283 - Geoffrey Williams, IH: Howlett Brown - Workplace Culture as a Misunderstood Force

coming up on heads talk when organizations talk about culture what are they really talking about? I tried to push money money you pushed back with no culture culture and I said to get being Jeff because I can money honey and then you pushed back again and said culture. Look at what I talk about I was saying you know often we are celebrating the brilliant jerk and that's someone that's not great at leading people but they are a subject matter expert in the world they are delivering and they deliver that well but they don't deliver their people angle or the culture and any kind of true meaningful way. Yeah you and I are not not sort of spring chicken we've been in the business for a long time and I have seen in my early days in the in the corporate world there's always this initiative about cultural change and cultural modification and how we're going to bring in this new culture and today it's still a conversation piece so something along the way has either gone wrong or it's deliberately gone wrong or it's doomed to fail and and perhaps maybe people like you need to sort of grab it by the verbal and say this is how you do it this is heads talk with me Elaine Pringle, switter. The podcast where we talk to C-11 executives leaders of institutions and heads of multinationals what are the current and pressing topics well we like to start the conversation. Can you imagine getting into a business or a market where you actually spend a hundred billion plus on a piece of paper? Are you kidding me? It was like a frank hand of the head. I got nothing against CFX. It was not just the job of a lifetime was the job of a thousand wave times. My guest today has spent more than two decades advising senior leaders on one of the most misunderstood forces inside organizations culture across global corporations media and the creative industry has worked at the intersection of leadership reputation inclusion and organizational behavior helping companies understand how cultures shape performance resilience and trust but his work goes beyond boardrooms alongside advising C-Suite leaders he has remained deeply involved in initiatives supporting the next generation and amplifying voices often overlooked by mainstream systems today we explore a simple but powerful question when organizations talk about culture what are they really talking about? You don't want to miss this conversation but before we get into that is a brief message. Head talk podcast with your host Elaine Pringle, switter. Jeffrey Williams is a cultural strategist and leadership advisor with more than 25 years experience working with senior leaders across global organizations in business media and creative industries. His work focuses on the intersection of organizational culture leadership behavior reputation and performance helping companies build environments where people purpose and commercial success align. Alongside his corporate advisory work he is also actively involved in initiative supporting young people and championing underrepresented voices in business and the arts. Today Jeffrey is the interim head of culture and sustainability at Howlett Brown where he leads engagements helping organizations strengthen culture leadership capability and sustainable performance. Let's have a conversation now Jeffrey welcome to Head talk. Thank you for having me Elaine. Excellent. Okay let's start with the thing I started at the very beginning which is culture. Many organizations treat culture as something soft you know we've all seen you know values on a wall or interim initiatives or a paper that they put out but in reality and in a lot of your thinking when I did some research on you so from your experience Jeffrey advising senior leaders what does culture actually reveals inside companies. So I would say that culture shows up in how your most disenfranchised in disenfranchised individual is connected to the organization and what I mean by that is you know culture is often played out like you might see in the school playground so there are the people that are the cool kids that are in the mix in the know understand what's going on. I help in shape and define that and then there's those that are not the cool kids however they may have all the knowledge and information so they actually may have all the insights and the capabilities to make the changes but because they're not in the inner circle they're not actually being heard or getting to have the right conversations to drive that forward and I think quite a lot of the time when organizations do their culture surveys or any other moment to kind of understand the baseline of the culture they only listen to the majority voice so they'll look at the data and they'll say actually that's a two smaller data set for me to actually make a decision however that 0.1% statement which might be two people in your business they're the service removed from your culture so they are the ones that you should be listening to but I think organization's struggle with that because it feels too raw and too close and actually in some instances they might be able to identify the individuals they're actually kind of I guess falling out out of their their cultural norms so I think a lot of the time the culture conversation and how it shows up is about power it's about a connection to the seats of power it's also the the piece of how people actually listen to those individuals that don't sit closest to the power and then the importance they give those individuals when they don't sit close to power. I think I quite like your energy in terms of the school playground I mean it makes it pretty much quite clear because you know I've heard culture for the last 25 years in the corporate world so what you're basically saying is that its culture is defined by in quotes the the weakest link and how their strength and contribution within the organization you know is received or or managed and then you get a sense of how that culture is and I write in saying that. Yeah you are writing saying that I think it's also the piece of you know you're written the strategy down on a piece of paper but what is it aligning to beyond you want the people that work for you to be happy and you know my in some instances be aligned to a profit margin but it is it aligned to I guess where the world is moving towards whether that's around innovation around data around tech around flexible working and hybrid moments and how do you feed that all into your culture assessment so that you're able to understand that when someone walks through your front door you have your four-wall structure so what happens within your organization could be very unique to your business but that happens within your four walls and where anyone is in the global landscape they should have a similar if not a similar experience and I think quite a lot of time culture is dependent on your leader as I said your proximity to the sea of power proximity to how your leader articulates the culture to you and how they live those values and I you know I think when you look at what I talk about I was saying it often we are celebrating the brilliant jerk