FROM:TODAY

Special Edition: Leadership Workshop Replay With Col. David Richmond CBE

• Jonny de Mallet Morgan • Season 1 • Episode 20

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This special-edition episode is an audio replay of our virtual workshop "Leading From the Front: The Power of Exceptional Leadership" with Col. David Richmond, CBE that took place on 23 July 2024. 

We rarely release our workshop recordings - in fact, this is the first time we've released a recording in its entirety - but this one is too valuable not to. It needs to be shared.

Jonny de Mallet Morgan, David, and our workshop guests explore:

  1. A leaders' responsibility to nurture cultures where people feel safe, empowered and connected to a shared purpose
  2. The fundamental importance of simply being human, showing up and caring for your team authentically
  3. How leaders should be "actively making themselves redundant" by "delegating until it hurts" - moving decisions closer to where the real information lies
  4. The importance of freeing up space to guide, support and provide clarity of direction, rather than getting stuck in the weeds of day to day operations - "spending more time in the crow's nest"
  5. Inspirational non-corporate perspective from David's extensive military experience


About Col. David Richmond CBE:

David was the most senior officer to be seriously wounded in the Afghanistan conflict.

Since then, he's taken Help for Heroes from a portacabin to a household name. He's set up the Office of Veteran Affairs for the UK Government. He's worked with a number of charities and sporting bodies, including Boccia UK and the UK Invictus Games. He's now CEO at the Royal Hospital Chelsea - home to the Chelsea Pensioners - and also (we're very proud to say), one of our brilliant Executive Coaches at FROM:TODAY.

We promise you'll find this packed full of value.

Enjoy. 

Get in touch with your thoughts and comments.

Jonny:

Welcome. Thank you so much for giving us your time this morning, and we might as well start with the star of the show, and the star of the show is David Richmond. Now I'm going to say some things about David that I hope will embarrass him, but none of them are hyperbolic. David had a long and distinguished military career. I'll let him talk and introduce himself in a second, but it's my turn right now. So he had a long, distinguished military career and after leaving the army he was a fundamental part of the success of Help for Heroes. And to quote somebody who used to work for him at Help for Heroes, she said David is the reason that Help for Heroes became a household name. After he left Help for Heroes, yes, he's a consultant and a coach and all those kind of things, but he set up the Office for Veteran Affairs for the government. He's on countless numbers of boards for charities, he's involved in the Paralympics, in the Invictus Games, and presently he is the CEO of the Royal Chelsea Hospital. And last but not least, but maybe least, but maybe not least he is one of our executive coaches, and we are humbled and very grateful for his knowledge and his experience.

Jonny:

For any of you who don't know who I am, my name is Jonny Mallet Morgan and I am the co-founder with FROM:TODAY of , and we are a leadership, communication and performance consultancy. If you're new to leadership, it can be very lonely. If you are well-experienced and I know that there are some very, very experienced leaders here today you know that we learn best as leaders by making mistakes and sharing experiences. So right now, today is an opportunity for the people new to leadership to learn from the incredible experience of some of the people in the room, but also for those new to ask questions and be curious. So, without further ado, I'm going to kick off with my first question to David David, for anyone who might not know you, to David David, for anyone who might not know you and for anything that I missed who are you and where are you from, and what is your experience?

David:

Gosh, you've been far too generous already with your praise and I fear that actually in the course of this morning I'm probably going to say an awful lot of things people already know but maybe just don't realise it. So who am, am I? Well, I you know, without reiterating everything you've just said. You know I, I had a. Um. I'm a grammar school boy brought up in Worcester of Scottish parents. Um, I went to Sandhurst as a sort of um somewhat reckless 18, nearly 19 year old um. I became a and I love my time there. Um, I became your nightmare young officer, full of enthusiasm and energy and just needed somebody to grab me by the collar every now and then and point me in the right direction. And I was blessed with people who did that for me and I enjoyed a really long and fun army career. And I joined at a time when we went to do lots of stuff and I enjoyed all the challenges that brought.

David:

And since then I've got a military background and you've touched on some time working for myself in a more commercial environment.

David:

I've worked in the charity sector, I've worked a little bit in the public sector and now at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, where we've got a sort of blend of three things. We're sort of our articles of association are letters. Patent from the monarch, you don't start. I mean, there aren't too many organizations that start with those. That sets us up in a peculiar way, but we've got quite a chunky commercial entity. We've got a small charitable entity and then around the outside we've got all the representational stuff the public see us do. Um. So you know, I look back on a, on a working career that I've really enjoyed and I, you know, I think I've sort of in one way or another, dipped my toe, or maybe up as far as my knee, into lots of different areas of work and I find myself from time to time sort of rotating around those, looking at things from different perspectives, as I'm sort of contemplating my navel about something that's taxing me, I think.

Jonny:

Great thanks.

David:

David.

Jonny:

So, david, what does exceptional leadership?

David:

mean, I love a description of leadership which I actually heard from a colleague of mine some years ago who actually I, who left the army before I did but and has worked in the civilian world for quite a long time now, very successfully, and he describes leadership as exceptional. Leadership is is the ability to be the person your team needs you to be when they need you to be it, and I think the emphasis there is on need and not not on want, and having the sort of the emotional intelligence to understand what people need of you, and that might be an arm around the shoulder and some encouragement. It might be a coaching conversation. It might be poking them with a sharp stick occasionally, it might be being a tough cop occasionally, but it's understanding what's needed when it's needed and being able to create, I think, in a team of whatever size whether your team is two people or 300 people doesn't really matter an environment which where people feel safe, they feel trusted and it's trusting, um, where they can offer their ideas and challenge your ideas, um, and that they feel safe to do that without ridicule.

David:

And, I think, where you're able as a, as a leader, and this becomes it's important that at any level, but more important, I think, the more senior you get to provide a real clarity of vision, um, of purpose and of expression um, because it's important that people understand what it is they're working, working towards um, and I think, within all of that, if you can create that, then it's. It's creating the space for people on your team to grow and develop um, where you, in a very supportive way, could perhaps allow them and I took full advantage of this as a young officer you're allowed to maybe fail safely, but you're never, ever allowed to become or feel a failure.

Guest:

And.

David:

I think that's a real nuance which is really important.

Jonny:

My expectation, naively, of the army would be that orders are binary or your feelings about your orders are irrelevant, but you spoke quite a lot about psychological safety just then. Am I incorrect? Like, how did you evolve?

