Emma Pownall 0:00
Steve, today I'm joined by Louise Stevenson, a partner at LCAP group, a leadership advisory firm. They specialise in working with founders and high performing teams at private equity backed businesses to ensure they have the right leadership teams in place to drive valuation. So today we're talking about border imbalance and the benefits that it can bring the entire business. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Emma Pownall 0:30
Hi Louise, thank you for joining me today. So we're going to talk about boardroom balance, but before we do, could you give me a bit of intro into your background and what led you into leadership recruitment

Louise Stephenson 0:42
so very early on in my career, in my mid 20s, I was made redundant after being in the travel and hospitality industry, and I walked into a high sheet recruiter looking for a job, and they said, Have you ever thought about being a recruitment consultant? I've got to admit, at the time, I had a mortgage to pay. So said, no, that sounds interesting, and I was with that organisation for 16 and a half years. Then I didn't fall out with corporate. Enjoyed my 16 and a half years, but was just asking myself a different question, and then met my now leader, founder of a high growth, privately owned organisation that was recruiting for high performing businesses, founder led and private equity about businesses. And it felt like a move into more leadership advisory as opposed to just recruitment. And because I'd done my CIPD level five, it felt right that I was working alongside founders and CEOs of high growth businesses to help them recruit leadership teams and advise them, rather than just recruiting people. Yeah.

Emma Pownall 1:55
And so now you work with senior leaders, as you say, in high performance, ambitious businesses, what sort of challenges do you see those types of businesses facing?

Louise Stephenson 2:07
I think from a leadership perspective, I suppose the dissertation question we always ask our founders, whether they're a founder led organisation or backed by private equity, is, do you have the right leadership team in order to be able to drive your valuation plan, be it that you want to remain as a privately owned organisation and continue on a great trajectory, or your private equity and you want to create a valuation plan and you have a very distinct start and an end, and in our world, yeah, the dissertation question is always, do you have the right leadership team that's going to achieve your growth plans?

Emma Pownall 2:44
What challenges come from recruiting into that space? If the answer is no, we don't have the leadership team around us that we need,

Louise Stephenson 2:53
I think they're always challenges. I think the world is changing in terms of the roles that we are recruiting for. So technology is obviously, you know, coming through from an advancement, you know, now, AI, etc, etc. So there are always roles that are evolving. So roles that were sales and marketing, for example, 10 years ago, are, you know, have just evolved through technology enhancements, technology development, AI, data. I do a lot of work in consumer industry. And of course, consumer trends change. We all get older. Things change. New generations are coming in. So there's just a constant evolvement in our world constantly. So we're constantly having to think about what we're recruiting today is probably different to what we were recruiting 10 years ago. Even though titles may remain the same there are, there has been some evolution, so we have to keep up with that all the time, and our clients expect us to keep on top of those involvements all the time, because that's essentially what we do as a leadership advisor. Yeah.

Emma Pownall 3:57
So we're here to talk about boardroom balance, and that leads into the word diversity, which means different things to different people. What? How would you define diversity in a leadership and boardroom context?

Louise Stephenson 4:12
So we would look at diversity in three different ways. We would look at diversity from a demographic diversity, so that is gender, race, social background, social mobility. We also look at experience diversity. So around every board table, we want different experiences, people that have done that journey before, but also new people that are coming onto that journey. So you have that diversity. But more importantly to us is about cognitive diversity. We have behavioural profiling tool called pace, and we've now interviewed over 12,000 senior executives from both high growth and private equity, and what we've learned from that data is that teams that have. True cognitive diversity are more likely to outperform the competition. And what we mean by cognitive diversity is things like people who were curious, pragmatic, execution focused, and people that have got curious mindsets, they're the ones that generally outperform. And we need all three of those diversities. So we do want gender, race, social backgrounds, different experiences and succession and generations coming together, but if we can get them all behaving and the behaviours are right, then that's what we see. Is that is the proper diversity that we should be concentrating on, which is the cognitive diversity.