and that's someone that's not great at leading people but they are subject matter expert in the world they're delivering and they deliver that well but they don't deliver their people angle or the culture and any kind of true meaningful way does culture sort of often exposed behaviors leaders didn't intend leaders do not know the impact of their footprint because I think when you if you were to manage your culture well that would be an angle of what you looked at and I think most organizations don't look at the leader footprint and the impact of the leader on their team and on the organization and on the kind of like go-to-market strategy I think on the second part is that piece of I guess the the through line is always going to be that circle of motion of at the end of it it's about the profitability but it's the piece of how do you tie the culture to that and how do you I guess not set a culture strategy that is for five four to five to ten years journey every year there's there's an evolution to it and you're putting small incremental shifts I think most of the time everyone builds a strategy that is you know ten years down the road we will be here and and then they don't necessarily take all the measurements that you need to get to that point it's just kind of like this this kind of really great lofty vision which people buy into but how you get there you don't know and then how you kind of measure it we don't know and do you adapt and change if it's not working well no because you set the direction and that's probably let me to adapt and change and go effectively that didn't work for the year that we did that let's look at it reposition and change it but I think to the point that you made right at the start the challenge is always going to be the culture work whether that be, it's always seen as a nice to have. It's probably the smallest team that exists with any organization, and they have the biggest remit to try and delight a multitude of customers, but they don't have the bandwidth for sometimes even this, the most senior individuals buy into the conversation. - It's so broad without concrete measurements and date lines for delivery, then, so if it's failed to deliver, then no one sees it as a failure to deliver it. It's almost like a long-going thing. And probably, perhaps, to some extent, that is deliberate, because no one really knows how to define it, how to make this thing real, how to make this thing on-party with everything else that they're doing and that's the thing. - And it's a new thing, right? It's a new concept. So if you think how is work set up, it's, I don't know if everyone's read Charles Dickens hard times, but the world of work is set up in that structure. So you have your leaders and then you have the people that do. And I think where we are now is that there needs to be a bit more of a balance that everyone has insights, everyone has knowledge, everyone's an innovator, and you need to kind of have that entrepreneurial spirit existing within your culture, so that regardless of whether it's your grad coming in or your most senior leader, those ideas are able to flow and be articulated and then implemented in some capacity, but work isn't designed in that way. So it's a lot of people having to unpick things. And some organizations are very old in age, so they've been doing things a Pacific way for generations. And now to kind of say, oh, we're gonna unpick all of that, it feels very daunting. So they just choose not to do it. - It's interesting, and perhaps when I sort of gave you this follow-up question when I talked about, leaders didn't intend to really change it, because you and I are not sort of spring chicken, we've been in the business for a long time. And I've seen in my early days in the corporate world, there's always this initiative about cultural change and cultural modification and how we're going to bring in this new culture. And today it's still a conversation piece. So something along the way as either gone wrong, or it's deliberately gone wrong, or it's doomed to fail and perhaps, maybe people like you need to sort of grab it by the verbal and say, this is how you do it. And then shake it out of the organizations to get this thing done, because it's gone on way too long for it to not succeed the way it should succeed. - So I think it's exceeded in pockets. So when you look at say, maybe hybrid working and how that's paid out, I think it's exceeded there. I think it's not, I don't think it's deliberate. I think it's such a nebulous concept but did it succeed in hybrid working or was it forced on them through the pandemic? Because I remember prior to the pandemic, that wasn't a thing that was favorable. Thereafter it was a necessity in order to maintain the cons in order to maintain the financial model that organizations live and die by. So I don't think that was a cultural change. I just think that I have a necessity to maintain the real core, what the business is all about. - So I would say for the organizations that I've worked in, and I can speak, obviously speaking from that value, the model of hybrid working was already in play before COVID, COVID. So it wasn't something new that they had to react to. I think the everyone full time at home was a bit they needed to react to, but there was a lot of flexibility and a lot of freedom in how people worked prior to COVID. And I think they were able to enhance some aspects of that after the COVID moment. So I think from my experience, it wasn't like a massive structural change of you now work flexibly. I think now in the role that I'm doing, I can see that some organizations do struggle with that, but I do think it's again that piece of culturally, if you show up, you're doing your job is how people viewed the workplace. And now it has to come back to just because you show up, doesn't mean you're actually doing anything. When you look at output, sometimes you might see the person that's in every day eight o'clock and leaves at seven is doing the least, but they're just present. And those are part of the things that you need to be managing and monitoring across your cultural components. - The difference between perception and naturality. - Yeah. - Okay, you know, over the past few years, we've seen a shift in how organizations talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. And at one point, it was a major corporate priority. Most recently, some of the commentators claim that, you know, the momentum has slowed and even reversed and perhaps certain new administrations without going into detail has given people a license to say, okay, let's part this and let's move on to what we're really all about. So Jeffrey, you know, from your perspective, has the conversation about DE&I or EDI, everyone to call it genuinely changed or has the narrative around it simply become more, you know, politically charged? - Has it changed? I don't know if the conversation hasn't changed. The ambition is still the same for those who are interested. I think. - Oh, but yeah, so are you in a book, sorry to interrupt you there, but are you in a book or you said the conversation is still there for those who are interested? (laughing) It's, it's an echo chamber. - You