David:

I think there is a caricature view of of the military and the army particular, where whoever the boss is declares his intention, gives the orders, everybody else jumps up, goes off and does, and it's just as simple as that. It really isn't. I think it's probably, in terms of deliberate operational planning, the most collaborative consultative environment I've ever been in, because there are so many working parts and you're working to really short, short timelines so often and you've got to be consultative. And you've got to be collaborative and you've got to understand not just the role that you're playing but the roles of people to your left and to your right, to your front, to your back, and how it all integrates. And that's as important in business as it is in the military. So I mean, I think people say, oh, it's an entirely different world. Well, it isn't as much as you're going to get shot at and somebody trying to kill you generally, but actually in terms of how you coordinate and operationalize and intent, um, that uh, consultative, collaborative approach and and working to a common purpose and a common intent is just as applicable in the civilian environment it's certainly my experience as it is in the military one.

David:

Um, yeah, it can be very transactional. At times, if the time is really short and something needs urgently done, somebody will just tell you to go and do it, but there's a good reason for that and that tends to be the caricature that's taken away. But that's not how it really is. I think the planning process, the consultative element of it, the collaboration of it, the understanding, the willingness, the genuine understanding of what other people bring to the party and how they can help you and how you can help them, um, makes it a genuine team effort. Uh and um, and that's what I think where, where the real you become, the whole, becomes greater than the sum of the parts, and that's what's so important and uh, and it's something that I think think can be applied into civilian life really effectively.

Jonny:

Have you noticed struggles within corporate life to adopt this working practice?

David:

Well, yeah, interestingly, and I think I said this to you a couple of years ago, when I was doing a fair bit of of consultancy with organizations, I heard the word words, power and control more often when I was talking to big organizations than I ever heard in the military. They were incredibly hierarchical in very deferential in terms of um, everything was referred up of any of any. Nobody seemed to be able to move without the authority of the person above them and I think, often due to the way certainly the organizations I worked within were structured, utterly disinterested in what was happening with the teams on their left and their right, totally disinterested because it doesn't affect their profit and loss. So why should we be interested? Well, that's a great way of being hugely inefficient and ensuring that you continue to work as your individual parts and not as a whole.

David:

So, yeah, I did. It really did surprise me the extent to which um decisions were drawn upwards so often in um certainly organizations I worked alongside whereas I believe very firmly that you, you place the authority and the responsibility to make decisions right beside, where the information is and where the knowledge is um and um and therefore do you almost delegate till it hurts until you empower people, trust them, let them get on with their job. If you, if you're employing and we all think we do, if you're employinging good people, let them get on with their jobs. Your role as a leader is to understand those areas where actually it does need to come up and be coordinated much more broadly across the piece and to move obstacles out of the way, to be a support and a guide where you need to be, essentially, to set the stage for them to perform on and to perform really well. Uh and um, and not necessarily yourself. Be the key player, the guy who's going to score the goal, because that doesn't actually matter.

Jonny:

Um, what you should be doing is creating the environment so that they can score the goals something you said to me, maybe five years ago, which I've parroted around countless businesses, david, uh, not claiming it as my own, but you, you always said to me um, a leader should be actively making themselves redundant.

Jonny:

Yeah, that seems obvious, right, but also very frightening, right. If I'm working in an environment which I've seen countless times, that doesn't embrace it might say on the wall, on a plaque on the wall, but doesn't embrace empowerment and doesn't embrace failure, if I make myself redundant, then it's a chance that I could lose my job. It's a chance that I could lose my job. So now, I agree with your statement Don't get me wrong but I'm challenging it. And so my question really is what advice would you give to someone who's working at I don't know, global Bank, right, has read a few books on leadership, read a few watched leadership, read a few, watched a few ted talks on servant leadership or whatever it may be purpose-led servant leadership, coaching, whatever. What advice would you give to someone who's in there in at the beginning of their leadership journey and wants to set a team up with that psychological safety that you suggest?

David:

yeah, I, I think, um, that's a good question. I think, um, it's for a newly, somebody newly into the game, I think, and I saw somewhere in the comments somebody mentioned imposter syndrome and I think, um, uh, new leaders especially suffer slightly from imposter or heavily from imposter syndrome. I think from time to time, we all do it's every now and then you think, why me? How, why am I here? Why have they chosen me? Um, and I, my advice to somebody early on is is you wouldn't be in the role if people didn't think you could do it. So have some confidence in yourself, because other people clearly do.

David:

Um, secondly, spend a lot more time listening than you do talking, and but listening with the intent to understand, not listening with the intent to offer an answer, because more often than not, people don't want an answer necessarily. They just need you to listen and question, be curious, you digest what you're hearing, understand the sort of tapestry that starts starting to build up around your team about your, the environment you're in, and and people talk a lot about listening. Yeah, we all say we're going to listen, but, but be a good listener, and and why do I say with an intent to understand, not an intent to offer an answer, because actually, if you're, how often do we experience in our time, when you think somebody's come to listen to you, that you're halfway through telling them what you want to tell them and they've already jumped to tell you the answer? It may well be you know the answer, just wanted to make them aware of the problem and therefore, when you start leaping to the answer, you've just stopped listening, and that's really important. I think the other bits of advice I'd give is to take some time for yourself to be clear on the purpose and the intent and your purpose as a team and the intent.

David:

What is it you want your team to achieve? I mean, some will call it a vision. I mean a vision or an intent. It doesn't need to be dressed up as a vision, but what is it you're trying to achieve? And then focus your attention on outcomes, not activities.

David:

The default for lots of young leaders, in fact, the default for all of our senior leaders, is to focus on an activity, because actually they've probably been involved in that activity in the past and they feel they're a bit of an expert in that, and they may well be the case, but you're not paid anymore to focus on the activity. You're paid to focus on the outcome, and you've got people who are in your team, probably with rare exception, newbies aside or people you may have the odd concern about who can get on with the activity. Yeah, I mean, I think it is.

David:

Ironically I was just about to say the other thing that's really important is not to get distracted by the white noise, but try and keep yourself connected to the signal that's coming through, not the white noise. In any business, in any organization, there's a lot of white noise, uh and um. If you're clear on your purpose and your intent, holding firm to the signal and listening to the signal is a lot easier. If you're not there, why? If you're not sure why you're there or what you're trying to do, that becomes so much more difficult.

Jonny:

Um and yeah, yeah, question then, just on that. Sorry to interrupt. Um, so, identifying a vision, a purpose, intention is obviously absolutely vital, uh, and without it, things, uh uh, lose direction. Obviously, you speak about the value of listening and active listening, or chris calls it passive listening, because active listening seems like you're doing something, and certainly within my uh journey.

Chris:

I prefer a present listening present that's me being pedantic.

Guest:

I can get into it.

