Ep 01 : The Challenges Women Leaders Who Lead Face In The Workplace

Paul Crick: 00:00:16

Hello, everyone. I'm Paul Crick from the Elevate

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partnership. And I'm one of the CO hosts for the pocket Dojo

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podcast.

Asha Singh: 00:00:24

And I'm actually seeing from learning through

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doing, I'm the other co host.

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Welcome to the pocket dojo, where we'll be

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talking with organisational leaders about how to turn the

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what of leadership into the how we actually need to do it in

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practice to be more effective today. In this episode, we're

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talking about the challenges that women commonly face as

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leaders, and how we've helped our clients to deal with them to

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leverage on them. In today's episode, we're talking about the

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challenges that women commonly face as leaders, and how we've

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helped our clients to deal with them.

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I recently came across this really interesting,

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relevant research. How did she get there, published in October

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2022. By the bridge partnership, an international organisation

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and leadership development consultancy, and we are left

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field a design thinking studio. The purpose of the research was

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to try to understand better how women can get to the top of

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organisations with some really common barriers that they face.

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The lived reality of women and men at work is really different.

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It can be from such simple things as noticing the

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temperature of a room, which has been set to a male norm to being

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spoken over, which was something I personally couldn't really

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identify with. When asked by the researchers, 36% of women

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expressed how it was much more difficult for them to be

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listened to and taken seriously, compared to 15% of their male

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colleagues. To perhaps the most important of all is rising up

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the ladder in an organisation if that's what women want to do.

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Despite consistently higher performance, their possibilities

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are often much more limited.

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There's a real noticeable gap that isn't

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getting any smaller. Globally, women continue to take on 75% of

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the unpaid workload, acting as the caregiver for children and

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elderly relatives. During the pandemic of the past three

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years, women were increasingly more burned out than men. One in

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four women have considered downshifting their career. It's

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clear that the inherent biases exists in organisations and

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society at large, and divisions are deeply entrenched. Even

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though organisations are aware of the gap, they don't

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seem to be any nearer to closing it. Many of the solutions that

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have been tried to date and there's lots of research around

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on these have been focused for the most part on fixing women,

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asking them to be more demanding or assertive to lead in, in

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short, to be more like men. Rather than trying to address an

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unhealthy organisation support, I'd love to understand how this

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research corresponds to what you found in your investigations in

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early 2022.

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So in thinking about this challenge, and this whole

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set of challenges, one of the mistakes that's often made is to

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go out and to design something that tries to make things

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better, and we present it and we go, tada, isn't that better? And

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everyone goes, No, it's not what we wanted. So we took the

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important first step, which was really to go out and to speak

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with a group of women leaders. And in the end, we ended up

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speaking to 40 Women in various sectors. So we talked public

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sector, we talk the nonprofit sector, and we also talk to

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private sector. We also had some views from the military as well.

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So we got a broad spectrum of views and experiences that told

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us verbatim what some of the journeys were into leadership

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and what some of those challenges were. And what we did

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was we distilled those into what you see here, which are the post

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it notes, so I have to fight I have to sacrifice was a common

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theme. I'm tired of having to deal with stuff that men don't

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want to. There was often a story that says you know, well, if

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it's something emotional can someone else deal with that

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because it's something that traditionally and I know these

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are sweeping generalisations, but it came out of the dialogue

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That said, you're dealing with more softer stuff. emotional

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stuff is something that men generally seem to find more

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difficult, and fed up with not being seen and heard and

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supported and used as a secret weapon. I thought that was an

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interesting comment. Not being able to take the rightful place

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at the table, in terms of being able to speak the truth. So on

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the one hand, there's this encouragement to lean in, and to

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be more assertive, but when actually women are, then they're

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seen as being too much or too big for their boots, or whatever

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that appropriate expression is. A common theme was, there was

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this constant sense of being exhausted, but always picking

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themselves up. So this over this, this overwhelm that women

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were experiencing, not just in the workplace, but also outside

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the workplace, cause tremendous difficulty, then we had adverse

