In the Field

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Chad Foster is a keynote speaker who became blind at the age of 21 due to an eye condition, retinitis pigmentosa. Chad had a dream as he was growing up to be in the medical field but had to change this due to his eyesight and ended up going to Harvard Business School and became the first executive to graduate from their leadership programme. 

I feel grateful for having had the chance to interview Chad. He is genuinely a wonderful human being who has this incredible sense of purpose and meaning as a result of going blind at the age of 21. 

I love how the tough love that Chad learned from his father is in Chad’s words today. He speaks with such clarity and his words felt like an arrow to the heart, not in a cheesy way but his straight-talking truths hit me hard at moments and make me want to be more ambitious and a better person.

In Chad’s words: “The stories we tell ourselves about our circumstances either limit us or propel us towards our goals.”

You can find out more about Chad on his website www.chadefoster.com and his book Blind Ambition at www.blindambitionbook.com

Topics covered:

·      Coping with blindness (00:03:24) 

·      Overcoming self-pity (00:07:22) 

·      Gratitude and happiness (00:14:56) 

·      Developing resilience (00:16:41) 

·      Key achievements and career journey (00:18:32) 

·      Overcoming barriers and turning disadvantages into advantages (00:24:12) 

·      Embracing discomfort and personal growth (00:31:22) 

·      Owning a Guide dog (00:34:17) 

Other free resources:

·       Buy the book Leading through uncertainty

·       Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance

·       Sign up to our Leadership Hints and Tips

·       Connect with Jude Jennison on Linked In

www.judejennison.com

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Fabrice Desmarescaux is a Partner at McKinsey and works with CEO’s and their teams to increase in their performance and effectiveness. He also creates the next generation of leaders working with team members who are not yet on the executive committee. He talks about the benefits of retreats for his clients and how slowing down and being in nature can have a positive impact.

Fabrice tells us the importance of changing the environment and where the team work together helps to see the world in a different way. When immersed in nature Fabrice explains how leaders can deal with uncertainty differently. As someone who works with a herd of horses in nature, I certainly resonate with everything Fabrice talks about.

I found myself slowing down and getting really present with Fabrice and my nervous system calming. I’m someone who often works at 300 mph and taking time to be really present is such a gift.

For anyone who is sceptical about slowing down, I love how Fabrice explains that nature demonstrates the ability to move from chaos to beauty and order. If you want to create less chaos and more order in your organisation or team, then maybe it’s time for a retreat for you too?

How do you ensure you slow down in order to access your creativity and leadership?

• Retreats and Nature (00:02:41)
• Benefits of Slowing Down (00:11:30)
• Impact of Uncertainty (00:16:50)
• Challenges of Siloed Organizations (00:18:19)
• Budgeting and Uncertainty (00:21:38)
• Embracing Uncertainty (00:24:39)
• Innovation and Failure (00:27:37)
• Slowing Down and Reflection (00:35:33)

• Buy the book Leading through uncertainty
• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Sign up to our Leadership Hints and Tips
• Connect with Jude Jennison on Linked In

www.judejennison.com

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Daniel Astarita is the Managing Director of Kesslers, a business that he bought when it went into administration. He’s also MD of a London-based mannequin business, having bought the assets from another business that had also gone into liquidation.

He explains how he took a risk to run the business in a different way. Instead of chasing revenue and profit in isolation, he realised that retail needs to be an experience for the consumer, particularly after the impact of COVID-19 on retail. Regardless of the sector you are in, there is so much to learn from listening to Dan’s story and leadership.

What really comes across when talking to Dan is how much he cares about the people and sees them as being fundamental to the success of the business. I love that he encourages his staff to ask questions and seek guidance as much as possible. Having space to be curious is so critical.

Dan was open about his leadership, his desire for fairness and honesty and spoke about the emotional toll it took on him when dealing with redundancies which I could really see when talking to him.

Where can you be more curious with your team and organisation?