Jonny:

Right, but certainly I resonate in my coaching. Sometimes I can ruin a session by speaking right and under-deliver for a coachee because certainly sort of naively, I'm too keen to make an impact right and say something inspirational and when I get into that space I drop the ball. So my question is how can someone practice active listening or present listening?

David:

um, well, I'll tell you what I do and I'm not sure if it's, if it's, um, the right way, but it seems to work for me is I often I tend to walk around with a notebook everywhere. I mean I, because I'd scribble stuff down, but if I think I really actually want to, genuinely, um, I really need to listen. Now I don't take it with me, because then I stop writing and I start listening and I'm much more, I feel personally, I'm much more engaged, and then the challenge, the pressure's on me to remember the key things that were said to me. So I tend to do it here, especially because this place is quite a complicated organization. For lots of reasons, I I, if I've ever got a choice between half an hour going through the emails I haven't answered yet or read yet, or going and walking around. My instinctive idleness tells me go and walk around the email. The emails will still be there when I get back. Um, sadly they are, uh, but um, I go and take a walk around, I park my bum on people's desk and I chat to them. I never take my notebook because when I go for a walk around, I'm walking around because I want to listen to people. I want to understand what they're saying, I want to understand what their concerns are, um, and more often than not I don't offer any answer at all, unless it's an easy one um, because I'm just trying to stitch together what. What's going on in the place, what's happening today, what's going on in somebody's life?

David:

People, people will say to you, you know, you try and keep your um, personal life and your business life are entirely separate, but what a load of cobblers, total cobblers. I mean I'm not saying you sort of you. You bring all your, your household bills to work and you start paying them when you're at desk. That's not what I mean at all, but what I do mean is very, very few of us vanishingly small number, will never mention work at home. Very, very few of us again, a vanishingly small number will never mention work at home.

David:

At work, the two things are intrinsically linked and if you can understand as a leader because I think I've said it a few times in the past, certainly leadership is a deeply human business. You lead human beings. You don't lead machines and bits of paper. You lead people. You manage all the other stuff. You can only lead people if you understand them, if you know them.

David:

They're not all made like you, they're not all wired like you, they're not all wired like each other, and, without being nosy and prying into people's private lives, can you spend some time understanding what it is that's going on in somebody's life that might be causing them a problem, maybe not allowing them to perform at their best? Can you resolve it? If you understand it, you could go away and think about it later, and therefore, sometimes, when you take the walk around and you park your bum in the corner of somebody's desk, you're not talking about work. You might be talking about what they did at the weekend or last night, and out of that will come other things, and that all starts to build a picture up about what's how your team and the people in it tick, and that's really important.

Jonny:

Um so, given today's working environment, right, you obviously work at some of the most beautiful buildings I've in london and you have a population that live there. However, a lot of the people on on our call right now are all over the all over the world, really, yeah, and have organizations which operate all over the world. How do you park your bum on someone's desk if they are in dubai?

David:

yeah, I mean one of the things I've done in the past in roles which have people distributed. You're all working remotely in one way or the other, and actually, whether you're in dubai or whether you're in newcastle doesn't matter, you're not here, um, so the distance becomes almost irrelevant in that sense.

David:

Um I I used to do um uh 45 minute calls with the team, where I had no agenda whatsoever um other than to say a few words to start a conversation off and then find out where the conversation went. So it was a sort of an online version of walking the floor, um, and it was interesting how many things would come up, often obliquely, and you could follow it up with a one-to-one discussion sometime later if you felt that was the right thing to do. But you got that. You've understood the temperature of the of the place, um, and what was on people's minds and um, and in the course of it, of course, business stuff comes up too, and you might you might get to understand this that maybe they're not as clear on what the next key steps are. They're not not particularly clear what their role in whatever's happening next is, and you can you can seek to clarify it there okay.

Jonny:

So david brown says david, would you like to ask this question or would you like me to?

Guest:

okay, that came far quicker than I expected. Um, I'm quite happy to answer the answer question. Ask the question. Um, I mean to start off with, you gave a really good introduction, which is to say you learn from mistakes as leaders and then you express those mistakes. I've actually, you know, made speeches out of my mistakes. So, you know, I really do believe in that and one of my mistakes is about trust and I I did all the things that you talked about and how I trust and realize actually it's not just trust. You've got to have vigilant trust, because not everybody acts exactly the same as you and if you don't have vigilant trust, you're the one that's going to end up holding the can at some point or other if you're not careful. Because if you're running a really, really big organization, you can't trust everybody. There's got to be some framework around it. Someone has said and discuss, what's your view basically?

David:

yeah you, you highlight a really pertinent issue. You know you, I personally I always start from trusting in the good intentions of people. I always start from there, um, and and generally I've found that to be the right thing. Of course, there are times when you discover there are one or two people, as you've said, david, that perhaps don't live up to that in the way you'd like, and therefore I've never heard the expression vigilant trust before, but I like it. I think you do need to. That's probably as good a way of expressing it as any.

David:

However, I think the thing you then have to ask yourself is why don't you trust them and what don't, rather than just let a sort of slightly uncomfortable and difficult relationship run its course? What are you going to do? What is it about them or their behavior or their working practice that you don't trust? And then there needs to be something. You need to do something about it. So I think that's sort of where my logic takes me. It's very easy, I think, in organizations to say, well, it's just the way it is. Well, it's just the way it is because people have allowed it to be the way it is, and that's the role of a leader not to let it just be the way it is unless you're entirely happy with it.

Jonny:

So David here and oh, sorry, maybe you would like to come back.

Guest:

David, I interrupted. I think the problem, the way around it, is you don't know what you don't know. You don't know that you can't trust somebody in some circumstances until actually the problem has actually happened, and then you're dealing with the problem. So I think actually what you end up having to do is evidence-based trust. So you're still looking for the output of something. You want the evidence behind that judgment and that decision is one of the ways of dealing with it. And then, once you've had that evidence and you have it on a repeated basis, you then let go of the string more. But I find that's one of the most difficult issues about leadership. I actually believe you can't just go around and say I trust everybody because you will come a cropper, you've got to. You've got to. You've got to have some bit of intuition, but you've got to have some evidence based around it as well yeah, no, I think you're dead right.

David:

I you know the evidence base is important. I think that's slightly at the heart of what I was saying. Why don't you trust them? What is it that you don't trust? What's the evidence to suggest it? That's sort of where I was heading with that, but I agree it's difficult and in remote organizations it's more difficult.

