Speaker 1 (00:00):

[inaudible] hello.

Speaker 2 (00:13):

Hi everyone. And welcome to the female leaders on fire podcast. And we’re already flying along and we’re onto episode number tad. So I’m your host. I am Nicola Buckley, and I am the coach for women leading in the corporate world. He really wants to be a force for good. Um, and they want to do that without compromising who they are without neglecting themselves or without having to be someone that they’re not. And I got a, an interviewee here today, my first one. So I’m super excited and we’ve just been faffing about with the technology. We’re hoping it all works. And she’s questioned me about my, um, highly professional setup that I have with my Mike. And she’s been one of my amazing long-term clients I’m really fortunate enough to work with, and it’s a brilliant Susie Palmer. True. And we’re going to be talking today about creating positive change and collaborative change from the top down and corporate cause I think we’ve probably all had those scenarios where something has been, there’s been a change at the top, but it’s filtered down, but the way it’s filtered down just hasn’t felt good.

Speaker 2 (01:15):

And actually what Susie is going to be looking at and what we’re going to be talking about. Is there actually, what is the impact for the organization, but what is the impact on the individuals at different levels as well? And within that, does it actually create some kind of trauma and some long lasting effects? So I’m super excited about this today. I remember back to corporate Wells when we went through different changes, but I would, especially some of the bigger corporates I worked for about every two years, it would be a massive change and there’d be a reorganization and a restructure where everything would go up in the air and it would land in a way that was only slightly different. But through that, there was a real sense of fear of redundancies and where you’d end up and what would the impact be. And I just never remember it being how nor particularly well, and as someone, as they move up the organization, being more exposed to that decision-making and the, all the thought process behind it, I could see a different perspective, a different view, but I just don’t think it was ever managed in a way to really support people and how they felt for it.

Speaker 2 (02:12):

And so be really honest and open and transparent as possible. So just to introduce Susie, so just a quick bio. So she’s a mum to Harry who I believe is a birthday boy, or was a birthday boy last weekend, a wife to Nicki. And she’s also has a growing love for open water and open road adventures. So you might find her in her wetsuit or out on a bike for your career. She spent her time just really helping individuals and organizations to realize ambitious by giving and growing competent leadership capability. Um, within that she’s really, really focused on how organizations change and how they change from the top down to really be responsive and respect for the people that are managing and really delivering that change. And there’s many things I love about this woman, but the biggest thing is that she is unapologetically herself. So with glitter, with just cheekiness often with swearing, but she just shows up really as herself, which I absolutely love about her. She’s a chief exec and, um, she also has a own organization everyday change, which is a nonprofit profit consultancy. So welcome Susan, I’m going to stop talking so much now and let her introduce herself. Thanks,

Speaker 3 (03:25):

Nick. It’s brilliant to be here. I don’t feel like I can now introduce myself as you’ve probably done me the best introduction I’ve had in my career. I won’t add, I would add much. Yeah, definitely. Definitely on apologetically may definitely a Swearer. So that’s my, they’re my two trigger warnings for this session.

Speaker 2 (03:43):

Yeah. I wonder if that’s why I was just a kinship with that. The noise has fade. I’m not sure if it would be to each other as well as for about 18 months now. And it’s been an absolute pleasure to really support Susie, just growing more into more into that CEO role. Um, and just being herself, which is obviously the huge part of what I do. So let’s start by talking about change. So, oh my gosh. The last 18 months, that word has been just more within corporates than ever before. Isn’t it? And just that change, it’s not even changed. It was chosen, but change. It’s just been forced across all levels of organizations. I think the easiest way to summarize it is really that no one’s life is the same now. Um, not my life, not your life. No one’s life is the same now as it was 18 months ago. And within that time of change, how do you think generally across the corporate world, it’s kind of been,

Speaker 3 (04:35):

I think it’s a really, that’s a really big question to try not to answer it, but I think there is, there’s something that you have to be mindful of when we answer a question that is that big, is it nobody experiences anything to say? So even in an organization where the change might have been horrendous, somebody will have had a positive experience or positive outcome or positive growth moment because of how they either chose to see it or because of how they repositioned it in it. And likewise in an organization where the change is been in the newspapers during the best thing, and everyone’s enjoying it and these holidays are front and center and everyone getting time out and time to relax and recoup, there will still be somebody who is struggling with the volume of change and how that changes them their life and their organization.

