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Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Leadership Matters podcast. The podcast for people passionate about leadership and organizational performance, offering insight and inspiration from peers have great experience to share from developing leaders in some of the world's leading organizations. I'm your host and leader of the Oxford Group, and here at the Oxford Group, we've had the privilege of developing leaders, organisations across the globe for over 35 years.
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We fundamentally believe that leadership matters. As leaders, what we choose to focus on and how we show up on a day to day basis really does shape organizations and the people experience. So if you're interested in learning more about leadership development, then this is definitely the podcast for you as it's our first season. We love you to subscribe or hit like today.
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Unknown
To fuel us on the journey to more episodes. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.
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Unknown
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of The Leadership Matters Podcast. Delighted to have Jude Baliti head of partner, talent development and coaching from PwC. The Oxford Group have worked with PwC and Jude for a number of years on a range of leadership development programs. Every time I've met you, Jude, you've always been so passionate about the field of leadership and people development that you were one of the first people that came to mind when we launched this podcast, so delighted we're finally here to get into it, really.
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Unknown
So my first question for you is where did your passion for learning and development and specifically the leadership part grow from? So I think probably from a very young age, it's been within me and both of my parents were in education. My mum was head of an inner city kind of state school. My dad was head of psychology at Newcastle University.
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Unknown
So I've always been fascinated by education and learning leadership. And then from a very young age, I was really into youth development and became a youth leader. So I think growing up it was definitely kind of part of me and the context I was brought up to. I think entering the workplace it became even more prevalent, having worked for a range of different leaders and seeing what good is and at the very other extreme, what not great leadership, which is maybe even an understatement looks like got me really fascinated about what is it about how leaders lead, how they create the environment that gets different results from the same people that they're leading.
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Unknown
And I think that is what kind of led me to my fascination in it. I can tell you a little bit about my kind of career history, if that's helpful. That would be great to hear how you got to where you are now. Yes, sure. So I started out as a management consultant, joined BDO in their consultancy Trained.
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Unknown
Did the accountants exams, but was completely a fake accountant. Did two weeks of audit in my life. Definitely not my bag, but I think BDO wanted me to have the accountancy qualification to be more credible with clients and it was something that quite appealed to have that backing. But very quickly in their consultancy I was just drawn to and ended up specializing on kind of people related projects and was really lucky and early on to do quite a lot of leadership development for clients and other people style projects.
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Unknown
And I was there for a few years and then ended up moving to Peter C A few of my team had moved to Peter b C who then brought me with them and when I joined C it was around the people side of mergers and acquisitions, particularly with kind of cultural focus, you know, why do do companies coming together?
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Unknown
What's the kind of cultural integration part that needs to happen? So that was really, really fascinating recession time here and a lot of that work wasn't happening. So I did a broad range of people projects. My last client facing project and was our big bank where I grew up in, is the head of M, head of Talent and Andy for credit Risk.
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Unknown
It was just one of those projects that totally threw out your comfort zone was like, How am I going to get through this? I am beyond is beyond my experience. But somehow you managed to get through. But actually, on that project I was reflecting I'm here as the L.A. Workstream lead for credit risk. This is not my back, but I really do truly dive is proper kind of real leadership development.
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Unknown
So at that point, I had the realization that I wanted to kind of get deeper in the work that I was doing. And I applied for secondment to our learning and development department. I think that was about 13 years ago. And then we're born yet has come and turned into kind of a full time world, and then it just kind of evolved from there.
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Unknown
So I've done everything from graduate welcome induction, working with, you know, two years in and then increasing kind of seniority in the roles that I was doing. And then the last seven years, I'm predominantly just focused on partner development. And while I was on maternity leave with my second child, I went to Henley Business School, trained as an exact coach and came back and started developing coaching portfolio, ended up then leading our coaching offering over time.
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Unknown
So now it's led me to kind of the role that I'm in now, which effectively I'm in in the UK firm. We have over 1000 partners at P.W, see, and I lead the team that's responsible for and the whole partner development offering, how we look at partner talent and succession planning and our coaching provision. And I also have the absolute privilege of working with our African firm.
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Unknown
So last year, kind of from a chance encounter and through kind of age, ended up getting stuck in Africa for a while in South Africa. And then that led to the most incredible opportunity to work with the African firm and develop out their partner development and talent offering. So now I do 20% of my role working across the Africa region as well, which is just a fantastic part of what I do.