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experiences, whether they were outside of work, but very often

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inside of work, that we're catching up with them, you know,

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they were women would be cautious working, walking into

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certain situations, and would hold back, and this could drag

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they felt on their performance. There was also a sense of when

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women had worked hard and become successful, there was almost a

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stepping back and saying, Okay, I've done this, this is great,

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but what now I've been successful. And you know what,

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there's something missing. And I don't know quite what that is

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yet. There was also a lot of talk about wanting their career

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on their own terms rather than someone else's terms. The last

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interesting area was where work situations seemed to cause all

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kinds of difficulties in terms of triggering responsive

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behaviour or reactive behaviour, that in some ways was an overuse

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strength. And people really felt that actually, it wasn't the way

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that they wanted to respond or to be in the workplace.

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pool that sounds like a pretty close confirmation

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of what the bridge partnership and leftfield found in their

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investigations. During our recent visit to Broughton

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sanctuary pool, and I started a conversation about how we came

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to support women leaders in organisations to be able to lead

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on their own terms. This is part of what we'll be looking at in

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the renewal retreat at Broughton next spring.

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So there's an important book by Giles Hutchins

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and Laura storm called regenerative leadership. And in

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that they talk about the four disconnections that we seem to

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be seeing all over the world right now. The first is the

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disconnections from human between humans and nature. The

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second is the apparent disconnection between masculine

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energy and feminine energy. The third one is the disconnection

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between mind, body and spirit. And the final one was between

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logic and emotion. And the reason we're putting this

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retreat together, is because we are hoping to do some work with

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some senior women, to help them through the process of doing

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their own reconnections to those things about right. I've

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got to say, I think, you know, also just a personal

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level, when we met at a leadership within in Germany

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just over a year ago, she feels like so much longer. Yes, it was

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last summer. You know, though, I think there was a recognition

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that we you both you and I are holding combinations of those

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things, and that we were really curious to bring those together,

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and see how that could help to create an amazing experience for

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women who want to explore these disconnections. Exactly.

Paul Crick: 00:09:06

And I get a sense from the research that we've

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both done, that these are themes that keep coming up, over and

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over again, not necessarily in that precise language, but that,

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that, you know, we've reached an inflection point, and you

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recognise that things need to be different. How do we do that? So

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the, the, why of the retreats is to is to give women that

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opportunity for exploration. Yeah,

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and also just, you know, another thing that's

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coming to me as we're talking is that, you know, there's a lot of

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of energy and action and let's cancel everything, then, you

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know, we think is, it's not working or we make these you

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know, strong judgments about whether something is good or not

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or whatever. And rather than sort of pour fuel on the flames

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of that, wiping everything out and starting all over again.

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It's really knew about exploration and healing. And

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there's so many different, you know, aspects that could be

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explored. So that it's a process of integration, as opposed to

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let's just scratch everything and start all over again in ways

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that we should do or shouldn't do and what I think we both

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really want you to get away from that kind of approach to to

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dealing with some of the challenge.

Paul Crick: 00:10:22

I agree. I think it's I think it's too easy to

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throw away the baby out with the bathwater as the expression

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goes. And I think you have to find where you are now, to be

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able to say, right, this is where we are. This is a

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recognition of how I truly feel, you know, when I take time to

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explore that. And then to go through a thought process of it

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as a collective and individually to think about. Okay, so where

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do I want to go now and what options do I have? When I take

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off? Yeah, when I take the time to slow down.

Asha Singh: 00:10:59

So what brought you to Broughton? i This is the

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first time I've come here. Thanks, chi. Chi you inviting us

Asha Singh: 00:11:05

to come? Yeah, I'm loving it. It's an amazing place. I'd love

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to talk a little bit more about a minute as well. But just

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curious what what brought you here in the first place? Why the

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connection was brought.

