‘The Conscious Leader’ with Rebecca Hull

In this episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to Rebecca Hull. Rebecca is a self-described conscious leader, always working on herself, being present and holding space for others to do their best work and she heads up the digital experience agency within TPXimpact a digital transformation company working with public, private and third sector organisations. In this conversation, Jean and Scott talk to Rebecca about how her leadership is formed around a commitment to help create sustainable outcomes for people, communities, and the planet. 

 
Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)

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The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

Transcript

Scott Allender: 0:03

Many of the platitudes we encounter about leadership can be thrown out the window when we meet people who deeply embrace who they are, and then take on the challenge of leading from their authentic selves. In this show, we talk to Rebecca Hall, a leader who's comfortable exploring her journey and the ongoing challenge to confront the difficult issues of a changing workplace. This conversation will help you think about business transformation, diversity, difficult conversations, and the well being of your people in new ways. Rebecca embodies the very idea of the evolving leader. Hi, friends, welcome to the evolving leader, the show born out of the belief that we need deeper, more accountable and more human leadership to confront the world's biggest challenges. I'm Scott allander. And I'm Jean Gomes. How are we feeling today, Mr. Gomes? Oh I am feeling full to the brim. And so went before this, this conversation, I just went for a walk and tried to kind of shake off a bit of that. And it's been a very busy time. I think we're in the, in the crazy season. So yeah, I'm feeling quite overwhelmed by just the amount of stuff that's happening, not just in my own world, but just in the outside. Kind of the outer. So yeah, how are you feeling Scott? I feel heavy. Not just because it's Halloween Week here. And I ate half of my kids candy this week. But I mean, that's probably part of it. But I feel I feel heavy about a lot of things going on out in the world, as you mentioned, some of the things going on in my family. And so that definitely is is sort of colouring the week. But I'm also feeling a bit of gratitude and curiosity. And just glad to be here with you today. So and our guest is today we are joined by Rebecca Hall. And Rebecca heads up the digital experience agency AT T px impact leading 125 people who deliver digital transformation across the nonprofit education and healthcare sectors. And today, we're going to talk to her about how her leadership formed around a commitment to help create sustainable outcomes for people, communities, and the planet, all while juggling her role as a single parent to two daughters. And Rebecca believes that great leadership comes from sorting out her own our own selves first and her leadership philosophy, driven by purpose, compassion, and self mastery extends beyond the boardroom. She's a self described conscious leader always working on herself, being present and holding space for others to do their best work, which we love and are all about here on the evolving leader. So Rebecca, welcome to the show.

Rebecca Hull: 3:14

Thank you. Thank you. What a lovely intro. I love that question. How are you feeling? Because I think when you're asked How are you win? How do you answer? It's like, yeah, okay, I think but I think the question How are you feeling really gives space for people to arrive into the conversation. So I love it. Well,

Scott Allender: 3:35

Rebecca, that's lovely to hear. So let's ask the question, How are you feeling?

Rebecca Hull: 3:41

I mean, I it what you're saying really resonates with me? I think it's a really hard question to answer at the best of times. And at the moment, I was just sort of living this duality of like, how do you reconcile having this life of privilege with all of the atrocities that are happening in the world? And you know, what it what are you? What are we allowed to feel in these times? So I think like you Scott, and trying, I feel quite Friday ish. My brain is definitely not fully optimised on a Friday afternoon. But I am also really trying to feel gratitude for for the things that I have in my life and know it's really times like these that you focus on. You know, the basics that we take for granted. So I feel grateful, I feel a bit tired, but I feel really happy to be here. So thank you for having me.

Scott Allender: 4:40

Can we start with your origin story and the experiences that shaped your belief that we need a different type of leadership to face a more uncertain world?

