S03 – E08 with Professor Edward Peck CBE.

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Welcome to the latest episode of EdInfluence. I'm Nick MacKenzie from Browne Jacobson, and I'm delighted to be joined by Professor Edward Peck, vice Chancellor of Nottingham Trent University. Thank you Edward, for joining me today. I wanted to start by inviting you to share the story from your life that will give me a picture of who you are as a leader. Thanks Nick. And, thanks to the invitation to do this podcast. About five years ago, I was approached about becoming vice chancellor at another university and I got as far as having a conversation with the chair of their governors and I didn't pursue it and it made me really think about why I didn't pursue it. And I think three things I reflect on that now. The first was that NTU has been pretty successful since, I arrived here largely due to people who work here, not due to me, but we have been pretty successful. And it just made me wonder whether or not what works here, what the fit that works here would work there. And the assumption I think people make that if you have a particular way of doing things, it's going to be transferable across institutions even in the same sector. And having looked that university quite closely just wasn't clear to me that was the case. Of course, it also makes reflect, though, in that particular, strand of thinking about your own confidence as a leader. How confident are you that you have the bandwidth to take what you did at one place and do it somewhere else? It's a really interesting debate. I think leaders need to have about is this about my own self-confidence or is it genuinely about a belief that fit matters and that what worked here wouldn't work there? So I just throw that one in as the first one. Something about fit and confidence. The second is the reflection that change in organisational culture, really turning it around into a different sort of institution just takes a lot of time. I'd been here five years by that stage and it wasn't long enough in my view. We hadn't done the things that I and the institution are committed to doing. And it made me think that several times in my career, I've got much more interested in the task than, my career itself. This is not about me, is what I came to conclusion. It's about what's best for the institution. And that throughout my career I've always tend to focus on task, rather than what am I going to do next? Or what would be the smartest things to do in terms of if I was pursuing a classical linear trajectory of a career. And the third thing it made me think is it took me a long time, therefore to become a chief executive because if you focus on task rather than curating your own career, then you can go into some highways and byways that take you a while to get back onto the mainstream of how you're gonna take your career forward. And that certainly happened to me, but, and I'll means I'll probably only be a vice chancellor and a chief executive once, which is unusual. I think most leaders achieve sectors in more than one organisation. But actually my reflection also is about wisdom that I just didn't feel ready to do it before I did do it. And I started about 10 years ago at NTU. And it just takes you a long time, I think, to be a successful leader to see a lot of things that happen and learn about how you respond to them and what your might, your appropriate response might be. And I know Nick, you're not interested in aphorisms, but there are two things that came to mind as I thought about this question. One was, you know, you can't know until you can know. And lots of leaders spends lots of time speculating about the future in ways that I think sometimes are fairly idle. 'cause you can't know until you can know. And secondly, I think this is a really challenging one for leaders that doing nothing is doing something that tendency to want to intervene is very strong. And what I've learned through my career, you know, both as a vice chancellor but also before that is sometimes the best thing to do is absolutely nothing. And those two things fit together between, you can't know until you can know, and sometimes you're sitting tight and not intervening is the best intervention. So I guess that's what I'd say about, you know, that story and what it's taught me about being a leader. Fascinating that, doing nothing is doing something to that definitely resonates. Picking up on the first parts of your reflections there, I was curious, reflecting back, do you think there is something that connects your leadership roles between your career? I was only taken by, we said about waiting for the right time, but I was wondering, do you see a connection between what you've been doing? Yes. So my first, career was in the NHS I was a national management graduate trainee in the NHS. And the reason I did that was that when I was 11, I went to a psychiatric hospital, A close relative was, was sectioned into a Victorian asylum. And when I was a graduate trainee, about 12, 13 years later, I went to spend some time in a Victorian asylum and thought blindly, they're still doing this to people. And so I've, I got very interested, this is the task part, not the career part in liberating people from psychiatric asylums. And I spent the first 20 years of my career getting very expert at doing that and leading a national organisation, which was sponsored by government to do precisely that. And of course, these are the most marginalised and disadvantaged people in our society. People who've been spent sometimes years, sometimes decades in Victorian asylums. Often they were very neglectful if not sometimes abusive environments. And there was something about that commitment to people who are marginalised that I think runs through or who all need help to make the most of their, of their lives and their, potential, I think is what runs through. Because at NTU, of course, we're very committed to enabling young people, particularly from poorer backgrounds to use education to transform their lives. So it's a less, I think, dramatic