How are you making sure that being a leader doesn’t become your whole personality? In this episode I’m chatting with a CEO full of purpose, but who doesn’t let that define her.

Today I’m talking with Jenni Anderson, chief executive of the Talent Foundry. We discuss walking the talk, being a risk-taker, what it’s like taking over a charity from its founder, getting a Board onside and why it’s important to do the things you enjoy.

About Jenni

Jenni leads The Talent Foundry team on its strategy, growth and impact. She has worked in the third sector for over 20 years increasing income, devising marketing and communications campaigns within youth development, sport and children's health organisations.

She was the first in her family to go university, took a non-traditional route to her undergraduate degree, culminating in an MSc in Charity Accounting & Financial Management from Bayes Business School.

She loves sport and is a Trustee (formerly Chair) of the Active Essex Foundation. Jenni enjoys triathlon and duathlon and with her husband has two cats and two dogs.

Resources and helpful links

• Connect with Jenni on LinkedIn
• The Talent Foundry

About leaders with impact

Want to know the secret of great leaders? In Leaders with impact we'll be exploring what makes an impactful leader; sharing stories of success and strategies that set them apart.

If you are ambitious for your organisation but are struggling to identify what you can do differently as a leader to deliver the right improvements, then hit subscribe to learn how you can get clear on your strategy, implement some self-leadership and connect with those you serve.

New episodes are released every fortnight.

Get in touch

If you enjoyed the episode please leave a review on Apple podcasts (or your app of choice) and let me know what you thought on LinkedIn or instagram.

I’ll be back with the next episode in two weeks so in the meantime remember to sign up to my newsletter to get notified of new episodes, guest appearances and further insights on how to lead with impact.

Lee Griffith: 00:00:02

How are you making sure that being a leader doesn't

Lee Griffith: 00:00:05

become your whole personality? In this episode, I'm chatting

Lee Griffith: 00:00:09

with a CEO full of purpose, but who doesn't let that define her?

Lee Griffith: 00:00:13

I'm Lee Griffith, a former communications director who now

Lee Griffith: 00:00:17

coaches leaders to shrug off the stereotypes and find their own

Lee Griffith: 00:00:21

way of leading with impact. On this podcast, I talk with real

Lee Griffith: 00:00:25

leaders about what shaped their approach. I chat with experts

Lee Griffith: 00:00:28

who will challenge your thinking, and I share my own

Lee Griffith: 00:00:32

strategies for success. If you enjoy the show and want to shake

Lee Griffith: 00:00:36

things up with your own leadership development, then why

Lee Griffith: 00:00:39

not recommend me to work with your organization, visit

Lee Griffith: 00:00:42

sundayskies.com or drop an email to lwi@sundayskies.com Today,

Lee Griffith: 00:00:46

I'm talking with Jenny Anderson, Chief Executive of the talent

Lee Griffith: 00:00:50

foundry. We discuss walking the talk, being a risk taker, what

Lee Griffith: 00:00:54

it's like taking over a charity from its founder, getting a

Lee Griffith: 00:00:58

board, a varied board that onside and why it's important to

Lee Griffith: 00:01:01

do the things you enjoy. I'm delighted to welcome Jenny

Lee Griffith: 00:01:05

Anderson to the leaders of impact podcast. Thank you, Jenny

Lee Griffith: 00:01:09

for joining us today. I'm going to start, as I always do, with

Lee Griffith: 00:01:12

asking, What does impactful leadership mean to you?

Unknown: 00:01:17

Thank you. Hello, Lee. I have heard you ask this

Unknown: 00:01:20

question numerous times, and so I had a little bit of

Unknown: 00:01:24

preparation to think about what I might say. And then I thought,

Unknown: 00:01:27

I can't actually come up with a pithy, safe sense answer to this

Unknown: 00:01:33

question, because I really do think it depends on the day of

Unknown: 00:01:37

the week. What's going on in your organization at the time,

Unknown: 00:01:41

what stage or life cycle you might be joining an organization

Unknown: 00:01:45

at the time. So I'm sort of going to cheat a bit and say

Unknown: 00:01:48

that I think so. I work as chief executive of the talent foundry,

Unknown: 00:01:54

which is a social mobility charity. And I think for many of

Unknown: 00:01:58

our CEOs that work in the charity space. We always connect

Unknown: 00:02:02

our leadership to the purpose of our organizations, because

Unknown: 00:02:06

that's what we care about. It's what we're passionate about, and

Unknown: 00:02:09

it's what drives us. So I think impact within leadership is

Unknown: 00:02:15

about seeing the work that we do have impact on individuals. So

Unknown: 00:02:19

we work with young people across the UK, in particular

Unknown: 00:02:23

underserved areas in England, Wales and Scotland. So impact

Unknown: 00:02:28

for me, is about what difference are we making to those young

Unknown: 00:02:31

people? But it might be that actually, the impact that we see

Unknown: 00:02:36

is very different depending on the activities that we're

Unknown: 00:02:39

perhaps delivering or or working on at the time. So I think it's

Unknown: 00:02:44

a huge question to start with. But I think if you ask me the

Unknown: 00:02:48

question, What? What does successful impact leadership

Unknown: 00:02:52

look like? I think it'd be about being adaptable, using your

Unknown: 00:02:59

strengths and the strength of others to produce good work and

Unknown: 00:03:04

make a difference. And I think having a positivity and optimism

Unknown: 00:03:09

that actually the world can be a better place and some of the

Unknown: 00:03:12

things that we're doing, they might be very tiny in the scope

Unknown: 00:03:15

of all of the problems that we're facing right now, but they

Unknown: 00:03:18

are making a difference to one person, perhaps, or a group of

Unknown: 00:03:22

people. And that, for me, is impact. It can be really massive

Unknown: 00:03:27

reach, but it can also be those really tiny, small interactions

Unknown: 00:03:30

you have with people where something changes for them and

Unknown: 00:03:35

they think about the world differently. Yeah,

Lee Griffith: 00:03:38

I like that. I like the idea that often impact

Lee Griffith: 00:03:42

sounds like it's such a large word, but it can be. It doesn't

Lee Griffith: 00:03:47

really matter how it's how it affects each person differently.