Paul Crick: 00:11:17

It was a it was a connection my wife had made with

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Liz Dorsalis doors and forest guides. She does all the said,

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this is going to work with us on day one. And it was a Do you

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fancy doing this? It was kind of like yeah, this kind of looks

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cool. And we were looking for a weekend break. And we liked the

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countryside. So we took a look. And we stayed. We stayed over

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and Keithley Airbnb and then we came across and we were just

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bowled over by the sights, the sounds, the senses, that the all

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the senses were engaged in, in a way that it's difficult to

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explain, unless you get here because I know you and I've had

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the conversation. I know you've got to come you've got to come.

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And it's it's hard. But I think you'll agree once you get here

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it kind of it's the sort of place that that impacts you in

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ways that you don't expect. And it has a very calming influence.

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There's a lot of nature to take in. The food is the food's

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exquisite, I mean, really, really tasty. And the facilities

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are just perfect. The spaces are beautifully designed there, that

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we're not trying to do something in a Holiday Inn or Crowne Plaza

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around Heathrow somewhere. We're actually taking time and you

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know, the tempest family who curate and look after a manage

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and develop the site have put poured so much into the design

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and making it work specifically for all kinds of different

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retreats. So it just it just fit so that's how I got here.

Asha Singh: 00:13:04

Yeah, and it's been amazing for me just we haven't

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been here even 24 hours. I'm on the back of about flew and I had

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serious doubts about whether I was even gonna make on the plane

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and I thought I you know, great to see you guys and I brought

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in, you know, the templates, family and everybody here who

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made it real effort to working muscle I didn't want to, you

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know, let them down and I have to say even on the train up from

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London from Leeds. So I just get off it, skipped it and go back.

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And then of course I'm not going to do that and I'm so glad that

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I'm here. And I mean apart from the beauty and the care and the

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love that is so apparent in everything that we've

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experienced just in these you know less than a day really. I'm

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really struck by all these different spaces so it's October

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in Yorkshire the weather is what it is and yeah, I've really

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enjoyed actually even being out when you and I went down to the

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river yesterday, we did a very you know full kind of about to

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burst its banks type River in the driving rain and blustering

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is a gentle adjective to describe the wind and we went up

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to those looking at here is the edges of the moor and Cameron,

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the general manager here took to your wife and myself out in a

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you know, serious bit of land rover, well, whatever pick up

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truck through a forge that was was nearly as swelling as the

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river and up to one of the houses up there which was you

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know, handling a gale and it just was so evocative and

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powerful. And the different spaces that we've walked around

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here, I'm astonished. I've done my own, you know, work in

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retreat. I've lived in a Buddhist community in the heart

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of Scotland. I've Been to different things around the

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world. And I'm really struck by what, what has been created

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here. So these really different spaces, some are very elegant,

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some are more kind of functional. But there's a really

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strong, energetic. I mean, I feel amazing for somebody who's

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just getting over the flu. I love the vegan food, I love the

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different energy of these spaces, like you say, you know,

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can cater for so many different things in ways that really

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retreat in particular so much about the place.

Paul Crick: 00:15:36

It is, and it aligns with the work they're doing here

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in terms of regeneration, renewal, rediscovery,

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reconnection, all those themes are what we're bringing to the

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retreat. For senior women here successful strong women who've

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got to a, an inflection point in their thinking, or maybe their

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career to provide a relevant experience a beautiful

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experience and a powerful experience, that when they go

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away from it, they, they're going to be changed in some

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small way to move on to whatever is right for them. So I think

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this is, this is a super place to do it.

Asha Singh: 00:16:17

It really feels like renewal runs through the apps, I

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feel renewed, gotcha. I'm a longtime coach facilitator, I

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work mainly today with executive teams, I have done a lot of work

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with senior women leaders, looking to find their own voice

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and their own way of leading in quite hierarchical various

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geopolitical, often conflict ridden, you know, mature

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organisation organisational systems, which they are expected

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to transform. And exploring with them, how can they do that, in

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ways that allow them to be them be themselves, you know, to be

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who they are. They're often, you know, really smart, powerful,

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competitive, high achieving, you know, amazing women that do

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amazing things in their spare time that, you know, I'm like,

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astounded by I don't I, that's not who I am. But I have found