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Unknown
And you show me some of the pictures from your time out in South Africa, which always makes me extremely sorry about that. Okay. So in terms you've obviously worked in leadership development and program design of leadership development in numbers from contacts over the years by for your clients within P.W C, what do you think of the development? What is your approach?
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Unknown
Sorry to development activities that you think really shifts the dialog in terms of getting leaders to think differently and maybe change some of those ingrained habits and behaviours that can help them to unlock performance. So I think across my time designing and running programs, I've done a range of different things, kind of weird, whacky, more conventional. And I genuinely think the thing that makes the biggest difference is quite simple is really giving people the time to stop from the busyness of their lives and their jobs, to really reflect and take stock on what's going on for them and connect with others.
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Unknown
So I think the most powerful thing that we do on a lot of our programs is around peer coaching. So giving people the opportunity with other fellow leaders in different parts of the business who understand the context that people are operating in, give them an opportunity to really explore what's life and going on for them. And it's been probably in those moments, in those peer coaching groups where I've seen the real magic happen.
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Unknown
I think people have the answers within themselves, but just having a spotlight shone on them and being given the time and some independent challenge and provocation really helps people shift and shift their thinking. And I don't know if you've come across a technique called the fly on the wall, but we use quite a lot in a lot of our programs and a technique that when you describe it to people about that sounds utterly bizarre and really uncomfortable.
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Unknown
But when we get people into kind of peer coaching groups, they say, for example, groups of five or six other leaders, and we give people each a lot of time. And I have to say that it's been really important that we've built trust and intimacy in that group first, so that people have a bit of a shared understanding of each other and where they've come from.
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Unknown
But what we then do is give people an allocation of time to bring what's really live for them. And we use this technique called the fly on the wall. So effectively someone will talk through what's going on for them. Their leadership challenge, for example, the group then have an opportunity to prepare their, ask them clarifying questions, and then we ask the individual in the hot seat to turn round as and the rest of the group then just go as if they went in the room.
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Unknown
That issue and when you describe up to people, they're like, Whoa, no way, that sounds really uncomfortable. But we encourage people to turn around with a pen and paper and listen to the rest of the group talk about that issue as if they weren't in the room. And then after a period of time lapse of maybe ten or 15 minutes, we invite the person back into the room and say, you know, tell us about what you heard, what resonated, what did and where do you want to take this conversation further?
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Unknown
And pretty much every time you see people turn back around and you see their face, say, oh my God, what you just said just resonated so much and just made me think about my issue in a completely different way. And I'm able to kind of see things from a completely different perspective, and then they're able to identify some things that they want to take forward from that conversation.
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Unknown
So it's really, really simple. But that's probably the thing that consistently I see having an impact is just giving people that space to kind of explore That is unity. Yeah, it makes me think that. And you kind of hinted at the conditions for that to work have got to be right. How many are suppose so what are the things that you may be do to set that up so that people are maybe not defensive or more likely to take it on board?
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Unknown
And I think that is the other biggest thing is in the programs that we run is how you create the safety, the trust, the psychological safety that people feel able to be truly vulnerable. And we've really noticed a shift recently and just how much people lap that up, because I think there's a tendency that people sense that the everyday working world has become much more transactional and they're really missing that genuine, honest dialog.
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Unknown
So creating that space, whether it's so we do, you know, really simple things from whether it's a three minute story where people bring objects that means something meaningful to them or a song that is significant. But getting people to introduce themselves in a completely different way then my name is Jude and I am headed to an event which is so often just what we do every day.
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Unknown
How do you get people to bring a real sense of themselves to the conversation? So that's kind of one thing. And then in those small groups, before we get into any of that kind of coaching around people's leadership challenge, we invest quite a lot of time, people tending what we call their life stories. So what is it that you want to tell and about what got you to where you are today That's relevant for the group to know?
00:12:08:14 - 00:12:34:07
Unknown
And we do. We do that for two reasons, really. One is to build that trust and intimacy in the group, but also to give the back story so that when people are sharing what's life in the here and now, you're able to tackle that a much deeper level because it's not just, okay, we get that, but we kind of like, well, how does that connect to what's come before, to creating the time and investing that time and really building intimacy in the group I think is really key.