Lee Griffith: 00:03:50

And that's, that's the impact it can have on someone, yeah, like,

Unknown: 00:03:54

and we talk about at the talent fund, like, the

Unknown: 00:03:57

accumulation of impact. So if, if, for example, you've always

Unknown: 00:04:02

been told, or regularly been told that perhaps you're not

Unknown: 00:04:06

good enough for something, or you're you're stupid, or that

Unknown: 00:04:10

isn't for you, it's for somebody else you know that leaves a mark

Unknown: 00:04:14

on someone that leaves any like a negative impact. So reversing

Unknown: 00:04:20

that into positivity could take longer for those young people,

Unknown: 00:04:25

those individuals, than perhaps someone who hasn't had that sort

Unknown: 00:04:28

of negativity in their lives. So So, yeah, I think, I think it is

Unknown: 00:04:33

about Yes, we can look at the problems we're trying to fix. I

Unknown: 00:04:38

think all charity CEOs are massive problem solvers, or

Unknown: 00:04:43

would like to see themselves as problem solvers, and then, you

Unknown: 00:04:46

know what? Where do we put our effort and our limited resources

Unknown: 00:04:50

to have the most impact to solve those problems? That's also the

Unknown: 00:04:54

other challenge, I think, in our sector, yeah,

Lee Griffith: 00:04:57

we'll dive into some of this a bit later. I'm

Lee Griffith: 00:05:00

sure, but I want to take you right back to the beginning, as

Lee Griffith: 00:05:05

it were, and what's shaped you as the person I'm talking to

Lee Griffith: 00:05:08

today. So tell us a bit about your story and how you got

Unknown: 00:05:12

here. I would like to think that it was all sort of

Unknown: 00:05:16

destined, but for most of us, it never is. And we say this to

Unknown: 00:05:20

young people all the time. You who, how can you be expected at

Unknown: 00:05:24

14, when you're thinking about what GCSE subjects to choose,

Unknown: 00:05:28

that they might affect the rest of your life in the perhaps the

Unknown: 00:05:32

career or the industry that you want to work in, you might not

Unknown: 00:05:34

have even heard of industry when you're at school that you might

Unknown: 00:05:38

end up in, for example. So most of us have had, like, squiggly

Unknown: 00:05:41

careers where we've seen things that are interesting and

Unknown: 00:05:43

thought, okay, that's that potentially could work for me or

Unknown: 00:05:47

I could work for them. So I think some of the founding

Unknown: 00:05:53

principles of how I've developed my career as has been around a

Unknown: 00:05:59

supportive family, so I feel very lucky that I've had a

Unknown: 00:06:02

really supportive mum and dad who always motivated me to try

Unknown: 00:06:07

something new, to not be afraid of challenge, to be as active as

Unknown: 00:06:11

possible, and to connect with other people and to do as much

Unknown: 00:06:16

as you possibly can in a day. So yes, I've had a family that's

Unknown: 00:06:20

been really supportive. And I feel like as a as a young

Unknown: 00:06:24

person, I had access to lots of different opportunities, so lots

Unknown: 00:06:28

of extracurricular activities, the opportunity to do sport, to

Unknown: 00:06:32

think about music, to be creative, and do drama, join

Unknown: 00:06:36

clubs and societies and those sorts of things. So I think

Unknown: 00:06:40

school for me was an enjoyable experience, but I wasn't a

Unknown: 00:06:43

cleverest person in the class, and I had to work hard to get

Unknown: 00:06:47

the grades that I did, as does everyone. So I think those sort

Unknown: 00:06:51

of those wider experiences, actually helped me see that

Unknown: 00:06:55

there is quite a big world out there. And also I found that I

Unknown: 00:07:02

actually quite enjoy connecting with people. I think I am an

Unknown: 00:07:06

extrovert, so I enjoy conversation. I enjoy meeting

Unknown: 00:07:11

new people, learning about them, finding out what they love and

Unknown: 00:07:14

what they like, finding common ground. So I think all of those

Unknown: 00:07:18

things at a really early age meant that I was probably always

Unknown: 00:07:21

going to end up in organizations which needed those that skill

Unknown: 00:07:25

set, or needed that energy and enthusiasm for doing things,

Unknown: 00:07:29

perhaps for the first time, or doing things differently, and

Unknown: 00:07:34

how's that shaped you

Lee Griffith: 00:07:37

or influenced the way you lead today?

Unknown: 00:07:40

I think it makes me more risk or it makes me more

Unknown: 00:07:45

happy with risk. Yeah, I'm not very risk averse. I like to see

Unknown: 00:07:50

the positive and the opportunities in something

Unknown: 00:07:53

rather than the negatives. And that does mean and you need

Unknown: 00:07:58

people around you that are going to be the risk averse people, I

Unknown: 00:08:03

always say you need balance. You need balance. So if you're the

Unknown: 00:08:07

person that is prepared to go, right, come on, guys, we're

Unknown: 00:08:11

going to hike that mountain. And, you know, we might not have

Unknown: 00:08:15

the appropriate attire, and the weather looks like it's closing

Unknown: 00:08:18

in, but we're still going. You need those people in your circle

Unknown: 00:08:21

to say, Hang on a minute, Jenny, why don't we? Why don't we give

Unknown: 00:08:24

it a couple of hours before, um, you know, let the storm pass,

Unknown: 00:08:27

and then we'll go hiking. So, yeah, so that sort of approach

Unknown: 00:08:31

to life I think I have at work, so I think that's shaped that

Unknown: 00:08:36

I'm not i i think if you do things pretty regularly, that

Unknown: 00:08:41

that might be outside your comfort zone or scare you a

Unknown: 00:08:44

little bit, then your comfort zone gets wider and wider and

Unknown: 00:08:47

wider, and you actually develop, perhaps a more risk appetite for

Unknown: 00:08:51

doing things differently, or if change comes, you can adapt to

Unknown: 00:08:55

that change or be flexible with that change. I think that. I

Unknown: 00:08:58

think that's how it shaped me. I think that is part of my

Unknown: 00:09:02

personality. But I do think because of the experiences I've

Unknown: 00:09:05

had and the jobs that I've done and the organizations I've

Unknown: 00:09:08

worked in, I've I've worked in places which has allowed that,

Unknown: 00:09:11

yeah, rather than working in places which are very risk

Unknown: 00:09:15

averse and stifle, you know, stifle opportunities or change.

Unknown: 00:09:21

Now we

Lee Griffith: 00:09:23

go back a long, long way. We were just talking

Lee Griffith: 00:09:25

before we hit record. We've scared ourselves of how old we

Lee Griffith: 00:09:28

must now be. We met years ago when we both worked in

Lee Griffith: 00:09:33

communication, and you've got a varied background in

Lee Griffith: 00:09:36

communications and in fundraising. Obviously that

Lee Griffith: 00:09:41

isn't your your job now, but I'm sure lots of skills are still

Lee Griffith: 00:09:44

required from those days. Was it always the ambition to be chief

Lee Griffith: 00:09:47

exec and to move over or has? Has it grown over time? I

Unknown: 00:09:52

think working in those communication roles, and we did

Unknown: 00:09:55

have some fun in those days, I think what, I think the. Benefit

Unknown: 00:10:00

of those roles is that you were able to be in the inner circle

Unknown: 00:10:03

of an organization because you you were the person that perhaps

Unknown: 00:10:07

worked with the chief executive or the directors in those roles

Unknown: 00:10:10

to help them think about, you know, the audiences, the

Unknown: 00:10:14

stakeholders involved, how to craft those messages, what,

Unknown: 00:10:17

what, what questions might be asked of them. And I think, I

Unknown: 00:10:23

think that gave me very early access in my career to senior

Unknown: 00:10:27

leadership, which perhaps in other or other job types or job

Unknown: 00:10:31

roles you wouldn't have, you wouldn't have access to. And I

Unknown: 00:10:34

think because of that, it felt like I looked at those people,

Unknown: 00:10:39

great role models are great managers. And thought, I

Unknown: 00:10:42

actually would like to do your I would like to do your job. So

Unknown: 00:10:47

it's not been a straight line to say, okay, so I left university

Unknown: 00:10:52

at 21 and, you know, in 10 years time, I'll be a CEO. That's and

Unknown: 00:10:56

that, by the way, that hasn't happened, but I learned a lot

Unknown: 00:11:03

from those individuals. I feel like I had very early access to

Unknown: 00:11:06

how organizations work. You know, what does trust you look

Unknown: 00:11:10

like, versus tactical activity? How do the two meet? How do

Unknown: 00:11:14

internal comms work? How does external comms work? That has

Unknown: 00:11:18

probably shaped how I where I might want, might want to end up

Unknown: 00:11:24

eventually. Yeah, and aside from, aside from working in a

Unknown: 00:11:29

couple of public sector organizations, I've worked

Unknown: 00:11:32

entirely in in the charity sector for my career. So I think

Unknown: 00:11:38

that has also helped me in terms of from the fundraising

Unknown: 00:11:42

activities that I've done, again, because you are

Unknown: 00:11:46

supporting a strategic ambition and working at senior leadership

Unknown: 00:11:50

levels to to support people to deliver that mission. By raising

Unknown: 00:11:55

the funds or crafting the appeals you you can develop sort

Unknown: 00:12:00

of that strategic awareness and understanding within those roles

Unknown: 00:12:04

that you might not have the opportunity to so early on in

Unknown: 00:12:08

your career. So yeah, it feels like all those pieces of those,

Unknown: 00:12:14

all those pieces of the jigsaw have come together to allow me

Unknown: 00:12:17

to build that skill set to move into sort of a strategic CEO

Unknown: 00:12:23

role, and you've

Lee Griffith: 00:12:27

been in the charity sector, as you said, for

Lee Griffith: 00:12:29

a long time as well. What's, what's the appeal with, with the

Lee Griffith: 00:12:32

charity sector, then over a another industry?