Speaker 3 (05:22):

So no matter what an organization does change is really, really individual and it’s really personal. And I think that that’s something that we’ve all seen in terms of, you know, there’s been lots of out, you know, narrative and nice little postcards that say, you know, when we’re not all in the same boat, but we’re all in the same storm. And that’s really, really true when it comes to change. You know, everyone sees it feels it and responds to it really differently. And there isn’t an organization that has been untouched in terms of the change that has cause concern. You know, there’s not a household, there’s not a relationship that hasn’t had a ha moment when the change came and the change became quite quite relentless. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (05:59):

Absolutely. Absolutely. One is so much changed like this, cause this is a, this isn’t a normal part of history. There’s no, there’s no roadmap for this. There’s no nothing we can look back on. That’s ever really been like this is that constant change. Is that easier? Is that harder? Do you think in your experience?

Speaker 3 (06:18):

Oh, I think the w the world that we are in, it could be world that we would never choose to go through again. And I think therefore that makes it incredibly hard to rationalize when, when we’re in it, when the change is there and constantly something that you hear all the time, but actually when the change is so close to your home, so your heart, so your families, it’s really hard to weather and naturally people get tired and fatigued and struggle with it and respond very, very differently. I think comparing the you’re, the pandemic world of change versus an organizational transformation is, is very, very different. When you put those two things together, you know, the ability to exceed someone’s capacity to cope with change or to process change, you know, it almost becomes like instant or, or, or exponential. And I think when, when those two things come together, we’re actually in quite a dangerous place. If an organization isn’t able to give the structure, the space, the capability, the time for people to manage and balance those changes concurrently, we’re not designed to cope. You know, humans are designed to resist change, like what we are, who we are as part of our DNA and actually pretending it’s not happening. It’s probably really dangerous. It is really dangerous. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (07:35):

Absolutely. And I, you know, that I’m a neuroscience geek and the big part of the neuroscience that I always teach in coaches, especially to leaders, especially to female leaders, is that brain loves consistency. The brain loves prediction response. So to stay in that place as a leader, that you can be calm and you can be consistent and you can lead with that. I have this passion and purpose and do that in a way that doesn’t exhaust you. That is about those consistent behaviors. That is about things staying the same and actually the brain, so many triggers in the brain, as soon as things start to change. And I think what you said about that first point about everyone has a different experience of change. But I think on top of that as well, everyone has a different toleration of change. And it’s almost say if things are changing a lot at home, maybe it’s more difficult than to change everything at work as well.

Speaker 2 (08:22):

And to experience that at the same time, because there is no routine or pattern or structure where you can kind of pull some breath and you can just take some time to be on. I know personally for me, over the last few months, we’ve gone through some huge changes in, in my personal life and at home. And what we, what we planned to do is very, very different. I’ll probably share more about at some point. Um, and when I was doing that and also change decided in my infinite wisdom to change my business and my focus, and really lean into that and really drive it pretty hard at the beginning to really just set there down with foundation stones that very much needed at the beginning, that was probably the worst period of anxiety to be really honest that I’d had in, you know, years and years and years, because there was no consistency.

Speaker 2 (09:05):

And that was exhausting because it’s like, where do I pause breath? Where do I just take time to see how this all fits together? It was almost like everything thrown up in the air. And I didn’t, I didn’t know where it was all going to land and not one of them had London to be able to hold something. We comfort, say, I know this, I get this. So I think that’s important, isn’t it? That not only that flow across work and home, but also your toleration of change, but also what is your change? What is that level of change you have in your life right now?

Speaker 3 (09:33):

Yeah. And you, your ability to understand it and do something with it. So, you know, you’ll, you’ll hear lots of about people needing to be more resilient, you know, your responsibility to be more resilient, but actually if you haven’t ever been taught how to be resilient, if someone hasn’t shown you, if you’ve never had to do before being asked to switch on the resilience button is really hard because you don’t have it yet. No being asked to understand, you know, what your mind is doing and what your capacity is and what your ability to cope with changes. If you’ve never been asked to change before is incredibly hard that having been through significant or traumatic change, and then being asked to change again, is even harder because we have lived behaviors and memory, and all these things have stopped you from being able to change.