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Unknown
And we hear time and time again from our programs that that trust, that safety, that opportunity to connect in a really genuinely authentic way is kind of what really differentiates what we do. And then for us, the big success is when groups choose to then stay together beyond the former construct of the program. So nothing delights me more than, say, for example, a few weeks ago I got a call from a partner who wanted to talk about Sandy, and he said, Oh, you know, did that action in a group that you ran six years ago?
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Unknown
We still meet the four of us on a quarterly basis, and they're the people that have seen me through, you know, divorce amongst the group, really challenging times in the business bereavement. And I still go to those people and we still meet regularly and use each other as that kind of crutch and support network. And for me, kind of die is kind of an ultimate success and kind of the magic in what we do.
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Unknown
Absolutely true power of coaching. Exactly. Coming to life. And what about other stuff that you've used? I say stuff because there's so many things out there now that bring learning programs and leadership programs to life. Is there any idea whether it's a diagnostic tool or a method or a particular topic or subject that you think is really impactful for leaders?
00:13:52:14 - 00:14:22:12
Unknown
I think that's really hard to answer because it's such a broad range. So whenever I'm trying to design, I think I do think creatively about what different tools, what different methods can we use. So for example, on a program recently where we're getting people who have been partners for ten years to really reflect about what they want their next stage to look like, we did a range of different things, whether that's instead of a typical 360, we did what we called a friends and family 360.
00:14:23:00 - 00:14:50:11
Unknown
So we got people to ask their friends and family, What do you think about my relationship to my work? How does my work energize me? How does that take me away from the things that are important? So that was something quite different. We introduced something called a panel of provocateurs where we got a range of people from different fields to come and give a different perspective on purpose and legacy, including Dunston, embraced from Trauma one Wamba, which the group be like Who?
00:14:50:11 - 00:15:18:07
Unknown
How does this connect to us in the world appear to be? See, but people saw the connection and the probably the most wackiest thing that I've done relatively recently was when we took one of the programs that I run in the UK to Africa with one of your Oxford Group colleagues, and to really bring to life the concept of adaptive leadership, where we talked about the balcony versus the dance floor, we were able to use the surroundings and that we were operating in.
00:15:18:08 - 00:15:46:09
Unknown
So kind of the context of Africa to do a game drive in the evening kind of sunset game drive, which was really about on the dance floor, getting up close to things, noticing the detail, noticing what you see when you're in amongst things. This is a sunrise hot air balloon where we really gave people the opportunity to raise themselves above and look kind of bigger picture, more strategic.
00:15:46:10 - 00:16:11:01
Unknown
And that was this like when we were like, how do we how do we make a metaphor out of these really forward experiences? And we came up with this as well, not thinking it would land as well as it did, but when the group really bought into, Oh wow, yeah, I'm in the hot air balloon with the calm and the ability to see the patterns emerging in the big picture versus far, we was an unbelievable way to kind of really bring to life quite an abstract concept.
00:16:11:01 - 00:16:33:02
Unknown
So yeah, I think always just looking for ways to do things in a different way and that is another level of balcony really, I think, wow, can you maybe line a few tens of feet up? But yeah, I, but I've never been in a hot air balloon, but I would definitely, definitely encourage anyone who wanted to except for if you have a fear of heights by my husband.
00:16:33:03 - 00:16:57:06
Unknown
But it was so calm and so amazing, especially at sunrise, just to kind of have that peace and be able just to kind of float above with the whole group in one hot air balloon over to. Okay. And a highlight which was very unplanned by our side was there actually not a participant, but we got to see someone propose on another level and we were like, we want I think he's proposing to that world.
00:16:57:09 - 00:17:13:10
Unknown
And then when they came down and we were like looked at him and we're like, Did that just happen? What we thought? And then he said, Yes, and we all cheered. So that was quite a nice moment. That wasn't planned. Very memorable. I'm sure my fear of heights might preclude. You might not be a great idea from the hot air balloon.
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Unknown
Okay, that really cool. Thanks for sharing that, Jude. And what about challenges right now? Because I'm conscious, you know, there's the world has changed. You know, we pretty much see that in all of the reports that are out there. You know, society's changed, workplaces are changing. What do you think the biggest challenge is for leaders right now? I think probably on the exactly to that point is the pace of change, how much and how quickly things are changing and therefore leaders having to respond to that and having to constantly be agile.
00:17:52:12 - 00:18:18:13
Unknown
And I think with that comes a whole load of paradoxes as well that leaders need to grapple, which is really, really challenging. So whether that's, you know, how do you deal with the here and now and the the kind of crises in front of you and the complexities of what exists right in front of you right now, but also at the same time keep an eye on the future and how do you change, how do you evolve?
00:18:18:13 - 00:19:05:04
Unknown
How do you transform your business to keep it relevant, whether it's how do we marry up kind of technology and being ever more technology focused, but with the need to be ever more focused on the human side of business. So I think there's these there's more tensions, paradox and dilemmas that our leaders need to need to navigate. Yet I don't think they're necessarily equipped to do so, and probably also because of the pace, don't have the time to reflect on how do I bring my leadership to the people on this as a kind of this hamster wheel and just going at such pace, So being able to really have the ability to reflect, to be
00:19:05:04 - 00:19:25:05
Unknown
self-aware, to think about a deliberate approach to leadership is really, really challenging and relentless. And yeah, I hear you. The one that always springs to my mind is that we hear a lot about compassion, care and empathy whilst driving performance. Yes, as well. And how do you marry those two? It's a real it's a balancing act, isn't it?
00:19:25:05 - 00:19:48:04
Unknown
Completely. And I think the other thing that comes up a lot is this whole generation of peace as well. And we're seeing a lot and having a lot more leaders around leading multiple different generations who all want and expect different things from the workplace and therefore the kind of you know, the thing that motivated me is how and what the people that I lead want.
00:19:48:04 - 00:20:09:05
Unknown
So how do I adapt to that? So we've actually responded to that by offering the fashion around leading a multigenerational workforce. Yeah. Which has been so fascinating. The insights have come out. We've had a panel made up of all the different generations within P.W see, and every time we've run that session I just learned so much about the different generations and what they want.
00:20:09:05 - 00:20:30:12
Unknown
But I guess all of it comes back to taking time to listen and have conversations and connect. But again, when people are so time poor that it's just really challenging, you know, I completely agree that that kind of timepiece and there is only 24 hours in the day and what you do with those hours, I think, as a leader really defines you.
00:20:30:13 - 00:20:52:06
Unknown
Yep. So, yeah. And no right or wrong answer depending on context and lots of other stuff as well, I think. Okay. So let's just imagine for a second you are going to be stranded on desert Island. But before you get around that desert island, you can pack three books, leadership books. What would be your free? Is it sunny on the desert island?
00:20:52:09 - 00:21:24:14
Unknown
Escape from the Rain? Yes. Just say yes, it is. Yes. Let's say it's sunny and three desert island bags. So they would probably have to be there to lead by Brené Brown. I'm a huge fan of her work. I have been for quite a while and think that is just a brilliant book around vulnerability, courage, and and so many other great things that she kind of explores through her work.
00:21:24:14 - 00:21:50:12
Unknown
So that's a and one that I would definitely be keen to dive back into. And I've loved for a really, really long time the chimp paradox and just really understanding how the brain works and the chimp side of it and how you and knowing that that's normal, but then thinking about how you can put in place deliberate strategies and tools to kind of combat add.
00:21:50:14 - 00:22:08:02
Unknown
And that's a book I definitely have recommended to kind of loads of the people that I coach and actually found it so powerful that we used some of the thinking around that with all kind of kids as they went through challenging periods. And then he actually has a kids version of the book called The Hidden Chimp that we bought.
00:22:08:02 - 00:22:37:09
Unknown
And so now you've got a daughter who will increasingly become maybe difficult. Yeah, I definitely would recommend that one. And then thirdly, a recent, um, read, I think maybe you recommended it to me and, and with Atomic Habits by James Clare. So really, really enjoyed that because I think it's about how those little things that you can do can make change.
00:22:37:10 - 00:22:53:14
Unknown
You know, we all want to change things. We all want to know those situations where you kind of want to do something differently, but yet it often is just so hard. So I really like the practical things that you can do in the small things that you can shift to start to kind of change and put in place different habits.
00:22:53:14 - 00:23:17:11
Unknown
So I really enjoyed that. Cool. Thank you. And I have to thank you because the last conversation we had done for you, remember it was a few weeks ago we were talking about Blinkist. Yes. And I have got a stack like many people, as long as my on probably longer books I haven't read that I bought. And I thought, you know what, everyone's been going to I've heard Blinkist come up a few times, so I don't like downloaded it.
00:23:17:12 - 00:23:41:12
Unknown
I literally have devoured how many of you read since I think ten. So if I can cheat and take Blinkist to the desert island and therefore read like thousands of books in ten minute summaries, then that might be my key. And honestly, the amount that I got through, you know, the books that you think I'd love to read that one day, but I feel like it's quite deep or just literally in 20 minutes, like, Yes, been great.
00:23:41:12 - 00:24:06:10
Unknown
So thank you for that. I'm glad you enjoyed it. But we must make sure that no one can use Blinkist because that's what we do come out so much more. And yeah, although it's interesting because I'd be interested in your thoughts as well, and we're kind of going off track here a bit, but I think it's interesting. Blinkist is a summary of, you know, a two 300 page book in 20 minutes or, you know, the key points.
00:24:06:11 - 00:24:23:03
Unknown
What's your take on how you've managed? Are you taking the same wisdom from that versus having read the full book or do use it in a different way? I think it's a good point. I think and I was thinking when you were asking that, you know, if you a desert island where we like, oh, you have all the time in the will to read.
00:24:23:04 - 00:24:52:06
Unknown
So I think this probably both. And in terms of the some books where I think having just looked at the blinkist is and is enough. And sometimes when you listen to some of the leadership or management books, they become quite repetitive in the depth. You could have just gained that from the high level 20 minutes anyway. But there's definitely some books that I think it's enough to kind of whet your appetite for it and think, actually, I want to delve into this in more detail and I want to I want to get more into this.
00:24:52:10 - 00:25:08:10
Unknown
So I think is probably the same is great just to get that 20 minutes and know enough. But for others, absolutely. It hasn't given me the depth that I really kind of want to get into. Yeah, no, I find the fact that it's inspired me to think, Oh, I definitely want to read the whole book or listen to the whole book.
00:25:08:10 - 00:25:33:01
Unknown
That's so cool. Okay, so shifting on from books and, you know, kind of paper and moving to more multimedia, there's so much out there now, so much content that you can consume. Is there anything that you think every leader should listen to or watch or consume in maybe a different way than just, you know, traditional books or text?
00:25:33:02 - 00:25:57:07
Unknown
So I recently watched a TED Talk that really inspired me. And I didn't love all of the TED Talk, but it was by a guy called Shola Richards, but it was more I came across it because I started being fascinated by the idea of a boon to leadership. And I'm not sure if you've heard of a boon to leadership, but I'm so open to comes from Africa.
00:25:57:07 - 00:26:20:00
Unknown
And it means if I'm an African proverb and it means I am because we are and I kind of came across the boon too, and it really random way. So when I was living in Cape Town a year ago, my eldest son, really keen footballer, joined a football team out in Cape Town and was playing quite a lot of football tournament.
00:26:20:00 - 00:26:39:02
Unknown
And then he kept coming across this team that were called Ubuntu. I think one of the other mums on the team that my son plays. Well, we were talking about it one time and she was like, Oh, they're the best team in Cape Town that brilliant. And you know, they really embody the kind of name. And I was like, well what should I oh you know, a button to and as I have no idea what you're talking about.
00:26:39:03 - 00:27:10:01
Unknown
So she said it's really famous kind of African proverb and really defines a lot of kind of leadership and collaboration. And it really is the kind of idea of I am because we are. And I think that spoke to me so profoundly around kind of my approach to kind of humanity, to interconnectivity compassion. So I started kind of really delving into what is this a burden to and a burden to leadership.
00:27:10:02 - 00:27:35:03
Unknown
And I came across this TEDx talk by this guy, and he it was like the one word that will change the way you live your life lead. And it's all about the brain, too. And whilst at some point this and I found slightly grating, I just found kind of the messages in it really, really powerful and I would really encourage leaders to watch it.
00:27:35:05 - 00:28:03:13
Unknown
I think there was one line and again, based on a famous African saying or proverb that was quite powerful, that was and he talks about a story around coming back from school. I think he'd been bullied or it was saying, No, dad, I'm too small and too small to make a difference. And his dad said back to him in this really strong African voice, and if you think you're too small to make a difference, you've never spent the night with a mosquito in your ear.
00:28:03:14 - 00:28:35:14
Unknown
And I just loved that line because you could just literally, as I walked up to his advice, there was nothing more annoying than that teeny pesky mosquito in your ear. Make it like buzzing away and it's so tiny, but it can have such a huge annoying impact on you. So he's like, forevermore. I wanted to go out to be that mosquito, but I think kind of building on everything we've talked about for me in this kind of world of so much complexity and challenge, the every person has the ability to kind of really make a difference.
00:28:35:14 - 00:29:00:10
Unknown
And for people, sometimes people do just limit themselves. Yeah. So I think as a leader, really just and tapping that potential in everyone and kind of making people feel empowered, that everyone can make a difference no matter how small they think they are, for me is really kind of profound. I'm sure there is a after you've seen this, a Netflix series called it's called The Leaders Playbook or something similar.
00:29:00:11 - 00:29:23:06
Unknown
And it's about it's kind of got a sports angle on it. And there's one of the American sports teams, I think it was basketball, and they, too, they used to in terms of their that their kind of journey through to, you know, winning some major kind of honors. I'll dig it out. I think there definitely is different. Ted, talk about urban transport.
00:29:23:06 - 00:29:41:08
Unknown
I don't know if it's but yeah, no, this was a Netflix documentary. Yeah. So I'm know I think there's I think I'm pretty sure it's the same thing, but it seemed very similar in terms of outcome and it was really, really interesting. So all of that, I'd love to watch that for you. Okay. So on a personal level, what about you?
00:29:41:08 - 00:30:18:06
Unknown
Obviously, you're going out doing all this great stuff to motivate others in the firm to to be their best selves. What motivates and inspires you, I think is genuinely around relationships. So with the people that I care about, that's my kids, my husband, my friends, wider family colleagues, but that kind of depth of relationships and those connections is what really inspires me and I think I genuinely try to.
00:30:18:07 - 00:30:41:12
Unknown
So there's a quote that you've probably heard by Maya Angelou around, you know, people and people won't remember what you said. People won't remember what you did, but they'll remember how you made them feel. And that is genuinely kind of how I try and live my life is what inspires me is that kind of having genuine relationships, connections with people and trying to make a difference.
00:30:42:01 - 00:31:27:02
Unknown
And so that's kind of both from a professional perspective, but also personally. And in all of my interactions, I think that is what motivate me kind of through life. And just building genuine relationships and having genuine experiences is what matters to me most. Nothing better than that. And I love the quote as well. Okay. So we're going to put all our forward facing goggles on here and think about the skills, behaviors and mindsets that we think are going to be really prevalent for leaders we think are going to need to be present for leaders to be successful and to drive performance in the next five years.
00:31:27:04 - 00:31:51:12
Unknown
So I think some of it connects to probably what we've said, particularly around the Ubuntu part, so that kind of humanity, compassion, care and I think as the world and what we operate operating with increase of technology, that kind of real human side of leadership is going to become increasingly more important. And linked to that is probably humility.
00:31:51:13 - 00:32:22:09
Unknown
So humility too, and vulnerability. But to know that I think no one person knows the answers, it's just not possible to kind of know how we're going to navigate, how we're going to evolve. So is the humility to be easy? I don't know. But let's work together. So kind of being able to kind of foster an environment where we can work together, where we can harness collective views.
00:32:22:10 - 00:32:53:09
Unknown
We have to talk so much about diversity and inclusion, which is so important. But even more important is creating the environment where those diverse voices can flourish. And, you know, we can see that so often where you focus on bringing diversity in, but it's just not it's left untapped because the environments aren't created where people are able to bring their perspectives, feel safe to do so, and are able to kind of challenge authority.
00:32:53:09 - 00:33:29:06
Unknown
You said before. So think is around kind of being able to say, I don't know, or being able to create the right environment where diverse perspectives can flourish and kind of leading with kind of care, kindness, compassion and curiosity, ease in knowing kind of I just need to keep evolving, I need to keep learning, I need to shift, adapt, be constantly curious to kind of how the world is changing and how I need to change with a probably the key things I would say interested in your views because I think, you know, the whole humility thing is so, so important.