Unknown: 00:12:36

Oh, it's a really good question, actually. I mean, I

Unknown: 00:12:38

think, I think the appeal is, is probably the same thing anyone

Unknown: 00:12:43

would say that they're working in charities, is that you do,

Unknown: 00:12:47

you do feel connected to to other people, and you can see

Unknown: 00:12:52

the impact directly, most often of the work that you're doing.

Unknown: 00:12:57

And I, I'm, I'm, would like to answer this question, and it's

Unknown: 00:13:02

not a good it's not a good or bad scenario, like working in

Unknown: 00:13:06

charities isn't all good. Working in the commercial sector

Unknown: 00:13:09

isn't all bad. Yeah, our shareholders are different. Our

Unknown: 00:13:13

shareholders are our beneficiaries and our trustees,

Unknown: 00:13:16

for example. So we're responsive to what the needs of our

Unknown: 00:13:19

beneficiaries are, whereas a commercial entity might be

Unknown: 00:13:23

responsive to the needs of its customers and its shareholders,

Unknown: 00:13:26

for example. So I don't I the reality of like, finding purpose

Unknown: 00:13:32

at work isn't just a charity sector phenomenon, yeah, because

Unknown: 00:13:38

we work with loads of really amazing businesses at the talent

Unknown: 00:13:41

foundry, and I, I'm yet to find anyone we work with that doesn't

Unknown: 00:13:45

wholeheartedly love their job and is passionate about their

Unknown: 00:13:48

sector and their industry and wants to get young talent into

Unknown: 00:13:50

their industry. So it's not a case of, you know, if you want

Unknown: 00:13:54

to, if you want to do good, you should go and work in the

Unknown: 00:13:56

charity sector. I don't, I don't think that's true. It's just

Unknown: 00:13:59

that that's where I found myself most comfortable and and feel

Unknown: 00:14:04

like I've been able to do a good job.

Lee Griffith: 00:14:06

Yeah, and so I'm interested you. You were the

Lee Griffith: 00:14:12

Acting Chief Exec at the talent foundry for for a period of

Lee Griffith: 00:14:15

time, and previous to that, you were the Deputy Chief Exec. So

Lee Griffith: 00:14:19

you had quite a lot of knowledge, I'm assuming, of the

Lee Griffith: 00:14:23

organization. You'd already built relationships with people.

Lee Griffith: 00:14:26

What was your approach when you stepped into the acting CEO role

Lee Griffith: 00:14:31

for the first time?

Unknown: 00:14:34

Yeah, so I started, I've been at the talent foundry

Unknown: 00:14:37

just over two years, and it's, you know, it's gone in the blink

Unknown: 00:14:42

of an eye. And I think stepping into supporting someone,

Unknown: 00:14:52

someone's baby, that they've set up is it felt, you know, it felt

Unknown: 00:14:58

actually quite a great privilege to. Do that because someone is

Unknown: 00:15:02

saying, Okay, I trust you to look after it. And I think

Unknown: 00:15:06

that's that's really important that you have, that someone has

Unknown: 00:15:10

trust and confidence in you to to to look after the charity

Unknown: 00:15:14

that they've founded. Yeah,

Lee Griffith: 00:15:15

and just, just for context for listeners, so you

Lee Griffith: 00:15:18

took over specifically from someone who'd set up the charity

Lee Griffith: 00:15:22

and that

Unknown: 00:15:23

they Yeah, yeah. So the founder of the talent Foundry is

Unknown: 00:15:27

Amy Leonard, who is a brilliant person and set up the charity in

Unknown: 00:15:31

2009 so it's our 15th year of delivery and activity. This year

Unknown: 00:15:37

I went in as Deputy CEO. It was a new role, and the scope of the

Unknown: 00:15:42

role was to actually bring the talent foundry out of its shell,

Unknown: 00:15:47

so to speak. We everyone had, we'd all been through the

Unknown: 00:15:51

pandemic, and we wanted to, and just before the pandemic, the

Unknown: 00:15:57

charity had had a name change, and then they hadn't actually

Unknown: 00:15:59

had the ability to promote or drive that, that change that had

Unknown: 00:16:06

happened, because everyone went into survival mode during the

Unknown: 00:16:09

pandemic. So coming out, I joined in 2022, coming out of

Unknown: 00:16:14

that, we're able to think, Well, okay, if we're the talent

Unknown: 00:16:17

foundry, what does that mean? What values does it have? What

Unknown: 00:16:21

What's its purpose, what's its focus? And then from there, we,

Unknown: 00:16:25

we designed a three year strategy, yeah, and trusted to

Unknown: 00:16:29

deliver that strategy as Deputy CEO, and then in the January,

Unknown: 00:16:34

into acting CEO, and then this January, substantive CEO. So

Unknown: 00:16:39

it's, it feels like it's been a really long induction and also a

Unknown: 00:16:44

really long probation, but both great, you know, both of those

Unknown: 00:16:50

thoughts are, okay, no, because I think we were doing great

Unknown: 00:16:57

work, so all we've done is amplify that Great work and work

Unknown: 00:17:01

on what we can do more of and where our capacity can grow and

Unknown: 00:17:07

where we can find the resources to deliver more. Yeah, so it

Unknown: 00:17:10

sounds

Lee Griffith: 00:17:11

like you came in with a clear brief of where you

Lee Griffith: 00:17:14

were going to be adding value in the role as Deputy CEO. Was it

Lee Griffith: 00:17:19

kind of mooted at that point that it was possibly a

Lee Griffith: 00:17:23

transition into to CEO to take over because she planned to step

Lee Griffith: 00:17:27

down at some point. Or was that a bit of a Oh, wasn't expecting

Lee Griffith: 00:17:31

this when it happened.

Unknown: 00:17:33

No, actually, the job description talked about

Unknown: 00:17:37

succession planning for the organization, so that was one of

Unknown: 00:17:40

the attractive opportunities within, within when I applied

Unknown: 00:17:44

for the job way back in sort of the Christmas before. So, yes,

Unknown: 00:17:48

there was a sense that the board was looking for someone that

Unknown: 00:17:53

could move into that role eventually, when the time was

Unknown: 00:17:58

right. I actually didn't expect it to be as early as it was, but

Unknown: 00:18:01

that was, that was the plan. And again, quite, I think, quite

Unknown: 00:18:04

unusual for the charity sector. Another thing that I liked about

Unknown: 00:18:07

the organization, one of the reasons I wanted the job is

Unknown: 00:18:10

because you don't see that very often, yeah, and I was, I was

Unknown: 00:18:15

intrigued into what, how that might work and what might happen

Unknown: 00:18:20

next. So, yeah, it was, it was a good, it was a good, a good

Unknown: 00:18:23

thing to have that as open and as transparent as it was. I'm

Unknown: 00:18:27

interested.

Lee Griffith: 00:18:28

As you've mentioned, you've, we've, you've

Lee Griffith: 00:18:30

taken over from someone who founded the charity. It

Lee Griffith: 00:18:34

obviously been there for a number of years. I'm assuming

Lee Griffith: 00:18:38

would have felt quite emotionally invested and

Lee Griffith: 00:18:41

connected to both the purpose and the legacy of the charity.