need people outside of it to be interested. - So sorry to interrupt you there. - No, I heard that point, but when I say those interested, it's, you know, the way it's been set up, it's, you know, a self-interest group, right? So if I care about race or gender or disability, I sit in my echo chamber of other people that care about race, gender and disability and LGBT, QIA plus inclusion. I think where it was. So prior to the summer of 2020, there was a lot of work going on. That wasn't, that was being measured and monitored, but I think discreetly. And done in a way that there was a story that was told in annual reports and told to boards that distinctly defined where the organization was going around diverse communities. There were leadership programs to build pipelines. There were, I guess, conversations on the commerciality of, you know, how you reach out to different communities. So there was a lot of more discreet work. I think what happened after the summer of 2020 was a lot of organizations made some commitments that if they were looking at it from a, if they were looking at it as a financial mission, they wouldn't have made those commitments. They wouldn't have just had all these knee-jerk reactions and said, yes, we're going to, we're going to hire more X. We're going to invest more money in Y. They wouldn't have made those decisions because they would have taken a step back and said, actually, in reality, we can't do these things at this pace. This needs to be a very, this needs to be a decade-long intervention. We need to start small and grow. We need to listen to our people that work in the organization to understand what they want and need, one to understand, to be able to tap into the right communities and the right people that then align to our corporate mission because, again, people partnered with organizations that didn't have the rigor and the structure to uphold their governance. So that caused issues. And I think for me, someone sitting in the, I guess, the eye of the storm, the challenge was that in reality, we, as those that were, had been running the work for over a decade prior to that moment, weren't listened to. Everyone got in their feelings and their emotions and didn't actually sit there and go, this is a, this is also a business moment. This is a culture initiative that needs to be considered from the output of the business. And just like I wouldn't go and make a decision around my financial performance without due diligence, why am I making a decision here without due diligence? So now, when we get five years on, and there was no due diligence, and there was no proper questioning and interrogation of why we were taking these steps, when someone decides that actually this isn't fair because of these reasons, there's no counter-argument, there's been no structure, it's all just based on emotion. So I think what we're seeing now is that everyone doing the work is having to take the emotion out of it and to truly align it back to the organizations they work for, to be able to look at it, I guess, in two ways, one locally. So whichever region they're based in, and then also on the global scale, and how they then tell a story that involves where the organization is going, what the organization is trying to achieve, and kind of, I guess, building more compelling narratives that includes everyone that is really about true culture. And I would say, for me personally, prior to the summer of 2020, everything that I had been doing was about all people in the organization, not just one community. However, we all know that some individuals experience organizations in a very different way, and to get the value and the innovation and the insights we needed to work around how we balance that out. - You're talking about it like we haven't had this sort of big boot in the middle of it, and you see that there's a lot of big corporations that are parking their DEI initiatives now. Some of these big names are parking their DENation. or scaling back or rolling back and if you look at the job model, markets, all these previous DNI, executive DNI, management team directors that are being laid off. So there's something going on that is changing that. I was thinking, do you think the real chance perhaps that organisations try to treat DNI as a programme, rather than what you've just mentioned, as it embedded in its culture and leadership, because the point you made which made me think, hmm, because you said that with some of these programmes it takes time, they start small and it grows and it blah, blah, blah and it gets it. So when the pandemic hits, nobody had time to start small, it hit, you had to rapidly change, adjust and move on. Why is the DNI not treated in that manner, in that fashion as critical, does something like what happened with the pandemic, because for those who are in the midst of it, as you call the eye, at the storm of it, it feels like that. It feels just as critical from their mental survival. So what am I saying? What am I asking you? Your answer gives me the feeling that you're ignoring what is really, or what the heart of what's happening, correct me if I'm wrong, Geoffrey? I think you're wrong, because I feel like I get what you're saying, but I do think it's the way that people have looked at it, right? So in that summer of 2020, people made knee-jerk reactions. However, globally, there were thousands of people that were in DNI teams, that have been in DNI teams for over 20 years doing this work. And all of us, and I am connected to a lot of them globally, were doing the work of making sure this is to sacked to the up, so that it aligned to the business agenda. And what happened in the summer of 2020, suddenly everyone was like, I need to have a position on this. And they didn't come back to these individuals with 20 or GAs experience. They just decided, oh, we're going to do these things, that then set outside of the structures that they already had in place. I think the. They need to have this in place, or they need to be seen to have this in place. They need to have this in place. I don't think they already had things in place that could have answered those questions. And I think if we're being honest, is that piece of, were they equipped to have suddenly these race conversations that everyone was trying to do? No. And is that the purpose of your organisation to have those conversations? Yes, probably not. However, what you did want your organisation to understand was that you should not be treating someone differently based on the colour of their skin, or their gender, or their sexual orientation. These are things that we don't stand for. And you could have just reaffirmed and shorted that up and made sure that everyone understood the position of your organisation. And within all the training that you were designing, making sure that there were the sections and modules that brought to life, some of the key concepts. But the challenge is always going to be when it comes to unconscious bias, where it comes to representation. This is very emotive. And people are often driven by what. They're grandparents told them about many communities. And how you unlearn all of that is more, you make that