whether in the public sector or private sector, there will be interesting offices that do different things that might be easier to get into or find a niche, if that's what you ultimately want to do.
(35:01):
Jackie, it's been an absolutepleasure reconnecting and having a conversation today.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for inviting me.
And if anyone would like to connectwith you to find out any more, perhaps LinkedIn is somewhere they can find you.
Yeah.
(35:21):
So I have my LinkedInprofile, pretty active.
It's Jackie brackets, Jacqueline Eaton.
Please feel free to messageme or contact me on LinkedIn, and I'd love to hear from you.
Fantastic.
Well, thank you so much foryour time today, Jackie.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, Susan.
(35:46):
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.
(36:10):
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.
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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.
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Hello and welcome to a lifebeyond the numbers today.
I am absolutely delightedto welcome Jackie Eaton.
Two.
Life beyond the numbers.
Jackie.
You're so welcome.
Thank you so much, Susan.
It's lovely to be here.
So,
great.
Now, I think you're a guest that manypeople will wonder, how on earth did you get a job with this type of organization?
(01:42):
And Jackie, You work with NATO and I don'teven know if people know what NATO is.
So what attracted you to publicsector, and in particular, NATO?
Absolutely.
so I have a mathematics degree, and,I went after my mathematics degree to do a master's in operational research.
(02:04):
And, during that degree, I was focusedvery hard on finishing the degree and doing a good job of it, and I missed all of the application rounds for the management consultancies.
And, I got to the end of the degree andI was like, Oh, I haven't got a job.
And one of the only places that was stillkind of recruiting for new graduates at the time was DSTL, which is the Defense Science Technology Laboratory.
(02:29):
And not only were they recruiting fornew graduates, but they explicitly were asking for mathematicians.
And I thought, ah, this looks quiteinteresting because with a maths degree, every single person was constantly telling me, do you want to be an accountant or a teacher?
These were the options opento mathematicians at the time.
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and I didn't really wantto do either of them.
So when I saw this science andtechnology place that wanted mathematicians, I thought, ideal, this is going to be a good fit for me and I applied and I got the job.
and so that kind of started me onthe trajectory of working in defense science and technology as an analyst.
but being a civil servant, itwasn't particularly well paid.
(03:15):
So I was always lookingaround for other options.
And then I saw these analystjobs coming up at NATO.
so NATO is a.
international organization, it has 32member countries now, and it stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
And it has at its core the missionto provide safety and security to the populations of its member states in the North Atlantic.
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So it's most of Europe, WesternEurope and Eastern Europe, and also North America and Canada and the USA.
it's a political military alliance,which delivers basically round the clock surveillance and military security solutions to protect our populations.
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And when I moved to NATO, one interestingthing for me in terms of the motivation was actually, it's really nice to work for a multinational organization like that, looking out for the interests of all of the nations and not just one nation.
You just feel very connected tohow NATO has delivered peace in Europe for all of the time that it's existed since the fifties.
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there is this sense of purpose inworking for an organization like that, which of course is very important.
if I'm going to be completely honest andselfish, the reason I like working in public sector is their problems are messy.
And that always, always difficult.
And I really love a nice, juicy,difficult problem to get my teeth into.
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when you work in money, there's alwaysthe revenue, the profit and the loss.
And there are a few numbersdescribing everything and you never have numbers to explain your return on investment when you work in an organization in the public sector.
So how do you put a financial value onthe fact that there hasn't been a major war in Europe since NATO was formed?
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how do you say how much that's worth?
And there are, there are so many waysto look at numbers like that as well.
I mean, we can't put a price on peace.
And we wouldn't want to.
It is invaluable that welive safely, mostly in the countries that we are in now.
(05:37):
And I loved what you said aboutdelivering peace and being part of that.
And, and, and, When I thinkof NATO, that wouldn't be the first thing that comes to mind.
I would think about the defence, but ofcourse, you're from the inside looking out, and I think you can connect to that delivering peace, peace, very nicely.
(06:01):
you mentioned messy problems.