• Acquisition of two businesses in administration (00:02:30)
• Taking a risk and having a vision (00:03:22)
• The emotional impact of making staff redundant (00:09:24)
• Creating an inclusive workforce (00:15:58)
• Purposeful leadership (00:20:57)
• Shifting from a sales-focused to people-focused leadership approach (00:18:14)
• Transforming retail into an immersive experience (00:23:19)
• Leadership advice (00:32:29)

• Buy the book Leading through uncertainty
• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Sign up to our Leadership Hints and Tips
• Connect with Jude Jennison on Linked In

www.judejennison.com

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Wendy Dean is the CEO of Strategi Solutions, a business consultancy offering services around people, creative and marketing. She talks about the anxiety that comes when thrust into the uncertainty of major change and how she looks for opportunities and generates new ideas to turn uncertainty into certainty.

Wendy reminds us that excitement and fear are physiologically the same and therefore how we can choose how we consider the uncertainty of change. She’s pragmatic about the fact that some people like the status quo and talks about how important it is to lead change in a way that doesn’t burn people out.

The over-riding word I get from Wendy is “balance”. She seems to balance leading change without burning people out, encouraging young people without overlooking the older workforce as well. She balances growing a business with growing the people in it.

Where do you need to be more in balance, in life, in work and in the way you lead?

• Leading through uncertainty
• Transformational change
• Role models for women
• Different generations in the workforce
• Empowering women

• Buy the book Leading through uncertainty
• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Download White papers
• Sign up to our Leadership Hints and Tips
• Connect with Jude Jennison on Linked In

www.judejennison.com

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Graham Todd, Co-founder of Spaghetti Agency, a digital marketing company talks about his transformative journey from struggling with alcohol to adopting a healthier lifestyle. He explains the moment he realised how excessive his drinking habits were and how that realisation led him to quit alcohol.

Todd explains the positive changes he experienced after focusing on his fitness, including improving his health, productivity, and being more present as a parent. He’s an advocate of self-reflection and addressing the root causes of stress rather than resorting to alcohol as a prop.

Todd’s journey is inspiring from the moment he decided to quit and how he kept at it, continually improving his health by adding new habits one at a time. He’s not suggesting it’s for everyone but for anyone wanting to do Dry January, Todd certainly provides lots of good reasons and plenty of inspiration.

What props do you turn to when under pressure? And how might your life and work improve if you made your physical and mental health a priority?

• Quitting alcohol
• Healthy living
• Transformational change
• Better sleep
• Hydration
• Personal growth
• Physical and mental health

• Buy the book Leading through uncertainty
• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Download White papers
• Sign up to our Leadership Hints and Tips
• Connect with Jude Jennison on Linked In

www.judejennison.com

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Leading Through Uncertainty podcast celebrates its 100th episode and this time I’m talking about my journey with uncertainty and why we need different skills.

I share stories of how I came to talk about uncertainty, how I have led through uncertainty, some of the challenges I’ve faced and how I’ve overcome them.

I also share stories of the horses, how working with them has given me the skills to be comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty and continually ask: “What’s needed now?” so I can respond to the uncertainty of change in service of everyone.

How might you get more comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty?

• Leading through uncertainty
• Leading through fear
• Team dynamics
• Change

• Buy the book Leading through uncertainty
• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Download White papers
• Sign up to our Leadership Hints and Tips
• Connect with Jude Jennison on Linked In

www.judejennison.com

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Julie Chakraverty is the founder of Runway, a platform that facilitates employee feedback in organisations. Julie explains how Runway allows employees to voice concerns either anonymously or openly, ensuring a safe space for dialogue. She explains that the platform is predominantly used by companies undergoing change, with common themes around organisational and process change.

Julie shares some shocking insights from Runway's data that show that women and people of colour are more likely to use the platform's anonymity feature. Without Runway, many of these people silence themselves and conform.

If organisations really want to lead change, be inclusive and engage their employees, they need to provide an opportunity for people of colour in particular to engage anonymously so their concerns are heard, understood and included. Otherwise, minority groups continue to conform.

I was especially struck by Julie saying “It's one thing to say, my door is always open. It's another to be sure that people have got the personal courage to walk through it.”