Rebecca Hull: 4:55

Yeah, I mean, it's it's a long story. I have which are a different strands that really, I guess coalesce as to, as to where I am today. So I, I grew up in a very volatile, traumatic environment, actually. And there was no ambition for, for me my sort of first act of rebellion was to go to university. And the path that was set out for me was to be a secretary. And I didn't want to be a secretary. But I also didn't want to displease the people who wanted that life choice for me. So I chose Business Studies, because it was the closest thing that I could imagine it was in an office, I hoped that that would appears. And I guess I sort of, I set out on a path not really knowing what I wanted to do, but having a real sense of wanting to make a difference. And I think some of that really came from, you know, out of adversity comes kind of inspiration. And as I desire to be better, but also, I was lucky enough to be offered an opportunity to have a part time job in a business called The Body Shop, which was set up by an amazing woman, actually, who was well ahead of her time, and Anita Roddick, and she started this business from a kitchen creating sort of toiletries, and cosmetics that were kind of designed or to be sustainable to an end, she was the first person of her kind, I think, in that space to start to talk about business being a force for good. And the shop that I worked in, she came into a lot, and she was just incredible force of nature. And she used her shop windows, this was sort of back in the late 80s, early, early 90s, to raise awareness around issues such as domestic violence, or the hole in the ozone layer, or, you know, recycling, deforestation in the Amazon, like no other business was talking about this stuff, as far as I knew. And she made this really big impact on me about, you know, it's like, it's more than just us, it's more than just a transaction. And although I wasn't aware of it at the time, it really sowed a seed, I think, in the back of my head around the sort of environment that that I felt was nurturing, you know, to the wider community and to the planet and the sort of environment that was. So I set out on my merry way, I kind of graduated interesting recession, and started working and did lots of different jobs. And I ended up being long haul cabin crew for actually for quite some time. And that's a whole podcast in itself. But what I really got the opportunity to see, because every time you fly you, you fly with new crew is really to see leadership and action. It was like a very condensed sort of experience of understanding team dynamics and what works and why were some people really impactful from that first moment, and why weren't they and why did some trips feel amazing? And why does some chips feel really awful and what was going on. And so I ended up working in digital transformation decided I was sort of lucky, I talked myself into a job as being a project manager. And I guess, really, you could say, that's where my career started. And, you know, I'm a woman in a technology business, and I have spent a lot of my career being the only woman in the room, or one of very few women in the room. And I've had a lot of experiences that were, you know, we're not optimal. And I didn't see a lot of people like me, being, you know, being in the workplace making a positive contribution. And, and I think that really lit a fire, I think I sort of set myself a challenge to see if I could make a difference in that space. And, you know, create the pathway, so that we were able to bring more kind of diversity into into this industry. So I observed from a very early age that the majority of people in business for men, and if they weren't men, they were women, and they were women who are really embracing the masculine energy or kind of almost having to act or adopt that very masculine Alpha energy to be taken seriously in the room. And if there's one thing I'm not good at, it's, I'm really not good at being something that I'm not and I thought I have to make a choice. I can either make this really stressful for myself by trying to be something that I'm not. Or I just go with who I am. And I just see. And I go with my values, and I lean into who I am. And I see where that takes me. And, and so far, it's it's a it's been a squiggly journey. But so far it served me well. And, yeah, I'm really passionate about people. And it's such an easy thing to say. But I think it's a really hard job being a human. And you can't disconnect all of your stories that we carry around with us ourselves as we go into work. And you've got to create workplaces where people can be recognised for who they are, where their nervous systems aren't shot to pieces, and they're in a state of really high activation all the time. And if you can do that, and you recognise when you meet people where they are, it's actually really good for business. And I think that's what people don't realise that that's my pathway. I spend a lot of time outside of work, really interested in the whole mind body paradigm, and I guess my life outside of work feeds my life in work as well. And there's a lot of reciprocity there that I'm very grateful to have.

Scott Allender: 11:25

Can you just give us a sense of what you do today, what your business is about? Before we move on to some of the issues facing you as a leader,