example of that. But it's still, I think the golden thread that runs through how I spent my time. And, well, the odd things I did, of course was completely change careers halfway through. So I spent 20 years in the NHS and around the NHS and local authorities working on the first topic, how do you close these asylums? Then I stopped doing that 'cause I decide you can't spend the whole of your career being defined by what happened to you when you were between 11 and 23. You know, you got to think about that, haven't you? I went into education and I suddenly realised when I came to higher education that there were people who were institutions really committed to helping young people who were disadvantaged, transformed their lives. And one such was NTU. And that goes back to fit, you see. And that's where the fit came from there that fit between that belief in addressing, people who've been disadvantaged and organisational leadership, and the real impact leaders can have upon making those things real for people. Something I'm in interested in terms of the last 10 years of, I suppose your, your career, Edward, is, what would you say about leading in place and your attitude in terms of what you do there in terms of not only your student community, but outside the university walls as it were? Yes. So I think it's the same issue about, about a city like Nottingham of the surrounding towns. And we might come back to Mansfield in a moment. Have some real areas of deprivation, and low social educational attainment, those sorts of issues. So I think it's really important as a university, we reach out to those communities who are on our doorstep. And that's both about how we help some of our local businesses think about recruiting people from different populations. 'cause we give them the skills and abilities to become employees. It's about how we use our research around innovation, to drive. I think those companies success. It's how we work with charities and the civic agencies, local authorities, local hospitals. It's very much being part of that nexus that that network of organisations that makes a place what it is. And universities and NTU, I think is central to that sort of positioning, which can achieve that sort of change. And it underpinned what we did in Mansfield, which was when we went to Mansfield for a conversation, local folk about what could we do in Mansfield, having discovered just how little sociability there is in Mansfield. And folk in Mansfield said to us, civicly has said, well the best thing you can do is come to Mansfield and in some ways turn it into a university town. That's what we've done. And the impact hasn't just been educational, it's been all sorts of different respects. So for me, place is really important. And again, it's connecting it place with that sense of doing the best that we can for people otherwise would not have the advantages or opportunities in life that they deserve. And so my sense is leading in place, you can't always have a perfect business plan and a nicely crafted rationale for doing, there's got to be a, perhaps a leap of faith. There's got to be some optimism, some pushing, some boundaries. How does that resonate with you? Yes, so the Mansfield initiative, I think many of my colleagues were a bit bemused about this because there wasn't really a business plan because we invested a not insignificant amount of money, both in capital and revenue to set it up, but it wasn't entirely apparent. We generate the student numbers to get the amount of payback you'd need to underwrite a a business plan. Now, in fact, we have, and it's starting to pay its way and over time we'll probably wash its face in terms of the investment we made. But that wasn't really the point. It was partly about the social impact we could have, but it was also about re mobilising colleagues in the institution about a new location in which this mission we shared could be exemplified, could really show that we once again are doing what it is that we believe in. And both are important. So both the, the instrumental impact, but also the sense of symbolism, of a commitment of manifesting our values is also important. And you put the two together. And lots of things have happened in Mansfield, which were never envisaged in the original plan because lots of colleagues here have just been caught up with the, this is what the university does and we're gonna do what we doing Nottingham or where else were in Mansfield, whether it's working in primary schools or social prescribing, whatever it might be. So I think we are generally taking all the strength of the university to a town that's never had that kinda asset before. And that's just a fantastic privilege to be able to do that. And to have that impact otherwise probably wouldn't have happened without that real commitment to working with communities that somehow find themselves, say not not thriving as much as they should. And I'm wondering what impact have you seen more broadly in the university, specifically from going into Mansfield and doing that work? Well I think it's a sense of pride actually, in a sense that we are putting into place our values that we talk about being around social ability, about transforming people's lives. And this is a really interesting example because in Mansfield, the majority of students who study with us are mature. They're local, they're therefore, very much studying, programs that are connected to the economy of the town, whether that's engineering or, healthcare. They're doing those programs predominantly 'cause they want, they know they're gonna get a job and the employers want those skills in that community. And I just think that has really caught people's imagination and re-energised the enthusiasm of colleagues around, we really mean this, we really mean what we're saying around this. The other part of it is you need to tell a story about organisation a consistent story over a period of time. And I've been telling the same story. I don't mean story 'cause it's fiction. I mean it's a narrative about what we do as an institution. And the Mansfield initiative just gave real new example of what that's, that approach, that story means in a particular place, a particular time. So again, it refreshed that, not just internally, but also externally. And I think it creates a powerful message and profile now for Nottingham Trent University, which is really important to our staff, to applicants to our communities we work with to politicians, the commentary act as it were. Because you have to, I think in a place like NTU, you have to keep on working on that sense of brand of purpose, you know, you're really making a difference. So for you, do effective leaders, do they need to be good storytellers? Yes, I think they do. Because much of what people believe in is well take, I'll take our strategy, we have a strategy called University Reimagined. The short version is 12 words. The medium length version's about a couple of hundred words. I think it's about, there's a six word version too, if you're really keen. But it's a very pithy document that isn't about saying in indeed what we're gonna do. It's about mobilising commitment to a set of values and broad aspirations. And then once you've got those, I think my task quite frequently is just to ensure people are affiliating with that, you know, strategy is what people do, it's not what other people write down. So it's really important to short, it's pithy and it tells a story that people can actually make sense of themselves and then do what they can do to take that story forward. So many things I now talk about as a leader I didn't even know about until it happened. So most recently we've-, some of my colleagues designed a graduation ceremony for people who are neurodivergent, which is about they design themselves, they come to a place with their immediate family, they can have a gown or not have photos, or not they can have speeches or not. They can do whatever they want. And for those students, it's the difference between having a graduation experience and not having a graduation experience. Again, bringing people are marginalised absolutely. To personalise their experience. And that had nothing to do with me, but when I heard about it, I tell the story. It's a brilliant example of what NTU is about. It is a good story. I wanted to switch tact now, and one thing I was really keen to explore with you is that I think as humans we've been obsessed with leadership from almost since the year, year dot and, you strike me as you're having an interesting musician. 'cause I'm aware in terms of you wrote perhaps a more academic book in terms of on leadership. And then I think at the end of this academic year, it'll be your 10th year in terms of in as the, in effect the CEO of a of a university. And, I've heard you say before in another forum that leadership is a sociological activity. And clearly what struck me as well is, is there's something in your book title as well that felt to me really material to, to your thinking. So your book performing leadership, I was wondering whether you could share a little bit about your experiences and what you've learned through both academically writing about, but also being a leader in the real world. Yes. when I say performing leadership, it's not about acting, it's more about being in role and what that role means to people. So it's more, I sometimes say it's more Rowan Williams than Rowan Atkinson. So what it's trying to get at is that leadership takes place in a context and most leadership writing has focused on the individual. I thought the context does not really matter and the context matters enormously. And, for me it's about defining what does the organisation need at this point in time from me as chief executive to move the organisation in the most positive direction we can go, which we have in some sense collectively. Agreed. So I focus a lot on the followership part of it, and I think followship is a slightly unfortunate term. 'cause actually most of what happens in an organisation is done by people out there in it, whereas this far in which folks on what the leader tends to do, ought to say. And I don't think that is, I think that's massively overstated. And the other thing about leadership for me is that most of the things you think about in terms of great leaders, if you do focus on the individual, they're attribution. So you say they're authentic or they're trustworthy, well, you can't say those things about yourself. So the performance parties is making sure that the attribution people have a view about being trustworthy, honest, committed to their values comes from them. And that just takes a lot of work and a lot of time to build up. I think that degree of credibility and connectivity with people in the organisation where they, they see their performance being consistent, aligning with the values of the organisation, supporting them in their role, and recognising it's actually all about them. Thank you. I've heard you talk I was really take as well actually and another form as well. I heard you talk about the power of combining, setting a compelling vision as well as a focus on, I think you referred to small particulars. Yeah, I was really taken by that. 'cause they're, they're, they're two quite contrasting positions, but you were talking about the power of actually getting them both right? Yeah. So this is crucial to me and that's taken me a long time to get to this conclusion. So I talk a lot about storytelling, about creating a sense of shared purpose. And for me that's something that I think it's from the Bible. I think it's not psalms, it doesn't matter. It's where there is no vision. The people perish. If you don't know what you're trying to achieve collectively, then you're not going to achieve very much. So whether there's no vision, the people perish. But the other one is from William Blake and it's gendered 'cause it's William Blake. So my apologies. But he said he who would do good must do. So in small particulars, if you decide to commit to a vision, you've got to will the means as much as you will the ends. And that means really focused activity around what are we going to do, how are we gonna do it, why when are we gonna do it? And a form of performance management that holds people to account that if you do actually support the values and vision, then you are doing the things in your everyday working roles that are gonna take us there. And this is not a kind of, esoteric or rather abstract notion of people can't just do what they want in pursuit of this vision. They have clear roles and targets which we hold people to. And what we found, of course is people go massively beyond them because they believe in it. But if they don't actually do the fundamentals, then you know, we have to, we have to deal with that. And I and my experiences, organisations are good at one or the other. And I think part of my leadership role is to make sure we are good at both and that I manifest that I believe in both. I talk a lot about the story, but you know, every year I review the performance of every single one of our professors personally. That's fascinating and related to me thinking about connecting, 'cause it's, the university is a large and complex organisation. I think you've got over 40,000 students, something like four and a half thousand members of staff. How do you make sure you are connected to what students and staff are seen at the, say the grassroots level and that they understand you? What, what sort of things do you do to, to connect? That's a really good question. It's one of things you have to learn is you get more senior is how do you lead at a distance when people are going to see you very infrequently. And in very particular settings. So there's two or three things I'd say. The first is that during Covid we introduced, an online Q&A, which 'cause we have all these wonderful facilities, we can do it for really high production standards. So it's not me sitting in front of a Microsoft teams, it is TV broadcast quality and that's important. And we do the Q&A, and anyone can ask anything for an hour every month and they're gonna get a straight answer. But the other thing it's enabled us to do is to start to put into the institution much more the things about myself and my senior colleagues that we want to share that create connections with them. So I talk a lot about my granddaughter who's an absolute delight. I support Everton football club. I own a tractor. I mean, there's a variety of things that, about my personal life, which I talk about. And there are a variety for a reason because, 'cause I want to have something that everyone can see. There's something that affiliates or connects with their lives. So when they see me in the flesh, which of course they do, they can say, well, you know, how's your granddaughter or Everton aren't doing very well, are they, which is a very recurring conversation the last four or five years. But everyone has a way into the conversation that starts the conversation and then they can talk about anything they want. And then you just have to put yourself about as much as you can, to make sure people have the opportunity to see you and say, oh, you know, oh, I'm seeing you in the flesh. I normally see you on the, on the Q&A. Tell me about what's happening with your tractor. 'cause I have a tractor, you know, and, and it only needs to be four or five things, but you have to be really thoughtful, I think, to make sure the four or five things speak to as many people as possible. Again, it's about them. It's not about you. Yeah, I think that's really interesting taking away definitely that breadth. Thinking about the wider world and the environment we're in at the moment. I was just curious, I mean there's, we can come up with lots and lots of quotes on, on leadership and things are often mis-attributed and changed over time. But one I bumped into recently that resonated to me and I was wondering how it lands with you, is a leader is a dealer in hope. Yes. Yes. No, I think that's a really good, that's a really good quote. Someone else once said that a leader is, it's a similar quote, isn't it? Something to do with a leader deals in hope such that people can deal best as possible with the inevitable disappointment. And these are some difficult times, for most organisations, particularly, you know, public sector or close public sector organisations as we are these difficult times financially. And I think it's really important that the story about your core mission, your core activities stays absolutely at the forefront. And the task of leaders is to absorb a lot of that noise, challenge difficulty, deal with it, and let people get on with what they want to be doing in their jobs, which is largely about delivering the students or for stakeholders who it might be. And so you do keep that sense of hope very much alive. And at the same time, through this disappointment, people can cope with it because the sense of hope and optimism and sense of shared belief that the disappointments are gonna be easier to absorb and to carry on doing exactly what you want to do as a member of staff. I think that's, it's a great quote. I wanted to focus a bit more on you as a, as an individual in terms sort of alluding to tough times and tough decisions. What do you do as a leader to look after yourself? So I own a own a large small holding of a small farm, depending on how you think about it. So I spend an awful lot of my time outside my, I grew up on a farm, my dad was a farmer. And I just get enormous, satisfaction from doing repetitive manual horticultural agricultural tasks. There's something about the tangibility, we're in environmental stewardship on my land. So we get paid to manage the land in an environmentally friendly way and and generate biodiversity. And I've planted, you know, hundreds of yards of hedges over the last 10 years. And when you've planted a line of hedges, you've got a line of hedges, it's there. And of course now I can see these hedges 'cause they're, you know, six foot tall and full of birds. So this-, I go back to my roots really, living on a farm. The other thing of course, which that gives away about me, 'cause this is quite true, most kids who grew up in, in the rural environment is I'm quite an introvert. And so when I'm on my own, I'm on my own. And it's that fame, there's that song isn't that Aztec camera, you know, they think I'm lonely, I'm me just alone. And I just get a lot of nurturance from doing things by myself on this farm. 