Speaker 3 (10:19):

And actually that of the main groups that we see in our workforce from younger to junior first-time employees, who’ve never changed. You don’t have that resilience. You don’t understand it. That’s absolutely turmoil because they have nothing to uncontained. I have nothing to hold on to all the way through to people who may have been in an organization that organization for 10, 15 years, where they have organizational memory, lived history, emotional attachments, and we’ll have stories about change and the history and the experience of it, which will affect their ability to change. And you end up with these teens who have extreme views in any one organization, and then you try and change them. And that’s complicated a messy one because these people put two, because it’s the difference between that lived experience that makes it incredibly hard for an organization, for a leader, for a peer to support people’s get three.

Speaker 2 (11:08):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So when we’re talking about what you call, and I really love this, this concept of the kind of human costs of change, what you, what you’re talking about and what does it actually mean?

Speaker 3 (11:19):

So when I talk about the human cost, it’s very much around the impacts of bad change on individuals in terms of what they might lose and what an organization might lose. There’s lots of gnomes psychology linked to trauma and Coq capacity. And whilst talking about trauma and change in, in the same sentence may feel like it trivializes trauma. I just want you to like, just stay with me for a minute. So one of the definitions of trauma is around an ability to cope your coping capacity. So when you exceed that, you are technically in trauma. Now that’s not trauma that gets you to a and E you know, it’s not trauma after, you know, serving in the armed forces is your individual sort like bodies, minds, state themselves. And when you hit trauma, especially in the workplace, you are likely to disengage. You’re likely to be resistant to new ideas, new ways of working.

Speaker 3 (12:14):

You’re likely to be, sort of take a step back. So you might not engage in teamwork. You may not be able to work at the same capacity. You may not like the work anymore. And if you don’t deal with that and you don’t help it move on, then it will basically act as a hindrance to, to you for the foreseeable future. So future change will be wedding, a history of trauma. So your ability to engage and think and do differently will be detrimentally impacted. And that’s not just going to affect you as an individual. It will affect your team. It will affect the colleagues around you. It will affect the new colleagues that join your organization, because the stories you tell will be stories of trauma. And therefore the human impact is you lose the best bits of people because they start to withdraw and disengage, and that affects the individual. And it ultimately at a scale, it affects an organization because, because we lose sight of the people that are within us. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:07):

She kind of leaves the hard, the harder edges of those people. I don’t mean hard as in, you know, aggressive or assertive. I mean, hard us in their very distinctive. This is who I am and then natural makeup and their natural abilities. And some of those are just kind of lost along the way, because it doesn’t fit with a change or, or they just withdrawn. And they’re not, they’re not performing at the, at the very limits of what they’re capable of. They just withdraw back into more comfortable. I know this is safe and actually I really need to be safe within all of this definition. I think that it’s really important to be clear on trauma. We’re not saying this is trauma that you’ll then potentially go need counseling for everyone’s different. This is trauma. Trauma can be with a big tear, a little T, and there’s a whole scale of trauma kind of sitting behind, you know, certainly with the clients I work with. But it’s really important to recognize that I think goes back to the first point we talked about, which is everyone will see this through a fair let for a different, an experience change for a different lens, but that human cost is, is for the organization, but also then at an individual level.

Speaker 3 (14:09):

Yeah. The biggest thing I think that gets put a restaurant in a period of change is an individual’s purpose because it change challenges that, and if you lose your own purpose, your ability to stay true to who you are, you know, hold the line, you know, go, go, do we have to do five wheel? Your fight is incredibly hard. If you, if you’re losing who you are or you think that that person is, is under threat. And that’s the, one of the biggest things that you’ll see during a period of change, it’s what lots of people will talk about in terms of lockdowns about, you know, taking away that freedom, that ability to choose that ability to decide it. Wasn’t a case of, I can’t leave my house. It’s a case of, I’m not allowed to choose to stay in it. And that’s the thing that put a lot of people under, under duress rather than the actual restrictions. It’s the loss loss of choice.

Speaker 2 (14:54):

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So in your user change, when have you seen change done really well and what did it, what did it look like?

Speaker 3 (15:02):

I think there’s so much good change, everyone. You know, everyone talks about the terrible change. 70% of organizational change fails is absolute nonsense. So some random statistics pulled out of a McKinsey article in 1994 know, right? Change happens everywhere. It happens in the smallest of places and it happens for the best of reasons. And I think they are that they’re the best bits of change. And if you look at the world that we’re in now, you know, seeing entire communities rollout, either COVID testing or, or COVID vaccines, you see where people have done like meals on wheels for their extended communities, where people stepped up to be volunteers like that’s significant personal change that a lot of people decided to, to do of their own accord. And then you see in organizations where the change starts with the people and the clarity about what we’re doing and what we’re not doing.

Speaker 3 (15:50):

Probably more importantly, you know, uncertainty is something that we talk about open and often, and freely their confidence in the change is something that we commit to. And when we’re clear when it’s not there, but it’s those sort of aspects of change, which differentiate from when change is done to you, when you’re on the receiving end, when you don’t feel that you have a way to contribute in a way to keep hold of your purpose when you feel threatened. But I think they’re the two sort of flip sides of change. Now. Like I couldn’t, I could name organizations, but I don’t think one that that’s helpful because again, my experience of how that changes works will be, will be different to somebody else’s. But I think the hallmarks of good change around that clarity of purpose, clarity of intent, the transparency to do it and to do really well.

Speaker 3 (16:39):

And when change comes from a great place, even if he doesn’t feel like it. So even if a change is around restructuring or stuff, losses, as long as it comes for the right reasons for the right motivations, that impact the evidence through the change. And then, you know, bond bond to change is, is ultimately the, the opposite, you know, but change is where you find resistance is where you find anger and frustration and futility in terms of what it is you’re trying to do. And, and you lack all of the clarity that you need to make decisions and to protect yourself and your colleagues. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:10):

Yeah. I know for me, change changed them badly. I don’t know if you’ve, I know we talked about Brittany Brown a lot when we’ve been coaching together and things, but I love her to definitions of leadership. So the armored and the daring, and it feels like daring sits very much with positive change because you you’re, you’re the leader, but I’m the leader let’s go here together, helped me to get everyone there in a way that feels good and everyone’s with us. And then that way that’s compassionate and nurturing, but also with empathy and just sharing some vulnerability when it, when it feels right. And as part of that, not having to have all the answers, cause there’s this as a leader, as CEO, how can you have the answers? You’ll not pay to have all the answers you’ll pay. It’s bringing together the team that have the answers and lead them.

Speaker 2 (17:56):

And then on the flip side of that, that more I’m at liter, which is I’m I’m leader. We’re going here, you come with me or you don’t come at all. And with that, that more being scared to be questioned, being scared, to be challenged because you feel like you need to have all the answers. And actually if you don’t, you’re failing in your role. And with that, just like, I need to keep up that strength. I need to keep up that I can’t be vulnerable. I can’t show people that I’m actually scared because I don’t know exactly where we’re going and how we’re getting there, but I know that we can do it together, but just that you armoring up and you’re covering it and it almost fits. Does it seem to fit to it, to you as well to have that kind of that more positive change versus that more negative change with those two leadership models?

Speaker 3 (18:39):

Yeah, definitely. I think so. And I, you know, stick with running and you know, this is my personal probably applies to any scenario, but I think definitely sort of like where Bernie sits with, you know, what is it strong bucks up front wild heart. Yes, actually that is also a change mindset because what we’re basically saying is, you know, the strong back is the strategy. It’s the cause of where we are, is the integral thing that we’re going to do and how are we going to do it? The soft on is that ability to make space for the people to allow the album flow for people, to pass through the change and understand it and find, find their space in time. And then the wild heart is the, you know, the ability to think differently, think freely and to not do what you’ve always done, but also not to be cautious, you know, be cautious with people’s hearts and minds, but don’t be cautious with your ambition or your intent. I think, again, it, you know, it’s just, it’s a mindset around leadership and change rather than a textbook. And that’s something that I think we, I think we met at work and go on a course and learn how to do it, but it’s really hard to, to lead it, to love it.

