Leading Through Uncertainty

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?

www.judejennison.com

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?

www.judejennison.com

Gillian Bailey is the Operations Director for Maintel, a technology organisation. We talk about the backdrop of the pandemic, as well as economic and political uncertainty and how all of these impact employees as well as business. Gillian explains how Maintel is handling hybrid working and the challenge of balancing the needs of a business with the needs of employees. We discuss the complexity of leading an organisation and developing middle managers to create business results in harmony with the physical and emotional well-being of employees.

I’m struck by the courage that it takes for a senior leader like Gillian to put a stop to certain projects in order to focus on the key priorities. Many leaders I talk to at the moment are struggling to prioritise because everything is deemed to be important. We can’t execute as fast as we can create new ideas so it takes awareness, humility and empathy to recognise when to say no and how to make sure the key priorities are aligned all the way through the organisation. Gillian’s humility in recognising that she’s not got it all perfect is refreshing. That humility opens the door for a better quality of conversation.

Where do you need to say no? What would you prioritise if you accepted that you can’t do it all? 

www.judejennison.com

Tony Langham is the Executive Chair and co-founder of Lansons, a reputation management and public relations firm based in London and New York. We discuss the importance of approaching reputation management as the way people perceive each other and companies. With an increased focus on ESG, Tony explains how companies need to change their behaviour to stay relevant. We also discuss anti-racism, balancing tension with comfort and much more!

I loved Tony’s explanation of balancing adrenaline and tension with comfort in order to create change, and engage employees (including yourself!) without leading to chaos and burnout. It’s a delicate balance that many organisations and leaders are grappling with today. It’s also good to hear a white male championing anti-racism and understanding the changes in behaviour that are required to do so. After 33 years of leading a business and a team, Tony really understands what makes people tick and goes the extra mile to make his organisation one of the UK’s Great Places to Work.

Where do you need to find more balance? What changes in your behaviour would make your team or organisation a great place to work?

www.judejennison.com

Tara Rule is the Senior Director of Commercial Strategy Go to Market and Operations at Adobe, responsible for looking at how Adobe make smart commercial decisions. Tara manages to juggle her full-time role as a director in a fast-paced global business with launching a leadership programme, being a working mum as well as a professional coach. She talks about the importance of curiosity in leadership, the power of having a positive mindset without sugar-coating reality and how we need to look after our teams. And much more!

Tara is so inspirational. Her energy appears to be boundless and she seems to have worked out how to focus on what is critical so she can achieve many things without burning herself out. I also liked the fact that the leadership programme she has implemented doesn’t require one person to do everything. It spreads the load by including many people and enables leaders to collaborate, think creatively and be empowered to shape things.

How do you empower your team to be a part of the solution, both the design and the implementation? How could you take more pressure off yourself by not having all the answers?

www.judejennison.com

Dr Mersha Aftab is the co-host director for MA Design Management courses at Birmingham City University. She specialises in design leadership within large organisations, exploring how designers design and lead strategically in business. We discuss how designers have a voice and a platform to give them the agency to lead even though they don't have the position in an organisation. We cover emotional intelligence, designing the future and the skills needed to act as a bridge between user experience, technology and business.

I like the idea that design management is the bridge between design and business, enabling business to create meaningful products for customers. I’m also struck by the reminder that professionals need to develop new skills in every part of the business. In this case, design thinking requires business to explore business viability, functionality through technology, and desirability from the user experience side. And it's the perfect combination of these three things that make a good product or a good service. And that at the heart of all of this is the emotional intelligence to explore things from different points of view and collaborate effectively together.

How do you ensure that business, technology and user experience or employee experience all come together in a seamless way in your business?

www.judejennison.com

Phill Elston is Operations Director of Brompton Bicycle and is responsible for leading the manufacturing organisation in the production of the famous Brompton bicycles. Phill joined the company because his values were aligned, and he felt able to express himself. He talks about the importance of being driven not being at the expense of having joy and fun and seeing a team as an organism. He has a special way of bringing his team together called ‘Rum and Coke’ that has transformed the relationships and results.

I enjoyed hearing about Phill’s leadership style and the way he encourages his team to be themselves. I particularly loved his phrase: “I like being myself because it takes fewer calories’! So true! The ongoing and constant disruptive change people are experienced often leads to fear and Phill’s approach to helping his team navigate those fears is refreshing. If we can encourage people to be themselves and show up fully, we can resolve tension and differences of opinion more quickly before they build out of proportion.

What are you currently concerned about? What would the authentic version of you think, say and do?

www.judejennison.com

Sarah Foster is the Managing Director of Comply Direct, an environmental consultancy and compliance business. She is also the author of Yabba Dabba Do It, a book on self-confidence. Sarah shares her three steps to self-confidence – Prepare, Do and Review. We also talk about the environment, of course, Sarah’s business is based on it but we also discuss relationships, emotional intelligence, boundaries and so much more!

I love how Sarah brings everything back to confidence because, at our heart, we’re all ethical and responsible and want to do great work. We often know what we want to say and do, but when things get tricky, we can so easily get pushed off course and modify our behaviour based on other people’s expectations. Ture collaboration is when we have the confidence to show up fully with what we think and feel and work through differences of opinion that may exist with others.

Where are you holding back? What differences of opinion need to be resolved? Trust in your self-confidence and show up fully today. You might even surprise yourself! 

www.judejennison.com

Rich Horth is Operations Director for Adecco, a large recruitment agency with 80 offices throughout the UK. Rich talks about the great resignation, how that creates a candidate-led market and what that means for employers. With the highest number of vacancies ever seen, Rich talks about the importance for organisations to look after their employees and keep people engaged. He shares some of the things they do at Adecco to make work more fun.

It's easy to think that people leave their job for more money but all the research shows that people leave because of their manager. Not every organisation can pay top salaries so I’m glad Rich offered some alternatives that show people that the organisation cares about them. Ultimately if we know the job market is candidate-led and people are looking for more purpose and a greater sense of enjoyment in their role, every manager needs to consider how they can create that for their team. We don’t need to keep people in jobs they don’t want to be in so sometimes people moving can be an opportunity to do things differently.

Who in your team is disengaged and what might you do differently to either re-engage them or reorganise the way you lead your team?

www.judejennison.com

Cathy Brown is the Chief Executive of i-SE, a social enterprise that provides business support services for social enterprises in the West Midlands. Cathy brings a wealth of experience from both the commercial sector as well as social enterprises and social movements. We discuss the importance of having a strong sense of purpose in an organisation and the importance of social value in business.

Talking to Cathy, I’m struck by how everything comes down to connection and communication. If we build good relationships and we communicate effectively, we can do great work in the world that has a positive impact on society. That sounds so easy yet we all know how tricky relationships and communication can be!

The purpose of my own business is to enable people to thrive at work through connection and communication. I wonder if we switched our perspective to enabling humans to thrive, we might deliver work that was more purposeful and ultimately lead the change we need to see in the world

What change do you want to see in the world and how does your work lead or support that change?

www.judejennison.com