Emma Pownall 5:40
And what do you see when teams get that sort of diversity in the teams? What do you see as the sort of outcomes of that? What's the benefits and the change that happens

Louise Stephenson 5:50
when there's true cognitive diversity, you get a real blend of speed of decisions, but also speed of adaptation as well. So behaviours in diverse teams avoid group think. So if you've got the same people around the table from the same generation who are all similar ages, they've all had a similar background, no surprise, you're going to get what they call group think. You're going to have the same thought process if you have a team that have worked together for an awfully long time, and therefore, over years, they just understand each other so well. What you're missing in that scenario is diversity, diversity of thought you're missing challenge. So for us, it's always about making sure that there is always that cognitive diversity around the board table, and the ones that do have that cognitive diversity have faster responses in risky situations. But more importantly, you have that really nice balance between people that are looking at risks and assessing risks, but also people that looking for opportunities.

Emma Pownall 6:55
Yeah, that's really interesting. And I find it really interesting culturally that you have those people that are really they're the ones that come across risk averse, and they're pulling out all of the challenges and worries that are coming. And then you've got the people who are more innovative and wanting to push forward. And that balance is so important,

Louise Stephenson 7:17
absolutely. And the other way that we look at our boards is around that functional balance as well. So have you got the right spread of skills around your board table? But also we recognise that certain roles have different, you know, sort of focuses. So sales, marketing, product are outwardly facing. You could argue they're value creators, whereas HR operations people are more value protectors. So it is about having that functional diversity as well, as you know, that sort of cognitive diversity as well.

Emma Pownall 7:48
So we're talking here a lot about behaviours of of the leadership team. What's the link between their behaviour and the culture that the business wants to set?

Louise Stephenson 7:58
So every board should be asking themselves that they are the cultural blueprint for the wider business. So the way they behave, the way they act, the way they speak, the diversity around the board table, essentially that is sending a message to the wider audience. Homogeneous boards. All people are very similar, similar backgrounds, have similar mindsets, often are risk averse, quite siloed and quite execution heavy, like we said earlier, they're probably going to be group thinking, or think the same or know each other really, really well, but boards that combine curiosity, agility, pragmatism and those three diversity elements that we talked about earlier, we tend to See in high performing teams. They create cultures that are adaptive and innovating. And essentially what they should be thinking is over time, culture that is sort of come from the top set standards for the rest of the rest of the business. They become self reinforcing because there are certain standards in the business. But essentially the nuts and bolts of it is that a diverse board will create a diverse workforce, and that's what we all want.

Emma Pownall 9:05
Yeah, so I suppose they're then representing that culture that they're creating and being an example of that for everybody else. So then the layers below them can see the decision making and the types of roles and diversity that a business needs?

Louise Stephenson 9:24
Yes, absolutely, it's really important, and they should really stop and look around the board to say, actually, what is our cultural blueprint and start with the board, what is that message giving to the rest of the wider business?

Emma Pownall 9:36
Yeah, so that's really then shaping the appeal the business has to future leaders and and future employees.

Louise Stephenson 9:44
Yeah, if you think about it, every decision that's made at board level is essentially should be underpinning their company values. So every decision that they make, you could almost argue that every decision that a boardroom makes is almost like a recruitment strategy in its own right. Yeah. Because every person they recruit onto that board gives not just your internal culture a message, but your competitors and the market a message as well. So if you appoint a first time C suite person who's never had an experience, what are you telling the market? You're saying that you're open, you're open to opportunity, and you're quite curious. You want a different thought process onto the board. If you recruit people from different backgrounds or diverse backgrounds, what you're saying to the market is that you're innovating and your agility and your mindset to welcome different thought processes, and you want to be challenged. So essentially, yeah, really thinking about every person that you recruit onto your board table, no matter where they come from, what message is that sending? What I'm not saying is that you should therefore recruit people just for that reason, but you definitely should have a look around the board table and say, What message are we giving, not just internally, but what does that tell our market as well?