Jonny:

But I think the quicker you close with it, the better, inevitably sorry, one second, chris, for both of you, just on this topic, because both davids have been involved in absolutely huge, huge organizations right at the top. When you are setting an expectation of behavior or an expectation of culture within a smaller organization where nearly everybody knows each other's names, I think it's, I think it's easier to hold people to account on that behavior. Therefore, your trust is, with condition, right. This is my expectation, this is our expectation. If you cross that line, that expectation breaks down, the trust breaks down and we have to have a conversation. How do you establish that consistent level of behavior in organizations, um, uh, the size of which you guys have been involved in?

David:

um, that's, that's interesting, it's, it's a challenge I think we're sort of tackling here. I think one of the challenges here although we're, but we're all on one one will be quite big site. We we've got so many very distinctly different groups. We've got an infirmary with registered wards, we've got essentially independent living organization, we've got a commercial entity, we've got this charitable entity, we've got all the paraphernalia you need to run a big site. All that kind of stuff, all the paraphernalia you need to run a big site, all that kind of stuff. And those sort of organizations.

David:

This sort of organization attract into each team very, very different people, very different backgrounds, very different expectations. And you can't as I think in the role I'm currently in, I can't possibly pay close personal attention to every single employee in every different part of the organization. That's just not. It's just not a starter. And therefore the work, my early work, I think, here and it's something I've done in other places is I focus on with the, with my immediate leadership group. What are our expectations, what are the things that we expect our employees to do? What does that translate into in reality? And therefore, what are we expecting of each other to do about it when people fail to meet it.

David:

The bit about that I don't like is it's very negative. If you don't follow this, then this is going to happen. What about the good performers? So what happens to the people who are performing really well, that they're consistently delivering what you want them to deliver and what, what, where? Where can you go with that?

David:

And that's an equally. It's equally a challenge, because if you're not rewarding and I don't necessarily mean financially rewarding if you're not recognizing actually it's probably a better word if you're not recognizing really good work and people who really are in the boat with you, rowing with you to the same place, then you'll lose them potentially, or they will switch off and their performance will come off the top. And that's as big of that's. Probably in a high performing organization, that's a bigger challenge, because there's a natural set of consequences to people who are not performing well. It's more difficult for those who are consistently performing well, who you want to keep, because there are natural constraints around what you're able to do and I think human nature seems to focus us in on the bottom end.

Chris:

And we sometimes ignore those who are at the top end of performance who are really important to us. That's interesting, I'm just mindful. Sorry, johnny, there's a few. Paul's had his hand up for a little while. There's a couple of questions in the chat which I wondered if, um, you'd like to address them.

Guest:

That, paul yeah, thanks, chris, um, excellent session, guys, um, and. And thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience, david I, I think the um your point about starting with a belief in the good intentions of others is a very good starting point, because most people do have good intentions, don't they? I just wanted to build, if I may, and get your thoughts on this point about trust. It's a subject I've been fascinated in for years. My point about trust draws on some research by Cuddy Fisk and Glick into social perceptions, where they identified that what drives us to have a perception of someone is, number one, their warmth. Are they warm towards us? Which, if you think about it evolutionarily someone coming over the hill. It's kind of natural, isn't it? What are the intentions of this person?

Guest:

Back to your point on intentions, and the second point is competence. Does this person have bad intentions and are they capable of killing me? So if it's a two-year-old throwing a strop in the shop and they're kicking you in the shin, then you know it's no biggie, is it? But if it's someone who's capable of bringing your business or organisation to a halt, then it is a big issue. So to me it's that combination of warped, their intentions. But really it's about competence, isn't it? I mean, if you're going to have an operation I've had a few on my spine, I've got titanium joints in my neck you really want the most competent person, don't you? So to your point about let's not forget the competent people.

Jonny:

I think there's also loads of data about people. The thing I think is dangerous to think too much about warmth as as a as a, it has to be in combination with performance, because you get all these secret people who are working very hard towards your purpose and don't sing and dance about it and aren't particularly what warmth warm, but require your loyalty and your trust and um and and I think the really interesting point, david, which you brought up is um, how responsible are we as leaders for degrading that trust? Because I think really really easy to be like I'm trusting, I'm a trusting, lovely human being with really clear visions and really clear expectations, but I think also we are responsible for degrading it often yeah, I think so.

David:

I don't get it. It's really interesting when you, when you dig into the corporate antibodies in organizations, that that these extraordinary processes that big organizations put in place in order to have a decision made, and what it so often seems to add up to to the people who are in in need of the decision is a lack of trust. Why are you not trusting me or us to make the decision that we are closest to um now? Clearly there'll be some. There will be some decisions which have bigger consequences, and why are you not trusting me or us to make the decision that we are closest to Now? Clearly there will be some decisions which have bigger consequences and actually need to be drawn up further up the sort of hierarchy for decisions to be made. But I think that my earlier comment about your delegation and authority and put it beside where the information and the data is um is, is still a valid one. And I remember I mean I've done this a few times as groups you say to room full rooms full of people. You put your hand up if you like being micromanaged, and of course nobody's hand goes up, but your hand up if you've been micromanaged or you are being micromanaged and all the hands go up, um, and generally they're all sitting in amongst the people who micromanage them. Um, so it's, and what it does it does foster a real sense of a lack of trust.

David:

You don't trust me to do this, and I think that disempowerment is is really corrosive and it's and it adds friction to to an organization and it slows down your speed at which you can make decisions unnecessarily, and it binds people up in in. It eats up time, the one thing you've got no more of you can control. You can't add, you can't give yourself any more time. We've only got 24 hours in the day. Let's say we need to sleep for some of it. That gives you 16. You know you don't have any more time. Why are only got 24 hours in the day? Let's say we need to sleep for some of it. That gives you 16. You don't have any more time.

David:

Why are you faffing about worrying about a decision which largely can be made by people several rungs of the ladder below you, who are closest to the issue, who have the information to hand, and all they're asking is for your approval for them to do the thing they suggested to you that they should do in the first place. You know that just takes up time and effort, and one of the things so many leaders will say is I don't have time to think about the future, I'm too busy planning and working on the current and the present. Well, you're doing something wrong. Create the space to give yourself time to think. As a leader, you're paid to think. I mean, there's a reason.

David:

There's an easy sort of slightly silly example you why did we have crow's nests up the masts of ships in the 19th century? So that you had somebody who could see further ahead and provide that information to the ship's captain and to see threats that were further away. Now, if the fellow you sent up to the crow's nest spent his whole time looking at the deck and what everybody was doing on that, they're completely and utterly wasting their time. You might as well stand on the deck and do that so, as you climb the greasy corporate pole, if you find yourself continually looking at where you used to be and managing that, you're doing the wrong thing.