decision to unlearn it, and you make the decision to make the space for people, for different. Now, I think over the years, where I've seen, you know, from the work that I've done, that people have been able to do that, is often through storytelling, often through putting the mirror back up at people and saying, actually, the reality that you think of black people, of women, is probably skewed in one direction, and that's not the reality, and that's not all people that sit within these communities. And, you know, would you want everyone to think X about you? No, I wouldn't. Okay, well, I need you to then think of how you managed its individual, and how you support this team, and how, you know, and kind of broken in that way. And I think, you know, it was all very nature, it was all very kind of stressful. But I do think the moment we're sitting in now is enabling that reset. And yes, it's driven by something that isn't very great. But it's a necessary process. I think. Yeah, sorry, Jeffrey, do you say some brilliant things? And if I don't get them off my chest, I'll forget. Because you said knee jerk, and you said emotional, let me tackle one of them first. When you talk about knee jerk, you said because of this knee jerk reaction, this knee jerk reaction, etc. But perhaps if you didn't have this knee jerk reaction, you wouldn't be where you are today. I don't mean you, Jeffrey, but in terms of the movement, so to speak, in terms of integrating D&I initiatives within organization, probably would have been a lot slower, just like digital adoption in corporations. If we didn't have COVID, it would have still been a lot slower for people to adopt digital initiative, digital programs, digital tools within the organization. And I just think sometimes you need these as you put it in quotes knee jerk reactions, all these pushes, I would say, in order to get the movement that you need. The other thing that you said, which I think was very point and very important. And I never really thought so much about it until you've just said it. Emotion. Because of the emotion that's surrounded around this initiative and the ideas around it, it's very hard to implement it in a clinical business setting. And that is probably one of the problems that we tend to overlook and tend to park and miss because we all, whether we're on one side or the other, inject our emotions, whether you're the protected group or the not the protected group, you tend to inject your emotions in it because you either living it, you're experiencing it, outside of work, you have a view of it. And therefore, it's really hard to put it in this clinical business setting where a business really, the fundamental purpose is all about making money. But I think it's also, you just made a point there around whether you're in the protected group or you're not in the protected group. In reality, when you look at what the concepts is trying to drive, everybody's in the protected group because straight white men get older and then they become in that group or they may develop a disability or it's all connected. No one sits outside of it. And I think the challenge has been that when, as I said, all the work I've been doing was for everybody and suddenly then we had this work that was kind of focusing down on two key strands. And then the conversation became about something that then was sitting outside, it was sitting in a societal issue that a corporate structure was trying to fix. But a societal issue that has been with us, 500 years, if not more. And suddenly you're going to fix this societal issue. You can't fix this societal issue because it's kind of something that's been baked into our systems. However, what you can do is try and understand this societal issue, try and understand how it shows up in your organisation. And that's the bit where I mean it takes time. It's not a, you can't just jump in and be like, "Yeah, I'm going to cure sexism. I'm going to fix racism." You're not. So you're right, it is a societal issue. So then that begs the question, were businesses, corporations working in silo away from the societal issue. And the societal issue has now come into the business and you're going to have to do something about it. And I'd just like to move a little bit into about sort of integration versus silos because let's talk about your, a little bit about your work in terms of inclusion, cultural sustainability, that sort of stuff. And the well-being of employees, just give my listeners a sense of some of the successes that you've achieved because you talk to see sweets, you talk to leaderships in that space. What changes about the way people work and perform when they actually move from silos into integration? I think over the years what I've seen is when people have moved from silos to integration, they've understood that they are not responsible for the things that happen in the big and society, however they can create a microcosm within the force of their organization that people understand the values and the position the organization takes. I think over the years I've seen leaders go from not understanding a community and how their difference or their lack of integration can impact them within the organization and then be comfortable championing policy changes, policy reviews, medical benefit reviews to make sure that everybody that works in the organization is supported in the right way. I think I've seen where we've done targeted interventions and I remember sitting in many a meeting, walking everyone through why this intervention wasn't important. And the individual saying that they felt that it was unfair or pushing one community above another and then us and my team and I really been able to present real data of the experiences and real kind of, I guess, factual statements of the experiences that people have had and individuals then be named actually with that level of insight, I can see why we need to do this and I'm comfortable doing this for the two years that you're suggesting Jeffrey because there's a time frame to it and I know what we're leveling up to. I think it's also that bit of then how we were able to convince various partners and companies that I've worked with, of where they invest their charitable funds as well and how that is impacting the local communities because quite a lot of time you can partner and I'm not saying that you shouldn't but you can partner with these very big organisations and that's great but then I think where I've seen the most value is when you've been one of these direct activities that are on the ground with grassroots organisations that are like you know stones from your from your offices and you can then you know send the colleagues in to experience and know where their money that they're you know donating is going. I think all these things fundamentally then lead back to how people feel about the culture of the organisation and how committed they are to the organisation and the time and energy they will put back in because they feel seen and heard. I think you know this doesn't multitude of things you know bring it in prayer rooms and spaces for people to be able to pray and all these different things have been the journey that