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that what I can bring, as a woman moving through those

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systems, as somebody who comes in and out and, you know, knows

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them well, systems, knows the dynamics knows the challenges,

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knows the stories, narratives that get told, can be really

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effective, and helping them to find their own way through. So

Asha Singh: 00:17:58

that's what is bringing me into, into doing the work. And in

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coming together with Paul, we met at a leadership circle

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events. That's one of the systems of leadership that we've

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both been interested in along the way. And an event not much

Asha Singh: 00:18:18

more than a year ago. And I'll let Paul, you know, talk about

Asha Singh: 00:18:23

your own work in that but in, you know, starting to experiment

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with Paul about sort of the the work that he will also bring, I

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think into the retreat, there was a really lovely connection

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of bringing that in talks mentioned about the disconnect

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between masculine and feminine and being in nature. And I think

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those were, for me at least the the particular sort of things

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that got me really curious about how could we bring these, you

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know, who we are, together into something to create the kind of

Asha Singh: 00:18:53

experience we want to offer to the women that will take part?

Asha Singh: 00:18:56

Yeah, absolutely.

Paul Crick: 00:18:58

That my work has been. So I've been in coats for

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13 years. And as part of becoming a coach, you end up

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doing your own work.

Asha Singh: 00:19:09

Tangential part?

Paul Crick: 00:19:11

Yeah, absolutely fundamental. And what's been

Paul Crick: 00:19:14

interesting is when you then go out into the world and say, Hey,

Paul Crick: 00:19:17

I'm a coach, who can I serve? My clients have been senior women,

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not because I've necessarily gone out and said, Hey, senior

Paul Crick: 00:19:24

women come and work with me, but simply somehow, that's the way

Paul Crick: 00:19:28

it's ended up. And they're in large corporate size, a

Paul Crick: 00:19:31

management consultant working all over the world for 20 plus

Paul Crick: 00:19:34

years. And so all kinds of things. You know, I worked with

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40 Plus global companies in different states of change and

Paul Crick: 00:19:43

progress. And looking at systems in there. What worked, what

Paul Crick: 00:19:47

didn't, I got involved in training, what might be called

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soft skills. And the more you delve into that, the more you

Paul Crick: 00:19:55

get a sense of dissatisfaction. So I was lucky to do a TED talk

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in 2000. 19. And there's this astonishing figure in there,

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that still boggles my mind in most people's minds, because

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it's just so big, which is they estimated we spent $366 billion

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globally on training leaders around the world in various

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forms. There was a part of me that said, Well, if that's the

Paul Crick: 00:20:21

case, why is it not working? I couldn't do that. Certainly, I

Paul Crick: 00:20:25

couldn't figure out what that was. And so I wanted to find new

Paul Crick: 00:20:30

ways of moving away from let's all fly to a hotel in

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Copenhagen. Let's do flip charts, let's do like old plays,

Paul Crick: 00:20:39

let's do models, which are all very valid. But if they're not

Paul Crick: 00:20:43

working, we need to do something, not necessarily throw

Paul Crick: 00:20:46

the baby out with the bathwater, but we need to try other things.

Paul Crick: 00:20:50

And my experience is you have to teach the whole person, so

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therefore, you have to bring the body into play. That doesn't

Paul Crick: 00:20:56

happen in hotel conference rooms too often, if at all. And I

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think that's essential. I think also, we need to bring people

Paul Crick: 00:21:06

outside. So you know, this, this flying into an airport, going to

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the hotel, spending three days in a conference room, getting in