Speaker 2 (19:41):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I, I know for me, it was Def is that difference between good change from is this is where we’re going come together and let’s make a plan and go, and then change works was, felt really negative for me. It’s just being told, it’s almost like change done to me. I didn’t like change dumb with me and collectively that I could be part of. And almost I know for me, when I run my big launches, someone that was part of a big change or transformation within the business, starting off with almost like I would always have a framework and a plan of how I thought we could get there, but always staff sitting in a room with everyone, all the experts in the room or representatives of different areas and just right, this is a day, this is a budget. This is what we’re doing. How, like, how are we getting there? How are we all going to work together to deliver this brilliant thing? And that once you have that, co-collaboration so much more powerful because everyone owns it and you’ve given everyone the time and the space to say what they think and what they feel and what they need. So then you’ll kind of almost see it as you’re getting on the train or the bus together. And you all kind of starting to move out out of the station together because you’re, you’re creating it in that in real time.

Speaker 3 (20:52):

And just by giving people the opportunity to say that it doesn’t mean that as a leader, you have to do it all just because somebody needs it or wants it doesn’t mean you have to give it just because somebody feels, it doesn’t mean you’re responsible for it. But having those opportunities to have those conversations will give other people the way, the time, the opportunities to find their space and to either address their feelings or find support for those feelings to help them tell them, move on. And if they need something, how do they go and get it and how do they achieve it? You know, enabling them to go off and doing, rather than sort of sitting in a parent child relationship where they’re waiting for the change to come up to them. Um, I think there’s some of the bigger, nice shifts that we see in a lot of, sort of change leadership now.

Speaker 2 (21:36):

Yeah. How do you think we can just, so if an organization is going through a big change and there’s a leader that’s listening to this right now, what do you think? The key, I dunno, instruments that they can give their teams to really support them through change. What do you think are the key kind of touchpoints or ways that they can really support their team?

Speaker 3 (21:55):

The biggest, and probably the most simplest is time. Like give people your time, whether that’s to listen or to ask questions or to give them time to process what they’ve been told, or what’s been said, it’s about trying to find and set a pace that everybody can stick to having so that people can join and leave a conversation and not feel like they’ve been kicked out or missed in terms of what happened in what’s happening. So time is definitely the biggest thing. And then what you do with that time. So you spend spent are ironical saying this spend more time listening rather than talking. You know, we give people that opportunity to come and share where they are and what they need, and then enable them to be their own solution. So create the mechanisms for people to solve their own problems and make sure those problems are right, because a big part of change is that I don’t, I don’t like the word empowerment, but enabling people to take responsibility and be responsible for what they’re doing and how they’re feeling and what they can do with it rather than enable people to give it away and making somebody else’s issue.

Speaker 3 (23:00):

So if we shift that, you know, the maturity in an organization, shifts individual maturity, shifts, change outcomes are likely to improve.

Speaker 2 (23:07):

Yeah. I love that. I love that. It’s kind of empowerment and enablement. I, yeah, I, I, similar to you. I have a bit of a, I think the word empowerment almost disempowers itself by being used so much in framing around so much, it’s like empowerment, especially around women and female leaders. It’s like, well, that’s great, but it’s not just empowerment. It’s it’s time it’s space. It’s, it’s so much more than just that empowerment to, to get to that point.

Speaker 3 (23:34):

Yeah. Yeah. W what you said. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:39):

So my final question before we kind of wrap up today, and I absolutely love this, but within the context of where we are now and kind of remote working or that more flexible working or high hybrid working another term that I kind of struggled with, I kind of get it, but we love, we love chucking a hybrid in, or an empowerment don’t we, and kind of using those times in so many different ways, but within that, what do you think, how can leaders really adapt to that, that new world to kind of remote working when they’re in the period of a big change or a big transformation, how can they manage that? Of course, people working at home or work in the office across all these different scenarios.