Rebecca Hull: 11:36

it's, so I'm gonna give you the wordy answer that I'm gonna give you the answer that I'd give my neighbour. So we are a digital transformation business, a digital experience business. What does that mean? For most people, that means websites. But it's much, much broader than that. And so what we help our clients do is to really embrace the power of digital to meet their user needs. So that could be through service delivery, it could be raising donations, it could be increasing membership, and digital experience used to mean websites, it means a lot more. Now, it's apps, it's really any kind of digital touch point. And that journey starts right at the kind of the problem statement, the opportunity statement. And then you're kind of building strategy, and then you're building products, and then you're optimising them and you're testing and learning, testing and learning. And it's a fascinating place to be in particularly in this day and age, because I have a very complex relationship with technology, this technology in and of itself is, is not bad, but it can be used for good and it can, it can always have a really detrimental impact. And so we really try and use technology and digital to bring about sort of positive outcomes and drive impact. A lot of that philosophy is baked into our design. So lots of people don't understand that, you know, digital experiences going on the internet has a really big carbon impact takes a huge amount of processing power to run websites, but you can choose to build to have sustainable design, which reduces your impact on the environment impact on the planet. Lots of experiences are not designed for people who have, you know, additional needs around accessibility, some kind of impairment, for example. So we really try to bring in the tenants of sustainable accessible design, and only using technology where it will drive a positive outcome for an organisation.

Scott Allender: 13:46

Can you give us a sense of the market norms within the Digital Transformation agencies, and particularly the ones that you feel you really need to change?

Rebecca Hull: 13:56

Yeah, they are lots of stereotypes around digital agencies. And you know, they often exist because they're true. And historically, and it's still very much the case today. technology and digital has been very underrepresented across genders, a distinct lack of diversity across ethnicity, across sort of LGBTQI plus representation, that the levels of diversity inclusion at very low, and that hasn't always been a conscious thing. But it typically the people that have access to resources to start up businesses to be in that space came from a place of privilege, often white men, and you have an unconscious bias to higher in your profile to hi how you understand the world to operate. And, you know, my experience of working in this industry now for over 25 years is that the levels of of diversity are extremely low, that the feeling of inclusion as a result of that has been very challenging for lots of businesses to achieve. And that has an impact not only on your employee experience in your talent, but also who you're designing for, you know, you're designing for a plethora of needs out there. And if you don't have diversity in your workforce, you're probably not bringing out the best in your design, either. Agency tends to be quite high stress, high pressure. So historically, there's been a very big culture of work hard play hard. You know, they have been the businesses that have had ping pong tables or, you know, Friday beers, Wednesday, beers pizzas in the office. Obviously, some of this has changed now with a pandemic, but there was a reason for that was to keep people in the workplace for longer. And work life balance, tends to be quite hard to achieve lots of pictures, lots of deadlines, when you're working client facing that comes with a set of demands. So high stress, I would say, low, low levels of inclusion and low levels of diversity. Not many people, I go to many SEO, agency leaders, technology leader type events, not I don't mean many people who are like me.

Scott Allender: 16:28

So what needs to change to change that? How do we how do we get more bring in more diversity?

Rebecca Hull: 16:35

I think, well, first of all, you have to accept that there is a problem in the first place. And you have to really educate yourself about you know, where your own biases might be in yourself and in your business. And you've you've got to think really hard about what it means to have an inclusive business. It takes it takes work, you know, there's often a reason why businesses have a certain culture, because it's much easier to manage a business, it tends to be quieter, if everyone is aligned in the Certain Way and thinks like each other and has the same thoughts and opinions in a way, it's the same type of clothing. But you've got to accept that there's a problem. And you've got to want to understand why it's better for society, if you change that, and why it's actually better for your business. Businesses that have a higher level of diversity tend to perform better, they'll keep their staff for longer. And they're producing better outcomes for their businesses. There's lots that need to be changed, you need to work really hard to make people buy into your vision, buy into your purpose, create a space where people feel psychologically safe to be themselves reveal aspects of themselves that perhaps they've kept hidden in the workplace before. And you've then got to deliver on everything that you say you're going to do to keep that trust. Me when I when I I've started roles and, and in my current business, I've been in my current business for six years, I was the only mother. And that's not unusual. I've had to leave the workplace by the fire exit before to go and pick up my kids from nursery or school. I've had the stress of a child being ill in the night and actually needing me to be really present with the fact that they're unwell. But actually, what I'm really worried about was really worried about is what am I going to do tomorrow? How am I going to turn up for work tomorrow? What impact is that going to have? That's not serving my workplace? It's not serving my child. But that was my work reality for a really long time. And yeah, I'm happy to see that that's changing a little bit. But but probably not fast enough. And then the last two businesses that women leave the workplace.