Paul Crick: 00:21:14

a taxi, going back to the hotel, you miss out on a whole bunch of

Paul Crick: 00:21:17

things that could open up people to new ideas, new ways of being

Paul Crick: 00:21:23

new ways of connecting, that those curriculums don't do. And

Paul Crick: 00:21:27

so when I came to gusting and we met, I was bringing. So if you

Paul Crick: 00:21:33

read my material on LinkedIn, you'll find out that I do

Paul Crick: 00:21:37

martial arts and my black belt in Aikido. And I wanted to find

Paul Crick: 00:21:41

a way, well, it's not so much that it was it's how do you take

Paul Crick: 00:21:44

those principles, and that we learn on the mat and learn them

Paul Crick: 00:21:49

off the mat, because they are so relevant. And so when I was in

Paul Crick: 00:21:52

gassing, and I devised a class, and fortunately, went really

Paul Crick: 00:21:55

well, that's where we met. And what I loved about working with

Paul Crick: 00:22:01

you was there is a creative tension here. Between us, that

Paul Crick: 00:22:06

is this masculine feminine energy in kind of the way it's

Paul Crick: 00:22:10

supposed to work. So we're not always sweetness and light. We

Paul Crick: 00:22:14

sometimes have the difficult conversation, but we get through

Paul Crick: 00:22:18

it. But we respect how each of us comes to the table and what

Paul Crick: 00:22:24

we bring, and we're still learning what that is. And we

Paul Crick: 00:22:27

want people to share in that we want our participants to do

Paul Crick: 00:22:30

that. Because what we learned from the research we did was, it

Paul Crick: 00:22:34

isn't about fixing women, they don't need fixing, they find

Paul Crick: 00:22:36

that if they're successful, they're strong. What they need

Paul Crick: 00:22:39

to do is reconnect and rediscover and find their voice

Paul Crick: 00:22:44

again, not because they never had one they did. But to go back

Paul Crick: 00:22:49

into that and go, Oh, I've got time I've got space I've got

Paul Crick: 00:22:51

other people to commune with. And yeah, we've got masculine

Paul Crick: 00:22:55

energy and feminine energy in the room facilitating this and

Paul Crick: 00:22:58

in the outdoors. Hopefully, that will become a catalyst. And I'm

Paul Crick: 00:23:03

sure that will spark conversations around an agenda

Paul Crick: 00:23:07

that takes people through a whole cognitive experience and

Paul Crick: 00:23:13

also an embodied experience, where there's a great deal of

Paul Crick: 00:23:16

freedom to explore that without judgement. And in a way that is

Paul Crick: 00:23:23

safe for each party. To be

Asha Singh: 00:23:26

realistic, you know. So coming back to the what you

Asha Singh: 00:23:30

were talking mentioning earlier pool about, you know, the amount

Asha Singh: 00:23:33

of money that's spent on leadership development. And

Asha Singh: 00:23:36

leadership is so contextual, with the challenges that we

Asha Singh: 00:23:41

face, you know, even within a very structured environment,

Asha Singh: 00:23:46

etc. For people to be able to find small but powerful ways to

Asha Singh: 00:23:52

connect with each other, to use the tech that is available in

Asha Singh: 00:23:56

ways it's effective, you know, to find, to use some sort of

Asha Singh: 00:24:01

technical language from moment affordance, and agency are

Asha Singh: 00:24:06

fundamental in being able to be effective. I think, you know,

Asha Singh: 00:24:11

that's what we really want people to be able to explore

Asha Singh: 00:24:13

here. And in such a way that they can go back into daily life

Asha Singh: 00:24:19

and for it to be really useful.

Paul Crick: 00:24:21

Yeah, again, in the echo chamber, that is LinkedIn,

Paul Crick: 00:24:24

we keep seeing the same messages over and over again, and they're

Paul Crick: 00:24:26

actually not. They're useful reminders in some ways, but the

Paul Crick: 00:24:30

reminders of what the old is, and the whole world, you know,

Paul Crick: 00:24:33

as we come out of out of the pandemic and into this

Paul Crick: 00:24:36

environment that is perhaps more chaotic than it's ever been more

Paul Crick: 00:24:40

uncertain than it's ever been. Then we need we need something

Paul Crick: 00:24:43

new to emerge. But that comes from individuals. It doesn't

Paul Crick: 00:24:48

come from people saying do it like us. It doesn't come from

Paul Crick: 00:24:51

people saying here's a change initiative that's going to

Paul Crick: 00:24:54

change, change your organisation because the changes we were

Paul Crick: 00:24:57

saying earlier when we're walking back For the woods, we

Paul Crick: 00:25:00

were saying how to change changes and individual decision.