Speaker 3 (24:16):

For me, it’s a mind shift from, you know, bombs, bums on seats, into outcomes and outputs. So be really clear what you need from your people, whether that’s in a day job business as usual territory, or whether it’s in a transformational change effort, be clear what you need, what it looks like, what good looks like, what good feels like, and look out for that rather than looking out for, you know, the email at five to five on a Friday to make sure somebody was still working. It’s about dropping some of the paranoia and lack of trust in teams and organizations that needs presenteeism. Because most people just looking at myself, you know, my ability to actually sit in a room and do a nine to five day is almost beyond doing that. Whether that’s because of the dogs, the toddler, the wife money to run, you know, my, my bunkers times for swims, like it just doesn’t structure anymore. And we’re being given the freedom, sort of create that life. But my ability to deliver work is, is still there. It’s still through the ring focus, still deliver well and deliver often. So if we can shift from looking for people to be present and accessible and make them driven to deliver really well for whether it’s your customers, your people, your colleagues, your team, it doesn’t matter, but focus on the grapes of value, the other end of the sausage machine rather than the sausage machine. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (25:36):

It’s really interesting. Cause my, my fiance goes to work. He works in health and does a really good job way. He’s in the moment with that patient and his stage is this almost like working through his diary. And he always, he quite often comments. He’s like, I’m just, I’m always impressed, slightly astounded and slightly intimidated by your ability to just get things done and your own motivation. And I know for me in corporate world, I was very much I had that present is am. I was generally go to gym in the morning, the first at my desk, the last leave, which is a whole nother episode where I talk about self promotion, but I, I became invisible because of that. And actually, like you said, it’s, it’s trusting and supporting someone enough to do the work within the time that you want to do it rather than just do the, do the time.

Speaker 2 (26:21):

So if you’re delivering the work, it’s, it’s kind of irrelevant in a way. And I love, I love countries that are now looking at four day weeks and organizations that are looking at collective annual whole weeks off for the whole businesses, because I think it’s just all part of that trend to a different way of working, which is more trust and supporting people with working in a way that works for them and actually only ever gonna make them more loyal and more committed and, and deliver more. You’re not forcing someone into something you’re allowing them freedom to choose what works.

Speaker 3 (26:53):

I think there’s some great opportunities, not like even looking at my own organization that we’ve been able to, to close over Easter. We had an extended Christmas break with our closure time over summer because our pattern of business and able to too, but because we weren’t a Bumble, you know, we didn’t make it into the daily mail, but actually some of this stuff is happening within organizations already because colleagues, leaders, teams, peers, that they see the need for a different way of working and they’re creating their own butterfly effects within, there are many ecosystems and it’s phenomenal to see and to see that shift and knowing that you don’t mean to be a top 100 foot or something in order to be a part of the answer, certainly a new way of different.

Speaker 2 (27:36):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you for, thank you for joining me today, Susie. That’s been amazing. I do have three final questions for you, right? So to finish off Suzy quickfire, three questions, who is your most inspiring?

Speaker 3 (27:53):

So this is an absolute cop-out because I don’t have one and I’m not saying that just to avoid naming somebody publicly, but I genuinely think that I’m surrounded by so many brilliant people, whether they’re in leadership roles or not that I take something away from each of them. And I learned from everybody that I work with. So I don’t, I don’t have a favorite leader, but I have lots and lots of favorite people.

Speaker 2 (28:14):

I love that and well changing. But

Speaker 3 (28:17):

So it’s book that I started reading quite recently. It’s called life, honestly, strong opinions from smart women by the pool. And it’s literally superb. It says it’s the honest guide to modern life for the UKs number one platform, but women intimate and unethical stories of everything, but sex to Buffalo.

Speaker 2 (28:34):

Ooh, I like the sound of that. We’ll pop a link to show notes for that. And then finally, what does find your fire mean to you?

Speaker 3 (28:41):

For me, it’s about knowing what makes me burn brighter and what I need to do in order to keep it fueled and keep me happy.

Speaker 2 (28:54):

So Susie, if people want to find out more about you and the brilliant stuff you do in the change work, where can they friendly Starkey?

Speaker 3 (29:00):

I would just still be on LinkedIn. It’s where all the good stuff happens nowadays. Isn’t it?

Speaker 2 (29:04):

It’s cause apparently it’s partly some of it’s not for LinkedIn. It’s for Facebook only and yeah, we might go, right. That’s it for today. Thank you so much for joining us. If you’re interested in finding out about working with me, just my email address is, um, in the show notes or you can download to get started free right now. You can download my overwhelmed on fire. My five step guide that takes just 10 minutes to help you clear your head and get back to feeling on fire. So I will see you in the next episode.

Speaker 1 (29:37):

Bye [inaudible].