#EdInfluence
In his inimitable style, Nick unearths the secrets of good leadership from his guests.
Trusted by thousands of education providers across the country, Browne Jacobson is an award winning national law firm helping clients and partner organisations shape and influence education policy.
#EdInfluence
S03 – E04 with Catherine Baker.
Catherine Baker is the Chair of O Shaped and an ex-Linklaters lawyer who has for the second half of her career focused on leadership and mindset. Catherine specialises in blending business and sports insight to drive performance, coaching CEOs and other senior leaders to improve and develop their leadership skillset.
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Welcome to the latest episode of Ed Influence. I'm Nick McKenzie from Browne Jacobson, and today I'm delighted to be joined by Catherine Baker, founder of Sport and Beyond, and author of Staying the Distance. Thank you, Catherine, for joining me today. I wanted to start by inviting you to tell me a story from your life that would give me a picture of who you are as a leader. Thank you, Nick. And first of all, just to say thank you so much for having me and inviting me onto the podcast, really looking forward to our discussion. now that was a question that you very kindly gave me in advance, and I'm pleased that you did because I have to say it was very thought provoking and one I've reflected on quite a bit when we have so many experiences and so many stories in our lives, you know, to come up with a story that really reflects the essence of what we are and how we are as a leader. I found a really interesting challenge. In the end, I have decided to share a story, which I think really sums up the, area of real focus and interest and hopefully expertise that I have within all the many different areas of leadership. And it relates to a story around mentoring. So I was very kindly invited to be part of a program last year organised by a charity called The Women's Sport Trust. And the Women's Sport Trust do lots of great things in the world of women's sport, but this program in particular called the Unlocked Program, matches elite female athletes with senior people in the sport sector who they feel can mentor the elite female athlete in the correct ways. And there's a careful process that goes into matching the athlete with the mentor. I was matched with a wonderful swimmer. I won't give you, her name for reasons of confidentiality, but I was matched with a wonderful swimmer. I hadn't met her before, but I've been given all her information. And the program kicked off just as we were about to go on a family holiday. It was the summer holidays. And I thought to myself, I can't hold off. You know, I can't hold off till after our holiday to have our initial call because she's really excited. We've just been paired together, so I need to make sure I fix up a call for while I'm on holiday. So we fixed up a half hour chat and it was, we had two of our children and various young people staying with us in our villa, and I said, I've got to do this call. And they all kind of wandered off an hour leaving me to it, and I said, I'd only be half an hour. Three hours later they came back into the villa and I was still on the call with this athlete. Why? Because we were really taking the time to get to know each other as individuals, really taking the time to make that human connection, because I feel very strongly that in any leadership capacity you have to really understand the people whom you are leading and who you are working with. So I think that story probably represents, quite nicely the real focus that I have in any leadership role that I've had through sport, through my professional career, about really understanding the person or the people that you are leading because you want to get the best out of them and you want to develop them. And that personal connection is absolutely critical there. And where thinking back on, on knowing that was really important thing to do, Catherine, when did you first sort of come across that as something that was really important to you? I'd love to say it was many, many years ago, but actually it probably wasn't. And I'm gonna share an example this time from, from professional career rather than sport where it really hit home for me. So a few years ago, through sport and beyond, we were running, a leadership training program for a large global bank. And we had delivered the program to, senior leaders in the uk. The program was very much around mindset. So the mindset that you bring to really drive successful performance and successful leadership, and having run the program within the UK, the UK individuals thought that we should be trying to expand it out to India, where this bank had a large base. And so we had an initial call set up with various senior individuals within the bank in India. It was obviously a remote call/ teams call the time before that became normal. And I had three from my team in the UK and we had four from different places in India on the call we only had 45 minutes, and I was probably still a bit green and I was thinking, I really want to get this work. It's gonna be great for our organisation if we manage to evolve this training program, you know, across to India as well. So I was quite keen to really get down to the nitty gritty in the call. And as we started the call, the senior person from the bank team in India said, Catherine I'd like to start the call by all of us introducing ourselves and just saying a little bit about ourselves. And I was like, well, okay, let's hit that doesn't take too long, you know, and then we can get onto the meat of the call. And she said, I'll go first so I can sort of role model what I want to be hearing from everybody. And she probably spoke for about three or four minutes and she talked not just about her professional life, but she talked about her family commitments, family responsibilities, you know, we've got a very good picture of her as an individual. And I started to think, gosh, we've got seven people on the call. This is gonna take up most of the call. We're never gonna have time to get to the sort of nitty gritty and starting to feel a little bit worried about it. Anyway, we duly followed the role model, which she'd given us. So each of us took that time to give albeit a snapshot, but a decent snapshot in that three and four minutes we ended up getting the work. And I firmly believed that was driven principally by the time taken in that call to really get to know people as individuals, albeit with a short space of time, but just to understand the priority in there in terms of really getting to know people as individuals. So that was a really good lesson that I learned probably only six or seven years ago. Brilliant, thank you. I was gonna tease up nicely. I was really interested in your book, staying the Distance. There is a whole chapter on belonging. I was just gonna invite you to, because having recently read that the Owen Eastwood book, which you reference in there as well, could you share your reflections on how leaders can go out fostering belonging in their organisation, or perhaps if they're just responsible for a team within their team? Absolutely. And I'll start if I may, with a very powerful quote from the book, because I think it really highlights this issue. So this is a quote from a lady called Alex Stanson. Now, she was the leading goal scorer at the Rio Olympics in 2016. She was part of the GB team that won gold. This was her third Olympics, so this was her third attempt to win gold. They'd won bronze at London 2012, very disappointed as the home side, went to Rio. They finally got that elusive gold medal. She was the top goal scorer. And this is what Alex said, after winning that gold medal, it's not the winning, it's how you win, the people you win with the group of people you are connected to. I think that human connection is the ultimate marker of success. Now I find that absolutely fascinating, that was the first thing she said. When you would imagine it would all be about we've won, I've won a gold medal, all about the outcome, but it wasn't, it was about human connection. And that human connection is absolutely vital to that feeling of belonging in the workplace. As you say, there's a fabulous book by a chap called Owen Eastwood, who's done work with the All Blacks who's done work with the England men's football team, South African cricket team, and a whole host of other sports and corporate organisations. Why? Because we know how important that feeling of belonging is to performance. One of the studies done through the pandemic by McKinsey looked at some of the reasons behind why people were leaving. If you remember, there was this thing called the Great Resignation. You know, not everyone agreed with that term, but that was the term that was being used in some of the literature and reporting through the pandemic. So McKinsey did a piece of research looking at, you know, why is it that people are actually leaving? What they discovered was that there was a disconnect between why employers thought that people were leaving and why employees actually were. Employers tended to put it down to what we call transactional reasons. So pay, you know, bonus, that kind of thing. Actually, what the employees were saying was it was much more about relational issues, so feeling valued, seeing a sense of progression and very specifically, I can't remember the exact percentage, but it was 50 something percent said really that they were leaving because they didn't feel a sense of belonging. So how can leaders try and help encourage that and facilitate that within a workplace? Well, number one, we've already highlighted get to know your people as people rather than just in their, you know, so for example, get to know your people as people rather than lawyers or as people rather than bankers or as people rather than consultants, et cetera. So really take the time to get to know your workforce as individuals. Absolutely important that. If you are running a big team, it can be very hard, can't it, to give time as a leader individually to everyone in your team, chunk it down. It doesn't have to be all with you. You can make sure that you pair people up so they're making sure that they spend time as individuals getting to know each other, having an informal coffee, whatever it is. So really making sure that you are covering your whole team, albeit it doesn't have to be just you. The other thing I'd add that's really important is that sense of identity. In the book, I share a story around London Pulse, which is one of the franchises in the netball Super league. One of the things they've been incredibly successful at bearing in mind they're a very, very diverse franchise. They've got over 30 languages spoken, you know, in the changing room. So one of