Paul Crick: 00:25:04

And it's a dance, it's not a light switch. So our hope is

Paul Crick: 00:25:08

that in designing this and the way that we we bring and hold

Paul Crick: 00:25:12

this space, for people to use that sort of phrase gives people

Paul Crick: 00:25:18

an opportunity and some time to really explore what needs to be

Paul Crick: 00:25:22

explored for them, you know, I still can't really get my head

Paul Crick: 00:25:25

around that number is so huge, particularly when you look at

Paul Crick: 00:25:30

all the major challenges we have around the world now, and how

Paul Crick: 00:25:33

our leadership really doesn't seem to be doing what it needs

Paul Crick: 00:25:37

to

Asha Singh: 00:25:38

know. It's insane, isn't it? So Paul, that's a

Asha Singh: 00:25:41

really nice introduction to some of the work that you've been

Asha Singh: 00:25:45

doing to help women leaders become more effective and be

Asha Singh: 00:25:48

true to themselves? What did you actually do in practice to help

Asha Singh: 00:25:52

them and what changed for them as a result?

Paul Crick: 00:25:55

Well, as you'll know, yourself from your own

Paul Crick: 00:25:57

work, you know, no two clients are the same. The presenting

Paul Crick: 00:26:01

problem, or the the issue that comes into the coaching room is

Paul Crick: 00:26:05

never really the coaching issue. There's always something

Paul Crick: 00:26:08

underneath that. And I worked with someone who was about to

Paul Crick: 00:26:13

step into a general manager role, the general manager at

Paul Crick: 00:26:15

country level for a global technology organisation. And

Paul Crick: 00:26:21

this person was just full of self doubt, and couldn't

Paul Crick: 00:26:26

understand why her her peers and her bosses were saying, here's

Paul Crick: 00:26:32

all these great opportunities. And we want you to do this. And

Paul Crick: 00:26:35

we think you'd be good at this, which one would you like to

Paul Crick: 00:26:38

choose? And she actually came in saying, I've got this major

Paul Crick: 00:26:42

presentation to do. And I'm really, really robotic, or I

Paul Crick: 00:26:46

really get a sense of I'm robotic, and I don't feel

Paul Crick: 00:26:49

comfortable in my own skin. I mean, it's a common thing, that

Paul Crick: 00:26:53

we've had fun recording this. So it's a common thing to sort of

Paul Crick: 00:26:57

freeze or be be a little bit static. And the work I did with

Paul Crick: 00:27:01

her really looked at things that have happened in the past

Paul Crick: 00:27:05

certain what I would call sensitising events or important

Paul Crick: 00:27:08

events that had an impact on her Neurobiology. And we went back

Paul Crick: 00:27:14

to look at well, what was it that you needed to learn when

Paul Crick: 00:27:19

you experienced that, and there's a whole range of

Paul Crick: 00:27:21

techniques that that can be used, but I picked one, where I

Paul Crick: 00:27:25

took her through, essentially a thought experiment, where we

Paul Crick: 00:27:29

went into a theatre, and we invited the person that caused

Paul Crick: 00:27:33

the issue to come on stage. They had a conversation about what

Paul Crick: 00:27:36

went on, or what came through that was the lesson that needed

Paul Crick: 00:27:40

to be learned, which was actually she was very capable.