David:

You're you. The people are firefighting so often because they're not seeing the stuff coming at them. They're too busy. They're too busy with the present. They haven't. They haven't considered the threats, the risks, the challenges, and in a sort of a world which is ever more interconnected, ever more volatile, ever more uncertain, ever more complex, you need to be looking ahead, you need to be looking at the horizon, not looking at your feet, and increasingly for leaders, particularly senior leaders, that becomes a critically important factor of their work.

Chris:

Thank you. I can see quite a few questions building up, so I want to try and get to as many as possible. Um, so, gary, uh, you had quite a pressing question in relation to the discussion just now. Um, and then we have shona and amanda a question a little early on. So, g Gary, if we start with you, Thanks, thanks, chris.

Guest:

One of my expectations coming in was I was desperate for a definition of leadership that was in layman's terms rather than a textbook, and, david, I think you gave that brilliantly. I love how you talked about how leaders need to kind of be the sort of leader that their teams need them to be as well, and your point on psychological safety. I think I read recently McKinsey suggested that only 26% of leaders really understand and can create psychological safety. So we've got a long way to go. The conversation seems to have now almost maybe unintentionally creating a civil war between compassion and accountability, and I and I think it's a I think it's a really good debate because you're you're talking about being there, putting a right, an arm around someone, also being clear on intent and expectations, and I love your analogy of the crow's nest and too many leaders looking at what they used to do. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on on yes, we need to keep people accountable, but we also need to like understand them for who they are as well.

David:

that that compassion and accountability equation, if you like yeah, I mean I, I think, um, I mean, you put gary, you put your finger on something. It's always a challenge. Um, I think you can be a compassionate, understanding, supportive leader and still challenge people to meet aspirations, targets and to be accountable. I think very often, though, in one of my observations about how accountability is used or the term accountability is perceived, is that so often people say, all right, gary, you're accountable for whatever it is, and you, you almost know, around a board table at that point people say, leaving back, thinking thank God, that's not me, and they sort of all look at Gary Well, it's. And the implication is if, if, if it goes wrong, you're to blame, you're the person we're holding accountable, rather than it being used in a much more positive sense, which is okay, gary's accountable for this, and we are going to get behind, behind him and make sure that he, he gets that ball over the line. So you're, and and therefore that sort of much more team orientated approach to some, to accountability, I think is is really important.

David:

Um, uh, I mean, that's not to say that everything has to be soft and fluffy. Of course it doesn't. There can be some pretty clear and appropriate targets and expectations about it. But I think it's how it's managed and how it's applied that becomes the differentiator. Be understanding where there are challenges, be supportive about helping clear some stuff out of the way, giving people the advice and the guidance they might need to resolve the issues, but still hold them and their teams to account for delivering on it.

David:

But it's a team effort, not just an individual one. I can picture some time particularly most noticeable on videos of meetings sometimes where there's that sort of accountability discussion goes on, people lean back and then all you can see are people's shirt cuffs because everybody's leaned back out the screen, leaving the poor soul in the middle on front and center. Um, and that's a, I think, a sort of a cultural, um, a cultural issue as much as anything else. But the boss, the leader, whoever it is, who's who's at the top of that particular tree, can help bring the team together around it. Does that answer? A slightly long-winded answer, but does that sort of get to it?

Guest:

no, it's really helpful.

Jonny:

I think the way you describe it it's a it's it's a vendor, it's a venn diagram, rather than being a binary choice yeah, that's, very helpful thank you, yeah harry, I read a uh, a um study, I think it was out of the university of texas, where they studied, uh, the link between compassionate people. What, um? I think they said I'll find it for you and I'll send it. But they basically studied 8 000 people and they wanted to find a connection between the most compassionate people on the planet. Was it religion, was it purpose? Was it socioeconomic situations? What was it?

Jonny:

And the only thing which combined all of them? That they all had these really, really super compassionate people with rigid boundaries. So walk through this door right and I will give you all I can, but cross this line and I won't. And I think that's quite a profound sort of way to look at leadership. And why, why, why? Articulating expectations and boundaries and accountability is so valid and supports what David is saying behind. Well, how can we get you to put the ball over the line, so to speak?

David:

Yeah, I think also not being misled by the physical appearance of some people in terms of how much they seem to care. You know there are individuals in teams and we'll all have we'll all have met them where their heart's on the sleeve and blimey, you know you're left in no doubt as to how supportive or sometimes or otherwise they are, because it's there and they're driving it and it's visible. There are also some people whom their heart is buried deep within them but they don't care any less. They care just as much, but it manifests in a different way and when it all perhaps starts to get difficult and turns turtle, they suddenly step out of the shadows because they really do care and they're there and they're helping and they're sort of neck deep in whatever it is you're trying to resolve. And I think you know reading the ability to sometimes see beyond the sort of veneer that people put on is an important leadership skill, I think.

Chris:

I'm just saying that. Amanda had a question a little while back around. Going back to the point around trust and what if someone doesn't trust you because you're too proactive? Um, amanda, do you want to ask that question?

Guest:

uh, yes, sure, thanks for that, chris. Um, yes, question on the trust uh matter that we were discussing. So, um, it could be also a cultural thing. But I I'm very proactive, very accountable, assertive, hardworking and I have high standards. And it happens to me a few times where, out of enthusiasm for wanting to achieve big things and really wanting to serve, I go above and beyond by being over proactive and then that impacts the trust towards me because people may feel threatened. I'm trying to take their job instead. So who's wrong there? You know? Can I, can I balance it out in some way?

David:

um, what is the balance really, yeah, um, I suppose the trust will be built on evidence, won't it? Trust will be built on what people see, and if what you say is what you get, then, sorry, what you see is what you get, then that's important. If there are other motives at stake, people are really perceptive. I think back, actually, when I was a commanding officer. I was blessed with some really talented company commanders, so the one one level down from for me as the ceo, one of them, though um talented man. He was, uh, um, his, his soldiers, his company, saw through him in about two-fifths of a nanosecond. He was very capable, but it was all about him and he would work very hard and he'd do. He would be front and center for lots of stuff, and it was all very impressive, but they didn't work for him. They did exactly what he asked them to do and nothing more, and they did it very well. But when things started to go slightly aw and they do a lot on some of the challenging things that we did we were getting a good example. We were getting ready for the Northern Ireland marching season, so this is a good number of years ago, but a lot of public order, riot, training and really dynamic situations and very high-pressure exercises where there's a lot of violence dished out. Even on excise, his company did exactly what he asked them to do, but absolutely not a jot more. So when the rioters started to not respond in the way that he wanted, they didn't react to it. They could have done. You could see them almost thinking no, we're not doing that for him.