Emma Pownall 10:57
So you mentioned before the pace profile in that you do, can you just explain a bit more about it? I did it ahead of the conversation today, and I found it really interesting be great to explain a bit more about it for the audience.

Louise Stephenson 11:14
So our pace behavioural profiling tool that we use has been designed over many, many years, and it's been underpinned by a lot of research that we've done. And essentially what we recognise in that in high performing teams, there are certain key behavioural traits that are in high performers, and we essentially call them pace, which is pragmatism, agility, curiosity and execution. We've now interviewed over 12,000 senior executives across Europe, and what we can tell in those upper quartile higher valuation deals, there has been a what we call a lean to the left, which is high pace, which means high in pragmatism, high in agility, high in curiosity and high in execution. Now we all know that everybody's different, like we've just talked about, everybody comes from different backgrounds, different social backgrounds, but behaviorally, there is no right or wrong. You are who you are, and it's not based on personality. It's based on behaviour. And what we know is that through situational experiences, behaviour can change. So the more situational experiences that we all have, as leaders, as employees and businesses, then therefore your behaviour, then can change. So what we do, therefore know, is that in higher upper quartile deals, the behaviour around that board table has been very high around pragmatism, agility, curative and execution. What we also know, as we take it down to the next level, is that depending what role you play, we want different behaviours. What we don't want is everyone to be the same. We don't want group think. It's not about everybody being the same as everybody else. High performing teams are the ones that bring different behaviours to that board level. So therefore, what we look for is a complementarity between people. So we look for people who are different that bring something different to the table. And when we're recruiting, we're looking for that, what behaviour are we losing by the person who's leaving? What gaps does that then leave? But also, what can we bring that's different to that board table in order to drive high valuation and equity valuation plans?

Emma Pownall 13:27
So it's about that full makeup of the team, not just the role that you're you're recruiting for. What? What does it tell teams, when I suppose, at that stage, before they're recruiting, about the teams they already have. Does the team get insights from that? Yeah.

Louise Stephenson 13:47
So we use the post behavioural tool for every individual that we recruit, so part of our recruitment processes, and we have pace specialists within the business who can look at it from a behavioural process. And that means that when we're recruiting individuals at board level. We also have an independent internal check. I suppose that the people that we're recruiting, you know, what do they look like from a behavioural perspective? When you overlay their profiles then into the wider team, when they've also done their behavioural you see a very different makeup. You're not recruiting that person based on social background, gender, race, or anything like that. What you're saying is, how is this team going to play together? How is this team going to behave? We are at point A in our journey of growth. We want to get to Plan B. So what is that journey going to be, and how is it going to work in, you know, from a behavioural perspective with that team all working together. And what we want is we want people to be different. We want people like we talked earlier. We want people who are assessing risk, but we also want people that are going to bring opportunity to the table as well. When you then start looking at a team as a set of data, essentially, it just brings a whole new avenue to recruitment. You're not recruiting based on CVS. You're not recruiting based on how they look, how they dress. You're literally making your decision based on how is this team going to behave together? And it takes away all of those unconscious bias. It takes away all of those decisions. And then, you know, looks at that team from a behavioural perspective, and we know from assessing, like I said, over 12,000 individuals at senior level, that the high performing teams that outperform are the ones that have complementarity around the from a behavioural perspective, around the board

Emma Pownall 15:29
table. Yeah, so like you were saying before, there's not a right answer for any of these. It's how those individuals work together. Can the report itself, give individuals more self awareness, or help them to