00:33:29:07 - 00:33:56:07
Unknown
But part of me thinks when I look, I've looked at a few reports recently about the future of leadership, and I always have this little scribble that I write at the bottom. But what about performance? And it's just a lot just interested in your views on it, you know? Do you think doing that stuff will naturally drive performance or do you think, you know, leaders need to do something conscious to transfer that into performance?
00:33:56:08 - 00:34:25:10
Unknown
I think for me that relates back to when we talked about paradoxes earlier. So and within Peter, we see we've done a lot of thinking around paradoxes. And one of the paradoxes we were exploring was the humble hero and I think that I think response to your question around there is, is on one side, this need to be humble and say, I don't know the answers, but at some point we also need kind of clear decision making direction.
00:34:25:12 - 00:34:48:00
Unknown
And it's how do you balance that paradox? How do you drive a performance set direction? People need kind of clarity and certainty. Otherwise we just kind of flailing. So it's having that, but then is also being able to say at points that didn't work or we need to change course or we need to bring more people into this discussion because I don't know.
00:34:48:01 - 00:35:21:04
Unknown
So I think it is a constant need to absolutely. We still need to drive for performance. We need to kind of set direction. We need to set goals. You know, we're organizations, whether it's profit making or not, there are there to achieve that thing. So I think being focused on performance, but also being focused, having that humbleness and the humility to adapt to kind of say, I don't know, we're all I think will drive performance.
00:35:21:04 - 00:35:46:06
Unknown
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Yeah, but they just do take a conscious awareness that having to kind of operate both sides of that paradox. Very important. Yeah, I definitely agree. And I think that's so important, you know, for the leaders of the future because you do we see all this humility pushed, you know, as the kind of, you know, the future skill set that is required of leaders.
00:35:46:07 - 00:36:16:04
Unknown
But I just think there's there's that other other side going as well. And in that video that I recommended about Robin to you, he talks about, oh, what's all this soft, fluffy stuff like sweaters, you know, soft, fluffy stuff like humanity have a place in business. But I think it fundamentally does agree. And we're not saying the business doesn't have a hard edge or performance focusing on more, but it's how do you marry those two kind of sides to it, I think is what's going to be so critical.
00:36:16:04 - 00:36:58:08
Unknown
Yeah. Now completely agree. Okay. So the moment that you've been waiting for, which is the closing question, where we ask you a question that one of our other guests just left for you. So here is yours, Jude, what do you fear so much that it propels you to exceed your own expectations? Whoo! Hmm. What a question. So what do I fear?
00:36:58:09 - 00:37:24:00
Unknown
So I think my answer to this will probably be connected to something that happened yesterday, which was important to me. Having to go to a funeral of a friend who'd passed away after battling with for four years with cancer. And it was something her daughter said in the eulogy, which is around, you know, my mum truly believed we have one life and that we need to make the most of it.
00:37:24:00 - 00:37:52:03
Unknown
And I think that is, you know, I've had friends pass away from kind of a young age and I think is that fear that life is really, really short and I really try and use that to drive how I live my life in terms of bringing joy to kind of my interactions, seizing opportunities and living life to its fullest.
00:37:52:04 - 00:38:21:11
Unknown
And I'm definitely someone who's driven kind of by positivity and how to get way down when everything's overly negative and just, you know, So I think always looking for the good. I think that fear of life being very short and just not wanting to waste it is something that truly does kind of drive me and the decisions that I make and kind of, yeah, my values and how I want to lead and interact with others, I think that is probably that response to that question.
00:38:21:11 - 00:38:40:06
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. With you, you know, making the most of the time we've got here is the biggest thing we can all focus on and lovely. Thank you, Jude. Thank you so much. Thanks for being a fabulous having me. So our pleasure. It's been great to hear your views and I'm sure our listeners will take a lot of insights.
00:38:40:06 - 00:39:05:03
Unknown
So thank you so much and been an absolute pleasure. Thanks, Andy. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We hope you took some insight or inspiration from the conversation. If you did, please subscribe or like Button. And that's not because we want to get those responses. It's just so we know that you're finding the content worthwhile and we can keep delivering more and more conversations.
00:39:05:05 - 00:39:32:04
Unknown
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