we've gone on like for the last 15 or years on creating a culture that sees and recognises difference accepts that we are all different and that we all have little things that we need to be able to come into the workplace to do our jobs better. It may not and it may not always work and that's fine but it's like you know that piece of how do you do that for as many people as possible and I think you know then you have the generational piece right so you have all these different people working in an organisation sitting across many different generations many different levels of access to different forms of technology and it's kind of managing those pieces of actually how does that sharpen your workplace now and I think we have five generations in possibly in one organisation currently and they all look at the world differently and I think what I'm now seeing in the world that I'm doing is that it becomes a clash and I think we're now at that point of how do we build cohesion so everyone can work together and learn from each other and that's the next level of diversity that we need to kind of bake into the systems of you know diversity and inclusion that exists so not just acknowledging the difference yeah yeah yeah yeah well you're working together with it because it's that piece of everyone's like oh well you know they're all a different generation that's not the issue actually because you can meet people more generations that view the world simultaneously. Everybody's got a role to play basically yeah everyone's got a role to play is that that's an excuse okay. Hello listeners thank you for being part of the growing head store community in the UK alone we now have over 20,000 of very fine subscribers we'll return to this episode in just a moment but first hit the subscribe button and spread the word tell your colleagues and friends about this top 0.5% business podcast if there's a c-suite executive for off-fixi 100 or s and p500 company you'd like to hear on the show or hear again drop us a message we'll do our best to make it happen and while you're here share your thoughts leave a comment and give us a review okay let's get back to the episode let's let's let's continue with you know your favourite topic about culture because we hear that it itself is it culture is becoming a competitive advantage and you know someone listen to hear that because they'll all come on the how but so what does that actually look like in practice and in how does culture translate into real business performance because you know many leaders they still see culture as something's a sideline a secondary thing to financial performance and then I'm sure if you're running a business to a degree you might you might you might would that again maybe Jeffrey not but you might agree so so perhaps you know a part part the original Jeffrey and put on this sort of Ellen sugar Jeffrey and tell me how is culture competitive advantage your culture is the story that your employees tell other people about you right it's the as I said if it goes it's a couple of things right it's the story they say about why they enjoy working at your organisation that they tell their friends and family around the dinner table when they meet people in other countries who work in the same sector all those things matter this it's what's said in the WhatsApp groups about the leaders they work with and that becomes the the narrative that people have about your organisation and when you look on glass door and people are you know explaining the pros and the cons right and you see this very short pros very long cons that's all your culture being articulated beyond the values that you've put on your walls right and that's important because right now there is obviously the the the market for talent is you want the best people possible coming to work in your organisation and you want a mix of individuals you want those that have possibly worked in massive corporates but you also want those that have worked in smaller organisations that bring a more nimble agile approach to what they're doing you want to attract all these people into your organisation and the challenge will always be that people hear negative things about you they will think twice about joining I think is also you know as employment laws change there is there's there's space for more cases now NDAs are about to be written off if I read everything correctly so people are going to be able to talk about their experiences more broadly you can't just pay someone off to be silent they will be able to say whatever they want to say about their experience all of that ties into your culture and I think you have to get to a point where you are minimizing the amount of people that you are paying to to leave and and sign NDAs when you're minimizing you know the the experience that the grad has coming in where they feel like they don't have a voice to articulate how they think something could be done better and quicker and I think the the fundamental thing is this right I think John E. G did some work for I partnered with some work and he gave this speech at one of the organisations I was working at and he said to the leaders in the room he said to them your leadership and your culture is defined on how your teams family know your name and whether when they go home and they say Jeffery did X and everyone around the table was like oh god what did he do again or he is really great I can see how he's supporting you I can see how he's working with you that's your culture right and I don't think most organisations definitely don't see it in that way I think most leaders do not see their footprint and their reach beyond what they're doing day to day into these families and these communities as a as a measure of success but it that is one and I think it's probably the ultimate one when you're thinking about the said culture and it's a whole flip of a muscle right so some people go into leadership roles because they want to be paid well they want to be remunerated it's not because they suddenly want to be responsible for all these people then they're not sitting there thinking that at all what they're thinking is I would like to make some money I'd like to bet on my life I'd like to bet on my family's life and how do I do that well actually that means I have to become quote unquote a leader I have to work my way up to VP you know SVP CEO and then I'm responsible and that's my goal do you mind if I throw in a sort of a devil's advocate thing here because I'm listening to what you're saying and you've given me the example of this individual who joins an organisation perhaps he's a leadership level he wants a good salary he wants to go home and look after his family are we now expecting two degree I'll throw in an analogy because you're putting an analogy at the very beginning it's a bit like social work or even teaching yeah you're just there as a teacher to teach a children to make sure that they are able to understand what it's going on and they are able to grasp the lessons that you give them and they come out better now today there's a little bit of we're crossing into the realms of social work we're crossing into the realms of parent could we're within the