'cause as an introvert, of course, being with people and talking to people and do with people is actually quite tiring. I mean, extroverts get energy from that. Introverts not so much. So I recharge. And I also have a fascination with history. So I read an awful lot of, particularly early modern 19th century, 20th century history, fascinated by history. And again, as a leader, you just learn a lot by thinking about why did that person make that decision. In that that situation, you learn a lot about avoiding hubris reading history. 'cause history is full of people who got hubristic 'cause they got more successful and you don't wanna go there. So taking that theme of thinking is nicely teamed up. Something else I was really interested in exploring with you is how much do you make time to think and what are the sorts of things that you ask yourself, you think about when you are thinking as a leader of NTU or any other, the other hats that you wear? Edward, It's an interesting question. I don't put time aside for thinking in the abstract. I sometimes find that I want to write something about a topic. Sometimes we publish it, sometimes we don't. I only know what I really think when I write it down or find myself saying it. So I will, spend time exploring topics with other colleagues just to think through particularly, I might agree to conference appearances where I know I've got to get my thinking sorted out or I might agree to write something just because it's in doing that I'm much better at looking at all the angles on this topic and saying, fundamentally this is what we're gonna do. But quite often in meetings with colleagues, I don't know what I think until we get to the end of the conversation. And I think that's really important. 'cause if you go in knowing what you think, it rather excludes other people from saying what they think and shaping what you think. I used to work in another organisation for a senior leader and every week at our executive team meeting the task of those who weren't the cheap executive was, he knew the answer and our task was to find it. You know, it's not really very conducive to creating a kind of sense of shared responsibility and creativity. Absolutely. And we haven't got a huge amount of time left, but, I was curious thinking about what advice would you give as a sort of a best advice would you give to someone that was taking on a new leadership challenge? Whether it's a role of leading organisation or within an organisation. What would be your best advice? I think the thing that I learned from coming here was to look carefully at what it is the institution that you are joining to lead believes about its role and its purpose. And then to what extent they are delivering what it is that they believe their role or purpose is. Because I think it's in the gap between those two things. You have the opportunity to most shape the future directional change in the organisation. The other thing actually slightly more, low key is that when I first arrived, my first chair of governors one day, obviously he saw me having a debate with somebody about something and he thought, Hmm. And after he said to me, never wrestle a pig. You know, you'll both get muddy and the pig might enjoy it. It's a brilliant piece of advice. That is brilliant. I love it. I'll definitely get into to remember that. And something you said there reminded me actually from the first guest I spoke to on this series where she said, look for the gaps. Sometimes there's more in the gaps than there is, than what is said. Yeah, it is just, I love-, I agree about the gaps. What's not being said and I'm quite interested in this idea of absence, you know, what's not being said, which things are not being valued. One of the things that people often talk about is cultural change. And my view is cultural change is largely about what people think is valued in the organisation, what, what you're held account for. So that's why I'm very interested in performance techniques so that you can make sure people understand that certain activities will be valued and rewarded both in monetary other ways and others won't. And I think that's how you drive cultural change. It's things around, for instance, EDI, I mean, how do you make sure that people behave in ways that are respectful and tolerant to others when you probably can't change what they think or believe, but I'm sure it's hell gonna hold them accountable for how they behave. And I think it's really important we do that. It's the behavior I think that starts to, As a key to this. And once people start to know they're gonna behave in certain ways and see other people behaving that ways, I think you'll find that's where some of their beliefs and values also start to shift. So I think it's, you know, there's real importance in, in this, you know, small particular part of the leadership role, which a lot of people overlook or think they've left behind when they get to be more senior and they really shouldn't. I think that's a really, a really useful note just to give an, I appreciate this is going out publicly, so there's limits to what you could say, but give, can you give me a sense of the sort of things that you are thinking about this week as a leader, the thing that you'll be spending your time? Yeah, we're thinking quite a lot about the, financial context of the of the higher education sector and what that means to Nottingham Trent University. I'm the higher education student support champion and we've just finished a report for the, minister, on mental health, which I think has just been signed off and probably will be published very shortly. Just getting the final version of that together and thinking about what I'm gonna say to the minister, I'm meeting him next week, that are two things that