David:

The other three companies really good men as company commanders. They were in it for the right reasons. They were motivated by their company doing well. They were motivated by their people and doing the right thing for their people. And when those same sort of things started to happen to those companies, the companies responded they didn't need to be told. And I took that away as a sort of life lesson, let a leadership lesson that people will see through you. So if your motivations for going above and beyond are all about you, people will start to get quite suspicious. If your motivations for going above and beyond are about the team and the result, then people will understand that they might not see it straight away the result. Then people will understand that they might not see it straight away. They might be suspicious to begin with, but they'll see it for what it is, sooner or later thank you thank you, david.

Guest:

Obviously I I was coming from um the position where they've essentially already seen your motivation. That it's good motivation you know. So that's where it's quite difficult, because even when you've shown that motivation, sometimes it can be a bit challenging. But, um, thank you, that's uh.

Jonny:

That's answered my question david, one of the mistakes I see so many corporations make is that and this is very famous that they promote because someone's good at their job and then and then, uh, and the person they promote has no interest in leadership, no experience of leadership. How responsible is an organization to create those leaders before promoting?

David:

I think that the easy and probably the right answer is the responsibility to equip people properly to do the job you're asking them to do, um, and set them up for success. The reality, the reality is so often that they're they're selected on their technical skills or their experience in that role in previous um, previous positions, where you identify some potential to take the next step. And the leadership bit gets overlooked because big organizations are so often looking solidly at the bottom line what's your profit and loss look like? What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? Um, and they will. They will connect you know certain management actions you might take to differences in the bottom line and differences in performance. What they overlook actually is perhaps the um, is the, the the development of people as leaders equips them better to bring teams together, to get the team to deliver um as a, as a whole, not just the sum of its parts, uh and um, to have some of the skills that might allow um, some of the skills and understanding that will allow leaders in increasingly senior positions perhaps to carve a little bit of time out of their diaries every day or every week or whatever, to do the thinking which will set us up for the future um and um. You know, you look at this, the successful businesses around in almost any, any organization, any um sector rather, and the ones that are successful are those who've got the next, the next great product. Then they're looking ahead, they're doing the next thing well, as well as the current thing. Well, well, if you assume you've got people who can do the current thing well anyway, who's doing the thinking, who's looking forwards, who's allowing? How are you going to allow your leaders, your team leaders, your leaders, your team leaders, your director, your divisional leaders, to have the time to think, the time to actually lead some, identify and lead some of the major muscle move changes that are required to ensure organizations are fit for the next five years?

David:

I'm always struck by how many the, the opposite of making, of actively working to make your yourself redundant, um is to, is to, is to work in order to make yourself indispensable. Well, nobody's indispensable, and if you're trying to work to make yourself indispensable, you're doing the wrong thing, because that's when you get to that point, that's when you can't put your phone away, when you go on holiday, your phone's ringing in the middle of the night because nobody else will make a decision, because you're the only person, apparently, who could possibly do it, and that's not good for an organization, it's not good for you and actually what it tells me is it's set up wrong. You need to carve the time and the space out as a leader to do that. Thinking, and I keep saying it and I sound like a scratched old record. I'm conscious of that because it is so important how many of us are real slaves to our diaries that actually you go from one appointment to the next appointment, to the next appointment, to the next one, and all you've done is you've filled your notebook up with things you're supposed to do and actually created no time to do any of it or even to pass any of it on. That's an error. That's not the sign of a well managed organization. That's the sign of sort of slightly organized chaos.

David:

So let's get some of these things taken away. Create the space here. I've stripped out a whole load of meetings that were just consuming hours of people's time with the wrong people at them, to the senior people at meetings which should have been being done two, one, two, maybe even three levels down. Get out of it. Let people get on, you guys on the sort of leadership team we need to be thinking about. But what's coming next? What are the threats to us? What, where? What does next year look like? What does a year after that look like? What does our business model look like? Um, you know, how are we going to make that bit of the commercial entity profitable, or as profitable as that piece of it that you know? Those are the sort of conversations the leadership team need to be having. Not, not, not about this blood blooming shift rotors and you know how many beds are filled in the infirmary you know you have to be so, so intentional about the environment that you create.

Jonny:

Everything has to be done with intent and that requires space. Like to be present as the leader, and you have to give people within your teams that, uh, empowerment right to make decisions, as you said, to be fully present within their work, to be themselves, to know where they're going with purpose. Yeah, desperately care about their work, right?

David:

yeah yeah, and strip back a load of stuff. I mean other things we've I've done here I mean find out rightly or wrongly shortly, I suppose is we had nearly 60 KPIs. Well, the very fact there were nearly 60 of them meant that very few of them had a K in them. We've now got 12 at top level. I mean there are other ones managed at other levels. We had a crazy number of board-level risks, most of which were not board-level risks. We've now got 10, which is a conveniently round number. The aim wasn't to get to 10. It's just when we stripped them back, we got to 10.

David:

We've got five clear priorities. If everything's a priority, everything's a risk and everything's a KPI, it means that nothing's a priority, nothing is a risk and nothing's a KPI. So strip it back. Get back to what's important. What do you want to spend your time on? Where do you want your organization to focus its efforts? What is really important to you? What is it that's going to if you're a purely commercial organization? What is it that's going to if you're a purely commercial organization? What is it that's going to really drive your bottom line? What's going to help you get there? Who's doing that? Thinking as opposed to just managing it, because if you just manage it, you're just going to continue to have versions of what you already have. You'll never have anything different thank you, david.

Jonny:

Now we have available time left of 30 minutes. I just want to open the forum for anybody to ask any questions.

Chris:

Johnny, could I pick up on just an earlier question from, I think, Milaj, the manager of a remote team? Would you still like to ask that question?

Guest:

the manager of a remote team. Would you still like to ask that question? I feel great. A very nice conversation you had here. It's really inspiring for me as a leader as well.

Guest:

I'm not like something. Let's say I work in this field, that I'm now leader like for eight years, but I still have comments on my work and I still kind of like sometimes I'm feeling not, let's say, confident to continue my leadership as I am leading at the moment. So, as I wrote here, as a manager of a remote, international, diverse team of 11 people at the moment, I successfully cultivated a culture of helpfulness and trust and support over the past year. So that means that my team values our collaborative and open environment past years. So that means that my team values our collaborative and open environment. Whenever they come for another environment, they always kind of feel a bit more courageous to open themselves and to say what they think about anything that we are doing at the moment.