Is that where the love of data andmaths and figuring things out connects to messy problems as well, Jackie?
Yeah, absolutely.
so with my background, I actuallywork as an analyst in the Analysis and Lessons Learned Center.
(06:24):
the work that we do is, aboutunderstanding in depth how the organization works, how it ticks, what's making things work well, what's making things work badly, and what do we need to improve and change for the future?
I've always reallyenjoyed, problem solving.
and in fact, going back to my lifestory of the education at the end of the math degree, I really was very lost.
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I went to see the careers advisor andI'm like, I don't know what I want to do.
I don't want to be A teacher, Idon't want to be an accountant.
And she said, have you heard of thisthing called operational research?
And I was like, no,I've never heard of it.
And she said, well, if you likeproblem solving, you'll love this.
And that's the application ofmathematics and scientific method to solving business problems.
So it was just right up myalley and I just absolutely loved my degree, my master's.
(07:13):
although.
For me, it was so natural.
I used to tell people I wasdoing a master's in common sense.
'cause it was just so natural tothink, if you can mathematically model this, you can optimize it.
Like it's just such an obvious thing.
Yeah.
Obvious to you!
And as, and as somebody once said to me,common sense is knowledge and experience.
(07:38):
So I think sometimes what we take forcommon sense has got to do with the way our own brains work and the way we see things and make connections and I mean, the more I go through life, the more I realize how different we all are in the way we approach things.
But, it's brilliant to workin the field of common sense.
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Now, maths, I mean, I hated mathsin school, funnily enough, and I'm the one who did accountancy.
for me, maths was never about numbers.
I was much more inclined towards thenumbers, but it's also a field that is typically seen as male dominated.
(08:25):
dominated perhaps So I wondered whenyou joined an organization, okay, you'd done operational research, but with the maths background, were you in a minority?
yeah.
I would say like the minoritything started at university with the maths degree.
(08:45):
Right.
buts.
I wasn't in a minority until we splitup between the statisticians and the pure and applied mathematicians.
and all the girls went to dostatistics and all the guys went to do pure and applied and I did a bit of everything because I figured it'd be easier to get a good grade if I did everything and nothing.
(09:06):
And then when I started mymaster's, that was very balanced actually with males and females.
So I think when it comes tothe application of mathematics for problem solving, it really starts to become more balanced.
when I joined my organization,DSTL, they had recruited a lot of young women graduates at the time.
in my cohort, it was 50, 50, ormaybe even slightly more women, but the organization as a whole.
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Was definitely male dominated, but nowherenear as male dominated as the military organization I joined when I joined NATO.
And for the first, I'm going to say eightyears working in NATO, I was the only woman in the kind of operational side of the house in a 50 strong organization.
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So the only other woman there was, the,personal assistant to the commander.
so it was the only one there.
but it's interesting becauseit's never really bothered me.
I've since thought back to, was itsomething my parents did or said or the environment I grew up in?
But like the fact that I like mathsand science and I've always pursued them and I've always been in the minority of women in the room just never ever hit my radar until other women started working with me and complaining about being unfairly treated.
(10:27):
And then I suddenly started to think,maybe I've been unfairly treated or maybe some of the things that I struggle with at work are not actually my struggles, maybe they are the struggles of being the only female in this room full of men.
But none of this had really occurred tome, honestly, until really quite recently.
It's interesting.
(10:48):
And I was thinking about what youwere saying about the military and civilian, because I worked for an organization, MAG, and we cleared landmines and unexploded ordnance.
And we had a lot of ex militarywithin the organization and and I was usually the only woman in the room and the only woman on the senior management team and and so on.
(11:12):
But yeah, I don't know if Iwas treated unfairly or not.
And I think.
At the end of the day, if we enjoywhat we're doing, we're probably not really looking around at a lot of that environment as well.
But you and I met at a gender hackathonwhere we went a little deeper into maybe some of the reasons why.
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That as we progress throughorganizations, women are in the minority.
Yes, this is true.
this was a really goodexperience when we met there.
And, and we were presented with a report,remember, where we were given this really shocking statistic that women are leaving after their first job in an organization, leaving the organization, whereas men are staying, more often.
(12:06):
And everyone was like, oh yeah,it's because they get pregnant.
And then we looked at the statisticsbecause we like numbers and we realized that actually it really wasn't then because this generation that have been subject to this study were leaving at age of 25, 26, when actually generally women are not having babies until their thirties now.
(12:30):
And so it really wasn't the babies drivingthis exodus right from organizations.
And we did not find an answer, but wedid come up with a number of things.
And one, I think we, I remember discussingat the time was the pay gap was that where a man is being paid the same or has better career prospects than when a woman's in a relationship with that man and one of them has to move because someone's been given a promotion or a new job.
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The woman will often give up herjob, find a new job somewhere else because the man has got the better pay and the better prospects.
So it just makes sense.
but then there was the other thing thatoccurred to me also more recently was about this concept that is, I guess, my concept of secret tasks, which is.
Something that I definitely do, and I'vedefinitely observed others doing at work, which is women just picking up tasks and doing work that needs to be done without any fuss whatsoever and just getting it done quietly, without any fanfare.
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And it is definitely something thatI've seen where Women tend to use their initiative more to look at what needs doing in an organization, get on with it.
Whereas managers see the tasks thatthe men do in the organization more because they have to ask them to do it.
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so I wonder, to be honest, whetherwomen at that point, where they're in the same pool for promotion as men and at the same age and the same experience, There's just not as much visibility from the management chain of the contribution that they've made.
And yet that contribution is perhapsmore obvious on their CV and on their application form for another job where the woman will write everything down to prove that they deserve the job.
(14:22):
and I wonder whether the stuff justnot seen in terms of what women contribute in the organization, because we do secret tasks.
Yeah, hidden tasks and tasks that aren't,they're not the glory ones as well.
They're not often theones to just shout about.
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They're just the stuffthat has to get done.
I think that's an interesting observation.
Of course, a generalization as well,because huge generalization, but it does make me think about I remember hearing this woman speak years and years ago, actually, and it's just, I just thought of this now, I think she used to work remotely, which is probably a barrier to women progressing even more so, I would imagine now, but she used to work
(15:10):
remotely, and this is going back years,but she said, every Friday, She would write a list of all the things she did that week to send it to her boss so that the boss was aware of what she was doing and I think Oftentimes when we do stuff we we don't take the credit for it We don't look for the recognition and actually it's important to do both
(15:36):
It really is and it's somethingperhaps that needs to be brought into schools because I do think it starts at a very young age where we just get on and do things.
it would be interesting, I musthave a chat with a guy about this one sometime and see what their perspective would be on this.
I think it could be quite interesting.
you mentioned the, multinationalenvironment that you worked in, which is of course multicultural then as well, Jackie.
(16:04):
And on LinkedIn, you describeyourself as a psychology nerd.
So how does that influence yourapproach to this type of environment?
Well, yeah.
in many ways, very few peopleactually where I work know how well read I am on psychology and leadership and decision making and organizational change and culture.
(16:27):
but yeah, I mean, it influencesall aspects of the work that I do.
Especially I would say liketrying to understand effective communication models, understanding how to motivate team members and.
In the work that I do, becauseit is effectively about change management, understanding what kind of recommendations are going to be useful and are going to make sense.
(16:56):
understanding how organizations work, howdecisions are made, especially some of the more emotional side of decision making, that isn't always very informational based and is quite intuitive.
and also in terms of how we do ourresearch and analysis, like trying to train and trying to, encourage creative and intuitive thinking in our staff, because if they're not applying creative and intuitive thinking.
(17:27):
in addition to critical and judgmentalthinking, then they're not creating new knowledge for the organization.
They're just taking oldknowledge and rearranging it.
And for me, that's not adding value.
So yeah, it comes in, in a lot of ways.
And I think it also supports my generalpatience with working in the organization, because it can be super frustrating when you're butting up against people who have different value systems or different cultural backgrounds.