teaching space so your your teacher feel that they have been asked to do too many things and they've spread too thinly and then perhaps will burn out is there an equivalent in the corporate workspace where we are asking leaders because leaders are usually the ones that are driving the culture of the organisation to do way too much and on top of on top of that be profitable yeah I would say we are I'm not gonna say we're not we are but I think it's the the bit that we're grappling with now is how does technology integrate with that so that people are able to step back from certain processes and moments and how do they manage the the people element of the activity that still needs to take place and that people element unfortunately comes with a form of social work to your examples of a form of social work a form of understanding the individuals that you're managing to be able to get the best out of them is that fair I think it's the reality I think you know that's where it's heading is it fair maybe I don't know I personally as a leader I kind of find it interesting to understand my people and understand how I can get the best out of them and to make sure that they're progressing to the right level of attainment because I feel like that's a of me and the work that I'm doing and the leadership that I drive, but that I guess after years of working in many different industries and sectors and seeing actually how do I, how do I get the best out of my team? I build a community and my team understand there are part of my community and this is what we're doing. Perhaps fair is the wrong phrase. It's all like, is that right? Yes, it's right. Should it happen? Yes, it should happen. So why are some people uncomfortable with this? And they were throwing the word fair. That's why I said being a diplomat. I think it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a cultural, it's a personality piece. It's a, how do I, I don't know how to have these conversations because I wasn't taught how to have these human conversations? What if someone tells me something that I don't know what to do with? I'll not, I'll look, I don't know. And I think it's, we're at the point where it has to be okay, not to know. And it's okay to say, actually, I'm going to take this question of, you know, your accessibility needs, I'm going to take it away. And I'm going to ask, you know, some people and I will come back with a solution. But in the answer and what I'd like you to think about is how do you solve the issue as well? But people, you get to leadership and everyone feels, like it should have all the answers. But the world is, you know, the beauty of life is about learning. And again, I know everyone agrees with that. But that is the, that is the most amazing thing that mankind, humankind consistently does. We evolve, we learn, we reflect, we change. And I think when it comes to business and the world of work, everyone feels, I've got to this leadership level, I've got my MBA, I've got this, I've got, I know everything that I need to know. We do not, because what you've learned from your MBA five years ago is actually not relevant in this current landscape. Yeah, continuously learning. So it's just continuous learning is important. Yeah, it is. And you've mentioned something which can you believe it? We've not actually used the that word up until the point you've just mentioned it, which is the human element of all of this. We talked about processes, we talked about what's right, we talked about what should be done, but we're not talking about the core human oversight team. We're losing sight of the human element, but actually I think drives and builds performance. So and also when you think about it around the corner, which is not really about the corner, it's actually here. Our AI is changing the way we work and use. And as a leader, and if you're a leader in an organization, you are salivating and welcoming this, because this is going to be reducing a lot of workload. This is going to make things more efficient. But somehow we are losing or we're sort of then parking the human element of it. While we were talking about D&I and that sort of level that needs to be addressed, there's another level that's going to storm and take over and kick everything to one side, which is AI and therefore human element. And therefore, everyone's going to be a protected group, as you say, and they're going to feel being a protected group. What's your thoughts around how AI is being embraced quite heavily with leadership, because I can understand in terms of performance and actually getting things done, but the fact that some are not really thinking hard about the effects on the human element of it. Oh, that's my thoughts. I think it's still a piece of attraction. I don't think anyone's decided either way how they use it. I think there are organizations that have embraced it and are trialing things. I think there are organizations that actually have said to their employees, they can't use AI on anything because they'd like them to understand how to think for themselves and do the process correctly before they involve AI. I think the bit, when you look, I guess the job market on what's going on there, we see a lot of flux because people have gone, "Okay, well, AI can do this. I'm going to get rid of X without really doing a really solid handover or analysis." And I think what will happen is some of those roles will have to come back in to do that and we'll have them to do that analysis and then they'll be able to roll them out. And so I think we're still like another four to five years, maybe a decade away from full AI integration, but I think we have to truly, truly, truly think about the objectives of what we're trying to achieve. It's actually not efficiency. Everyone says it's efficiency, but it's actually innovation that we're trying to drive here and how does innovation, technology and human alignment drive innovation. And I think that's the souls that we're trying to fix. But I think right now everyone's kind of looking at it from a cost-benefit analysis and saying, actually, if I don't have these 20 people in this world, I only keep five of them. AI can pick up 15 roles that I remove, but actually no one's trained the AI model to do those 15 things that you've removed. So then your efforts to be getting mistakes and errors, then you have to bring those people in to model the AI and support it through. So yeah, I think I answered your question there, but that's I guess how I'm kind of looking at it from all the conversations I have to have. The example of the procedure you talked about, the beauty as well as the danger of AI is that while it unable to do it at that time, it will in no time be able to do it and do it better than human beings. And that's the problem. So that's the problem with them. But let's move on from there because I don't want to talk too heavily on AI, I'm not a fan of talking in great detail about it because I can actually see it happening. And it's still sort of in this nasons period, so we don't know too much about it yet. But let's move on in terms of sort of culture and reputation. You talked about it a bit, but let's expand on it a little bit