Louise Stephenson 15:45
absolutely and we're seeing that more and more so the pace behavioural tool that we now use is now becoming not embedded in recruitment processes, but also we can use it as a development tool. So if you're a c minus one individual wanting to be a CEO of the future, we can now use data to tell you, situationally, what experiences you now need to go and do in order to become a CEO of the future. If you're an FD and you want to become a CFO of the future, we know what high performing CFOs, or an archetype, looks like. So you can, you know, know what experiences you need to be able to do, or what behaviours you need to change in order to be able to become a CFO over the future. But also it helps from an onboarding perspective, you know, you've recruited, you've gone through a whole recruitment process, and this is the person that you're going to recruit. If you could look at the key hire and your recruiter, and both actually have access to that data. Not only does it onboard the individual better, because they know what they're walking into, but also the hirer knows how to onboard that individually. That individual is slightly different because we're all slightly different, and that's what we want. Is that difference between us? But can you imagine, if everybody had that kind of onboarding support, how successful people would be almost immediately, because they've also had that foresight of what they're walking into and out to how to maximise the onboarding process, or that first 100 Days of anyone's recruitment, yeah,

Emma Pownall 17:12
and I suppose how they're going to complement that team that they're walking into, and absolutely what strengths they've got that maybe the team is missing, and they can bring

Louise Stephenson 17:23
and we've seen it where teams have worked together for a long time, and you're bringing someone new in, that's quite hard, isn't it, when you've had a team all working together for many, many, many years and all of a sudden we've got a new recruit for different reasons. It might be a new a new role or a retirement situation, or, you know, someone's decided that they're moving on after a long, long time, it's it's almost just as hard for the people sat around the board table to accept somebody new as it is for the person walking on to that board table. When people understand people's facial expressions, you know, those slight nuances you know in terms of, you know, people's behaviour. So you can make a recruitment then for more successful by really understanding people's behaviours. And we see it all the time in the pace team are just phenomenal, and they can go into a team and help a team understand maybe why there's some frustrations around the board table. Because, you know how we behave. Sometimes it's, you know, it's not necessarily the behaviour, but the motivator behind that behaviour. You know, why are you behaving in that way? Once we understand why we're behaving in the way we are, then you go, Okay, it's a light bulb moment. Now I understand why you're behaving the way you do. So therefore we can work better together. Some people like to plan before meetings. People like papers. Some people like technology. Do you know what I mean? There's no right or wrong. We're different, and we should be different, and it's how we embrace those differences in our behaviour.

Emma Pownall 18:46
Yeah, definitely. So you as an individual have become a real champion and advocate for empowering women in the workplace. What led you to to focus on that?

Louise Stephenson 18:58
So I suppose two things came together at the same time. So I came out of corporate environment and started working for a founder. And what I truly loved about working with that particular founder is the fact that he really knew me and understood the value of what I could bring. And I suppose I bought a slight difference, I suppose, behaviorally, from my other counterparts, from a senior leadership perspective, and when I was asked to come in to sort of, you know, do more sales and support the founder to grow I'm not a natural salesperson. I wouldn't I don't like KPIs and all of that sort of thing. I'm not a very natural sales person, but I find myself in a sales environment. But what the founder really sort of looked at myself was that I could sell, but slightly different. So then when I started to go out into the private equity world and starting to network, I really struggled a. Because I clearly wasn't a very good networker. Clearly needed some training on how to network properly. But also I just found the world of private equity and networking in that world very male dominated, and I struggled for the first sort of six months to a year, and I'd used to walk away from networking events thinking that wasn't very productive. I didn't get what I wanted. I didn't sit next to the right person. I said, it's cheap. Why did I say that? You know, you always reflect, don't you go, Oh, stupid question to ask. Do you know what I mean? So so that combined, then with my, I suppose, my day job, which was recruiting senior people and seeing the difference between how a male would look at a job description compared to how a female would look at a job description, and I found myself doing more coaching and mentoring with the females than I did with the males. And those two things just sort of coincided at the same time. And I remember the day I came out of a networking event and thought, Well, that was a, you know, complete waste of my time, and there has to be a different way. There has to be a different way for I feel I'm just a genuinely down to earth northern woman. I'm not complicated at all. There's got to be an easier way for me to network and meet new people. So I, yeah, I started the empowering women in business community just over two years ago, and just looked at gender diversity just slightly differently.