Scott Allender: 19:18

So let's hone in on that a little bit, because you've said so many important things in there. So I'm thinking about the changes that have happened since COVID. Right? So we had at least spaces where people you know, we had sustainable spaces, at least in theory in terms of helping people to unwind to regulate their nervous systems. You talked earlier about how people bring their whole whole story, all their stories, all their life experience to the workplace. They're carrying that and then they're often in environments where they're dysregulated. Their nervous system is always in this sort of heightened experience. So what is your approach to with your team and to creating a system Anabelle place where people can share how they're feeling where they're not dysregulated all the time, how are you? How are you showing up in that, as you lead your team?

Rebecca Hull: 20:10

Well, there's so much to unpack in that. And we talk about it a lot in in, you know, within our sort of leadership, community and within our wider team. I mean, first of all, I think it's really important that as a leader, you walk your talk. And your what I talked to my team about, is, you know, we are all a product of, you know, the five nervous systems that we most commonly engage with at any one time. So if, as a leader in the business, I'm in a state of high activation, high stress, then the chances are that's going to filter down to other people. So we've got to check ourselves all the time. Where are we? Where are we coming from? Now in conscious leadership, they talk about this a lot of you above the line below the line. And the truth is, we're going to be fluctuating in and out those dates all the time. But if we can start to create a practice of, you know, how am I doing? Where am I? Where am I at, because if I know where I'm at, I'm probably gonna have a much better sense of where this other person's at. So, you know, we start lots of meetings with a check in like we had today, how are you doing? Is there anything that you need to attend to, so that you can be here to, you know, to be really present in this room. I talked to my team all the time, you know, I all the time about, I fundamentally believe that you do not do your best work on a screen behind a screen, they are empowered to work wherever they need to work to structure the day in the way that they need to structure their day. Nothing makes me happier than if someone says to me, I'm going for a walk at lunchtime, or I'm going to do can we do this as a walk and talk meeting. But, you know, it's, it's a constant challenge. And it's a constant challenge for two things, in that I'm serving clients that don't necessarily understand this paradigm that I am trying to create for my business. So there's a certain amount of reaction that needs to happen. But what I've noticed is that you can take people that you can take the proverbial horse to water, but you can't make them drink. And I think that ways of working and stories that we bring to work about productivity or our, you know, create a sense of people not able or not wanting to take responsibility for their own regulation. And so, you know, I fully empower my teams, my executive team and my senior leadership team to create the workplace that they want to work in. And I can say to people, you can turn the notifications off your slack, I don't have any notifications on my phone, I don't have it on my laptop, you know, you can say no to a meeting, you can excuse yourself from a meeting, if it's clear that you don't need to be there. But, but getting people to recognise it that might be something that's good for them to do, requires a lot of coaching, and particularly in this work from home or more remote environment, where it's harder for people to see you in action. You need to coach the behaviours in a lot more than you might do otherwise. Yeah, I fundamentally believe that work is just one dimension should only ever be one dimension of, of, of our lives. Yes, there will be peaks, peaks and troughs, but you know, ultimate, ultimately, we, we work to live and not the other way around. And I, you know, I don't want people in my business, feeling that their lives are out of whack because of something that's going on in work, let's have the discussion, you know, and see how we can support that for you. We create space for a lot of conversation. I have Mental Health First Aiders, lots of businesses have that now. But we really encourage connection and engagement. We create lots of different platforms for people to surface questions and concerns. And they and they use those and we actively respond to them, you know, we have a culture of we said that we did we would do this and we have done this or we haven't done this, we try and hold ourselves to account that helps. But the work has never done and everything is always in a state of flux. So it requires you to be conscious and aware and commit to that style of leadership every single day, every hour, because sometimes the temptation to just go is Just do it, just do it, please just do what I telling you to do is strong, you know, when you've got it move quickly, but the path of least resistance for you at some point would be to be much more direct and dictatorial about, just do it this way. But actually, it's counterproductive in the long term. So there's, there's this, the interesting stuff about for me about this style of leadership is, you know, it's could be perceived by some to be soft or hippyish, or, you know, experimental, it takes a lot of work to be a conscious leader, a lot of work.

Scott Allender: 25:54

When we talked Rebecca, a while back, you were talking about how difficult a lot of this has become because of COVID. And you've got a new set of challenges about trying to create a culture in that environment. But you're you've got, you know, ways that you're working around it. Can you talk a little bit about what you've learned about the try to work in this new hybridised environment?