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And the more you understand about thecultural differences and the value of diversity and what that brings to an organization, more patient you can be, and the more you can actually make space for that to shine through and to deliver some value for the organization.
And it's understanding as well, isn't it?
That we all come to work with these,like you say, different value systems, but also different cultural backgrounds, different understandings, and it's, It's like, well, the Canadians describe their culture as a melting pot, and it is.
(18:32):
It's often a hodgepodge of so manydifferent backgrounds, and it's drawing the best, then, out of each of those, which does require a lot of patience, I'd say, and persistence, probably.
Yeah.
And, and exactly like you say, and I thinkmy colleague has that sign on her door.
(18:55):
She's like, you don't know what'sgoing on with me, so don't judge.
Right.
And you just don't know.
And, for the staff here, nearly no onehere is living in their home nation.
So we're all away from home, we'reall in a strange environment.
And so, it has to be more of afamily environment in the workplace, then you would get in perhaps.
(19:20):
a commercial entity or in a local entity,because there has to be that element of feeling like you're part of one team and you're all working together.
and that, the people you work with,they're not just your colleagues, they are your friends and family as well, because you're missing your friends and family.
You're away from home.
That's very true, and Then you're goingto have the turnover of staff as well, like you said, because I guess people get seconded from their different countries to serve in NATO over time.
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So it's a constantchange environment then.
It is.
Yeah.
So the military staff typicallycome for three years from their home nation, and then they return back to the home nation afterwards.
And so there is just constant change.
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and someone told me this when Ifirst started working in defense and they were talking about the UK.
So I'm not quite sure if they'd everexperienced NATO, but they said the only thing constant in defense is change.
most of the NATO bodies will haveone nation providing the commander, the lead of the NATO body, but we actually have two different nations providing ours on an alternating basis.
(20:37):
So we're not only flipping fromindividual differences, but we are also flipping with cultural differences in our leadership team.
so there's a lot going on.
Wow.
But you describe yourselfas an eternal optimist.
and a ray of sunshine in the office.
Are these easily maintained qualities?
(20:57):
They're fantastic qualities.
Are they easily maintained?
well, as my current boss said,I did have a sense of humor failure early today, so not,
it's not absolutely, 100 percent all thetime I'm in the office with a big grin on my face saying everything's great.
(21:18):
But my previous boss did tell me thatI had a remarkable ability to have a terrible day and come in the next day and be like, you know, We can fix it.
We can have another go.
We can try again.
Let's try another strategy.
Let's try this.
Let's do something.
I think that's perhaps my doggedpersistence in problem solving, shining through that, you know, I've never really come across anything that is insurmountable there.
(21:46):
You just have to, like I say, havepatience and persistence and Collaborate, work together, figure out what it's going to take to find the solution, right?
So
And an open mind, it sounds like, Jackie,because, It goes back to almost what you said right at the beginning, the messiness, you enjoy the messiness, and I think that requires a certain amount of curiosity as well, and, an open mind to, well, what can we do, rather than, oh, this is never going to work.
(22:22):
Yeah.
I think that's critical, in my job asan analyst looking to make improvements and change across the organization.
It's critical that I bringthat growth mindset, right?
Because if I'm wandering aroundand I'm like, oh yeah, it can't be fixed, Well, I've failed before I even started the research, right?
(22:42):
so I always have to be thinking andgrowing and learning new things.
And of course we've got AIon our doorstep right now.
this is a huge area I can imaginethat the way we do analysis next year will already be fundamentally different from how it is this year.
I don't know what it's going to looklike, but we need to be ready and open minded to take on these new technologies.
(23:07):
Yeah, with some jobs and roles, I cansee how AI can make a huge difference.
If I just take accounting, for example,there's so many routine tasks that just, if AI can come in and do those, it can free people up to do more critical thinking, be that intuitive and creativity that you talked about, which I don't believe, I And I hope AI doesn't develop those skills.
(23:35):
So I wonder, it will make changessurely, but in the type of work you do, you still need that human element.
Yeah.
So this is something I actually boughtup in my recent talk at our lessons learned conference, because I spoke about future tools and technology, but I opened the talk with a quote from Douglas Adams, where he says human beings are remarkable in their ability to learn from others and equally remarkable in their disinclination to do so.
(24:11):
And.
I honestly just, I was like, thisis the point of lessons learned.
we're not talking aboutoptimizing our computer systems or our cars or our machines.
We're talking about optimizingour human systems and the way that the humans interact with these tools that we have been given,
(24:32):
As long as there isn't a general AI,the singularity, all of that, as long as there are human beings involved, there'll need to be human beings involved in the analysis of the lessons because it's a fundamentally human thing to learn how to work in these systems.
(24:53):
Who knows though, when there'llbe an actual human like AI.
Yeah,
I'm not ready to quite go there yet.
But you've talked about effectivecommunication skills, and I can imagine again in the organization you're in, they are critically important, but just in general.
(25:16):
For people wondering aboutwhat we're talking about now, being able to communicate with another human on a human level.
How important are they, Jackie, inlife and in an organizational life?
I think that absolutely critical, because
(25:36):
Without good communication skills thatyou're just prone to misunderstanding and misunderstanding causes problems and everything kind of stops.
And so, picking up the phone, and talkingto someone and understanding where they're coming from and caring to understand where they're coming from is really important
To being able to keepeverything moving effectively.
(25:59):
Right.
And any kind of breakdown incommunication is also associated with breakdown in productivity.
when team members aren't talking toeach other or they're angry with each other, then that, that just stops work.
So, it is, very important.
in my organization, we've been strugglingrecently with a problem with internal communication and it is rife in the kind of problems that are being caused by that.
(26:25):
it opens the door for gossip.
It opens the door for.
yeah, just all kinds of issueswith people working together and feeling like one team when there isn't clear, open communication.
transparency I think is important,caring to understand what everyone else is wanting to communicate is important.
(26:48):
And it's something I've always beenvery interested in myself when, I mean, when I listen, I listen very carefully and I take everything in.
I don't always let people know that.
A math teacher once, he was like,she's going to fail the year.
She's never paying attention.
It turns out I got the best gradebecause I took everything in.
(27:08):
I just never nodded when he looked at me.
this is my training that I'velearned with my communication is that I do need to occasionally let someone know I am listening back.
I do think it's very critical inorganizations that communication's transparent, it's open, it's honest, and it, it's respectful.
I think that is, is a huge problem in
(27:34):
like mine where lots of peopleare working in a second language.
Because it can sometimes takepeople a really long time to say what they want to say.
And I daily basis see people talkingover each other, trying to finish their sentences and fill in the gaps and not having the patience to let someone who is trying to express themselves in another language, get all the way to the end of what they want to say.
(28:01):
That's Oh, there's a few things in there.
I really like what you said.
Respectfulness is huge, Jackie, and peopleare speaking in a second language, but then it's also a collection of people speaking in a second language, which even makes it more complicated, I think, almost, to keep up with everything.
(28:21):
And, and not keep up, but tunein to the nuances, perhaps, in how we speak and what we say.
The speaking over peoplehappens everywhere.
I don't think I've ever goneto a meeting where people haven't spoken over one another.
And I don't know whether peopleare conscious that they're doing it or how it happens, but it does.
(28:46):
But what I really liked was whatyou said about caring to understand.
So it's not just even about listening.
It's listening, wanting to understand,listening and caring enough to respect what the other person has to say.
I'm That's quite a finedistinction, I think, in listening.
(29:11):
Yeah, I think so.
I think most of us, most of the timeat work, we really only tune into the information channel on the listening.
I've just come back from a initiationtraining week on coaching and mentoring.
I'm just about to undertake thatcertification and it's talking about the different levels and I was like, Everything is always at the informational level in the workplace.
(29:34):
I do really subscribe to what's in yourbook and what you're talking about with like, we need to bring our emotions to work because if you're only dealing at the informational level, then you kind of understand like what's happening underneath the And that is actually Potentially blocking something that you're trying to get done, or, causing a relationship problem between people.