Lee Griffith: 00:18:45

Once she's, how have you found that transition as perhaps

Lee Griffith: 00:18:49

she's, I don't know if she's fully stepped away or she's

Lee Griffith: 00:18:51

still involved in the charity.

Unknown: 00:18:54

Yeah. So I found a move onto the board as a trustee, has

Unknown: 00:18:58

stepped away from sort of operational activities, but

Unknown: 00:19:01

actually really supportive, still, from a strategic point of

Unknown: 00:19:05

view. And I've worked for lots of organizations which have had

Unknown: 00:19:10

founders, and I do think it's important that the reason for

Unknown: 00:19:15

the organization, sort of its initial purpose, isn't lost in

Unknown: 00:19:20

in the annals of time, yeah, just and for our charity,

Unknown: 00:19:24

actually things that things have got worse for social mobility,

Unknown: 00:19:29

and even like very recently, the new stats around people from

Unknown: 00:19:34

lower socio economic backgrounds and how they move forward to

Unknown: 00:19:38

become successful and progress in life and into professional

Unknown: 00:19:43

roles or organizations has got worse. I think having someone

Unknown: 00:19:49

that founded the charity to make sure that actually young people

Unknown: 00:19:54

do have the ability to think about their futures and, you

Unknown: 00:19:59

know, provide. That connection from school to work, it's really

Unknown: 00:20:03

important that they're still invested and still still part of

Unknown: 00:20:07

the fabric of the organization and in terms of the board. So

Lee Griffith: 00:20:13

I was having a little look at your website, and

Lee Griffith: 00:20:16

I saw you've got some big names on that board of trustees, which

Lee Griffith: 00:20:18

I would have been totally intimidated by but they bring

Lee Griffith: 00:20:24

very varied in their experience and their backgrounds. They must

Lee Griffith: 00:20:28

bring a lot of knowledge and support to you. But how do you

Lee Griffith: 00:20:32

as chief exec make sure you're getting the best out of everyone

Lee Griffith: 00:20:36

around that table, whilst respecting that they've probably

Lee Griffith: 00:20:39

got a variety of different views and experiences.

Unknown: 00:20:43

Yeah, I actually think that's really hard, and I

Unknown: 00:20:46

definitely haven't nailed that part of the job description yet,

Unknown: 00:20:50

because we know each other pretty well. But there is, you

Unknown: 00:20:57

know, the time that we actually get to spend together is very

Unknown: 00:21:00

limited in terms of an annual year. Every time I start to plan

Unknown: 00:21:03

the next board meeting, I think, Oh, God, how is that? You know,

Unknown: 00:21:06

how is those three, four months disappeared? Has happened. So I

Unknown: 00:21:11

think going back to my comms, my with my comms hat on, and, you

Unknown: 00:21:14

know, different audiences and different stakeholders, it's

Unknown: 00:21:17

like trying to work out what what is useful and timely and

Unknown: 00:21:21

quick for board me, board members to digest, versus, you

Unknown: 00:21:26

know, other stakeholders who might want a bit more detail or

Unknown: 00:21:30

want to be more involved in the activities, for example. So, so,

Unknown: 00:21:34

so, yeah, and I think our board does bring lots of different

Unknown: 00:21:37

experiences, which, again, I think is important we've

Unknown: 00:21:41

recently brought on a couple of new board members to help us

Unknown: 00:21:45

think about our commerciality and our growth. So our next

Unknown: 00:21:50

strategy will be looking at how we scale some of what we do,

Unknown: 00:21:55

because we're sort of a medium sized charity where it to scale,

Unknown: 00:22:01

we actually do have to invest and so that so for someone who's

Unknown: 00:22:04

not risk averse, that's fine, working in fundraising, right?

Unknown: 00:22:08

You have to invest to get a return. And so we've been

Unknown: 00:22:12

looking at with our board, like how what's the level investment

Unknown: 00:22:16

that's required, and how comfortable do we all feel to

Unknown: 00:22:18

put that level investment into the team so that we can grow to

Unknown: 00:22:22

the next stage, because the next stage will then feed itself. But

Unknown: 00:22:27

it is, is, I mean, I actually really love having these

Unknown: 00:22:30

conversations, because they're sort of ambition, they're big

Unknown: 00:22:33

picture. They're, you know, not thinking necessarily about the

Unknown: 00:22:36

worst case scenario. They're thinking about all the

Unknown: 00:22:38

positivity and all the extra young people and all the extra

Unknown: 00:22:42

programs we can help. So I think it's important that you again,

Unknown: 00:22:46

like any good team, you have the people that are like, Yes, let's

Unknown: 00:22:49

go out and get that. Let's go smash it. We're amazing. Plus

Unknown: 00:22:52

the people that say, Well, hang on a minute. If we did this and

Unknown: 00:22:56

this happened, what would be, you know, what would be the

Unknown: 00:22:59

plan, or what would be the route out of that, or exit out of

Unknown: 00:23:02

that, if we needed to. So you've got to have all again, all of

Unknown: 00:23:05

those balance perspectives, so that you find something in the

Unknown: 00:23:09

middle that works and is achievable.

Lee Griffith: 00:23:11

Yeah, yeah. I was going to ask about the kind of

Lee Griffith: 00:23:14

managing your your risk appetite versus their risk appetite. But

Lee Griffith: 00:23:18

you, you've covered that off quite nicely. Are you finding

Lee Griffith: 00:23:21

that there are particular skills that you're having to lean into

Lee Griffith: 00:23:24

when you're having those conversations at border or

Unknown: 00:23:28

yeah, probably the ones that I'm like, not naturally,

Unknown: 00:23:33

not naturally my preferred way of working. So I think I overdo

Unknown: 00:23:39

the detail on finance is because it's not my preferred learning

Unknown: 00:23:44

style or and I've always had to do extra work to make the maths

Unknown: 00:23:50

work on things. So I end up doing a lot more work on the

Unknown: 00:23:54

maths than the narrative, because narrative just comes so

Unknown: 00:23:58

naturally. You know, remember back to the days we could turn

Unknown: 00:24:02

around and press release in half an hour. So, you know, there's

Unknown: 00:24:04

sort of, it might not have been the best press releases in the

Unknown: 00:24:07

world, but you could turn some copy around. So it's always so I

Unknown: 00:24:10

think, and, and I talk about this a lot, because you everyone

Unknown: 00:24:16

in their job wants to do the things that they enjoy the most.

Unknown: 00:24:18

You know, that's what gets you out in bed of the morning, and

Unknown: 00:24:21

that's what makes work fun and enjoyable. But you often do have

Unknown: 00:24:26

to do things that one patch not very good at, and one you also

Unknown: 00:24:28

don't like and find really boring, so you have to fight

Unknown: 00:24:31

again balance how you're going to manage that so you don't get

Unknown: 00:24:35

carried away by all the fun stuff, yeah, and focus on the

Unknown: 00:24:39

things that actually might not look very whizzy and sparkly and

Unknown: 00:24:46

light bulb B that actually make the organization work and tick

Unknown: 00:24:50

and function smoothly and as efficiently as possible. So I

Unknown: 00:24:55

tend to so in terms of leaning in, I tend to just overdo the

Unknown: 00:24:59

theme. Reasons I perhaps don't like because I think if I just

Unknown: 00:25:03

skim them, I won't feel like I've prepared enough. So I yeah,

Unknown: 00:25:08

I go whole hog the things that I generally don't find that easy.

Unknown: 00:25:14

I will do that. Yeah, I think I'd

Lee Griffith: 00:25:20

be the same, though, particularly around

Lee Griffith: 00:25:21

them. I mean, we're words people, so it's the finance and

Lee Griffith: 00:25:25

money side. Similarly, has never come naturally to me, but I

Lee Griffith: 00:25:28

think if I'd spent all that effort and I finally understood

Lee Griffith: 00:25:30

it, I'd want the whole world to know I really get the numbers.