Guest:

So, however, I received feedback from people above me, which means the CEO and the other people that are above me. Feedback from people above me, which means the CEO and the other people that are above me, suggesting that I'm not perceived as a strict or authoritative manager. These perceptions actually arise because some of the team members are brave enough to communicate honestly and directly, even with other teams head of or senior colleagues. So so, yeah, what's what's the the thing that I'm doing wrong here, and do you have like any suggestion? Should I, let's say, communicate directly with my team about this point, or what's what's the deal here?

David:

it's interesting when they say you're not a strict or authoritative leader or manager, do you take that as a criticism or praise? Because you can take it.

Guest:

Either way. I'm not sure how to take it, honestly, because sometimes I feel like, okay, is it like something wrong? Wrong that I'm doing with my team? Because, honestly, like, sometimes the truth hurts and uh, sometimes some head-offs, uh, and managers of different teams get hurt by the, the opinion and the brave communication from my team members.

David:

Yeah, I mean I'd be really pleased if a team that was prepared to speak tooth to power, I'd be really proud of a team that felt it could challenge you, that they have the sort of safety, security and the environment where they can be challenging. Um, the flip side of that is, of course, that once the challenge is made and you've either changed your decision or stuck with it, that people get on with it and stop stop challenging. There comes a point where that has to, has to stop. But, um, you know, I think, get used to criticism. You know if you're, if you're in a, if you're in a leadership position, people are going to take aim at you, um, because things, some of the decisions you will have to make, um, are not going to be popular with everybody, and that just comes with the turf, and I know that's a.

David:

That's a really easy thing to say and it can be quite, quite hurtful sometimes when you hear things, or makes you pause, gives you pause for thought when you hear certain things, um, especially when, in some cases, you know them to be wrong. But some of the things you will hear, the people will say you're probably right, um, and you need to sort of give that some thought and move on. But I think if you've created a team where you you seem to have the culture you describe, that people will challenge and you're doing that in a way which is perhaps collaborative, consultative it's, it's based on a on safety, trust, competence and lots of other those you know we could throw lots of um, of those sort of good words into it then you're probably in a good place. I wouldn't worry about it. If you're also delivering the results people want you to deliver, um, go with it, be confident great.

Guest:

Thank you very much, david any other questions for david?

Chris:

sorry, uh, just picking up on that earlier question from uh shona. So she mentioned uh the importance of leaders being generous and mentoring folk to grow and contribute. Shona, shall I just pass on to you.

Guest:

Yes, thank you, david. I was picking up on something you said right at the start, but I think you alluded to when you were at Sandhurst, how people brought you on were generous with with their expertise or or with their, with their knowledge, and I think one of the things when we were talking about compassion that that's not the way I. I look at it and my job isn't to do the job anymore. My job is to help other people do the job. I lead the team that does the job, so I work within social care.

Guest:

We look at risk within social care, which is huge, and you talked about supported living earlier on. We work mostly in that. So I will confess to have shamelessly denuded a number of people of their expertise throughout my career, and they have been generous in sharing that knowledge with me, which is something that I'm trying to pass on, and I wondered if anybody David, you primarily, but if anyone else had tips on how to do that successfully, how to mentor people in a generous way which doesn't make the leader feel like they've given away something that's special about them um, I think you've hit on something I think is really really important and it's it's that bit about nurturing your team.

David:

I think I mentioned it earlier. You know, nurturing your team and the people in it. Um, and one of the ways I try and do that is is I have one-to-one sessions with all my sort of direct reports on a on a regular drumbeat, and the period depends on who they are and what the what we're actually doing at the time, but it's never more than about a month between them, and my approach to that is that's their opportunity to speak to me about things on their list of their list of things. Um, not, it's not very rarely do I have much I want to pass on from my perspective, and what I find it provides the opportunity to do is to have a discussion question.

David:

Do a bit of coaching in the room actually is really what I'm saying in a long-winded way. Do some coaching in the room and then, when they leave, they know they've got my support for what they want to do. We've talked about how they might do it, but when they leave, they know they've got my support for what they want to do. We've talked about how they might do it, but when they leave, it's them to go and do it, it's theirs. It's not got my name attached to it, I mean, other than implicitly, I guess and therefore it's providing them with the sort of knowledge and some of this experience. They've often got the skills, it's just the experience of how to apply them, and that's one of the things I think with so many of the leadership models that get winged around. I mean, they're all great and I, I, they're really worth reading and understanding, but it's, it's in the application. That's the trick, isn't it?

Guest:

um, and I think it's the resources. We talked earlier about the demands we make on people, which is fine. This is your job, this is what what I need, these are the outputs I need, but what do you need from me to do that?

Guest:

Yeah.

Guest:

Rather than just saying off, you go, and you're a bit of a failure if you can't.

David:

Yeah, yeah, exactly, and I think it's those one-to-one sessions that allow a bit of coaching and mentoring to happen. And sometimes, particularly with slightly less senior staff, I've been sent something that they want to pass to the board and I thought I know what you're trying to say, but that doesn't do it. Um, actually I've then rewritten it um, by and large, used all the words which are in there already, but in a different order. In a different order and clarified it and generally made it a lot shorter and said put your signature block on that and now send them this. And some might say well, that's doing it for them.

David:

It's not really in that sense. It was a case of it now gives you a bit of a template. You can use that kind of thing in future. If you approach it a bit like this and it's not so, it's written in my style you can still write it in your own style, but just do it a bit more like. That would be a bit more effective type of thing. By way of a specific example, anybody have any further questions?

Guest:

I do have a question for you about this idea of leaders making more time to look at the future, more time in their diary to not manage the rotor. And you know, look at the future, which I agree with to an extent. But in previous experience in a big corporate, we actually were set up to have teams to do that outward looking, yeah, and our teams were much more expert than the leadership team on those issues. So it was our job to do the market intel, to do the analysis, to look at what competitors were doing, to try and second guess the future and put proposals together to push back up the tree, to say, right, which one of these do you want to run with? And so I just wonder I mean, from your experience in the public sector and the charitable sector, you know, are those sectors doing that or or or not?

David:

um it, yes, but the most effective ones probably are, but perhaps not in that way. When there's a bit some organizer, it's only the biggest organizations have got the capacity to have a team that looks at the future really, unless somebody means it's that it's so important to them that that's a core bit of their business and that'd be great to do it. The public sector yeah, they do. Certain bits of it do, but the public sector I mean. My experience at the cabinet office when I was in there, albeit for only 18 months, is it was an absolute expert at getting in its own way. I've never seen anything quite as Byzantine as that. But they did have some people who looked to the future. But what it plugged into is I'm not entirely certain, into is I'm not entirely certain.