(30:00):
And, if you're not addressingthat, if you're just pretending it's not there, then.
You're always going to fail tryingto solve the problem because you're not really getting to the root cause
Yeah, and you're just burying it further.
It's like a, a spade of sand everytime you don't listen because that probably doesn't change for people.
(30:21):
And
so coaching and mentoring, very cool,because you do a lot of mentoring at work.
you've worked as a mentor and trainer.
So for someone listening today whomight like to work in an organization like NATO what would you say to them?
(30:41):
so the advice I give people who want ajob in NATO, because a lot of people want jobs in NATO, is do something different.
Because
90 percent of the CVs that we look at forjobs here have international relations or political science as the degree and that's really what they've done.
(31:04):
I think I had a reasonably unconventionalentrance to NATO, just coming from UK MOD.
but I walked in actually very youngon my grade and I didn't realize at the time that I managed to like, amazing job because I didn't really understand the grade structure.
but I believe it's because I hadthe scientific training behind me and it made my CV stand out, from the 90 percent that basically had the normal set of qualifications.
(31:33):
I do think it makes a differencewhen you're trying to get into an organization that has.
thousands or hundreds of thousands ofapplicants to have something that sets you apart from the crowd, to get in, something that shows that you understand as well, the work that you're applying for.
Because that is often missing fromapplications and from CVs that you kind of read what's written and you're like, you have not really comprehended what your day to day work's going to be like, and what the purpose of the role that you're applying for is.
(32:08):
And I think that's something that isalways impressive when you can see that someone trying to get into an organization has really understood what it means to work for that organization.
it's funny because it's counterintuitivealmost, and maybe from the background I come from, if you're looking for somebody with an accounting background, then that's exactly what you're looking for.
(32:34):
And if you see somebody withsomething else, you may not want them.
But I think what you're saying about
how does what you bring fit into the jobyou're going to be doing requires another level of listening and understanding.
And perhaps people rely on AIto do their job applications for them and miss that part.
(33:00):
So again, the human side canstand out once we apply it and it's really good to know
CVs will stand out.
That it's not just being,screened for certain things.
But actually, if you are a bit different,you have as good a chance as anyone.
(33:23):
Yeah, I mean, it depends.
So being a little part of NATO, tuckedaway in Lisbon, because of the specialist nature of the jobs for analysts here, we do have a smaller number of applicants.
but the, yeah, but if you want to getinto NATO headquarters, good luck.
Because that is the hardest placeto start your career in NATO.
(33:47):
So that would be the other advice is lookfor something in one of the smaller NATOs.
Get some experience, build yournetwork and then go for the NATO headquarters because that is the the money on for NATO because that's the the brain center of the organization is where everyone wants to work.
(34:07):
Nearly everyone or everyone?
Well,
not, not everyone, clearly.
But I know what you
most people, most people who havethe ambition to work for NATO when they think working for NATO they think working in Brussels in NATO headquarters, I would say.
(34:28):
But yeah, it's not everything and thereare really interesting things NATO does all over Europe and North America.
So have a look at what else NATO doesand see if there's something that fits your profile if you're interested.
Yeah, and I think it's the same for alot of big or multinational, whether in the public sector or private sector, there will be interesting offices that do different things that might be easier to get into or find a niche, if that's what you ultimately want to do.
(35:01):
Jackie, it's been an absolutepleasure reconnecting and having a conversation today.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for inviting me.
And if anyone would like to connectwith you to find out any more, perhaps LinkedIn is somewhere they can find you.
Yeah.
(35:21):
So I have my LinkedInprofile, pretty active.
It's Jackie brackets, Jacqueline Eaton.
Please feel free to messageme or contact me on LinkedIn, and I'd love to hear from you.
Fantastic.
Well, thank you so much foryour time today, Jackie.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, Susan.
(35:46):
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.
(36:10):
Until next time.
Keep exploring thehuman side of work life.
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