are currently on my mind. They're completely different. And that's the great thing about being a vice chancellor University. It touches every part of civic life, both locally and nationally. And it's just the variety I enjoy so much and the ability just to dip into so many different things, and either shape them or just learn from them. Going back to our earlier conversation, that civic definitely comes through for me. Edward, from the discussion and sort of the way you describe things, Things. Well yesterday we had a visit from the guy who's written the new biography of Martin Luther King. He was giving a talk in Nottingham, he came to see me and a great discussion about where are we in terms of race relations between the US and the UK and the different histories and how that gets manifest and the different challenges we face. It's just a fascinating, it just meet some really smart, thoughtful people in my role, I think most senior leaders do. And I think you've got to enjoy that and just be curious about everything your organisation does, whether it's bioscience, in this case, sort of American politics. You've got to enjoy all of it and, and look like you're enjoying it and interested and learning something and contributing something you can to those conversations. 'cause people really value the fact you take an interest, have a knowledge of what they do. And I think many people often think that's somewhat kind of phony or a bit naff, but actually it's not. I think it's really important that people believe you are interested and knowledgeable and understand what they do. Taking that word in joy, and you may have already partly answered this, but what would you say, let's say, brings you 80% of your joy as a leader? Oh, I think it's, seeing, again, this sounds corny, but it's absolutely true. It's about seeing other people thrive in the work that they do and the benefit it has. So I went to a relaxed graduation ceremony, I said earlier, people who have a-, when you're neurodivergent, and I talked to one young woman who just graduated and her parents, and they said, we'd have never had this experience of graduation if your, if your colleagues hadn't designed this for them and enabled us to come, just gives me immense pleasure. it's not about me. All of them is create an environment. People have the space and the, and the opportunity to innovate given they know that that's exactly what the organisation wants to do. Personalisation. Exactly. You know, drawing in people who will otherwise be marginalised. I just got immense, you know, I was just really moved actually by the whole, whole experience of meeting that young woman and her family, and hearing what she'd been through when she was here and how she'd overcome some of the challenges. And that opportunity would not have come if my colleagues hadn't designed it and invited me to go and officiate at this event. This very, you know, with one student and a family. It was that extraordinary experience and that just gives me enormous pride actually in the folk who work here. Definitely coming across. I'm unfortunately we're out of time and while there was more questions I'd love to ask, I will, there is one final question I did have for you. And it strikes me in terms of, from what you shared with me today in terms of quite a lot of intentional actions on your part in terms of your reflections. And I was thinking I'd, I accept, it's a rather big question, but I remember seeing Baroness Sue Campbell talking at a conference and she challenged the audience about, as leaders, what would you like your legacy to be? Which whilst a weighty question really struck me as a fascinating question to ask. So what would your response be to that question, Edward? I think I'd want to lead the organisation more confident, prouder in itself recognised as being innovative, probably sometimes slightly maverick and mattering not just the students and stakeholders we work with directly, but the people who think about the future of higher education that somehow into you has act as an example of how a higher education can move forward and be different to what it has been in the past. And I think we need to be very different to what we've been in the past for many of the people who, who need our support. So I think that's what I've looked towards That word maverick, I was just really interested in. Now, could you just say a bit more what was, what's in your mind when you say the word maverick? I know I shouldn't have used the word maverick in my closet. Don't say maverick anymore, but it, 'cause it sounds slightly self-conscious, but I think a lot of what leaders do is self-conscious and they do it on purpose. And sometimes we just address issues or respond to things in ways that are different to how other universities will respond. And we know they're different and therefore we make sure that people have noticed they're different because I think a, I think some leaders think that stories tell themselves and stories don't tell themselves. They have to be told by somebody. And I think there's something to be gained by, if you are credible and you can demonstrate you are delivering on your values, you can get away with actually saying things that are slightly unusual, different, challenging, and say them in ways that draw attention to them. I guess that's what I mean by maverick may, maverick may not be the best word and there's a slight, there's a bit of hubris in that. I've got to accept that too. There's a bit of kind of, yeah, I just enjoy that and I know I shouldn't, but, you know, I just do. And I think it's worth being honest sometimes that you can't always keep your natural, you know, what you feel about life and what you value completely under control, can you? And so Maverick is my slight self-indulgence. I talk about my pride in the organisation. Thank you Edward. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for your candour, in answering the questions. I've enjoyed our conversation. I hope our listeners do as well. And hope you join us on the next episode of EdInfluence. Thanks Nick.