Paul Crick: 00:27:44

It wasn't about her it was about the other person. And therefore

Paul Crick: 00:27:47

that kind of balance things up. So when we came out of the

Paul Crick: 00:27:50

thought experiment and said, So how do you feel now, it was a

Paul Crick: 00:27:54

case of, well, I feel a lot lighter. Then what we did was we

Paul Crick: 00:27:58

actually went to a theatre, one of the West End theatres in

Paul Crick: 00:28:01

London. And we were lucky enough to get access to be able to put

Paul Crick: 00:28:05

it right on stage in front of an audience. And the idea there was

Paul Crick: 00:28:09

simply to give her a way of having a visual and an auditory

Paul Crick: 00:28:14

and an a felt sense anchor that was really positive. So we just,

Paul Crick: 00:28:19

we just got people to clap while she was on stage. She didn't

Paul Crick: 00:28:22

have to say anything. And then we just helped her stand taller

Paul Crick: 00:28:26

in her shoes. It wasn't that she was slouching, it was really

Paul Crick: 00:28:30

that she needed to feel she was standing taller. She was she was

Paul Crick: 00:28:33

a tall, young woman. And so that's the kind of work we do.

Paul Crick: 00:28:39

Or certainly I do when I'm helping people to stand in their

Paul Crick: 00:28:43

own voice. So it's not about fixing them. It's really tapping

Paul Crick: 00:28:46

into some of the stories and narratives that these women are

Paul Crick: 00:28:51

telling themselves that simply aren't true. We just need to

Paul Crick: 00:28:54

find a way of helping them to convince themselves. They're not

Paul Crick: 00:28:57

true. And what that does is that produces a whole set of

Paul Crick: 00:29:00

different creative options and opportunities that they can

Paul Crick: 00:29:04

pursue. So that's one example. How are you Asha?

Asha Singh: 00:29:09

What a fantastic story. Cool. So last year, I was

Asha Singh: 00:29:12

working with a senior leader in a global organisation who work

Asha Singh: 00:29:18

in this area of aerospace. Aerospace is obviously a really

Asha Singh: 00:29:22

geopolitical sector. So it's highly regulated. It's quite

Asha Singh: 00:29:27

hierarchical, and it's pretty old school in many ways. It's

Asha Singh: 00:29:31

also obviously really male dominated, although this

Asha Singh: 00:29:35

particular client organisation have done a lot of work to

Asha Singh: 00:29:38

improve diversity and bring women in, not least because stem

Asha Singh: 00:29:43

and women in STEM rather, is obviously you know, a really big

Asha Singh: 00:29:46

issue for for lots of organisations. So, this leader,

Asha Singh: 00:29:51

I'll call her Sarah, that's obviously not her name, but I'll

Asha Singh: 00:29:53

call her Sarah for now. She was new fairly new into role. She

Asha Singh: 00:29:58

was also in a new technical errors should come from a very

Asha Singh: 00:30:01

different one. So she felt quite challenged by the fact that she

Asha Singh: 00:30:06

was being asked to manage to lead a group of highly

Asha Singh: 00:30:11

experienced experts, all of whom except for one, if I remember

Asha Singh: 00:30:14

rightly, were were men. They were quite good at because I

Asha Singh: 00:30:19

hadn't been led for a while she was she came in after a, you

Asha Singh: 00:30:22

know, a gap of leadership. And they were quite good at avoiding

Asha Singh: 00:30:27

all the things that they didn't want to deal with, and getting

Asha Singh: 00:30:30

on with, you know, the technical areas that that were interesting

Asha Singh: 00:30:33

for them. So given her competitive, ambitious, you

Asha Singh: 00:30:37

know, intelligent nature, Sara felt really under pressure,

Asha Singh: 00:30:41

because she was being asked to not only, you know, get great

Asha Singh: 00:30:44

results out of this, this group of men who hadn't been led for

Asha Singh: 00:30:48

quite a long time, but also to do it in an area where they

Asha Singh: 00:30:51

clearly had a lot more knowledge operationally, technically, that

Asha Singh: 00:30:54

she did, and it was real challenge for her. So I do a lot

Asha Singh: 00:30:58

more collective work these days, I don't do that much work with

Asha Singh: 00:31:01

individuals, I think both things are really important, we need to

Asha Singh: 00:31:04

do our own, you know, development and then look at how

Asha Singh: 00:31:08

we interact with others, particularly we work in larger

Asha Singh: 00:31:10

organisations, because it's, it's all in the system, if you

Asha Singh: 00:31:14

like. So I brought them into a two day workshop, actually in

Asha Singh: 00:31:19

two different locations, just to kind of add that into the mix.