David:

I think when you get to the more medium-sized organizations, those which are really impactful, really effective, do have a way of creating the time to allow the board or the executive board to look forwards, not just manage the present.

David:

And that's a bit of a split personality thing and we have to do it here.

David:

We haven't got a future forward-looking team, but I'm creating the time by stripping certain bits meetings out of the diary, things that people don't need to go to, giving you time back which inevitably, unless you fill it with something deliberately, gets filled with other stuff anyway.

David:

So there needs to be a deliberate aspect to this so that we can find ourselves the time as a board and we've got three or four days, we've set program days in the diary over the course of 12 months as a board not to do the here and the now, not to do the exec board stuff, of going through all the, the compliance issues. We've got the governance issues, we've got all that kind of stuff. But to look at the future, so we're finding the time. That way it's the same people doing it who run the day-to-day, but we're finding the time. You know the next year, the. The consequence of that is you then need to find the time to do something about it as opposed to just talk about it. But we'll we'll find the time to do that too, because it's important thank you, david.

Jonny:

Any more questions? Yes, jake.

Guest:

David, I've got a question for you. Obviously, coming back from a military background, leadership in the military is pretty black and white. You're there to keep other people alive and if you don't follow the rules and you don't follow the processes, that and all the training that you're given, then you're not only putting yourself at risk but your team at risk, and there comes a greater responsibility on individuals to serve as a team and look out for each other. How have you found bringing that mentality into the civilian world, if you like, and what have been the key challenges in trying to implement or kind of encourage that kind of inclusiveness, when outside of the military, organisations have a very different goal with regard in terms of objectives, where they are more financially motivated as opposed to keeping someone alive?

David:

Yeah, good question. I think it's probably less black and white than you. You think. Um, huge amounts of initiative are being shown all the time on operations, um, and in fact, you'd fail if you didn't use your initiative and allow people to do so. Anyway, let's not get distracted by that.

David:

I think you, you, you have identified something that did strike me, as I as, in my first couple of years after military service, what I recognized. It took me a while to work out what I had seen, but what I recognized was that, of course, in the military, you all go through, you all wear the same uniform. There's a commonality of an entity. There's a commonality of training and experience. There's a common lexicon commonality of an entity. There's a commonality of training and experience. There's a common lexicon. There's the. There are, um, uh, certain ways of doing stuff as well. Um, and team is. You know, team comes before self every time and that is great. I mean really. I don't mean great in a flipping way, I mean it's a fantastic thing to be part of, truly is.

David:

You come into the, as I did, the sort of the civilian world, and what I recognized was there was no less quality of person, there was no less capacity or potential. What became a real challenge was people had come from all. They all had a really wide variety of backgrounds. They hadn't gone through the same system to get to where they were which is both a strength and a weakness and there was no common lexicon, and that made life really quite hard. But it didn't stop you working as a team. What it meant was, as you were building the team and developing how you did business, you accepted people's the strengths they brought with them, the skills that they had and some that they were lacking, and you built teams which were complementary and over time the lexicon gets sort of firmed up you speak the same language you. That tends to be in my sort of case cases. I tend to build that around a purpose and an intent what we're trying to do, how we're trying to get there, the roles people play in it. And I did I sort of came at it that way, but that sort of it was more the. The very different backgrounds of the people in the team made the challenge. You weren't all starting from the same place, but it didn't mean that the team was any less effective. It just took a bit more time to bind it together in a sort of complementary way, and I think that's one of the other things.

David:

I've always been pretty honest with myself about the stuff I'm not very good at. And the stuff I'm not very good at is the stuff I I mean I suppose this is common to a lot of us is the stuff I don't really like doing an XO essentially to help me in one of my roles, I deliberately went for somebody who was, who was good at all the stuff. I knew I wasn't, not because I was going to be threatened. Could it have been a threat? I suppose it could have been a threat, but we never looked at it like that, like that. But it meant that together we were a really good team.

David:

What I didn't want was a clone of me, because a clone of me would have been, but it meant that together we were a really good team. What I didn't want was a clone of me, because a clone of me would have been a disaster, not because we wouldn't have got on, but because there'd been a whole load of stuff that we sort of kept pushing off to the side of our desk and never actually happened. And I think part of the sort of team building piece and the leadership piece is accepting when it's not your thing, either because you don't like it or you don't have the skills, understanding the limit of your knowledge. You're not expected to be the expert in everything, so don't pretend you are. Um, and you tend to pretend you are when you start believing your own propaganda, um, and, and that's always a mistake um. Does that answer your question? I'm conscious I've sort of whitted on a bit there, but does that sort of do it?

Guest:

No, yes, very informative, Thank you. As an aside, in my line of work I've employed many ex-military and I've learned a lot from them in terms of the team and it's a very important part of what we do, and it's been really interesting seeing them come some of them directly out of the military into the civil world and talking to them about the difficulties they have in adapting to a less kind of rigorous life, if you like, or a less kind of structured life we deliver has helped not only themselves but equally others in my team learn about having a more structured approach to what we do and to being together, supporting each other, learning each other's weaknesses and strengths and and leaning into those and helping and supporting each other. So that's been really really helpful.

David:

Thank you yeah, and I think actually having that sort of structure around how you do and how you and the understanding you might have of sorry structure around what you do and an understanding around the parts other people play in delivering the effect you want, whatever it is you're doing, really helps you when chaos strikes, because you've got somewhere to start from and and you know, actually only was it last Friday or whatever the IT outage chaos struck. You know, actually only was it last Friday or whatever the IT outage chaos struck. You know I'd be really fascinated to see how organizations coped with it. Stand fast, the public bit the stuff that's in the papers. How did organizations actually cope with it? Who adapted to it quickest? And I suspect there's something there around culture, ethos, team leadership, all that kind of stuff would have been really implicit in the effectiveness of responses.

Jonny:

Well, I would just like to extend a massive thank you to David for sharing all of his knowledge. It's any time I spend with David on on a personal level, my mind is blown, like every single time I get the privilege to speak to my wife.

David:

She tells me I blow her mind, but for all the whole host of different reasons and so time with david is just it's transformational in many, many ways.

Jonny:

So thank you, David, and also a huge thank you to all of you and for being so involved and asking so many questions. We're going to send you a follow up email, and within it is a link to something which will help you answer the questions about whether you've been intentional about creating an environment where your people can do their best work. So do it. See what you think of it, it and it should give you some really really good food for thought. Um, thank you so much everybody.

David:

Thank you, David thank you a pleasure.

People on this episode

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Christopher Wickenden

Host
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Jonny de Mallet Morgan

Host