Emma Pownall 21:25
Yeah, and I think what you've built with that community, you know, I've been along to your events, you've brought people together that are similar in that sense, that they are curious and generous, and people who want to network and talk to each other, but maybe in a slightly different way. What have you seen is the benefit of bringing those people together in that sort of environment?

Louise Stephenson 21:58
Well, first of all, I suppose the environment what I didn't want it to be was an all female community, because I'm a great believer in that. Actually, diversity begins at home. I've been very fortunate that I have married my best friend, I suppose I've been together for a long time, and during our growing up together, we've played slightly different roles. My husband used to be self employed, then I got the opportunity to move into this role now. So diversity with two grown boys begins at home, and my husband has never stopped me from wanting to do things, you know, if I've gone home with an idea and things like that, he's always said, go for it. If that's what you want to do, I've got your back. So I'm a great believer in that true gender diversity comes from bringing all people together in a like minded environment. So hence the community is both male and female, today's generation and tomorrow's generation. Because I'm a great believer in that true gender diversity can't happen unless we've got all of those people in the room. I also believe that today's, you know, I'm got five at the beginning of my age now, and I almost think that I'm in the next generations world just because I went on a journey to get where I am today, I don't necessarily consider myself a senior female, necessarily, but, you know, most senior females of today will have probably had a journey to get where they are. But just because we had that journey to get where we are doesn't mean that our next generation has to have the same journey. We should share our experiences. And I suppose my role is to demystify senior leadership, to show that both men and women at board level are just the same. They both work equally as hard. They both miss their children. They both, you know, both male and females. You know want to be at home. They you know, most high performing males and females have made some sacrifices in order to be able to be there. And actually, from the data that we've done, when you compare a female CEO or a male CEO with similar experiences, similar backgrounds, there actually isn't any difference. So there is no gender difference at board level. So the question is, why do we still not have as many females as we need at board level? And I suppose that's the question, why then? Because when they're there, there is actually no difference. Both come with positive, weaknesses, strengths, you know, all of that sort of thing. Do you know what I mean. And I've interviewed many males who are actually emotionally in touch with their emotional side and recognise they've made, you know, some mistakes and things like that. You know what I mean. So there isn't actually much difference. So that's why I keep asking myself the question, why do we therefore still have a under representative, you know, of females on board level, and that still remains. My dissertation question today is, what can we do? So if I can demystify senior leadership to say that it's not about social backgrounds, not about going to the best universities, it's about situational experience, therefore anybody can do it. So that's essentially what I'm trying

Emma Pownall 24:59
to do. Yeah. Mentioned earlier that you see males and females looking at job descriptions differently. Can we just dig into that a little bit? Of course,

Louise Stephenson 25:09
so females will look at a job description and want to be able to achieve that role, or know they're going to be successful in that role before they want to apply. Whereas men will if there's something on a job description where they haven't done, won't see it as a barrier. They'll see it as a development opportunity, for example, and be quite confident that they can take on that development. Whereas women want to be assured that they can do something before they put themselves out of their comfort zone, I suppose so. Some people might call it imposter syndrome, but I've seen men with imposter syndrome as well, and it's a label that we put on, sort of, you know, lack of confidence or something like that, you know what I mean. But you know, I think imposter syndrome is almost like that, sort of, you know, stepping into your fear and almost kind of owning it. And that's what I see women do all the time. So there's a, you know, a sort of, you know, this label on imposter syndrome. But what is it? Imposter syndrome is, you know, some people would say it's real. Some people not so. So, you know, people are sort of, you know, sit on the fence there. But if women can step into that fear and say, well, actually, instead of saying, I can't do that, ask yourself the question, ooh, how would I be different if I could do that? Then it's just that slightly different thought process, and that's where a lot of the coaching and mentoring during recruitment processes is okay, you potentially haven't done that before, but what have you done? And let's break that down. And you know, job descriptions can also be quite black and white. There's no emotional around it. There's no behaviours. If we talked about it's quite black and white. The same as a CV can be quite black and white. So I think when you start bringing a job description to life in terms of what it actually means on a day to day basis, and therefore the benefits of that role and how you'll be different in three years time when you've done that role, think about if you go through this process. So the other thing I would like to sort of mention there is that we've had many Wealth Advisors on our panels for our gender diversity, and it's a proven fact that men and women look at wealth also very differently. So men look at wealth pragmatically and look at the risks and upticks in equal measure, but they're because they're more sort of open to risk, I suppose they, you know, sort of look at wealth slightly differently, whereas women tend to look at wealth as security. So therefore, then they don't generally take as many risks as a man would with their wealth. So therefore, you know, it's a proven all the stats say that the way that invest wealth is invested. So therefore, when you're looking for a job and you're looking for, you know, the salary and things like that that goes with it. A woman will consider more than a man around you know that wealth or salary, or the risk of losing the salary today to move into a new role, and the risk associated with that so and that's proven. You know, many Wealth Advisors will say that in terms of, you know, there is a wealth gap between, you know, males and females because of the way that they perceive the risk around wealth.