Asha Singh: 00:31:23

And we focused on we did quite a lot of preparation first to to

Asha Singh: 00:31:26

get some useful information, etc. But like you did with your

Asha Singh: 00:31:29

research, for the retreat, and we focus really on two areas. So

Asha Singh: 00:31:37

the inner nature, let's say, so how our own beliefs, values,

Asha Singh: 00:31:42

behaviours, etc, create, you know, some of the dynamics that

Asha Singh: 00:31:46

we obviously experience, you know, both immediately and round

Asha Singh: 00:31:49

teams or in a wider organisation, and then at the

Asha Singh: 00:31:52

challenges themselves, that operationally whatever this team

Asha Singh: 00:31:55

needed to look at, it was a really powerful, you know,

Asha Singh: 00:31:59

playful, also a couple of days in which the importance of a

Asha Singh: 00:32:03

facilitated dialogue really helped them to look at things

Asha Singh: 00:32:06

that they don't normally, you know, obviously consider on a

Asha Singh: 00:32:09

daily basis, because they're too caught up in the, in the, you

Asha Singh: 00:32:12

know, business of operational life when you're under pressure,

Asha Singh: 00:32:15

etc. And I think Sarah, in particular, found a couple of

Asha Singh: 00:32:19

things really surprising. So first of all, the fact that I

Asha Singh: 00:32:24

modelled or showed them, you know, demonstrated how to, to

Asha Singh: 00:32:27

have dialogue, rather than to come up with a plan of action to

Asha Singh: 00:32:31

begin with, it really helped her to to experience how it was

Asha Singh: 00:32:35

possible to enable her team rather than drive them to

Asha Singh: 00:32:39

results. It meant for the team that they could have, you know,

Asha Singh: 00:32:42

really open honest discussion and conversation about things

Asha Singh: 00:32:46

that, firstly, they don't really talk about all the time, and

Asha Singh: 00:32:49

that helped them to regroup. And also to bring forth you know,

Asha Singh: 00:32:54

all the wisdom and knowledge and experience that they had for

Asha Singh: 00:32:58

addressing the operational challenges, which, at the end of

Asha Singh: 00:33:00

the day, that was what they need to do. And so they both had this

Asha Singh: 00:33:04

opportunity to, to think about the deeper stuff. And then

Asha Singh: 00:33:08

having done that to address, you know, what it is that they

Asha Singh: 00:33:11

needed to do together. And the other thing that I think really

Asha Singh: 00:33:15

struck Sarah was the fact that people are just really busy

Asha Singh: 00:33:20

every day, you know, it wasn't that they didn't want to talk to

Asha Singh: 00:33:23

her or listen to her or that they were speaking over her.

Asha Singh: 00:33:27

They were quite surprised by she and the other female colleagues

Asha Singh: 00:33:30

shared quite a lot of you know, their, their different

Asha Singh: 00:33:33

experiences in the team and the guys were surprised, shocked,

Asha Singh: 00:33:37

who's perhaps a bit strong, but it was surprised by what they

Asha Singh: 00:33:39

heard. And we're very respectful and you know, made every effort

Asha Singh: 00:33:44

to make sure that those things would get addressed in the

Asha Singh: 00:33:46

future. So that kind of team collective, you know,

Asha Singh: 00:33:51

exploration also at a deeper level can be really, really

Asha Singh: 00:33:54

useful. And join us for episode two of the pocket Dojo podcast

Asha Singh: 00:34:02

on Monday, the 27th of November at 9am. When we'll be talking

Asha Singh: 00:34:07

about the importance of finding your own voice, women leader,

Asha Singh: 00:34:10

and ways that you can do that. As always, you'll be able to

Asha Singh: 00:34:14

watch us on your favourite podcast channels, including

Asha Singh: 00:34:17

YouTube. We'll also be on social media at LinkedIn, Facebook, and

Asha Singh: 00:34:22

Instagram. See you then.

Paul Crick: 00:34:24

Bye for now.