the things they've been really successful at is creating a strong sense of identity. On the court, their identity is London Pulse wins ball, very effective because netball is a possession game. But off the court, their overriding principle, their overriding sort of value is around humility and that underpins everything they do off the court, including how they engage with their local community. That provides a very strong sense of identity that everyone within the club knows what London Pulse is all about. They understand the DNA of London Pulse. Bring that back to organisations generally within the world of work. I think many organisations are very good at setting out a vision, a mission, a purpose, whatever terminology you want to use. And also many organisations very good now at coming up with a set of values, but the challenge is to bring those to life every single day. Not just leave them looking pretty on the walls, not just leave them on your screensaver or on your documentation, but actually bring them to life every single day. Sharing stories, making sure that you are rewarding and, you know, giving approval where you see the right values being put into place, et cetera. So bringing that vision, mission, purpose, and those values to life every day also I think can really help to drive that sense of identity and therefore belonging. Thank you. Perhaps switching back to you as an individual, I just wanted to, to ask, what what would you say is the main motivation of your leadership Catherine? That's a big question Nick. I'm fascinated by human potential and human performance. And I'll share a personal story if I may, for I think one of the drivers behind that. So I'm one of five, my parents had five children within six years. My twin and I were numbers four and five. We were very much the unexpected numbers, four and five. My parents had two boys and then a girl, and they were very happy. and then my mother discovered she was pregnant and is the days when you didn't even know if you were having twins. So two weeks before we were born, she was suddenly told that she had two heartbeats in her tummy rather than just one. So, it meant for a fairly chaotic but wonderful childhood, with my elder brother, sort of very much in charge of the children and the games. When my elder brother turned 19, the day he turned 19, very sadly, he had a bad accident, so he was walking on the pavement and he got knocked over by a drunk driver, in the days before, mobile phones, et cetera. So it was all very traumatic. Amazingly, my brother survived. He was in a coma for six months. He was in hospital for three years, didn't talk for two years post the accident, and he's still with us despite all prognosis at the time. He's an incredible character and an incredible inspiration and has been throughout my entire life. And I think why that's a driver for my leadership is well, two reasons. Firstly, despite everything that's been thrown at him, he's brain damaged and quadriplegic. He still manages to laugh and to smile and to make the best of his situation. It also reminds me every day when I wake up that I've got two arms and two legs that function and therefore there is a duty or a responsibility on me to really get the best out of myself. And I translate that across, I think, to the people that I lead to make sure that they get the best out of themselves as well. Well, that's a very powerful story, Catherine. Going back to your career, I was really interested that you had a bit of a step change sort of partway through your career. Could you talk a bit about what caused that, for you in terms of, I suppose I'm thinking about your motivation here in terms of, you know, was it going back to those roots and that initial inspiration and that figure for you or something else that made you make the jump? Yeah, It sounds like quite a drastic shift, doesn't it, from corporate lawyer across to focusing on leadership and mindset. But as ever with these things, you know, it's not quite as clear cut or drastic as it, there's always kind of steps along the way. So as you've highlighted kind of early years, very much around sport and in fact my first qualification was as a tennis coach, but really I think in the time when as a young woman or as a girl then a young woman, a professional career in sport probably wasn't something which was so obvious, so talked about that the route wasn't so clear. I was very privileged with my education and sort of did quite well. So I had that academic route open to me and decided to go down that route and was very fortunate, then sponsored through law school by linklaters and got my sort of training there. So sport very much within my DNA, but, took that decision to go down the legal route. I also played two sports, tennis and hockey to representative level. I was told when I was 12 and I wanted to make it, I had to choose between the two, but I couldn't because I loved them both for different reasons. So went down the corporate law route and am incredibly grateful for what that career gave me in terms of understanding what hard work really looks like, understanding what professionalism looks like, and being surrounded by lots of incredibly driven, incredibly bright people. my husband was also a lawyer, at that stage and we wanted to have a family. So we very quickly were blessed with three boys and, as I'm sure many of the listeners will appreciate, you know, two people trying to juggle quite, you know, full on careers whilst wanting to bring up, bring up a family in the right way, is a significant challenge. So we took the decision that I would step back slightly, which I was very happy to do. And I sort of took on once I sort of left private practice after 13 years. I took on a few roles, which I now refer to now as almost treading water. So roles where I felt I had to be challenged a bit and learn something new, but where I could fit it around the family. So I taught on the law degree at York University, I did some tennis coaching. I worked for an amazing company to build up my facilitation and training skills that, I think all gave me the confidence to realise there was a world out there beyond being a lawyer. and that I did have some other skill sets which I've been able to build up. Once the children got older and became a little bit more independent. I think that confidence from having taken a slight sideways step really helped me in thinking, you know, with this opportunity I've got for the second half of my career, what is it that I really want to do? Where do I really want to make a difference and where do I feel I've got significant strengths? And that's what led me then to set up sport and beyond back in 2015. My children very kindly helped me come up with the name. When we first set up the business, it was twofold. It was one, helping elite athletes as they transitioned out of their sport, whatever that sport was, to think about what to go into next. So that was the first aspect of sport. And beyond the second bit was taking all the good stuff from sport around mindset and leadership across the business, which is the bit that obviously sits very firmly with what we do now. I'm really curious in terms of with what you've just said then. So your book is very much about sustainable performance and bringing the lessons from sport into business. You obviously sit that sort of slightly dual role. Do you take anything that you've seen from the business world and all the roles that you have into sport? Absolutely, and in fact, I've had a lot of people telling me that should be my second book to sort of, you know, swap it the other way. And, and I think, you know, the first thing to say on that is that I'm certainly not advocating that everything from sport is A = brilliant or B = should be taken across into business and leadership. There are definitely some areas where I think sport can improve and what I've done with the book is to really shine the spotlight on the lessons that I think have been missing, not about high performance in the moment, not about winning, but about that sustained long-term performance. definitely there are some brilliant aspects from business that you can take back across into sport. In the book I share case studies around Netflix, Microsoft, et cetera. So there are some very good learnings that come across from business back into sport as well. Thank you. I was wondering whether there's somebody that's really influenced you as a leader that you perhaps followed in your career, either they've led you or that you've sort of been an avid follower from a more of a distance. is there anyone that's inspired you? Well I'll mention a couple if I may. I mean, I think the first one in terms of, of following a bit more from a distance is obviously Gareth Southgate. So Gareth, very kindly, wrote the forward to my book. We have known each other for a number of years, we're personal friends. And I have just utmost admiration for the way he has conducted himself in a job, which it's very hard for anyone to understand the pressures that Gareth is under. You know, being in the public spotlight, you know, to the extent that he is. And I think one of the things that Gareth has done, which is particularly significant, is to demonstrate that some of those leadership behaviors that perhaps historically people would've equated more with female leadership. So things like compassion and empathy. He's demonstrated actually that it's not gender specific, it's about whatever skillset you have as a leader. Those are some of the tools in his toolbox and it's been incredibly effective in generating and nurturing, a really good culture within the men's football team. And then off the back of that, a really good performance on the pitch. So Gareth's definitely one, and I'm, you know, incredibly privileged and grateful for the fact that he's written the forward to the book. I'll mention one other if I may, and this is actually back into the legal field and you know, this individual actually Nick that I'm gonna mention, and that's Dan Kane. So Dan Kane is the founder of o'shaped. And actually technically in a way, I'm his boss because I'm the chair of o'shaped, but Dan is someone who I very willingly followed. You know, if you think of that, there's a brilliant YouTube video of somebody, lots of people sitting on a hill and somebody starts dancing and they look like a bit odd on their own. And then one person joins and then the next, and then the next, and suddenly everyone's dancing. That is Dan. So the first time I met Dan, it was at a conference and he was talking about how he's trying to drive change in the legal sector, how he's trying to make sure that people first really matters and is a natural reality, how he's trying to make sure that legal professionals are, developed and trained with broader skills than just kind of black letter law. I met Dan at a conference. I was blown away by his vision, by his determination, and by the fact that he had gathered around him an incredibly good team. You know, he realised he couldn't do it on his own. He realised he had to get a very good team around him. So, I really became a follower of Dan. We met for a coffee. I said, what I thought he was doing was brilliant, but I asked him a series of challenging questions, which he perhaps didn't have the answers to. And that was the start of, you know, what's been to date and hopefully will continue to be a really, really productive and enjoyable relationship. So if I can extrapolate from that, I think that clear vision, something which you can really get behind and which really hits you in the stomach. But, more than that, you know, lots of people can come up with a vision, can't they? That ability to exhibit the determination to really follow through on it and to get a really good team of people around you That, I can relate to the piece you just said about challenging questions.'cause the first time I met you, you asked me a series of, challenging questions. I'm curious, did he come back straight away to that? Was that something he took his time to respond to you, Yeah, well, I mean this is part of why I think, his such an impressive leader. So the challenging questions were over coffee. Some he could answer, some he couldn't. The ones he couldn't, he took away. And actually then, and this was before I was on the steering board, invited me to come in and work with the steering board to actually help them bring more rigor and get to a better place of understanding of what they were trying to do. So not only did he listen, he actually invited me in not knowing me very well at that stage at all to work with him and his steering board. And if I ask, I mean, what Dan's doing and what he's done, he had the courage of his convictions. clearly what does courage mean for you as a leader? Gosh, Nick, another very good question. Courage of convictions is, I think relevant, but do you know, I think there's a very interesting aspect of courage, which gets underlooked, which is a courage to admit that you are wrong and to change your mind. I think that's vital. The word courage tends to bring up, doesn't it, sort of strong and, you know, warrior-like and, certainty and clarity, et cetera. And I think, yes, all of those things are important, but I think real courage is where you've got the ability to face what's in front of you, be open-minded, listen, learn, and be prepared to possibly look a bit stupid and say, do you know what? I was wrong, or you've convinced me otherwise, or the situation's changed and we need to change our decision. I think that's a really important aspect of courage, which often gets, overlooked. I can definitely, relate to that, Catherine. Your book is about providing lessons and tools for people to sustain their leadership journey. I was curious where you're up to in terms of your leadership journey and what you are working on, at the moment. Thank you Nick. That's a another really good question. I think in terms of, well, I'll start I guess with the anchor for my decision making around what I'm doing, and then a bit of an an update in terms of where I'm spending my time. So when I was a corporate lawyer, it's quite straightforward. You almost don't have to think about what you're doing, do you? you know, that's what you do. And actually, if someone says, what are you, it's very easy to say, I'm a corporate lawyer. One of the things with my second career is it's much harder to explain what I do and I still haven't got it nailed. You know that question when someone says, Catherine, what do you do? so a few years ago to really help me, not just be able to answer that question, but more importantly really make decisions about where to spend my time, I decided to come up with my own personal mission. Now, the background to this is I've got a good friend who's a FTSE 100 CEO, and he went off to Harvard for six weeks on a leadership course. And when he came back I said, Richard, what did you learn on your leadership course? And he said, inspire breakthrough. And I was like, hang on, you've been to Harvard for six weeks and you've come back and you're telling me you've learned two words. And he said, no, no, Catherine, the whole course was about really understanding what your personal mission is for the stage of the career that you're, you're at. So I found that really helpful, took that away and did some work myself to come up with mine. Annoyingly, I haven't got it down to two words, but I have got to the point that my, personal mission is to inspire belief and enable progress. So inspire belief and enable progress, both elements I think are very important. You can't just inspire belief without helping people and giving them the tools to actually develop and progress as well. I use that as a framework or as a lens through which to make decisions about what to take on in terms of roles and not, so the majority of my day job now, is around coaching senior leaders. Obviously that fits very squarely within that inspiring belief and enabling progress. I am building an increasing non-exec portfolio, but carefully chosen again to fit within that. So I'm a trustee on the board of the Dane Kelly Holmes Trust, which is a youth charity using athlete mentors to try and help instill the mindsets and behaviors of elite athletes into young people who face disadvantage due to inequality in their everyday lives. I'm also chair of o'shaped as we talked about, and that's very much about changing the way that lawyers are trained and developed and really making sure we put people first. I'm on the board of governors at a local private school as well, partly because, my three children have been through it and have just had the most amazing experience, but also the school is very important within the community, and it gives me that aspect of, that link to young people in education. I struggle with time a bit. You know, I have an elderly mother who lives on her own three hours away and I am technically in charge of her and do all her shopping and her admin as well as having my own family and, you know, all these different roles. So it is always a challenge, but I find that, personal mission really, really useful to help me make my decisions about how to spend my time. Thank you. And on time, I was curious how you make time to think as a leader and when, if you are thinking, what are the sorts of questions you ask yourself? Yeah, again, a really good question, Nick. I think, and I'll give you an answer I think in two ways, if that's okay. First of all with respect to me, but also it's something I spend a lot of time when I'm coaching senior leaders and I'll sort of share some of the advice I give there. So for me, my thinking time is when I run or walk, so I run or walk every day, and, I don't sort of listen to stuff. Sometimes I'm walking, I listen to podcasts, but when I run, I don't listen to anything at all. I don't have any tech with me. It is literally my thinking time. And as we all know, you know, when you are moving, when you are doing something different, your brain engages in a different way. Some of those subconscious thoughts come up into your conscious mind. And so I find it incredibly valuable if I've got things I'm chewing over things that I can't quite solve, you know, that's how I really, find that time. It is an issue that comes up, pretty much with every coaching relationship I have. How as a senior leader do you carve out the time and space to actually have that thinking time? There's all sorts of different, little sort of hacks, but one of them is called the Shultz Hour. And this comes from, the 1980s in America when there was a Secretary of State called George Shultz, who was very, very well known for having an hour a week where he locked everybody out of his office. He sat there with a pencil and a pad of paper with no agenda and just used to write down his thoughts in that hour. And he would swear by the fact that was a really useful time to have that more strategic, that more reflective thinking for clients. It's not just about, understanding what to do, but then it's making sure it happens. So making sure that you lock out time in your diary, call it what you want, but make sure you block out that time in the diary, manage expectations around you. So understand that people know that they can't interrupt you unless it's an absolute emergency. If you've got that time padlocked in your diary, that's your thinking time. It is critical for you in your role to have that time. And so you are not to be disturbed. It's a discipline, but it's a really important one. And in terms of are there - is it very freeform for you or would you have certain questions that you find you revisit time and time again that you might ask yourself in that thinking time? Yeah, so sometimes I have particular conundrums that I'm sort of dealing with, and definitely other times it might be more reflective in terms of, should I take this thing on? Should I say yes to this piece of work? am I making sure that I'm developing this person in the right way? Should I be changing my approach, et cetera? So, you know, so it could be sometimes some of those more fundamental questions that you are thinking about as well. And one of the other ways that I do that back in 2019, for all sorts of reasons, we needed to have a, a restructure of sport and beyond. And actually again, we were on holiday and I said to my - I'd actually written down a series of questions on a piece of paper and I said to my husband, right, we're gonna go for a walk on the beach and I want you to ask these questions. And he sort of started to ask one that wasn't the question number one, I said, no, I need you to ask them in this order because it's gonna really help me get to the right solution. And lo and behold, two hours later, having come back from the walk on the beach, I was in a much better place in terms of my decision making. Really interesting story about bringing your husband in to help you with that. Was his job just to ask the questions or did he, spar with you a bit in terms of your responses? mostly the former and he's very good at holding back and not giving me his view, but equally the sparring and the challenging is really helpful as well. Yeah, it sounds like very interesting relationship. Hahaha Thinking about, leadership and the, the range of experience you've had both personally and the different leaders you coach and support and mentor, what do you think is the most difficult thing of part of being a leader these days? Well, I think it probably links to what we've just been talking about. I think one of the hardest challenges is clarity on what your role involves. So a bit of context behind that. By the time you get to a leadership position, you are probably quite good at what you do and you've probably built up significant amount of experience and various skill sets. The danger with that is that you just keep doing more and more and more. So I definitely think one of the key challenges is as you move up to a leadership position, particularly to senior leadership, to get good at saying no, to get good at really understanding what your role involves and what it doesn't to get good at working at the right level. So making sure that you are strategic, you are at a leadership level rather than too much of an operational level. Albeit Sometimes you might have to kind of do that, dive into things. So for me, I think that's a significant challenge and I see it with many leaders with whom I'm privileged to work that aspect around can you really clearly define your role in one or two sentences? Can you tell me what that looks like in terms of verbs? So I'd be looking for things like, leading, inspiring, facilitating, supporting rather than the doing type of words, you know, which are more management than leader. and being very clear as to the priority areas for you within your role. Is it about setting a vision and a strategy? Is it about liaising with external stakeholders? Is it about building clients? Is it about leading your team? So understanding really clearly what are the areas of priority for you. Thank you. I was just listening to you there. I was just, the next question I suppose I had was what'd say about values and, how that sort of informs, your leadership. I know there's a whole section in your, in your book on values, isn't there? I was just curious what your reflections would be for our listeners there. So do you want me to talk about personal values and organisational values? Would that, would that be useful? That'd be brilliant, thank you. Yeah. Okay. So I'll start with organisational values. I think, you know, it's become a bit of a thing, hasn't it, to come up with organizational values and, there are all sorts of brilliant organisations out there that can help you to do that. And you know, organisations now come up with all sorts of wonderful values. The challenge with that is that often they stop there. So the kind of, I always talk about three levels. You've got to go through, you've got to do the agree, you've got to do the embed and you've got to do the reinforce. Many organisations stop at the agree, so they work really well to agree a set of values. They probably have an incredibly good process where they involve everyone within the organisation and they bring people along with them. And everyone's really excited about the launch of the new values. But what they don't do is go through the embedding and then the constant reinforcing. It's a bit like your garden. You might have your garden looking beautifully and one week in the summer because all the flowers have come up, but it's not, you know, you have to keep cultivating, you have to keep working. So really making sure that you are embedding them, that the values are relevant across the board, that they're constantly being reinforced. Are they reflected in, you know, personal development plans? Are they reflected in reward and remuneration? Are they reflected in the internal newsletters where you are sharing really good case studies and stories about when values have been lived and breathed? They should really be fundamental to everything an organisation does. They should be, influencing decision making at all levels of the organisation. And too often we don't see that move it across to personal values. It's a really interesting one, isn't it? Because we talk a lot about organisational values, the chance of an organisation's values absolutely matching your personal values are pretty slim, aren't they really? But so, I think first step, have you taken the time to really understand and think about what your personal values are? It's something which is easy not to do, but in fact is a very, very valuable process to go through. So what are the things that really matter to me? What are the values that are really important to me? And I'll share if, if I may, he might tell me off of this, but I'll share a story from my eldest son. So he's just graduated, although he hasn't because he hasn't had his stuff marked, but will say he's graduated, and he's taking a year off and he's been looking for a four month job before he goes traveling. Quite a few of his peer group are doing the same and a lot of them have been applied for permanent jobs working on the basis, easier to get a job like that. And then they can just resign and off they go. Interestingly, with our eldest son, and this came as a bit of a surprise to us, he is very clear he didn't wanna lie. So he said, I don't want to take a job pretending it's permanent and then disappear. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's fair. I want a bit more integrity around it. So I'm gonna be very clear. I'm looking for a four month job. And to cut a very long story short, despite us saying, okay, good luck, it's gonna be quite hard. Luckily he's managed to find something really good. So that's an experience he's been through, which actually will help him understand what one of his values is, which I think is great. And we don't all have that opportunity. So take the time to understand your personal values, where I think we're then working for organisations where there's too much of a disconnect between the two. It's probably not gonna be a good fit, is it? It's never gonna be a perfect match. But if our personal values are very different from the organisation, you are probably going to have to be something you are not. We talked about belonging earlier, you know, that ability to bring your whole self to the workplace. If you feel that you've got a kind of fit in rather than have a real sense of belonging because your values are different, you are probably not gonna be able to sustain your performance and stay the distance. Thank you. And what advice would you approaching towards the end of our, our time, but what, what advice would you give - I don't know whether maybe you can choose or answer both give to a learning leader or perhaps an experienced leader that you are coaching. What are the sorts of your go-tos, for advice Catherine? Well, you know, I'm gonna do both because there's a really nice connection between the two. So let's start with learning leaders. I think, one of the things that often comes up with people who are early in their leadership journey is a little bit of, am I good enough, to be a leader? Do I have the right skillset? And often that comes because they have experienced leadership in a certain way. So they might have been led by someone who has a certain leadership skillset, or they might also admire people in the public sphere or whatever who lead in a certain way and they might look to themselves and say, do you know what I'm, I'm not like that, therefore I'm not gonna be a good leader. So one of the things I really enjoy, helping new leaders with is to understand that there are all different types of leadership. There is no one way to lead. We're all gonna bring different strengths to leadership roles. So you might have been led by someone who is incredibly good at the vision and the articulation and the inspiring everybody, but actually not very good at the follow through, at the making things happen, at the sticking to the plan, et cetera. So understanding that we're all gonna bring our own skillset to our leadership role, really valuing those and making sure that where we have got those gaps we have made, you know, we're covering those in the team. So that's definitely relevant for learning leaders. The nice link to experienced leaders you can always learn. So, you know, it doesn't matter how much you've been leading for, there are always new tools that you can add into your toolbox. There are always new things that you can learn. And the best leaders that I come across are the ones who never think they're the complete package. They're always mindful of the fact they've got more to learn. And on that, what's the most recent thing that you've learned? Now that is a very good question because I kind of think that I'm learning stuff every single day. So let me think about something which is gonna be most useful for the audience. So over the last couple of days we've been very busy interviewing for new trustees for one of the boards that I'm on. and three of us have been on the interview panel. And one of the things that has really reminded me is that none of us is as good as all of us. So whereas I might have a particular view about a candidate and ask particular questions, the fact that I've got two other very different people on the interview panel who are coming in it from a very different perspective, has really enabled me to remember that, that's absolutely vital in, really understanding a situation better, coming up with a better decision. And as I said, that reminder of none of us is as good as all of us. That certainly resonates with me. I very much enjoy working in small collaborative groups 'cause you do get so much from those environments, I think. Yeah. so very near the end then. I just was gonna ask you, what brings you say 80% of your joy as a leader? Well, I think it probably won't come as a great surprise if my answer is developing people. You know, it comes back to that fundamental interest in human potential human performance and where you feel that you've been able to have a positive impact on developing someone as an individual. I can't think of a greater reward than that. And it may well be linked to the final question for you. I was gonna to ask you, what would you like your legacy to be from the work in your roles on boards when you finally decide that, you're going to, hang up your boots, as it were. Haha and it's an interesting question because I have the privilege of working in you know, with lots of different organisations across many spheres. I often get told that I'm a real positive presence and I think that would be a lovely thing to have said about me. it's not the whole story is it being positive is all very well, but I think it's a very important starting point. So being positive. And then I think really coming back to the mission. It's not just about being positive and aspiring belief, but actually having been able to tangibly really help develop and improve people and make a difference in the areas in which I'm sort of passionate. Thank you Catherine. And thank you very much for joining me today. I've thoroughly enjoyed our discussion and the stories you, you've shared with me and I hope our listeners have as well. And I look forward to you joining us for the next in our series of Ed Influence podcast. Perfect. Thanks much for inviting me on Nick. I've really enjoyed it. Pleasure.