Emma Pownall 28:28
That's so interesting, that's two quite different things that potentially have an effect on whether a female or a male will apply for a role. And I suppose, for the team recruiting, they can only work with the candidates that put themselves forward for that particular role. Just thinking about that team that are recruiting for an individual, what can they be doing, or what conversations should they be having? To be bringing more balance, whether that's cognitive or gender or race, like you were saying, into their team, if that's something they see as a gap.

Louise Stephenson 29:07
So I suppose I'd implore founders or leaders to essentially ask themselves two questions. The first one is, who's done this before, and what does this team need in order to win? So there, what you're asking is sort of from an experience perspective, but also, what am I missing? Because just as someone is exiting or you feel you need something different, it doesn't mean that you have to recruit in the the light or the same as the person who's leaving. Um, it's an opportunity, isn't it, to do something different, and ask yourself, you know, what's missing around the board table? Again, I know we we talk about PACE today, which is our behavioural but where we see that, you know, you have that cognitive diversity around the board table, that's where high performance really comes. In and through data, we can tell that when you remove somebody out of that team, we therefore, behaviorally, know what that team is losing. So therefore behaviorally we know what to put back in. But also, it's an opportunity, isn't it, to say, what are we missing around this board table, this is an opportunity to do something different, to bring a different experience, or a successor, or a different generation or a different race or a different social background or different cognitive background. Do you know what I mean and bring something different to the table? I'd also ask people to move away necessarily from job descriptions. Job descriptions can be really black and white, and think about what do I need this person to impact on a day to day basis? And job descriptions obviously are great at sort of assessing skills and competencies in terms of what you want them to actually have. And factually, yes or no, can this person do the job? But ask yourself the question is, what do you want this person to impact on a day to day basis? And therefore, what behaviour do I need around the board table? And therefore your recruit will be slightly different.

Emma Pownall 31:06
As you're talking I'm thinking, This isn't just about that recruitment of a board team. You know, most of our listeners will be leaders of their own teams and recruiting regularly. And actually, both of those questions are so poignant for anyone recruiting into their team, what's missing, and you know, what are you losing by the person leaving? If, if it's a replacement piece, it's, it's a good starting point. I think, for any, any leader recruiting into their