more. So I get a my listeners get a sense of what's happening in real time because if you look at sort of social media, you know, clicks into, you know, a constant scrutiny, the organizational culture is sort of no longer hidden, as you mentioned. And the A's are no longer valid. And so people can talk about it. That's communications. It becomes sort of visible externally very quickly. But what I want to know is in your line of work and what you do and what you're seeing right now, how closely linked our culture and corporate reputation today. In my opinion, they are closely linked. I would say this. So when you look at especially commercial consumer facing organizations, people are voting with their with their pounds and dollars and, you know, yeah, they are making decisions of where they spend their money based on what they hear about the organization. Whether that's around their sustainability commitments, how they treat their people, how they how their values align to the individuals values, which side of the political landscape they sit on. And you can see, you know, weekly daily how people's share prices are ebbing or flowing based on the information that goes out about them to the external ecosystem. I think what, you know, happened over the last 20 years is more people have become savvy around how they invest their money. And so they're making tangible, impactful decisions of how they spend their money. And I think organizations hadn't necessarily cooperated that fact that people are trading individually and they're trading and putting out their viewpoints and saying to other people investing, they're not investing that. Now obviously, I'm not a trader and I'm not a financial expert. But I will say that that plays into things. I think also, you know, a social media has grown and people talk about their experiences of going into stores and whether they're faced racism or whether they were sexually harassed and all not great things. But people are able to in real time explain their position, their viewpoint, their experience. Now, I know it's one individual and it has to be fact checked and all those pieces. But when people are able to do that, your culture is then put under scrutiny. People question it. People ask, why did this happen? Why was this protocol not followed? Why did someone who was the person who let that part of the protocol fall down? And then that person is then meant to be held accountable. But if no one's ever saying to them, you have to uphold the protocol. It's a very hard position for organizations to be in and you can't preempt every angle. So there's only like so many positions you can take in most instances. So it's then everyone is now sitting at a point where they have to kind of really, really think about their blind spots. And then that's where the idea of representation and diversity of thought comes into practice because if you have a monolith in a room and they all think the same, their blind spots are so so massive. There's just so much risk sitting there because there's like a level of they haven't walked the walk of the people. people that live on this planet, they've walked their walk and their walks are all similar. And when they come together to talk about the problem and try and find a solution, they stay in a very niche umbrella and bracket. So that's why, you know, when everyone talks about why your team should be diverse and all those pieces, that's part of the reason why. When asked this question, you started off with the, I think the statement on people vote or people by chance, I'm not sure, based on how sustainable corporations are. And yeah, I see that across the board, across the globe, that is clear. But when people talk about culture, are they looking at how green an organisation is, how sustainable an organisation is, what I want to know is the culture as the laymen would understand it, because sustainability is almost like an action activity or a way of being. Do I believe in the people that are running this organisation to do the ethical and good thing, right? And in some instances, when they get examples of the fact that someone didn't do the ethical and good thing, they're like, oh, I see this now as a different entity than I thought it was. And is that now somewhere that I want to shop and spend my money because it doesn't align with my value system. And we are sitting in a point where there's, it's very black and white, there's not a lot of gray going on in most of our conversations right now. So because there's not a lot of gray, people are making very decisive decisions based on the information they have. I think we're missing the gray, the gray is the beauty of the continuous learning and the ability to be able to evolve and change, but we're having black and white conversations born against. And then so I think they are driving, they are utilising the information they have about corporate culture, corporate positions to make decisions. And I think from going back to the summer of 2020, I think that's a lot of the way that's where you know, that's, I think that's also why people were made the knee jerk emotional decisions because people were calling them out online and saying, well, why haven't you made a statement? It's been X amount of days and you said nothing. And you know, no one was comfortable because they didn't have the diversity in the room to say, actually, we stand, we know what we stand for and we've been doing X for the last 10 years. So we do not feel we need to make a statement on this because, you know, this is not in line with our corporate values, but we do uphold these values. I think we need to make more uncomfortable conversations, very comfortable. So we can get all of this stuff out because that's what's holding people back. Yeah. I want to talk about purpose and profit here, Jeffrey. And we've mentioned a few of these, I mentioned at this point dotted around in this conversation, let's just focus on it for a second. An ongoing debate on where the businesses should focus purely on profitability and play a broader social, rather, or playable social role, I should say, do you believe businesses today have a responsibility beyond profit or should this prime, or their prime and due to remain financially focused, you know, what they're there for? So I think I think the combination of both because you have to be financially viable and financially sound to be able to do good deeds in communities and society. So I think it's that piece of many of the organisations I've had the opportunity to work for have kind of a part of their profits to activities that I guess have a societal impact. But I do think the profit element is fundamental because that's how you employ your people, how you define your strategy, how you grow, how you build or products and services, and how you really are able to delight your consumers and your shareholders. But I do think there's an element of how do you then tie that back to a, I guess, a philanthropic objective that is delivering something in your brand name to a community. And I think that's the bit that sometimes hasn't always for me. I don't think people always think about it in that way. They kind of go, oh, well, this is the nice to have and we give this to the person down the road, but they haven't then tied it back to the narrative of the financial performance and the fact that because they've performed well, they've been able to do these things that then drive things through into the community that if done well, will drive a circle around the talent attraction component of then why people might consider to work for the organisation. So it's building that pipeline through that side, fluffy feeling story that they build with the financials they make. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let's end this episode of Headstalk with a question on empowering the next generation. Alongside your corporate work, you've also invested significantly and significant time in initiative supporting young people and underrepresented communities. I mean, this is something very close to your heart and it was mentioned in the introduction. So listen, as you probably need to really listen to that to, to for this question. And if Jeffrey is willing, I'll put a link into any initiatives that he's working on in his show notes that he would like me to share for people to respond to or get back in touch with him. I'm happy to do that. We can do that off this off air. So tell me, Jeffrey, what motivates you to stay engaged with that work, particularly on side your demanding corporate roles and forgive me. This cultural change thing is a big and a heavy thing that you're doing and you're not going to always succeed because I know in the corporate world. So I think it's like an uphill struggle, but yet you want to get involved in this. So just give us a second. Jeffrey's head. I think what's in my head. I think, oh, so I co-founded an organization called Rocking Your Teens that works with young people, specifically aged between the ages of 13 and 14. So just before they choose here in the UK, they're GCSEs. So it's their first round of major exams. And myself and the co-founders, I guess, felt that there was an opportunity to kind of help them really understand the world of work, how they manage their mental wellbeing because there's quite a lot of sudden pressure put on them to do well in the GCSEs and that the GCSEs are the defining moment of your life because they define what university you go to and how programs you access to. So there's a lot of pressure put into the system. I think it's also that point of them kind of moving from being really small children to semi adults. They've just said to their, you know, they're in their teens, they're they're realizing emotions, all those things. And we just thought that there was an opportunity for us to kind of really create a space for them to be able to reflect to kind of get key insights and to kind of learn at a very early age that the gift that we all have is to be ourselves. We cannot be anybody else. We cannot assume anybody else is like identity. We just have to find out who Jeffy is, who Elaine is and lean into that. And most of the time we are articulate and learn that probably in our late 20s, early 30s. And we're kind of planting that seed at 13, 14 for these young people. So we've been in existence for 14 years now. We run conferences every year. We do two conferences, one for international women's day, which we just did this year at Elseg. And then we do another one for international men's day. And we invite in a more to the speakers who run the gamut of I failed on my GCSEs. I ended up in prison and it wasn't great. And then I came out and I turned my life around to individuals who have I was a student. I went from journey to journey to journey and I'm now a top lawyer in this organisation. And we bring them all together and they kind of talk about the experiences and what they would tell their 13 year-old self. I think we've had influences that people doing kind of new modern jobs that the parents don't know. And we really kind of pay that through. And then we also run a schools program that we launched and that is going into schools and again running a six week program called Empower You. And again, it gets the kids to think about the key premise of the work that we're doing. And all of this is underpinned by the Gatsby report, which is a governmental guidance on how schools should be, I guess, engaging young people in the world of work and helping them to understand what it looks like and feels like. And really, I think it's important. I think all the work that I do in corporations day to day, if the young people coming in don't understand what it feels like to work in these spaces, you, I think when you look at the data now, you'll see that graduates are being hired and let go quicker than ever before because they have no understanding of the working environment. So I think the work that we're doing is beneficial to plant that seed. So people understand what the working world looks and feels like. And I think it's also that piece of when you build confident humans, they will be confident to ask the questions and get there. the questions answered to get the solutions they want. And as Whitney Houston said, the children are the future. So I really just, I think over the years, it's become so vital, such a exciting piece of the work that I do. And it's such a, it's for all children, so it's not for one community or another. It's for anyone aged 13 to 14. We've had kids from private schools, we've had kids from referral units, people that are looked after by the care system. And each of them take away a message of, you know, resilience of understanding and hopefully of empowerment to keep working hard and to do what they can with what they have. So you've said you've been running for over 14 years. Yeah. Have you had a young child from the early days come back to you as sort of a grown-out up now and says, you know, your organisation may be looked this way, your organisation may be do this. And thank you for this. Have you, you've had that sort of conversation? We've had a couple, yeah. We've had a couple of moments and actually, funnily enough, the one of my co-founders, you know, Parish, it was kind of founded because of her child. Her child presented this year for the first time on her new business that she just started. So it's definitely, yeah, we've had some, a couple of full circle moments where we've seen people come back. But we also, a quite a lot of our speakers were early in their speaker journey because we try and make sure that the speakers are not older than 30, so that the young people relate to them. And a lot of them have gone off to do really amazing, powerful things in the various industries that they're working in. Absolutely. Commendable, commendable. Jeffrey Williams, what a gripping conversation today on Hestorm. Many thanks for your time and insights. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining me today on this episode. I've had stocked over, forget to subscribe to the show via my website, elainpringle.com/hestalk, or wherever you get your podcasts. Funnily enough, thank you for your sponsors, guests. Thank you for helping to make the show possible. Please join me next time where I'll be featuring more executives, sea-sweet leaders and heads of international.