How are you creating a safe space for employees to engage fully and honestly without fear of blame or judgment? How do you ensure everyone has the courage to articulate what’s important to them in the workplace?

• HR tech
• Employee listening
• Engaging employees through change
• Inclusive conversations

• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Download White papers
• Sign up to our Weekly Leadership Hints and Tips
• Connect with Jude Jennison on LinkedIn

www.judejennison.com

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Suzi Archer is the Staff Director at Huler.io, a fast-growing HRtech company. Suzi’s creative approach to HR policies and procedures has resulted in a more human interaction with employees at Huler. By ripping apart the employee handbook, she's created a culture where people can be themselves both inside and outside of work.

Suzi shows that by prioritizing employee well-being, balancing technology with human touchpoints, and setting clear objectives, Huler has created a culture of engagement, productivity, and profitability.

As always, I love how technology and people come together and Suzi is definitely an advocate for using technology to enhance human connection in the workplace. Suzi talks passionately about Huler and it’s so inspiring to hear someone who clearly has a passion for the business, the people and the role that she has to play in it.

What are you passionate about? How does that influence how and where you work? How might you inspire those around you to work more purposefully?

• HR tech
• People-first culture
• authenticity
• Work-life integration
• Wellbeing
• Purpose
• Human connection

• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Download White papers
• Sign up for our Weekly Leadership Hints and Tips
• Connect with Jude Jennison on Linked In

www.judejennison.com

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Anne Shaw is the Executive Director for Transport For West Midlands. She talks about the challenge of managing a variety of stakeholder groups, from users to transport providers, the government, as well as her own team. She explains that change can be positive or negative for people by how well we engage and include them in the process and decisions. Anne recognises the need to balance the needs and desires of everyone, with the primary focus on the end users who rely on the transport services to ensure they are able to access health, jobs, school and other daily activities.

Anne has certainly sold the transport industry to me, making it sound exciting with change, innovation, diversity, technology, people and variety at its core. It’s a reminder that when we are curious and passionate about change, it’s much easier to inspire and be inspired. Anne talks about the need to be clear about the purpose behind change in order to help people navigate the emotions and uncertainty with curiosity. Some of the most uninspiring things we have to do could be more motivating by changing how we approach them.

What’s the purpose of the change you are experiencing? and how do you use that purpose to motivate yourself and others?

• Purpose
• Change
• Transport industry
• Birmingham Commonwealth Games transport
• Leading change
• Being on the receiving end of change
• Engaging stakeholders
• Including users in the decisions and process of change

• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Download White papers
• Sign up for our Weekly Leadership Hints and Tips
• Connect with Jude Jennison on Linked In

www.judejennison.com

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Ann Hiatt is a Leadership Strategy Consultant working with scale-up companies to create rapid growth. Ann talks about personal and professional change and the skills needed to navigate the uncertainty of change. She advocates a need for an “insatiable curiosity” and draws on her experience of working with Jeff Bezos at Amazon to demonstrate how companies can grow through a recession through innovation and technology. I particularly liked her phrase “Having talented people is more important than a solid business plan because your business plan can pivot but you need talented people to deliver it.”

I’m impressed by Ann’s ability to balance being a perfectionist with her willingness to fail in order to learn and apply the learning in innovation. She draws on Carol Dweck’s book ‘Growth Mindset’ to explain the importance of seeing failure as an opportunity to learn, even though it is excruciatingly painful at times! As we continue to lead change in organisations in a context of economic and political instability, as well as a cost of living crisis, having the resilience and growth mindset to lead through uncertainty becomes ever more critical.

Where could you have an insatiable curiosity? Where is the opportunity for you to learn from failure?

• Curiosity
• Rapid growth
• Psychological safety
• Failing to learn vs being a perfectionist
• Carol Dweck’s book ‘Growth Mindset’
• Humility, vulnerability
• Innovation

• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Download White papers
• Sign up for our Weekly Leadership Hints and Tips
• Connect with Jude Jennison on Linked In

www.judejennison.com