Rebecca Hull: 26:18

Yeah, it's, um, I'm gonna raise a lot of questions today, I'm not going to have all of the answers, but I'm, I'm okay with that. I think it's just good to have the dialogue. And we are, this is something that we're very, very mindful of, particularly as I think it's, it's changing all the time, you know, what, what do we even mean by hybrid working? What we meant by hybrid working three months ago, is not what businesses mean, now. And, again, you know, I, it's such an, you know, an interesting and complex topic, because, you know, truthfully, if I'd have had this way of working, when my children were younger, my life would have been much less stressful, and it would have been a much better experience for my children. Absolutely. That's true. I think the ability to work from home to have a more flexible life is a good thing for society, it's a good thing for future generations, it's a good thing for the planet, it's made work much harder, like absolutely much harder. And the loss of those soft connection moments, the loss of people learning by osmosis, the loss of that kind of playfulness that sometimes happens, you know, in the studio, when you know, something funny happens, those moments of bonding, there's so much harder to initiate and create in a remote world. So it's, it's constantly on our agenda. And, you know, I definitely don't profess to have all of the answers, we try and create that sense of connection and community and ritual. So there are touch points in the week where everybody comes together. And people know what to expect. And there's the opportunity to engage, and we really have to sort of almost if it is, it's interesting. So we've done an experiment recently, where we've got people to almost like reintroduce themselves to each other. Because it's, it's harder to maintain those relationships. If you're not in constant connection or understanding of each other, your connections become weaker. So we've used you know, these ceremonies that we have in terms of different meetings, to get different teams and people to really kind of introduce themselves and talk about themselves more to each other. We've got channels where we encourage people to recognise high fived each other for great work to reach out where an opportunity where they can, you know, amplify a moment of connection or solidarity or something that went wrong on a project and becomes a marker. Yeah, we have something that we talk about is the three C's where we come together around three principles. So I haven't mandated, you must be in the office X amount of time. But I've said You know, there are times where it's really super valuable for us to be in person. Those tend to be moments, you know, around creativity, where you need to do collaboration or where community so if your community of designers come together and hang out with your other designer powers. You know if there's a problem to be solved, it's so much easier. I'm old fashioned. It's so much easier on a whiteboard and posted notes often. And you know, and obviously client is a really important moment where we try and foster those moments of magic with our clients in person. But it's hard now it's really hard. Lots of clients lives are in flux. People have moved out of London travel times are longer. And I think that people have what I've observing is sort of like a bit of a loss of social muscle. And I think we were talking about it, John, you know, you made a really great point about people are so much more bonded to their homes. Now, actually, to break that bond is, you know, subconsciously, quite a big thing for people. And what I am exploring, at the moment, do quite a lot of reading around sort of belonging connection tribes, and what I'm exploring is, you know, can we build smaller groups and communities of people, so people feel that there is a smaller community that they're part of my team's work in projects. So it's quite often in this state of flow, that teams won't be the same. And then the increase of polarisation actually have different needs. So the other thing that I've observed is the needs of your introverts and extroverts are much more pronounced. Now, some people actually just don't need to leave the house, they don't need it. And they're very comfortable with just getting on with their work. But the people who need that connection are really missing it. And the thing that really keeps me awake sometimes is what does this mean for young people in their experience of work? What does this mean for the leaders of the future? You know, so much of what we've learned, I think, and what I've been really lucky to learn has been through just witnessing stuff in action, you know, overhearing a meeting, seeing how someone else does it, that kind of little walk to the sandwich shop, where you just get to exchange a problem, if someone really important moments, and they're much harder to create online.

Scott Allender: 32:17

Yeah and I think what we're seeing a lot in our work is this polarised reaction to not necessarily always characterising it to see her but sometimes it is to see her going, I want everybody back in the office. And actually, it's such a it's such a black and white kind of directive that it, it cuts across a lot of the new realities that people have come to expect from work. And I think one of the things that you're talking about here, which is really interesting, is that people have become much more aware of their needs. Because there's been more reflection, more introspection more focus on this, people have a chance to think about these things. And yes, the bond at home is interesting. But also like, what do I need to be successful at work? And, you know, so there's a whole range of things purpose, sustainability, social needs, work, productivity needs, and so on, that people have been given this moment of massive autonomy, to be able to do that. And now you're trying to undo that autonomy, and go, No, you're back to another deal, which is, you, I need you here, in this way, on this time, and so on, and people are reacting to that. And a, you know, they're using their power. So I mean, I'm interested in that kind of paradox that you face as a leader in managing the needs of the people and the needs of the business. And how do you, how do you get an adult conversation about that with people?