Lee Griffith: 00:25:33

Look

Unknown: 00:25:34

at my amazing spreadsheet I've coded and look

Unknown: 00:25:39

all the formulas that I've built in there

Lee Griffith: 00:25:42

exactly. So share a little bit about what a

Lee Griffith: 00:25:48

typical, if there is such a thing as a typical day and week

Lee Griffith: 00:25:52

looks like for you.

Unknown: 00:25:54

Oh, it really, this is, this is, I think this is the

Unknown: 00:25:57

answer to your question, like, why the charity sector? Yeah.

Unknown: 00:26:00

And I think this is, this is the answer, because it really could

Unknown: 00:26:03

be something different. Every day we talk about eating your

Unknown: 00:26:06

frogs quite a lot at the talent foundry. And so I'm sure people

Unknown: 00:26:10

have heard the the theory that if there's things that are meaty

Unknown: 00:26:13

and you've been putting off and you've been procrastinating

Unknown: 00:26:16

about then you get rid of them in the morning. And so I have a

Unknown: 00:26:19

little bit of a frog, frogs list every day that I just want to

Unknown: 00:26:23

get off my plate and yum, yum, yum, yum. Eat those frogs. So

Unknown: 00:26:28

I'm very, very big on on on that. But I mean, in general, I

Unknown: 00:26:33

could be doing anything. I could be one day, I could be the IT

Unknown: 00:26:36

director. The next day, I could be, as I said, looking at

Unknown: 00:26:40

budgets or checking you know, our programs running along the

Unknown: 00:26:43

budget lines that we expected them to. I could be going to

Unknown: 00:26:47

visit our partners in their offices, or I could be in a

Unknown: 00:26:50

school, volunteering on a workshop. I could be having a

Unknown: 00:26:54

meeting with the team. So, yeah, I think there's this, although a

Unknown: 00:27:00

CEO role like the job description says, you know, oh,

Unknown: 00:27:03

think about the big picture and write your strategy and

Unknown: 00:27:06

implement plans and optimize results. In reality, you you are

Unknown: 00:27:11

still working operationally, you're still working tactically,

Unknown: 00:27:14

you're providing support, you're answering questions, you're

Unknown: 00:27:19

conversing with your colleagues. We work hybridly, so we don't

Unknown: 00:27:22

come together that often. So a lot of our our the way that we

Unknown: 00:27:25

communicate with one another is via teams or video calls and

Unknown: 00:27:30

things like that. So and so I like, I like because I like to

Unknown: 00:27:35

be with people. I like to have video calls, and I think if

Unknown: 00:27:39

someone wants to have an email conversation with me as quickly

Unknown: 00:27:43

turns into Look, just jump on a team sense chat it through.

Unknown: 00:27:46

Because if you were in the office, that would happen. And

Unknown: 00:27:48

when you're not in the office, you don't have an alternative.

Unknown: 00:27:52

So you miss, you miss a lot of that interaction with people

Unknown: 00:27:55

where you could actually help or perhaps coach or mentor someone

Unknown: 00:27:58

through a problem without just writing back, oh, here's the

Unknown: 00:28:01

answer. And how, how

Lee Griffith: 00:28:03

much time are you spending on the bigger picture

Lee Griffith: 00:28:06

stuff for strategy development or whatever that might be,

Unknown: 00:28:10

I think it'd be difficult to quantify. I think

Unknown: 00:28:14

it is, for me, is about horizon scanning, plug plugged. The

Unknown: 00:28:20

social mobility sector is amazing. There's so many amazing

Unknown: 00:28:24

charities that work in this space and in education, and

Unknown: 00:28:28

that's education all the way through from sort of primary

Unknown: 00:28:30

school, secondary school colleges into university.

Unknown: 00:28:34

There's an awful lot of good work that takes place across the

Unknown: 00:28:36

sector and is very helpful to keep an eye on, you know, what

Unknown: 00:28:42

are the current challenges, what's changed in the data, what

Unknown: 00:28:46

are people doing, and then where are the gaps? So I think the

Unknown: 00:28:50

change in government will be a big piece around, you know, is

Unknown: 00:28:55

the work that we're doing aligned to what's what might

Unknown: 00:28:58

change or might happen in schools, particularly around

Unknown: 00:29:01

curriculum and skills. So that might mean that, you know our

Unknown: 00:29:05

plan for next year, we might have to have a little shake up

Unknown: 00:29:09

of that to make sure that we're being as helpful as we can to

Unknown: 00:29:13

teach us, because ultimately, one of our big stakeholders is

Unknown: 00:29:16

the teaching profession, making sure that we can go in and

Unknown: 00:29:19

support them with their careers advice and guidance and then

Unknown: 00:29:23

subsequently help their young people. So yeah, so there's that

Unknown: 00:29:28

piece of where we're sort of Midway. We're at the end of our

Unknown: 00:29:30

second year of our first three year strategy. So next year,

Unknown: 00:29:33

we've dedicated probably the whole year to thinking what the

Unknown: 00:29:39

next three years. So yeah, so it's constantly horizon

Unknown: 00:29:44

scanning, and then we will build next year, some proper

Unknown: 00:29:49

development and scoping work into what the next next three

Unknown: 00:29:52

years could look like, where we really should focus our

Unknown: 00:29:55

activities.

Lee Griffith: 00:29:57

And it's come the time is great, isn't it, in

Lee Griffith: 00:29:59

terms. Of the election, and you'll see, see how things start

Lee Griffith: 00:30:02

to fall out of the government. It

Unknown: 00:30:05

would be autumn. So we were sort of ready, you know, we

Unknown: 00:30:08

were ready for, we've been sort of thinking, Oh, well, if it's

Unknown: 00:30:11

autumn, that's even more perfect for us. Because, yeah, that will

Unknown: 00:30:15

be the last year of where we'll deliver the year, and then we'll

Unknown: 00:30:18

move into but yeah, there might be a little bit of shaping that

Unknown: 00:30:21

we need to do next year. But ultimately, what, what does

Unknown: 00:30:24

then, the next three years look like?

Lee Griffith: 00:30:27

So you're you've mentioned that the focus of the

Lee Griffith: 00:30:30

organization is on social mobility. How are you making

Lee Griffith: 00:30:34

sure as an organization that you're walking the talk in the

Lee Griffith: 00:30:37

way that you you run basically,

Unknown: 00:30:41

yeah, this actually is a really, it is really important

Unknown: 00:30:44

to our organization. So one of the, one of the things that we

Unknown: 00:30:49

did very early on is that we are, we are the talent foundry.