Louise Stephenson 31:38
team, it filters beyond the board table as well, doesn't it filters to that next level of recruitment as well? Because if you can also look at your C minus one, even c minus two from a behavioural perspective, I mean, let's flip it slightly. You know, we're starting to use the pace tool in graduates that are leaving university to educate them on what situations they need to enhance their careers for the future. So, you know, you can use it from that perspective as well. Use it as a development tool to say, Well, what people do we need in our business? We need lots of different behaviours, don't we at all levels of our business? Yeah, so it doesn't matter what level you're recruiting for. You know, look at your team from a behavioural perspective and say What behaviour and say, what behaviours do I need in this team? And also, you know, have I got all of the three different diversities? You know, in my business, you know, cultures are built bottom up as well as they are, but, you know, top down. So, you know, it filters all throughout the culture is that, who am I around? And we hear it all the time as well, don't we that people have roles. They might be right for the culture, but they're in the wrong seat. It doesn't mean that, you know, we all have to do we're all different, aren't we, and we should be while we have some similarities between us, we should also be encouraged to be different to we can all create value through slightly different ways. But unfortunately, some of these things take time. And the bigger organisation, and, you know, I get it, you know, we need a lot of copy and paste and, you know, and all of that sort of stuff. But true leaders of all levels will really get to know their teams really well. Will really understand individuals really well. I've worked with, you know, the founder who I've worked with for just over nine years now, and even the person, you know, CEO of LCAP group, really getting to understand their individuals from a behavioural perspective and asking the question, if we put them in a slightly different role, could they actually create more

Emma Pownall 33:32
value? Yeah, I love that thinking about what situations are needed to grow that individual and to move forward. Because it's really easy to look in hindsight and go, You know what that thing there that really shaped who I am as a leader, but actually looking forward at the people that work with you and for you and going, actually, what situations did they need to be in to make them a leader of the future? What a great way to think about developing new teams and helping them.

Louise Stephenson 34:04
And you start to see a trend in HR and HR leadership at the moment. So there is a real trend at the moment where we've had core values in our business, and we, you know, sort of strive to these core values, and they're normally on the wall and, you know, and all of that sort of thing. And people know their core values, and part of their onboarding process to understand. But what we're starting to see now is a bit of a shift towards behaviours. So we might have a core value, but actually, what are the behaviours that we'll be seeing on a day to day basis, if that person is actually, you know, demonstrating that value, and that's when we talked about earlier, that culture, you know, if you have core values in your business, then your board need to be also demonstrating the core values through their behaviour. And that's what then goes all the way through your business, almost like a DNA, all the way through your business. If you can see values, then you shouldn't really need a value on a wall, because it's, it's it's what's seen, it's what's known. You're here. It, you're seeing it every day. And that's not about leadership. That's everybody in that business, isn't it? If you're all behaving in the right way, then that's when culture really becomes high performing.

Emma Pownall 35:10
Yeah, definitely. It's that. What are the attitudes and behaviours that are defining how you make your decisions, like you say, not just sort of sitting on the wall as Yeah, as the culture that you want to have, but isn't present on a day to day basis. Absolutely so as senior leaders within businesses, what do you think we can do to build effect, effective, Future Ready teams?

Louise Stephenson 35:38
I think we've just talked. I suppose it then, but it's that sort of that hidden layer of performance, I suppose, in terms of behaviours. And if you think about it from a cognitive perspective, yes, you need skills, and yes, you need experiences. But I think let's take today's society. You know, young people of today have had much better use of technology than than we had. I mean, the World Wide Web didn't even exist when I was a youngster. Never mind mobile phones and things like that. You know what I mean. So the next generation are all the technically advanced, the generation beyond that, you know, 1516, year olds doing the GCSE is even there, more technically, you know, advanced than what we were at 16. So I think it's as the new generation are coming through, they are more curious as individuals, because they've, they've been allowed to be because they've had the world at their doorstep, haven't they, and their palms of their hands, they've got all of that information. AI, chat, GPT, you know, all of these new technologies and everything is, you know, is really at our sort of fingertips. So I suppose it's about, you know, yes, embracing technology, but actually, how we as individuals, as you're recruiting new people and bringing them through, how do we use those tools more effectively to make us more efficient? But how do we recruit people with different mindsets? Give people the opportunities ask them questions. You know, the future generation have have got, you know, sort of aspirations for themselves. You know, in terms of what they want to the for the future, they'll probably drive a four day week and do things very differently to what we've done now. You know, they embrace hybrid working. My niece, who is, you know, 28 now, doesn't drink. Most of her friends don't drink. They're into health and wellness, much more than we were when, you know they're teaching us and as we're talking and you know I did one of the best panels I think I've ever done, is where I met the future generation, and not the generation c minus one today, but the generation of that sub 30 year olds, and the way they think is just completely different to the way that we think, much more demanding of their time, but much more eager to be, you know, take on different things, you know, challenge themselves, step out the comfort zone. Do you know what I mean? So I, you know, I think we need to sort of step aside and let them come in, really, because they'll push things, you know much differently to how we're doing it now. So, yeah, embrace the next generation, and I think you'll have a much better work environment.