Rebecca Hull: 33:53

I mean, I think to some extent, I'm, I'm in a fortunate position, in that people come and work in my business, because they are really motivated by the work that we do and the clients that we work with. So, you know, I would never experience a problem everyone understands. If a client wants us in a room, we're so happy to be in a room with them, because it that builds a relationship, it makes life so much easier in the long run. And it's really, really valuable to the long term relationship. So getting people back in person around client activity isn't a problem. Where I notice it to be more of a, an expressed preference is perhaps between disciplines. So I definitely don't want to stereotype here. If you do a job where you need to go quite deep and it's quite detailed, if you're an engineer, you just don't have the same need for social contact to understand what's going on in the sales process as a sales process a salesperson needs to understand what's going on in a project over here or an account manager over here. So those it's, it's absolutely fascinating. And I can't wait to sort of Fast Forward 10 years actually, to see what what does it look like continues because pre pandemic, we were absolutely an in person business. And we had a lovely studio, and we and it was fun, and we had dogs, and, you know, and, you know, we like moments of just pure magic, you know, absolute magic and Pandemic happened, and we all went home, and we were like, Oh, this is like, Well, how long is this they're gonna go on for and obviously, it's now the way of being. And I can see that the people who really enjoyed those moments of magic, are really mourning the loss of them, and trying to create them with a community that's actually a bit smaller, because some people can't, or some people, you know, won't get involved. It's, it's, it's difficult for them to, to feel like it's the same workplace that it was in reality is, and what I'm definitely noticing in my business as well is that I have quite low attrition, lots of people are growing up with a business. And, you know, if you can be at home with your kids, of course, you're going to choose to be at home with your kids. So we definitely going through like a cultural evolution. And there are some days where I really miss it. And we just love to lick my fingers and just have everyone in the room. But I also accept that now that's a lot for people to do. And it's almost too much, which is why we're exploring, you know, actually is, you know, do you need to get 120 people together? Or is it okay to just be in your communities or be in much smaller groups? And that's really a question that we're trying to answer at the moment.

Scott Allender: 37:06

I'm curious about how you find your diverse talent, people who want to be part of, you know, this kind of culture you're describing and in an industry, which, you know, is sort of known for transactional and turns over, up to 30% of its workforce every year, really. So how are you finding the talent to build the culture that you're trying to create?

Rebecca Hull: 37:30

Lots of lots of different ways. So we've really overhauled our recruitment process to remove any risk of unconscious bias that might come into that process by hiring managers. So, you know, anonymous CVS, making sure that the process that is being hired to is totally objective based on your skills and experience for the job, not necessarily on how long you've been on the job, or anything else that might introduce an element of bias, we go to places where we try and find you know, where that more diverse talent is likely to be. It's not always easy. Here, we've run some programmes with, you know, Women Who Code Girls in Tech kind of programmes, and we're starting to see really good representation, gender representation in our engineering teams. We, you know, we have created, we call them args. They're these employee groups that really represent resource groups. Exactly. Thank you. That representative of different areas of diversity that we're trying to create a space to flourish in, so we have a women's one, neurodiversity, ethnicity, and LGBTQI. So we will involve these groups and we in everything that we do, so we don't get a person from our people team to write a policy on the menopause, we speak to the women's ERG and say, women who've experienced in menopause, what does it feel like? What should this policy look like? So it's a lot of co creation, with those groups around the employee experience, employee value proposition? And also what's the best way to sort of amplify and get ourselves out there so that people feel like this is a place of interest. I think, you know, we do have the benefit of doing purpose LED work, and you know, that that helps us have a really healthy funnel of people who are interested to work with us, because they are also interested in the work that we want to do. Yeah, and I think you know, we the stats around ours and split 5050, which in tech is amazing 50% representation and leadership team as well between gender. Remember, the average is about 2023. In all elements of the representation. We are above the UK average. And we monitor that really closely. That's excellent. Yeah, we are. We monitor thing. Yeah. So I think that's something like only 35% of businesses in tech would even sort of capture data around, you know, non binary status in terms of gender, for example, you know, we will ask that we've been capturing data and neurodiversity for a long time. So we're really well equipped to support those people in the workplace.

Jean Gomes: 40:57

How do you go about confronting difficult conversations? What's your approach so that you can confront bad behaviour underlying values? with care? How do you do it?

Rebecca Hull: 41:12

So a pillar or commitment of being a conscious leader is a sort of a commitment to having candid conversations. And, you know, you I learned very early on in my career, you can never make assumptions. So there's, there's an element of preparation that you need to do, mentally, am I in the right space to have this conversation? You know, try and discharge any emotion that you may have around it, and take a step back and really think about the bigger context, go into that conversation and ask a lot of questions what's going on? This is what I'm observing, let's Can we talk about it. And in fact, I was talking to a few people in the business this week about the term feedback. And, and I, and I was, you know, sort of had this thought that actually that even that term is a bit triggering, you know, when we think about a sonic experience of feedback at scratch, it's this, it's this, like, actually, what we're really doing is trying to get to the bottom of a situation where we can make an outcome better. And so you, I've learned many, many things in in my career, and one of them is one of the best things that you can do for people is to be upfront, honest, clear and direct. Don't beat around the bush, don't leave them guessing. If there's, if something is falling short, be really clear on why is it you know, why is it not okay, that it's falling short? Where's the gap? What do they need to do what? And then And then what do they need? What support do they need to get there to close the gap? And be really clear about what your expectations are, and check in, you know, check in you can't just have a one and done conversation and leave them in a state of, you know, being aware that those conversations are going to trigger like shame, or fear or anger, you know, like, you've got to give them a chance to talk through to talk through some of that. We ask people, I encourage my line managers to talk to people about how do they like to receive feedback. Some people just want the upfront conversations that people need to reflect and digest. So where that's possible, we, you know, we have a culture of, again, sort of creating the optimal environment that that conversation can happen. You know, and it needs to happen, it's healthy, you know, to have disagreement to have. Now we talked about one of our values is, you know, is around collaboration and collaboration is not easy. Collaboration is not everyone being nice to each other collaborations, being in a room, managing the difference of opinion, managing different sets of emotions, and getting to an outcome that moves you forward. And the is no point shying away from that if you want to be in leadership, because it's inevitable conflict is going to happen.

Scott Allender: 44:23

Friends, if you're enjoying the evolving leader, I encourage you to order a copy of John's new book leading in a non linear world, which provides a new understanding of mindset and how to build it in order to thrive in a more uncertain future. It's available online at all major retailers and there's a link in the show notes. I like the observation around the word feedback being problematic. Because I've never heard anybody saying genuinely, I love feedback. I mean, they say this might say it but the actual emotional experience of it. mean. And your point about trying, you know, the goal of trying to get to the bottom of a situation also is a bit problematic as well. But it's much healthier. It's a much more kind of solution orientated thing, because I think feedback comes with the obvious implication of judgement. And That immediately puts us into a heightened state of fight or flight. You know, if I said to you, I've got some feedback for you.

Rebecca Hull: 45:27

Exactly. And the chances are, it's probably right. And the chances are, you know, that reaction is maybe telling you something that perhaps that, you know, is something that you need to listen to, but I've, I don't know, I just, I do quite a lot of coaching work with my teams to support them, because this is not a space that feels comfortable for anyone to move into. But, you know, trying to get them to understand about having those conversations like don't, it's not, you can't make it personal, it's not personal. It's about it's about behaviour and outcome. When you do this, it has the impact of that is really obstructive what we're trying to achieve, how do we do that differently? Can we do that differently. But it also, you know, I think it comes back to this point about to be a really effective, conscious leader, you've got to you've got to accept the work in helping your teams become conscious of, of themselves. And what I observe sometimes is because of design, or lack or stories, people end up in jobs that perhaps not suited to their strengths, and it's highly stressful, and they're forcing an aspect of themselves. That's really difficult, and it's not their natural state, and then that leads to a, you know, to an outcome. That's not, that's not great for anyone. So then are you really having a conversation about why this thing happened? That wasn't great? Or is it better? Let's try and have the conversation about how are you feeling in your work? Actually, is this the right place? Where do you want to go? You know, what can you know, what's going on for you? That I can support you with? Or what do you feel like you need space to go and figure out? And I think some of my team probably get fed up with me having that conversation with them. But I think that that's ultimately what helps move it, move it on in the long run.

Scott Allender: 47:33

What else should we be asking you, Rebecca?

Rebecca Hull: 47:36

Jeepers! That's a big question for her past four and a Friday. Wow, You've stumped me. What else should we should we should we be asking? I mean, I'm really I'm really interested and concerned for young people entering the workforce. You know, I think it's really stressful. Being a young person in this world, you know, we I think we may, we always had big stuff to live with. But we weren't living with the threat of climate change, being as big as it is we didn't we weren't educated in a pandemic, you know, we, you know, we had people showing us a way to do things that may have not been right, but it's still a kind of a benchmark, or a Northstar. And I think it must be incredibly hard to be a young person entering the workforce, where your experience of work is through a screen, and you are grappling with an economic reality, you know, much greater levels of mental health and anxiety than I think former generations have had to deal with. And I don't hear enough about workplaces doing enough for you to really consider that as something that perhaps needs some love and attention for the future.

Jean Gomes: 49:17

I was talking to somebody recently about their talent journey from from people joining the company to leaving the company. And what they were saying was that they put a lot of effort in bringing new people in the onboarding experience is very good. The promoting people to the biggest jobs in the organisation was very good, but actually for everybody else, for people who are in this kind of middle state where they're almost neglected you know, there are the key really is about continuous workplace training and good reviews and that's about it. Which kind of leaves See people in a in a quite a strange position in terms of their growth and adaptation given all of this change that's taking place in the world? And I just wonder what you think about that?

Rebecca Hull: 50:12

Yeah, I think it's I think it's a sort of a genuine reality. And I think that there are some kind of competing factors going on. I, you know, work in a business where we give everybody a set amount of money that they can put towards any sort of learning experience that they that's going to help them in their work. And that's not necessarily about, you know, it must be 100% connected to your job as a designer, if somebody wants to go and explore something else, but it brings in an element of creativity or innovation, we absolutely support that, I'd say the uptake is, is not as big as you would think it is, we have to remind people, it's there. So I think, I think for some people, there's a big, there's so much, and we talked about at the beginning of this conversation, we're so cognitively stretched, that sometimes it's quite hard for people to create the space to think about their own development. And I also think that businesses don't do enough to describe interesting, I think we talked about progression. And maybe we, you know, or progression, which I always think has like quite vertical connotations. And maybe what we really should start talking about is like learning and growth and like really embracing, like, what are you curious about? You know, rather than it being this sense of, well, it must be something that furthers me in my career. How about just something that furthers you as a person, you know, something that you're interested in? And I think, you know, one of your, you know, your questions was about, you know, for me, you know, what's at the cutting edge of culture? And what next? And I think it is this sort of question around, creating space for people to really feel into things and explore things that are of interest and to not be so linear about everything. Maybe because education wasn't a given for me, I've always been really passionate about learning. And, you know, some people are like, Oh, I'm not sure about this course, I'm let that go. If you just learn one thing, if you take away one thing, it'll have been worth the time and the money. But, but getting people to create space for themselves. It's really hard.

Scott Allender: 52:46

I love that. I think that's a great place for us to land. And I want to say thank you, thank you for having this conversation. It was refreshing. And there's so much richness in everything that you've said, and so much sincerity that just comes through in everything that I know, everybody's listening, is appreciating that and so thank you for your time and your insights.

Rebecca Hull: 53:12

You're very welcome. Thank you for Yeah, thank you for your time and inviting me it's a privilege.

Jean Gomes: 53:19

I feel calm as a result of talking to you.

Scott Allender: 53:22

I do as well. Yeah, I do as well. And I needed that I need that I feel less heavy as I did at the beginning. I feel more hopeful, knowing there's leaders like you out in the world that are leading with this kind of intentionality. So so thank you for that. And for our listeners. remember until next time, the world is evolving. Are you