Unknown: 00:30:53

So we should live and breathe all the skills and experiences

Unknown: 00:30:57

that we suggest that young people develop, we should do the

Unknown: 00:31:02

same. Should be totally aligned. Yeah, one has amazing talents

Unknown: 00:31:07

and abilities. You don't always get to use them to the fullest

Unknown: 00:31:10

extent. So how can we make sure that happens? And how can we

Unknown: 00:31:14

make sure that we're recruiting people that also bring their

Unknown: 00:31:18

talents and their experiences to us? We set out our values for

Unknown: 00:31:23

the organization as a as a little bit smaller than we were

Unknown: 00:31:27

now, and our values are around ambition, so ambitions for

Unknown: 00:31:33

ourselves and for our young people. What sometimes you hear

Unknown: 00:31:39

within, the space, within this sector, is that, you know, young

Unknown: 00:31:43

people don't have any aspirations, and we always

Unknown: 00:31:45

really challenge that view, because actually, young people

Unknown: 00:31:48

do have aspirations. They do have ambitions, but they lack

Unknown: 00:31:53

the opportunity or the networks or the connections to make them

Unknown: 00:31:57

a reality. So that is, everyone has ambitions, they just haven't

Unknown: 00:32:02

had the chance to realize it. So we're very, very passionate

Unknown: 00:32:05

about the word ambition and what, what is ambition for you

Unknown: 00:32:09

as an individual as well, rather than what society says should be

Unknown: 00:32:13

ambitious about or what society says should be success, it's

Unknown: 00:32:17

about you really working out what's great for you. And the

Unknown: 00:32:21

other one is around inquisitiveness, because,

Unknown: 00:32:25

because we're a small organization, we can be quite a

Unknown: 00:32:28

jolt off fleet of thrift when things change. So we can adapt

Unknown: 00:32:34

our programs and our activities and our locations and our

Unknown: 00:32:37

demographics that we work in. So we can only do that if we're

Unknown: 00:32:41

open to people asking questions, open to feedback, opening to

Unknown: 00:32:45

continuous learning, continuous professional development of

Unknown: 00:32:48

ourselves, as well as keeping an eye on what you know, what the

Unknown: 00:32:51

education sector is doing. For me, because I have benefited

Unknown: 00:32:56

from great learning development as a young person and into my in

Unknown: 00:33:00

my early career, I feel like that's also really important. So

Unknown: 00:33:03

we invest quite a lot of our time and resources into training

Unknown: 00:33:09

and development within the team. And that is something I think

Unknown: 00:33:13

has been a benefit of sort of reordering or refocusing our

Unknown: 00:33:19

financial capacity by not, you know, not having an office, for

Unknown: 00:33:23

example. So you know, if we traditionally based in London,

Unknown: 00:33:28

in a London office, so paying out for that every year,

Unknown: 00:33:32

actually, we can reinvest that into other things that make the

Unknown: 00:33:35

team work, help them develop, but also help our organization

Unknown: 00:33:39

run more efficiently, rather than just having people in a

Unknown: 00:33:45

box. Yeah. So, so, yeah. So we work in a co working space now

Unknown: 00:33:52

when we need to, rather than being in an office every day.

Unknown: 00:33:56

So, yeah. So I think it's important that yeah, we live and

Unknown: 00:34:00

breathe what the talent foundry expects and its mission and its

Unknown: 00:34:05

purpose. And we, we want to make sure that everyone that works at

Unknown: 00:34:12

the talent Foundry has that same view of helping others to

Unknown: 00:34:16

succeed.

Lee Griffith: 00:34:18

How do you is your I mean, I haven't looked at the

Lee Griffith: 00:34:22

makeup of your organization so, but have you purposefully sought

Lee Griffith: 00:34:27

to build an organization that reflects the type of people

Lee Griffith: 00:34:30

you're working with? Like, what's been the practical stuff

Lee Griffith: 00:34:33

that you've put in place?

Unknown: 00:34:35

We do anonymous recruitment. So again, we've

Unknown: 00:34:38

been doing that for about two years, and we've also

Unknown: 00:34:43

implemented looking, or we have actually moved to having all the

Unknown: 00:34:48

interview questions in advance, having a flexible approach to

Unknown: 00:34:53

interviews that are online versus in person. So we've moved

Unknown: 00:34:57

from again and. Them, it helped a little bit in this because it

Unknown: 00:35:01

was became the norm pretty quickly. But yeah, all of our

Unknown: 00:35:05

interviews are always virtual first and then our second

Unknown: 00:35:08

interviews will always be in person, but we pay for travel so

Unknown: 00:35:13

that no one's disadvantaged by not being able to afford to come

Unknown: 00:35:16

to an interview. And that's the same advice that we would give

Unknown: 00:35:19

to the businesses that we work with, and they're looking at

Unknown: 00:35:22

particular demographics that they're trying to hire so

Unknown: 00:35:26

particular people from a particular demographic that they

Unknown: 00:35:29

would like to hire again, trying to make sure that if we are

Unknown: 00:35:33

suggesting that as a recommendation for improving

Unknown: 00:35:36

diversity, then we're doing it ourselves. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Lee Griffith: 00:35:41

I noticed behind you you've got a poster that

Lee Griffith: 00:35:45

says sports girl, and I know you're very active as a

Lee Griffith: 00:35:49

sportswoman. Triathlon. Have you done recently? You've done the

Lee Griffith: 00:35:54

wide London. I always see you pop it up with a medal of some

Lee Griffith: 00:35:57

sort on social media, and I'm guessing that requires quite a

Lee Griffith: 00:36:03

lot of training and dedication to be able to compete in these

Lee Griffith: 00:36:08

types of things. How are you making that work with the day

Lee Griffith: 00:36:13

job? And I say that with bunny ears?

Unknown: 00:36:16

Um, I think it's something that I feel is really

Unknown: 00:36:25

important to my own identity, and that my identity isn't

Unknown: 00:36:30

totally wrapped up with the organization that you work for,

Unknown: 00:36:34

that you do have to and for me, that is the work life balance

Unknown: 00:36:39

like I completely and utterly believe in the work that we do

Unknown: 00:36:44

and the work that I've done in other other organizations in the

Unknown: 00:36:47

charity sector, but it cannot become all consuming doing sport

Unknown: 00:36:53

and to to to a competitive level. I feel like that is sort

Unknown: 00:36:58

of a part of my identity that keeps, keeps me separate from my

Unknown: 00:37:03

from work, Jenny and I, yeah, and I love doing it. I've made

Unknown: 00:37:10

amazing friends. I've got a try, try family that are brilliant,

Unknown: 00:37:14

that spend a lot of time with. And I think it's you have to

Unknown: 00:37:19

make the time to do that. You have to make the time. And of

Unknown: 00:37:22

course, there's always going to be choices to make, because

Unknown: 00:37:26

there's, there's work commitment. So you know,

Unknown: 00:37:28

traveling around the country and going to events, going to

Unknown: 00:37:32

conferences or meeting partners or meeting teachers, means that,

Unknown: 00:37:36

you know, you can't do a couple of training sessions that week.

Unknown: 00:37:40

But it's also then not, don't beat yourself up about those

Unknown: 00:37:43

sorts of things. It's about finding the balance overall.

Unknown: 00:37:50

Yeah, I think, I do think that is important. I think it's

Unknown: 00:37:53

important for people to have more than just their work in

Unknown: 00:37:57

their lives. Yeah,

Lee Griffith: 00:37:58

I couldn't agree more. I mean, mine, mine was

Lee Griffith: 00:38:01

slightly more sedentary with the stuff that I have outside. But

Lee Griffith: 00:38:06

the principle I agree

Unknown: 00:38:10

with, it's difficult because, like, swimming, you

Unknown: 00:38:13

know, in a lake is not for everybody. And trust me, it's

Unknown: 00:38:16

really not for me either. Earlier, like, not very good at

Unknown: 00:38:19

something, I just keep going at him, so I can attempt to get

Unknown: 00:38:22

good at it, which is what happens for me in swimming. So

Unknown: 00:38:27

but it is a complete relief you you don't have to like when

Unknown: 00:38:30

you're cycling along at 25 miles an hour. You have to think about

Unknown: 00:38:34

the road in front of you. Have to think about the potholes,

Unknown: 00:38:36

what car is going to put out on you. You can't then be thinking

Unknown: 00:38:39

about all that partnership pitch that I've got to deliver at, you

Unknown: 00:38:43

know, four o'clock the next day, so it helps take your brain away

Unknown: 00:38:47

from some of the things that perhaps I'm mulling around.

Unknown: 00:38:50

Because work can be all encompassing. When you care so

Unknown: 00:38:54

much, it can. There's no you know, if you care about what

Unknown: 00:38:58

you're doing and you want good stuff to happen, then it can

Unknown: 00:39:03

easily become all consuming. Obviously, you have to fight.

Unknown: 00:39:08

You have to force yourself to find something else which can

Unknown: 00:39:12

help provide that balance. And yeah, for me, it's sport, but

Unknown: 00:39:15

for other, for others, it's every everything else, like

Unknown: 00:39:18

there's, I always say there's a hobby and interest for everyone.

Unknown: 00:39:21

There's so many out there,

Lee Griffith: 00:39:23

absolutely and I find that even, as you say, just

Lee Griffith: 00:39:28

doing something that means your brain isn't thinking about

Unknown: 00:39:32

what you've got coming up at work,

Lee Griffith: 00:39:35

I actually find taking that break, I come back

Lee Griffith: 00:39:38

far more with far more ideas and energy and perspective, which

Lee Griffith: 00:39:44

you just, and it's an irony. It's not you think I've got to

Lee Griffith: 00:39:47

spend all this time on it, because that's the only way I'm

Lee Griffith: 00:39:49

going to break it. Sometimes the best, best way to break it is to

Lee Griffith: 00:39:52

completely step away from it. And we just need to accept that

Lee Griffith: 00:39:55

a bit more.

Unknown: 00:39:57

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's really hard. I've totally

Unknown: 00:40:00

been there, yeah, like looking at a spreadsheet for about four

Unknown: 00:40:04

hours, and then you think, Oh, I probably should. And then that

Unknown: 00:40:07

you take the break, you come back to go, oh, fix that in 10

Unknown: 00:40:11

minutes. How do you stay motivated?

Lee Griffith: 00:40:16

Because you mentioned, you mentioned

Lee Griffith: 00:40:18

earlier. Obviously, social mobility is getting worse. So it

Lee Griffith: 00:40:23

must feel like it's a confident blog, and you know, you're

Lee Griffith: 00:40:27

running against a treadmill that's that's never stopping. So

Lee Griffith: 00:40:29

how do you how do you keep yourself motivated and keep

Lee Griffith: 00:40:32

others around you motivated?

Unknown: 00:40:35

Yeah, I mean, I have quite a lot of stats that I can

Unknown: 00:40:39

rule off about why it's bad. You know, only 18% of those parents

Unknown: 00:40:45

who have no qualifications go on to get a degree, but you're four

Unknown: 00:40:49

times more likely to become social, socially mobile if you

Unknown: 00:40:52

go to university. So that's the flip side. And then if you get

Unknown: 00:40:56

into a professional role, those people from working class

Unknown: 00:41:00

backgrounds are likely to earn 6000 pounds less than their more

Unknown: 00:41:05

privileged counterparts. So and yeah. And the recent data is

Unknown: 00:41:09

that, you know, for students from a low show low socio

Unknown: 00:41:13

economic background, you know, almost a year, two years behind

Unknown: 00:41:18

their counterparts in terms of GCSE qualifications, a levels.

Unknown: 00:41:22

So it is very depressing when you look at the data. So

Unknown: 00:41:26

there's, there's a couple of things that motivate me. One is,

Unknown: 00:41:31

and this is someone, something that said, someone said to me a

Unknown: 00:41:34

few years ago, when I was working at the Scout Association

Unknown: 00:41:37

and it was around, yes, it's depressing, but how much worse

Unknown: 00:41:45

would it be if you didn't exist? Yeah, so that's sort of that

Unknown: 00:41:49

gap. Yes, there's a massive gap, but if we are filling a little

Unknown: 00:41:52

bit of it, as are lots of other amazing organizations in this

Unknown: 00:41:55

space, how much worse would it be if we weren't doing what we

Unknown: 00:41:58

were doing or what we're doing now? So that's that's, and it's

Unknown: 00:42:02

hard to put figure on that from an impact perspective. But the

Unknown: 00:42:07

other, the other motivating factor is, and I think, and if

Unknown: 00:42:10

you'd like to come to a workshop and see it in action, is it,

Unknown: 00:42:13

when you go to a workshop and you see our amazing facilitators

Unknown: 00:42:17

deliver, you know, employability skills, confidence boosting

Unknown: 00:42:21

skills. They get young people who don't really like talking,

Unknown: 00:42:24

don't have confidence to present, at the end of a

Unknown: 00:42:27

session, tell you they're not very creative. You know,

Unknown: 00:42:30

typical, I don't like that because I'm not, I'm not, I

Unknown: 00:42:32

don't I don't like art, or I'm not very creative, or I don't

Unknown: 00:42:34

like speaking. And then by the end of the session, they're

Unknown: 00:42:37

doing all of those things. They're being told, Look at all

Unknown: 00:42:39

this amazing work you've just produced. So you can do all of

Unknown: 00:42:43

these things. You shouldn't think that you can't because you

Unknown: 00:42:46

can, and that that is immensely motivating. So anytime I feel

Unknown: 00:42:53

perhaps I've looked at spreadsheets for too long, just

Unknown: 00:42:56

head to a school and see in action. And you know that is

Unknown: 00:42:59

making a difference. And I think that is and I like celebrating

Unknown: 00:43:05

the third motivator is the celebration of team success,

Unknown: 00:43:09

like what we do isn't one person. It's loads of people

Unknown: 00:43:14

making this happen. It's the talent foundry team who are

Unknown: 00:43:17

awesome. It's the teachers that have confidence and trust in us

Unknown: 00:43:22

to go into their schools. It's our facilitators who are

Unknown: 00:43:24

delivering the sessions, and it's our amazing funders. You

Unknown: 00:43:27

know, again, the magic doesn't happen if one of those

Unknown: 00:43:32

components is missing. So for me, that is the biggest teamwork

Unknown: 00:43:38

buzz you could possibly get, because everyone has to play

Unknown: 00:43:41

their part to make it work. Yeah, and I love that about what

Unknown: 00:43:46

we do and working in this sector,

Lee Griffith: 00:43:49

you mentioned that you're primarily remote working

Lee Griffith: 00:43:52

as an organization. So how do you

Unknown: 00:43:56

motivate from afar? Oh, that's I mean, I think we have a

Unknown: 00:44:04

couple of days a month where we get together, yeah, we call them

Unknown: 00:44:07

team together days, sort of stuff. What it says, yeah. And

Unknown: 00:44:13

some of those days are just people sat in a room together,

Unknown: 00:44:16

just chatting about what they watched on Netflix or equivalent

Unknown: 00:44:20

streaming channel that you might have, and perhaps sharing some

Unknown: 00:44:23

experiences, sharing some learning, tackling problems

Unknown: 00:44:26

together. And then all we might do, some, you know, facilitated

Unknown: 00:44:30

learning and development in those sessions. And then we

Unknown: 00:44:32

might look at some of the achievements from the last month

Unknown: 00:44:36

and what's coming up for the next month. So really simple,

Unknown: 00:44:39

just getting together, hearing what's going on activities. But

Unknown: 00:44:43

the other thing, I think is, is, and I would say this because I

Unknown: 00:44:48

come from a communications background, is it really doesn't

Unknown: 00:44:52

hurt to over communicate, like just over communicate. So tell

Unknown: 00:44:57

people when they've done a good job. Share. That they've done a

Unknown: 00:45:00

good job highlight all of the different things that are going

Unknown: 00:45:03

on, and then people can pick and choose the elements that work

Unknown: 00:45:06

for them. So I think for me, that is a way of demonstrating

Unknown: 00:45:12

that I'm proud of what everybody does, and that I'm able to see

Unknown: 00:45:18

what everyone is doing. I think the difficulty in remote working

Unknown: 00:45:22

and hybrid working is that you as as the leader, you are not

Unknown: 00:45:26

actively seeing it. And even if you're in an office, you

Unknown: 00:45:30

wouldn't be actively seeing it. Because I can imagine, if you're

Unknown: 00:45:33

walking down the corridor into a big room, probably it'll go

Unknown: 00:45:38

silent the moment you walk in the room, right? Because people

Unknown: 00:45:40

having too much fun, you know, begin to having fun at work.

Unknown: 00:45:43

Have fun at work. I think it's that. It's how do you get that

Unknown: 00:45:48

feedback from people? How do you understand what the vibe is,

Unknown: 00:45:53

what people are really thinking? So that you if there are

Unknown: 00:45:57

problems or there are challenges, you can help deal

Unknown: 00:45:59

you can help deal with them, because I said right at the

Unknown: 00:46:02

beginning, a lot of what we do is about problem solving. But

Unknown: 00:46:05

you can't solve a problem if you don't actually know what the

Unknown: 00:46:08

problem is.

Lee Griffith: 00:46:09

Completely agree on the I mean, with with bias

Lee Griffith: 00:46:12

slightly, but yeah, communication, communication,

Lee Griffith: 00:46:15

communication.

Unknown: 00:46:17

But also some people, that is really easy for me to

Unknown: 00:46:21

say as the CEO, because there's no recompense. Is that the right

Unknown: 00:46:26

word, like for me saying things out loud, but there might be for

Unknown: 00:46:31

other people. So, you know, people always guarded about what

Unknown: 00:46:35

they might say or how they might come across, because, you know,

Unknown: 00:46:38

they might be judged, or they might be fear. They might be

Unknown: 00:46:41

fearful about what the reaction will be. So we have a job as

Unknown: 00:46:45

leaders to try and be and I know this doesn't happen, but be as

Unknown: 00:46:50

open as possible to hearing from people, so that you can give

Unknown: 00:46:54

people the confidence to come and talk to you and get to know

Unknown: 00:46:57

you. Because we are ultimately humans that are saying, I've sat

Unknown: 00:47:01

in the same chairs that everyone else has sat in. I've been

Unknown: 00:47:05

probably had similar experiences that they've had. So, yeah, the

Unknown: 00:47:09

hierarchy aspect of the role for me is the, I think the difficult

Unknown: 00:47:15

piece, especially when you come at something from if when you

Unknown: 00:47:18

prefer to work in a team, when you're a teamy person, you need,

Unknown: 00:47:22

again, you need all of those team roles. You know, love a bit

Unknown: 00:47:25

of they'll be you need all of those roles within a team to

Unknown: 00:47:28

make it work. But it shouldn't mean people don't, don't feel

Unknown: 00:47:32

confident to communicate with you, yeah, yeah, because the job

Unknown: 00:47:36

title gets in the way at that. Yeah,

Lee Griffith: 00:47:39

absolutely. And there's a whole load of stuff

Lee Griffith: 00:47:41

around power dynamics and all of that that come into play just

Lee Griffith: 00:47:46

through job titles. So yeah, that's a whole other

Lee Griffith: 00:47:48

conversation. So we get to the end of our time. My final

Lee Griffith: 00:47:53

question is one that I ask all the leaders that I've been

Lee Griffith: 00:47:57

interviewing on this series, and it's the one piece of advice

Lee Griffith: 00:48:00

that you would give to someone who, perhaps is aspiring to be a

Lee Griffith: 00:48:07

future chief exec or or in that leadership position.

Unknown: 00:48:11

Yeah, piece of advice, I think it will depend, again, a

Unknown: 00:48:16

bit of a cop out, depends on the where the person's coming from,

Unknown: 00:48:20

because one piece of advice for one person would be completely

Unknown: 00:48:23

the wrong advice for someone else. Yeah, but I think being

Unknown: 00:48:27

open minded to opportunities, we say that to young people a lot,

Unknown: 00:48:32

and I think it's true for adults. I don't think just

Unknown: 00:48:34

because you turn 18, advice changes all of a sudden. If you

Unknown: 00:48:39

say yes to opportunities like, what's the worst that's going to

Unknown: 00:48:42

happen from that opportunity? And if it feels a bit

Unknown: 00:48:46

uncomfortable because it's something new or you haven't

Unknown: 00:48:49

done it before, and you're worried about being judged, but

Unknown: 00:48:53

people aren't judging they're just not judging you. They've

Unknown: 00:48:55

got enough going on in their own lives to worry about what you're

Unknown: 00:48:58

up to. And I do think for young people, that's a big fear that

Unknown: 00:49:02

they say no to things because they're really worried about

Unknown: 00:49:05

what other people think of them. And I think, and I know a lot of

Unknown: 00:49:09

people have said this on this podcast, because as you get

Unknown: 00:49:12

older, you become more comfortable with your yourself,

Unknown: 00:49:17

and you know that you're not going to be for everybody. Yeah,

Unknown: 00:49:21

stop you trying to be the best manager, leader, you know, most

Unknown: 00:49:24

fair person on the planet, but you know that your style and

Unknown: 00:49:28

your approach isn't going to work for everybody, so, but that

Unknown: 00:49:32

shouldn't be hampering you still doing your best job of finding

Unknown: 00:49:35

things that you really enjoy or you really like to do. I suppose

Unknown: 00:49:40

the final point on that is that we spend so much of our time in

Unknown: 00:49:44

work, and work is great for lifting people, perhaps out of

Unknown: 00:49:51

poverty or from a different circumstance, and helping people

Unknown: 00:49:55

to be socially mobile, but you still have to find something

Unknown: 00:49:58

that you enjoy do. And I think we're only on this planet for a

Unknown: 00:50:02

very short period of time. So do things that you enjoy, because

Unknown: 00:50:07

you'll find that you're good at them. And that could be for you

Unknown: 00:50:11

being a CEO, or it could be being a director, or it could be

Unknown: 00:50:15

a consultant and supporting CEOs and directors. So there's so

Unknown: 00:50:19

many different pathways out there. You don't have to limit

Unknown: 00:50:23

yourself to just one just yet. Yeah, perfect. That's

Lee Griffith: 00:50:27

a perfect native to finish on. If people want to

Lee Griffith: 00:50:31

connect with you want to support the work of the talent foundry,

Lee Griffith: 00:50:34

how do they do that?

Unknown: 00:50:37

So our website is talent foundry.org.uk, or you

Unknown: 00:50:41

could just Google us and we'll appear. We've got all the usual

Unknown: 00:50:44

social media you can find us on LinkedIn. That's probably where

Unknown: 00:50:48

we're most active. So connect via via that if you want to find

Unknown: 00:50:52

me on LinkedIn. We were joking about this before we started. My

Unknown: 00:50:55

name is Jennifer Tomblin, not Jennifer Anderson, but you'll be

Unknown: 00:51:00

able to find me with a concoction of those names on

Unknown: 00:51:03

there, but yeah, very open to hearing from other people

Unknown: 00:51:05

working in this space, or perhaps you're listening to this

Unknown: 00:51:08

and thinking, Oh, have I really considered social mobility as a

Unknown: 00:51:12

challenge or a problem in my business organization? Then come

Unknown: 00:51:15

and talk to us, because we love talking about it. So we're very

Unknown: 00:51:19

happy to connect with anyone that's interested in changing

Unknown: 00:51:21

the world from people from a different background, perfect.

Unknown: 00:51:26

I'll put

Lee Griffith: 00:51:26

all the links in the show notes as well so people

Lee Griffith: 00:51:28

can find you more easily. Well, thank you so much for your time.

Lee Griffith: 00:51:33

Loved having a chat.

Unknown: 00:51:35

Thank you.

Lee Griffith: 00:51:37

If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review

Lee Griffith: 00:51:39

on Apple podcasts and let me know what you thought. On

Lee Griffith: 00:51:42

LinkedIn. You can find me at Lee Griffith. I'll be back with the

Lee Griffith: 00:51:46

next episode in two weeks time. So in the meantime, sign up to

Lee Griffith: 00:51:49

my newsletter at sundayskies.com for monthly insights on how else

Lee Griffith: 00:51:52

you can lead with impact. Until next time!