Emma Pownall 38:09
Yeah, definitely. I think you can really see the passion you have for supporting that future generation and inspiring others to do the same. So I'm

Louise Stephenson 38:22
slightly biassed, I suppose, because I've got a 16 year old, she's about to get his GCSE results, but, but, you know, but I see it in my own, you know? I don't. I didn't see myself as a parent anymore. I see myself as a coach and a mentor to my two children. And you know, when we went to school careers, we'll talk about career days, another day, that's another day. That's another conversation and topic in its own right. But, you know, they were saying that children that that age now will probably have five different jobs, whereas when I was coming into the world of work, it was a job for life. So do you know what I mean, it's just going to be so different, isn't

Emma Pownall 38:54
it? Yeah, and it comes back to that point, you might have someone who's in the right company, wrong seat. You know, we're very focused on that step by step career moves, but actually they could be sat somewhere else in your organisation. And you

Louise Stephenson 39:09
see it all the time, don't you put somebody in a different seat and they completely thrive? Yeah, and they just do something different. Or how many times have you had someone leave your business and they've gone on and done extremely well somewhere else? So is that because of them, or is it because of the culture that they were in, so that they're all those sort of examples, aren't they? We've seen them all around us, where people thrive when they're in a just a slightly different environment. And I have to say that the managers that I've worked with, personally, who I've really thrived under, are the ones who really get to know me and don't try and put me in a box. Really understand me and what value I bring and allow me to, I suppose, to take on challenges. I'm quite happy to push myself up my comfort zone. I'm quite I'm quite happy to make mistakes, you know what I mean, but I'm also quite emotional and, you know, and all of that sort of stuff, you know, I'm quite passionate about things. So the best leaders are the ones that really embrace all of you. All. Your behaviours and so well, actually, we've got something different here, and not just trying to put you in a box all the time. So I think we would say it's sort of being very deliberate about behavioural complementarity and very conscious about what you're doing in terms of leadership.

Emma Pownall 40:15
So final question, what's one small action that our audience could take today to get them a step closer to the progress that we've been talking about. I was

Louise Stephenson 40:24
thinking about takeaways because we said we wanted leaders who's listening to the podcast to sort of have a takeaway. And again, I think the easiest takeaway I can ask a leader to do is ask themselves two questions. So the first one is ask yourself, where, from a leadership perspective, are we really strong? And the second then is, where are we really exposed? And if you can look at those two questions outside of a job description or the person that's leaving, or where you are against your valuation plan, why are you struggling? Is it because you need, potentially, a little bit of a reset, or, you know, something like that. You know, they're the two questions that I'd ask. And I'd even say that just one new perspective around your board table, a curious first time leader, Challenger mindset, something slightly different, can help you move towards that outperformance trigger. And the other thing I would say is that when you're recruiting at board level, there's this preconceived idea that you have to have that first big hire, that it has to be, I know, I recruit at C suite level, but it doesn't always have to be a chief. It can be so you there is all other ways that you can bring diversity, you know, high performance, you know, to your board level. So it doesn't always have to start with a big hire. It starts with seeing your team differently,

Emma Pownall 41:49
brilliant. Thank you so much. Louise, I think your insight and your experience is really fascinating. I could talk to you all day about it, but unfortunately we can't talk all day. So how can people find you if they want to find out more?

Louise Stephenson 42:05
Well, I'm sure you'll share our website, etc, etc, but you can find me on LinkedIn and just reach out any questions queries, then we'd be more than happy to help.

Emma Pownall 42:15
Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai