Do what matters… today and for your future. You are more than your ego, and this is your moment to own that, whatever it means to you, and do something purposeful with it. Career transitioning on purpose is more than a suite of skills you can gain mastery over, It’s a way of life.
This career guide is for people in leadership, management, consulting, change programmes, projects, freelancers or contractors working within medium to large organisations.
Your voice has never had a more powerful sound, than when it’s coming from a place deep within. Let’s learn how to use that to have a greater impact. Doing what matters also means getting things fantastically wrong, before things change at times. The key is in the long game.
Explore a wide range of perspectives with me on this journey.
You will:
Take charge of your career and your why.
Gain skills and momentum needed to sustain changes from where you are.
Create meaningful integration between your values and work
Katherine Ann Byam is an author, sustainability activist, coach and consultant for business resilience and sustainable change, partnering with leaders committed to a shared future.”
A professional with 20+years change leadership experience in the FTSE Top 10, she started her consulting firm in 2019 to support sustainable development within SMEs. Katherine holds an MBA with distinction, specialising in Innovation Management as well as certificates in ESG, digital strategy, and sustainability management from established universities. She’s also a Fellow of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants.
She’s the host of the internationally acclaimed Where Ideas Launch - Sustainable Innovation Podcast, ranked among the top 5% globally, achieving the top spot in 5 countries, and the top 10 in 19 separate charts. As a sought after leadership and career transition coach and keynote speaker, she facilitates workshops and learning sessions for communities within global brands such as Amazon, Women Tech Global, ACCA, Stryker, Speak Up, Mind Channel and more.
She loves spending her spare time in nature, walking the western and southern coasts of the UK, France and Tobago, or on the Northern and eastern coasts of Trinidad with her partner Christophe.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:00 I think my favourite exercise when I started this book with my book coach was to write the publishers headline, and think about what I'd want people to say about the book. So this is what I wrote, you, tell me what you think, insightful, unconventional, structured, and providing the reader with a framework that flexes to their needs and individual contexts and encompasses storytelling, practical advice and coaching in one comprehensive stream of thought, and provides you with the tools to make those tough career decisions with greater ease. It is a remarkably easy, yet thought provoking read. I cannot tell you the feeling and excitement you get when you produce something that could potentially even have something close to that sort of review. And I feel really proud that this book today, is ready for a mass audience.
This is season five, the great debates of our times, Season Five will be centred around the great debates. And we will be comparing and contrasting different viewpoints on various topics that are consuming the public discourse at present. The reason I've decided to take this approach is because we, or at least many of us, are losing the skill of debate. And I think this is an essential skill for us all to practice once more. I don't see how we get to the point of saving the world and saving our planet. If we don't know how to discuss our differences. I also think that the solution to most of our challenges is somewhere in the spectrum of views, but never a type of extreme. I will be working with guests to curate the content and discuss beforehand, I will understand their positions, their areas of genius, and navigate my questions around that so that the conversation is challenging and stimulating. Without being combative. I hope you enjoy season five of where ideas launch; the Sustainable Innovation podcast. T
hree years ago, I started a journey to build an independent business built around my strengths, the needs of the planet, my passions, and my economic needs. Very much the ikigai of Japanese philosophy. That business had a clear roadmap, build a digital transformation consultancy using skills I already had in change management, and my partner in IT and data science, and then integrate sustainability into the practice, as I learned more about it myself. Life, though had other plans. After the pandemic hit, I naturally gravitated to fill in two voids that I found opening up making career transitions on purpose, was the first, and starting businesses with ethical and triple bottom line values, as the second. I started my first career transition programme in the summer of 2020, and became the leader of the women in sustainable business community on Facebook in October of that year. Since then, I've met and had business collaborations and relationships with hundreds of people, all of whom have shared rich experiences with me that I've integrated it into my courses and programmes as well as the series of books I will be releasing into the wild over the next three years. Book One is called 'Do what matters: the purpose driven career transition guide'. And it is a blueprint for supporting you with making a strategic shift to include more of your concerns about the planet we share, I want to take this opportunity to share with you the outline of the book, and to advise that it will be available on or after the 22nd of July, along with a podcast of the same name. I'm really excited about this work. And it's taken a lot to produce it. But it's been immensely rewarding. Here's the table of content, I start with what is purpose? And this is an interesting conversation to have at this point in time in our world. Because businesses are talking about it, people are talking about it. And we're not entirely sure where it's going to all land. We're starting to learn more and more about science, we still have philosophy on our side, we still have religion, and these ethical and moral debates that are influencing our perception of what purpose might be. So let's get into how to find your own. The book is then shaped into an introduction section and three parts. In the introduction, I present to you the context and the case study for change. Here I talk about the planetary dimension, the socio economic dimension, and governing the system as a whole. These are all fascinating and interrelated concepts and as we start getting into the complexity, I think it really starts to open doors as to how much opportunity there really is, if we were to take the deliberate step toward more purpose. Part one is about your environment and you and your pathway to self mastery amidst all of these rolling tides. So chapter one we talk about if it's important, build a model. So creating a conscious self improvement plan. Chapter Two is 'who are you really?' and how to begin your own journey of self discovery. Chapter three, we talk about career models. These are the types of career paths that you could attempt to deliver on your purpose. And I have to say that it isn't restricted to sustainably driven careers. This really is about any sort of path that you want to take. And what I would actually advise is to blend your paths. So make sure that you're doing enough of all the things that give you that feeling of completion. Chapter four is the constant leaner and developing a growth and net-positive mindset. A net-positive is something that I want to help people to embrace because I think we need to go further than net zero if we're actually going to hit any of the targets that we've set for ourselves. Chapter five is about your goals needing conscious action, and how to take action towards your purpose. Chapter six, is a nine step career transition framework. And this one is where I sum up all of the things that we're going to cover overall, for the whole book, even though it's coming in at chapter six. The reason it's coming here is that I think you need to appreciate everything that's come before it before you appreciate what these steps really mean. Part Two goes into social credible and responsible you, and how to show up, build an audience and become an advocate for change. In chapter seven, we talk about 'what's the point of your job really?', and why you do what you do not from your perspective, but from that of the business. In chapter eight, we talk about persuasion, influence and manipulation, and how we get others to follow or lead, and whether or not we feel right about doing so. In chapter nine, we talk about money and wealth, because I think any conversation about sustainability needs to deal with money and wealth. And then in chapter ten, we look at your digital twin, and how you show up credibly and responsibly in the spaces that you're interacting in online, chapter elevn, we bust some HR myths. We want to improve in general, the human resource management landscape, or at least your understanding of it. So I want to touch on some really important points here, that may implicate how you go about doing what you have to do. Part three, we get into 'jump but controlling the landing', and governing that first 90 days. And the first chapter in the section is about onboarding. So this is navigating your new job and the change agenda by understanding what's fundamentally important to what will come next for you. In chapter thirteen, we talk about habits and context and creating a compelling mission driven personnel playbook. And this is something where you blend the past playbook that you had that had made you successful, with what your understanding now about the world and the change that you need to make. So this is going to take some integration of the learning that we've done together. In chapter fourteen, we talk about how to create the perfect pitch, and how to earn in funding for your projects and your innovations, regardless of what type of role you're doing. In chapter fifteen, we want to talk about being better than average, but not perfect. And whether or not that's good enough. In chapter sixteen we're dealing with duds and explosives. So this is about the toxic boss, or the weak boss, and how that affects the culture of the company that you're in. And then we talk about the support needed for your journey and how to know if coaching or related services are right for you in any way. The final close will come in the epilogue, and this looks towards the aligned mission and the net-positive action toward the future. And then I finally close with an afterword to tell you about the other projects that are coming up soon. So I really look forward to this project. Being live at the end of July, there's still a lot of work to do. But thank you for your support and your ongoing encouragement. And I do hope that you enjoy it. Do get in touch with me on LinkedIn, on Facebook, follow me. Let me know if you've got the book, if you've read it. Give us our reviews on Amazon or wherever you found the book. And we'd love to hear from you, any thoughts or interesting insights that came up for you as you did these exercises. Thank you so much for your support.
This podcast is brought to you today by the brand new women in sustainable business awards that kicks off in 2023. If you're a business owner who's starting a business with principles of sustainability in mind, and you want to preserve some lost skills, some handcrafting, artisinal work, or you're a social media manager supporting purpose driven brands, or you're creating fashion or something that is relevant to the sustainability and green transformation. You are more than welcome to join us and to get involved in these awards. Check out our group on Facebook women in sustainable business, or follow the podcast where ideas launch on Instagram to find out more.
036 Decency & Equity
About this Episode
Katherine Ann Byam MBA, FCCA, is a Business Resilience Coach and strategic partner to leaders on sustainability, leadership and digital transformation for marketing and operations.
This episode of the podcast covers Sustainable goal #8 Decent Work and Economic growth, a common thread of the podcast.
Katherine examines:
• Equality vs Equity
• Brewed Indecency
• The International Labour Organisations take on Decency
• And contracts that favour the larger of 2 entities
Katherine Ann Byam 0:01 Equality versus equity, I'm about to head off on vacation. But a few things have happened in the last weeks that have prompted me to record one more podcast before I take off to the coast of Cornwall without any access to my phone or my apps.
I'm really looking forward to this. But before I come to the many topics I want to discuss, I feel the need to bring us all on the same page on equality versus equity. There's a super popular meme that shows a father, a teenager and a toddler, looking at a game over a fence equality is represented by each having the same size of box to stand on. Yet the toddler still can't see the match.
Equity is represented by each having the size of crate or box relevant to enabling them the same experience. Now in another meme, they show a third option of this equation, which is capitalism where the fence is raised so that neither of them can see and so that they pay to have a seat in the stands. And yet another meme, there's a fence instead of a wall, where everyone can see through it. And this is labelled justice.
Now the point I really want to make here is that everyone you knew and everyone I knew once for basic things, respect, reassurance, recognition, and a sense of responsibility. When we act out of integrity, or out of alignment with any of these things, well, we are brewing in decency.
So speaking of brews, let's talk about BrewDog. For a moment, I've been following and watching James Watt for more than a year. And I've used his presence, his branding his public relations on LinkedIn, as an example for many of my clients, and how to show up consistently with a message that everyone resonates with. The company has supported the NHS, they've pledged to be carbon neutral, and from the outside, they're punching way above their weight and the impact that they are creating or have created on LinkedIn.
There's no reason to believe from the open letter that good and positive things haven't been achieved at the company. But at what cost and are these costs justified? Before we assess the cost, I want to look at what decent work means in reference to goal number eight of the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Now there are four overarching ideas that we can bite our teeth into.
These are dignity, equality, fair income, and safe working conditions. Those four ideas are backed by three fundamental principles rights, inclusivity, and protection. Now, decent work is a key thread in this podcast and the work I do in sustainability consulting. So in both in treat, and invested in what is unfolding in this story, all of the principles, tenets and ideas here are subjective measures that leave a lot of room for GRI. The UN, for example, mentions equality and non equity.
So we can even poke holes in the concept of itself. But all of floored by our inability to measure them. So no matter what words we choose, we still have a problem of measurement. The only reasonable way to measure if dignity exists, if fair wages exist, if respect exists, or even recognition exist, or any of the other examples is to have full transparency.
This means all the data being available, so everyone can interrogate it, we can all do the comparison, and we can all assess whether this exists. And then we need to be able to severe everyone on their perceptions of whether or not these conditions are being met. Transparency, unfortunately, remains an occlusion. Now let's get back to BrewDog. We have largely lost connection with the original founders of large companies in FMCG industries.
And it's perhaps easier to treat the company as the external presence that works to its own culture and rhythm that we don't assess, you know, largely I have lived and experienced my career as believing in this idea of a company in a culture that I could believe in. And I know many of us do.
But this idea of a company isn't real, it is all created, it is all perceived, and it is created by the people who found it and who run it. When a business is found to run. There's much more tied up in the public perception and the perception of the founder personally. This is usually inextricably linked from the company. What the open letter refers to as the cult of personality is therefore unsurprising.
All the way didn't speak to its veracity I've never worked there. But what the employees have described is not an experience uncommon to employees in many companies, if you read Glassdoor reviews, but when you build your brand on a foundation, you have to make sure that that foundation is well embedded. Public Relations starts with who, why, what? And the stories behind the founders and the founding story of the brand. A good publicist understands what the business owner wants to create and where it comes from. From this perspective, I consider the BrewDog public relations team to be exemplary. What appears to be missing is an alignment between the vision and the actual reality.
But as James rightly said, my fault he takes responsibility for the culture of the company. I also have tremendous respect for this paragraph where he says in his response, it's hard to hear those comments, but it must have been harder to see them. We appreciate that. And we will endeavour to honour that effort and courage with a real change of deserves. We aren't going to make excuses. We're going to take action. From our commitment to sustainability to a passion for bear BrewDog has always been defined by taking responsibility and continually improving, this is no exception.
Now it took a bit of a public bollocking and rolling over the coals as they say, to acknowledge a need to listen and to change. But we do have to celebrate this outcome for people who are working toward decent work in the world. I really want to congratulate the punks with Cooper's organisation for what they've done not just for BrewDog employees, but for employees everywhere, who need the courage to say enough is enough. And I'm going to take a stand.
So many employees around the world and indeed the UK are not free to speak their minds and have become slaves to their golden handcuffs and their lack of belief that they can start a new career or give up some of the comforts they have come to enjoy, because of indignities that they have suffered. To James what I see that we are all watching.
We are also rooting for you to set an even greater example than you've done with your public relations to what you will now do to transform your organization's internal culture so that the values of decency tribe shine right true. Beyond James and the BrewDog. travesty, the International Labour Organisation explains the challenges we face globally on the decent work front employment growth since 2008, has averaged only 0.1% annually compared with 0.9%.
Between 2002 1007 Over 60% of all workers like any kind of employment contract, fewer than 45% of wage and salaried workers are employed on a full time permanent basis. And even that share is declining. By 2019, more than 212 million people will be out of work up from the current 201 million and 600 million new jobs need to be created by 2030. Chess to keep pace with the growth of the working age population. Now, these stats are a bit dated, but they're still relevant.
So what do we do? Well, many of us start businesses and season three of this podcast is going to be all about building a business from the ground up going from idea to see you. But starting businesses is also not the full answer because the exam question is much bigger than this. How do we balance what we need for the well being of people, plants, pets and other organisms on the planet in such a way that we achieve a sense of belonging, of contribution of personal and vocational growth, and of economic growth, because we all perceive this as a necessary thing.
We can debate this. Now this is the challenge that we face in levelling up those who are not having a decent quality of life, and those who have more than what they need. Now, before I close, I want to speak about something closer to home for me. A few weeks back, a small but still significant consultancy, started discussions with me to join them as an associate on their team. You know, initial conversations, the CEO of the company joked, let's sign the contract and put it in a dark place never to be looked at again.
Contracts are complicated little beasts, and they are generally not needed in good times. It's when times get bad that they become the first thing anyone reaches for. To suggest, therefore, that a contract is something that could sit in a dark place never to be looked at again, is a mark of professional disrespect. And as such, I was pretty sure I knew how this relationship would turn out.
As I could already tell we had different values. I received a 35 page contractual document assigned from this company stipulating our rights. Yet none of these terms favoured me or acknowledged the unique skills I honed on my own before encountering this company skills that they do not currently have. Still unlikely The previous time I received the contract of this nature, I decided not to simply throw the contract in the Delete bin along with the relationship. But instead I chose transparency.
And there's that word again, I chose to disclose what I would be doing with this document, before I considered signing it. I advised this guy, that there were a few clauses that were not satisfactory to me, and that I'd have my lawyer check it because I didn't want to misspeak. I received no response from that meal. My lawyers no spring chicken, it took her 30 minutes to hone in and respond to the red flags in the contract.
She told me the following. I have reviewed the agreement and do find that more one sided than normal, and answer to your question, there is no guarantee of any work or even if the rate of PII, they reserve the right to reduce the fee from the scheduled periods if they have a business need or a given a client volume discount or a bulk discount, and you have to wait over a month for payment. You're giving up the intellectual property in what you work on, and provide for them, and you be restrictions, you have to give them longer notice when they gave you and you were bearing the risk and liability if something goes wrong.
I asked the owner about his willingness to negotiate and that my lawyer would like to mock up some revisions on a Word version of the contract. And his response was this, I have reflected on our exchanges and your request to edit our contract and negotiate in quotations on its tunes. I think it best if we pause our relationship for now, my sense is that you expect a far more formal relationship than we are used to. We have never operated like this in over 20 years. And it does not feel right to start a relationship on such a formal footing. Now,
I wish you the very best of luck in your endeavours and perhaps we can pick up a discussion at another time. Dude, I will tell you this, without an apology for your disrespect, there will be no other time. Many people signed contracts like these because they are scared of not being able to take care of their family of not getting another opportunity elsewhere, of not being able to show up the way they need to. And to get the great opportunities that are perhaps just a stretch away. I am not that person. The first thing in any relationship for me is whether or not my fundamental core values can be upheld in that relationship.
My fundamental core values are rooted in freedom, equity and decency. When these are not present, no feasible working relationship as possible. It's that simple. If you want to make changes, you need to be prepared to speak up and say what's not right with the world around you. Even if it excludes you from that will by default. We don't get to inclusion, by not expressing an opinion that is not inclusion, that is a false sense of let's all go go along with the stream. Alright, so I think I have covered the full spectrum of things related to decent work. If you have any queries on this topic, do feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
I'm always open to connections and conversations. If you've enjoyed this podcast over the past nine months and the last two seasons, do let us know by giving us a rating, reviewing and commenting on the stories that have meant something to you and share with us anyone you believe would be a good fit for the show, and whose views you would like to be represented on the show. One challenge I faced in finding guests is the diversity of the lineup. But I am proud that there is a broad international representation on the show. I urge you to participate connect with me, as I mentioned on LinkedIn, start a conversation because who knows where that conversation may lead. Thank you for listening to these past two seasons.
And we're coming in just two weeks with a full season three of the show. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you today by career sketching with Katherine Ann Byam and the space where ideas launch. Career sketching is a leadership development and coaching brand offering personalised career transition and transformation services. This space where ideas launch offers high performance, leadership coaching and strategy facilitation to businesses in the food and health sectors. To find out more contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn
032 Transcending Work
About this Episode
These are the notes from the TED Styled talk I gave at the Bee Inspired Event in April 2021. Enjoy this session.
From what I can tell, we have always believed in stories and narratives woven into the fabric of well-being, and the identity of the society we are a part of. Many societies once thought that the world was flat. This was until philosophers and mathematicians and scientists proved otherwise. Well, for some of us at least. But the process of facilitating this transition of beliefs involved colonisation, slavery, murder, and eventually the reeducation with new stories. There are still tribes in the Amazon forest in Brazil and Venezuela, and other places around the world too to be fair, who believe that children have been fathered by all the lovers a woman takes during her pregnancy. Scientists have proven that this isn't true. But the social impact of that belief meant that all men who had relations with that woman would take a role in that child's upbringing. That child belonged to a community.
For many of us today, we believe that a large house, a powerful car, and the ability to travel in style and in luxury are a sign of success that will attract not only more wealth, but more community and more well-being for us and our families. We believe that we can have infinite growth. We only need to put our minds to it. Growth Mindset they say. But can we really have infinite growth on a finite planet? My name is Katherine Ann Byam and I'm a business resilience strategist and leadership coach, helping leaders design a path to sustainable transformation for their businesses, careers, and lives. I am inspired in particular by one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Goal No. 8 Decent Work and Economic
Growth. And to explain what that means to me, I'm going to have to take you on a trip to 1982 in the suburbs of a tiny island, called Trinidad and Tobago. My parents were typical middle-class boomers who lived a comfortable life in a house with land and space for multiple cars and a garden. My parents did decent work. My dad was a lawyer working for the government. His promotions at the time were primarily based on his time in service. My mom was a High School teacher of Biology and food and nutrition.
My grandparents lived a life more closely linked to nature. My grandmother was not allowed to go to High School, so she lived her life as a homemaker. I never once heard her complain, though. When I was born, my grandfather was already retired. And he was the proud owner of a permaculture regenerative farm. He did not call it that, I assure you, he called it “the garden.” I remember it distinctly. His garden has beautiful fruit trees for as far as my tiny eyes can see. And as an adult, it looks smaller than I remember. But at the time, that place meant the world of adventure to me. He had an area for growing beans and pulses, an area for flowers, an area for chickens to rummage around and to feed off the land. The first time I witnessed a chicken being killed was in that garden.
My granddad would take the chicken and carry it to an area out of the eye range of the other hens and the coop. He would slide the entire chicken into a paint can with a hole at the bottom, and then hold the chicken’s wings and legs in place with that can so he could swiftly separate its head from its body. The chickens don't die immediately with this method. But they also do not suffer for very long. This would probably disturb most five-year-olds who live in cities today. But at the time, although it was difficult to watch, it fit the context in which he lived and in which that chicken lived. My grandfather was a sustainable farmer and sources 40% of his food from his garden. Bread, rice, and fish was still sourced from the grocery. What happened to the chicken felt like a natural part of being on a farm. We eat fresh eggs laid by the chickens who eat a bit of corn and a lot of bugs. My grandfather did decent work. His reward was seeing his garden grow and sharing the fruits of that labour with his family and his neighbours, who in turn also shared the fruits of their labour. Much of the local community with sustainable farmers.
No one would walk past my grandparents while they’re relaxing on their porch in the evenings, for example, without stopping to say hello, having a chat, or coming to collect or to receive or to give food. I'll be honest with you, I didn't know how much I valued that part of my upbringing until very much later.
I wanted to take on the world. When I got my first job at a multinational company, I was earning more money than my mom did. Within a few years, I was earning more than everyone in my family. I was travelling the world and acquiring knowledge of how to make decisions that favour the shareholder of a major corporation.
At one point, I would fly through Miami twice every month, each time asking the travel agent to schedule the connecting flight late enough, so I could take a trip to Dolphin Mall for shopping. My footprint is huge. And even though I donated much of my clothing to charity, I still have four suitcases and Ziploc things that I could hope to wear again. Sure, I have a Finance and Audit background, I prepared financial statements. I sat on the board’s Audit Committee. I travelled to more than 50 International offices to review our business practices. I had decent work and a massive consumeristic appetite. When I joined the company, there were more than 120,000 people globally. By 2010, the number halved.
My grandmother died in 2010. Seven years after my granddad, she was 92. I learned that while I sat quietly on my own in a church in Santiago de Compostela. intervene. I received a voicemail message and I knew instinctively what that message was going to say. At the time, I was actually there because I was beginning to wonder if I made the right decision leaving my family behind for the glamour of life and work in Europe. My view of decent work had begun to fracture.
By 2014. I was on a list, one of those lists that no one likes to be on. There was a list for information and consultancy. There was a chance I would be made redundant. I kept my job. Yet I started to wonder what else I could be doing? That's not this that would bring me more joy, and be better for the planet. Work is decent if you as the individual believe that it is. My grandfather was a police officer before he retired, but his dream was to form a garden. He changed his life immediately and completely upon retirement. And he continued to work in that garden for 20 years until his death.
That garden never paid him a cent. But it gave him a great community and food on the table. My grandmother was never paid for her entire life for her work. But she was fulfilled by raising and caring for her family. She showered us with completely unconditional love. I was paid very well for my work. But I felt a growing misalignment between what I valued and what my employer valued. And when I went off to do an MBA, and during one of my classes, it was the first time I realised that my income was in the top 1% globally, and the top 5% in the UK. Before that, I felt like I wasn't making much money relative to my international peers, for example. I started to understand the systemic inequalities that are creating further and further distance from the richest, let's say 2000 plus billionaires of the world and the poorest 20%. Income inequality is an important subject we need to address.
And sooner rather than later, we tend at times to conflate climate change with sustainability. Yet sustainability could be understood as an entire system of economics and activities that maintains or improves the quality of life of people on our planet. The very foundation of our lives has been disrupted by reality. Yes, reality. Many of us esteem to be wealthy, financially, in real assets, and in our relationships perhaps. Yet we ignore the signs that things are not going as planned. And that while we build toward Maslow's idea of self-actualization, the base of our pyramid is fracturing under the weight of our desires. Food is impacted by toxic chemicals, significant water use, and antibiotics.
Water is impacted by industrial pollution, climate change farming methods, and simply where you live in the world. Air is impacted by toxic chemicals being released by industries and by farms, and shelter is being disrupted by the atmospheric conditions that are causing us to emit vast amounts of CO2 and CH4, and other toxicants into the air. So what can we do? The really great news is that everything, absolutely everything is open to being redesigned. So I want to call you to action today saying, “Start with you!” Recognise that sustainability is self-care. It is the care for your health and well-being. It is the care for your family's health and well-being, and others care for your community. Understand the data.
Do a baseline assessment. You can do this for your personal life by checking the World Wildlife organisation site, for example. And for your business, you can take the free assessment available on the B Corp site. This can tell you where you are across a variety of measures and help you to decide where to celebrate, and where to start taking purposeful action. Collaborate. Look for collaboration opportunities among business units or across your community that design solutions for a problem you see at work or where you live. Diversity created the rich planet we live in today and inclusion will help us save it. Innovate. Remember that innovation doesn't have to be new to the world.
Most of man's best inventions have come from observing nature. Observe solutions and other spheres that can be repurposed, adapted, and used to address new solutions in your area. Do you remember the book, “So You Got Innovation?” It was one of the greatest books I read during my MBA. And in that book, there was an example of an Indian potter, who designed a fridge made simply from clay and water. Simple, elegant. If you have the capital to invest, think big. We live in an age where we have the most advanced tools and data are available. Much of the technology for many of the solutions that we need already exists.
Volunteer to support the transformation of urban spaces into areas for community farming and other forms of integrative activities. This concept of “interbeing” is something that I think is so powerful. We are connected to the flora, the fauna, and the people who live around us. And we need to find ways to preserve that connection. Where should you work? I say work for companies who have taken a stand. But you don't have to. You can do things where you are and change and influence a better tomorrow. The companies who have taken a stand - I can bring some examples for you, Patagonia. They were one of the forerunners in B Corp assessments, and they say that we are in business to save the entire planet. Then we have our favourite bamboo roll company Who gives a crap. This one currently gives considerably to charities to support toilets for places that do not have sanitation, appropriate sanitation in Africa, for example, and also to help them repurpose that waste matter into soil manure for farming. Oatly, the oat milk brand that's disrupting the milk industry.
Then we have the Impossible burger. And that's a company that has found a way to make plant-based burgers smell and taste like the real deal. I want to leave you with this. What we believe as humans have changed and evolved any number of times throughout our history. The more we learn, the better decisions we can make. But this only works if we are willing to be curious enough to suspend our beliefs and stay in the question. We have precedent for being able to make a significant change for the better of our planet. We slowed the destruction of the ozone layer with the Montreal Protocol, for example, in 1987.
The Paris Climate Accord in 2015, has had a rocky fight for six years, with us pulling in and out of it. But we see that nations are recommitting, the global pandemic showed us that we can all slow down and even live with far less than we thought we could. This tells me we also have the ability to redesign the engines of growth. And think of it as much more than wealth in the form of physical capital, we can start to appreciate our natural capital and our social capital as well. The only limit we have in making this change a reality is our imagination. Whatever you believe you can do, believe we can all change and save the world. And we will.
030 Future Talent
About this Episode
In this episode, we are going to be discussing future falent with an old friend of mine, Harry. It was such a pleasure to reconnect!
Harry Vargas is a dynamic HR leader and change agent.
He’s passionate about driving transformation for capacity building and growth, through commercially relevant and pragmatic organizational and talent strategies.
He has 20 Years of multi-market & cultural experience, successfully leading and developing diverse teams at local, regional and global levels.
Harry joined Microsoft in 2020, to lead HR and the culture & people transformational agenda, for the growing regional hub based in Costa Rica, serving LATAM and the US.
Hi, Katherine. I am so happy to see you after a few years now. Thank you for having me.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:18
It is really wonderful to have you on the show. Let me set the scene a bit. We have had about five years of digital transformation happen in one incredible year that has been 2020. And looking at the world stock markets, technology firms have significantly benefited from this upheaval whereas, traditional industries have suffered from the decline in overall spending and the closure of retail. The impact on jobs has been significant but buffered by state assistance in many places. And many more people are now in what we could describe as the hustle economy. My first question for you is how did these changes affect traditional organisations from your background; and how do you think they can effectively respond?
Harry Vargas 2:01
Sure, I think this is one of those things that when you get a real challenge, it brings an opportunity. And I think that is what has happened in this new environment. If you talk about digital transformation - I think in most companies, we have been talking about this for at least 10 years - every time it gets to the point where you have to prioritise the investments and put some money behind it, it doesn't get prioritised because there are other things before doing this. So in this new context that we live in, I think companies simply did not have an option to wait any longer. And started to rethink how to work around this.
That was for me, an opportunity, but at the same time, a huge challenge. So as you have seen, some companies have been able to move faster than others. But everyone is trying to do something about it. The other thing that I noticed is that at least over the last year, consumers adapted way faster to the digital environment than companies did because we didn't pretty much have a choice. And we have to adapt the way we do things in many aspects of life. So again, it was one more challenge and burning platform for companies to really do something about this and do it quickly.
Obviously, it had an impact on cultures and especially for more traditional organisations. We stop and rethink the way we do business, the way we engage with consumers and our employees inside the organisation so we can be faster and more agile. Agility is one of those terms that also we have been using for quite a while. But now, it is a must. You really have to be agile to adapt to everything we need to do differently. So the traditional ways of making decisions in companies were pretty much centralised or maybe too slow. That being said, they may even need to have specific space for innovation. We simply have to stop and do something different, and it impacts the culture. So I think that's the first thing I noticed.
Then, there was an impact also on rethinking what are the skills that we need, what sort of profiles we will need to bring into the organisation so that we have a more diverse way of looking at the opportunities in the market and understanding consumers. And again, diversity and inclusion and all of those things are not new. They have been around for years. But finally, we get organisations to see the imminent value of this and any matter of life or death. Sorry for being dramatic but now we are facing it.
So I think it is very challenging. It puts every company in a situation where they have to simply change the way they are doing things and come up with a new picture of success, and different ways of doing business. Even for HR, I spend most of my time working on HR strategies and programs. And there were very similar conversations that we have had over the years in terms of having a more flexible working environment that is (maybe) more agile and may have an opportunity to integrate different technologies and be simply closer to people, acknowledging that we are not just working with machines.
And those were very complex conversations for things that today are so obvious, like remote working and those kinds of things. Again, many companies were discussing that for years and did not make any decisions around it. But simply, they did not have any choice any longer. I think, overall, we have faced a cultural shift in finally putting the consumer at the core and bringing this flexibility into the organisations to do whatever it takes to rethink and survive.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:26
As you touched on it. I wanted to get into your thoughts on the implications of skills for organisations. So I know that you're sitting now from the perspective of Microsoft. And I am going to come to that for sure. But what are the implications on individual skill sets given that we have had so much transformation happening so quickly?
Harry Vargas 6:47
I was reading a paper from the World Economic Forum on the future of jobs. If you put it simply quite cold, it is a world that has been split into these: essential workers, remote workers, and then the ones that have been, unfortunately, displaced. And if you look at the situation, what we have is a workplace that requires a good combination of some of the classic skills like leadership and good management - "the good old things," but now bringing in more agility and some more specific skills like data science, understanding of artificial intelligence, innovation, adaptability, remote leadership, managing hybrid teams, being more resilient, a full understanding of how teams need to be self-directed in this remote world, and the capacity to help your teams to connect virtually while still maintaining the cultural feeling even if we're not together physically.
So it's a good combination of some of the skills that we used to work around for the last few years but maybe with a lens that is more agile, modern, and integrating technologies, and those sorts of things. If you look at the kind of jobs that will be more required in the future, all of them have to do with the facilitators of digital transformations, to begin with. People will have a lot to do with data analytics, data science, machine learning, learning expert specialists since all of that is changing. They are engineers, software developers, and information security. We have had many threats over the last few years.
You are seeing now what is happening. So those specific modern skills are the things that we are seeing. It obviously does not mean that now everyone has to know and be an expert around those things. At least, we need to be very aware of how to live in an environment that requires those skills, learn some of those skills and adapt to the new ways of working.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:22
Yeah. I know that this one is gonna be an interesting question, I think, for my listeners. So we know that as we get older, the ability to learn new things and assimilate rapidly with ease sort of diminishes. That we can always be lifelong learners is obviously something that we can maintain throughout our lives. However, we know that we get slower. And as we get slower, things are accelerating. Right? The rate of change of technologies is way faster than anything we have ever known. What would you recommend for people in their mid-career stages, in managerial type roles who may be in their 40s or 50s who are either out of work or looking for new jobs? What would you recommend that they do? And how do they overcome the natural bias we might have to adult learners?
Harry Vargas 10:10
Yes. That is an interesting question, a challenging and a very common one - I guess - in this particular time, with many of us trying to adapt and look for new things. I would say, maybe it sounds very simple. But I would start by looking around and assessing who my competition is in terms of talent. Because when you get to a point in which you are already a manager, middle manager, or have relevant experience, it’s good that you feel confident. But look around and see who your competitors are? What sort of skills do the other people have that you will be competing against to get those nice jobs? What do they have? What have they learned more recently - which of those skills that
I mentioned that they recently possessed that you still don't have because you can bring all of that experience which is great. And there must be a good balance in organisations with new talent. At once, that helps us navigate through changes with more experiences but we need to be realistic. We will be competing with those that have more naturally learned than our abilities. So once we assess who we are competing against, then we can prioritise where we need to go on and learn? And yes, maybe we will take some more time to learn a few things. But you really need to be very conscious and intentional about the two or three things that you need to acquire in the next 12 months. Then go and get them and reskill yourself quickly. I think this is the one thing that I would prioritise.
The other one is the world of having good connections and good networking. Again, that is nothing new but what is new is that it is completely remote. Now, again, it's completely virtual. How do you keep a network that is serving you and that you can learn a lot from it? You can also get access to the opportunities that are around more than 70% of jobs that are open especially at the managerial level.
That the first time they open, they will do it just internally. And only when they have decided that they don't have an internal talent or they don't know someone from outside, they would open it as a vacancy, let's say. So the more connections you have, the higher the chances that you will at least have visibility of one of those opportunities. So connections more than ever, and being creative about getting those connections. Being active is the second point. And then the third, I would say be flexible. Many people have, and especially around the middle management of today, have probably built careers more traditionally. And it is simply different today. We don't even talk about careers per se anymore.
We talk about skills and we talk about experiences. And we talk about, you know, the type of very specific needs that our company has. And then what is the profile that we will bring but we don't bring any more traditional careers, let's say for the new jobs. So you have to be flexible and then assess again - what are the skills that I have? And where do I fit in the new opportunities that might be around? And that flexibility will help in bringing more opportunities in opening up conversations and being flexible about everything. So I think this is one of those concrete things that you could do.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:05
I had an interesting conversation on this podcast as well with someone who's looking into learning futures. And one of the things that he said was that purpose is sort of akin to attention and where the purpose is, attention goes. And I reflected on this in terms of as organisations start to introduce things like ESG and get more alignment to bigger goals that are not just about stakeholder wealth and the impact this could have on people's ability to learn and assimilate faster. I don't know if you have any reflections on that. I thought it was an interesting way to put it.
Harry Vargas 14:40
Yes. I think learning faster, as you said, is one of those things that are a must today. And it starts with being humble. If I've learned one thing over the last couple of years it is how can I be more humble in terms of asking “how much I have to learn?” And then that opens up great opportunities for you to, first of all, feel better because you no longer feel like you know everything because you've been around for 20 years or whatever. And it even brings self-motivation. I mean there's a lot I can do differently and of course, that I can learn. Again, it goes back to these abilities that you need today. Because even if you go and learn one of the most in-fashion skills of today, maybe in 18 months, there will be something else for sure that you will have to learn. So it just has to be continuous. We got to get good at it.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:45
Yeah. I heard another quote that said, “Typically in the past, we have been able to maintain competitive advantage within eight years or so. But now that competitive advantage has shrunk to one year” which is why the acceleration of learning puts a lot of implications on the workforce. So I want to move to potentially the last question. When we look at the future workplace in three to five years, I potentially see a blended workplace - machines and people. What are your thoughts on managing in such an environment? And what does it actually mean?
Harry Vargas 16:26
Yes. Hybrid work - that is one of those challenges that companies are discussing every day that passes. We see it closer. Last year, there were lots of conversations that the world is turning hybrid in terms of working. We are there almost depending on the region you live in. But it is a challenge. I think, first of all, it does not mean that machines will take over human value. Right? Because that is one of the big fears around is that machines and artificial intelligence, and all that it will eliminate all the jobs, that there will be replacements.
There will be some evolution on that side; but the value of human knowledge and agility to learn and make things better, etc. will always remain. So I think, a good manager would make the best use of the skills that he or she has to add value to the processes that they are dealing with and to make it challenging for people at the same time; so that they understand that they need to keep on learning, rescaling and acquiring these new abilities. That is one thing. The other thing that I think is even bigger than that is that it's a challenge for companies and obviously for managers. You talk about purpose earlier. No matter what sort of jobs they end up in, having a purpose, more than ever, is one of those things that people are seeing or valuing as the thing that will move, engage, or keep them.
So companies are very clear in articulating what their legacy is and what their purpose is. But as an individual, when you come in, what you will be able to do with that is an advantage that we have been talking about - the quality of life and fulfilment of the work you do for years, and these sorts of things. But now again, it is more important than ever because people are prioritising differently what they value and what they want to dedicate their energy and time to. So in this future workplace, hybrid or not. people will ask -
“Where can I get the best experience?"
"Where can I balance my life in a better way?"
"Where can I learn more?"
"Where can I have the flexibility to do different activities and jobs and not have to wait five-eight years to do something different?"
And then organisations are rethinking:
“How to do this?"
"How do we manage careers differently?
"How do we plan for talent management differently?"
And everyone is learning at the same time - companies and people. So I think it is a challenging environment. It has already started. The companies that are more likely to succeed are those that are listening actively to understand. “Okay, what are the new things that people value and therefore we need to adapt?” Inside the company, you cannot force people any longer just to wait and see what the company will do now. They will have many options somewhere else, and you have to be prepared for that.
Katherine Ann Byam 20:02
This one has to do with probably the health and well-being aspect because we kind of touched on it last year. I think that we are in a situation where all of these accelerations, as well as the general wear and tear of the pandemic, create a lot of mental health and anxiety issues that are increasing as we go. How are organisations responding to that?
Harry Vargas 20:27
Yes, that is one of the priorities. At the moment, it has been a year, at least, for most people in this situation. In the beginning, it was more around basic things like learning to work remotely or virtually like learning to manage your time and tasks and all of that. But after a long period of time, people got burned out.
Then, we are also lacking in social contact not only with families and loved ones; but also with the things that we used to (maybe) take for granted when we were in the office like interactions, collaboration, faster decision-making, less complexity when dealing with issues that would involve people from various areas and those sorts of things; or simply having a conversation in the water cooler with someone, just talking about something else that is not about work. So people need that, and organisations have been focusing more on the good ones like - Let us first learn what people need at the moment but let us also respect their space.
In an ideal world, a great company would come up with a menu of things it can offer - wellness activities, meditation, physical exercise options, or simply additional days off to disconnect and recharge, or get in and learn something new. There are a number of things that have to do with mental health, physical health, learning different things, and simply getting out of the current environment. But there is also the option for you to choose whatever you want whenever you feel the need. So the combination of having various options and also letting people deal with it in their private space whilst having the support of the company. Behind this, I think, is a good balance because at the beginning it was very much programmed. "So now, everybody is gonna come on Fridays for yoga." Those things were nice at the beginning but now people are just tired of it.
“So just give me my space. Give me the options and I will do whatever whenever I need it.” So that is something we are learning from the technologies. It is supporting a lot of those things. Thank God! We can still have that yoga meditation or cooking lessons or whatever it is you like. Virtually, it has not been a restriction of a year in that sense, but the variety of it and how you keep it creative is one of the challenges we are facing.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:28
For sure. Harry, thank you so much for your time. This has been a wonderful session.
027 + 028 Human Potential
About this Episode
Chris Pirie – CEO of the Learning Futures Group is an experienced talent leader, obsessed with making the future workplace better. Formerly a Global VP of Online Learning at Oracle and Chief Learning Officer of Microsoft, Chris’s entire career has been spent working at the intersection between Workplace Learning and Technology. He now provides advisory services to enterprise organizations and EdTech vendors and teaches as Senior Faculty at the Josh Bersin Academy and The Future Workplace Academy.
In 2019, Chris launched The Learning Futures Group to help organizations rethink their Learning and Development strategy in the face of historic workplace disruption and change. He launched Learning Is The New Working a podcast about the future of workplace learning and the people helping us get there, as part of his research activities. The podcast has had over 30,000 downloads. He is also a founding director of Humentum.
Chris brings a passion for driving disruptive change and innovation and is a proven business and people leader of large functional teams in very dynamic enterprise environments. He has developed strategic partnerships with leading business schools such as INSEAD, London School of Business, and Wharton University.
He is an experienced Board Chair and Board member in learning related fields such as Association for Talent Development and Learning for International NGOs. A frequent contributor and speaker at industry conferences including Deloitte CLO Forum, Future Workplace Consortium, INSEAD CLO Forum, AST ICE conference and others.
He is a founding Director of Humentum.org, a membership organisation bringing transparency, skills and localization to the capacity building efforts of the International Aid Industry.
Chris was born in The United Kingdom and now lives mostly in Seattle in the USA. He loves to hike, read, sail, and travel with his educator wife, and two grown sons.
Katherine, thanks so much. I'm honoured to be here.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:32
Thank you for joining me. I'm really excited to have you on the show because you don't know this but your podcast has been a big part of my 2020 story. I attended a Learning Futures conference in London in the first week of February. I think it was just over a year ago. And I got hooked on many of the speakers and all of them spoke about your podcast which is quite remarkable. And once I started listening, I got hooked on it and it started to help me reshape the entire way I crafted my business. So once the pandemic happened, and I started to pivot to doing courses and programs, I started to focus on the future of work and some of the career work that I was doing. So you've had a big part of my story.
Chris Pirie 2:17
Oh, wow. Well, I'm flattered. I'm excited. Where was the conference, at the ExCeL Center?
Katherine Ann Byam 2:24
Yes, it was. Before it was in the NHS Hub?
Chris Pirie 2:27
Yeah, it was about a year ago. And I was thinking about this the other day, it was actually in February, I think of 2020. And it was one of the last trips that I made. And that building turned out one month later. It was like a “3000-bed” feel hospital. It was amazing. And with the energy of that conference, we didn't know what was waiting around the corner for us. I just remember this, it was the last time I was with 3000 people in one room. Now it feels like a very scary thing.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:59
It's quite striking to think back. But it was only a year ago. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that podcast, because I find it really transformative. And I know that you have 30,000 downloads. It's called Learning as a New Working. And can you tell my listeners why you thought this statement could be true?
Chris Pirie 3:17
Yeah, I think I can't remember exactly how I stumbled across that title. I wanted something that was fun. But what I like about it is I think it's a useful frame for two reasons. One is my work is really about how we can prepare the world for a future of work that's going to be very different, especially in the light of how we've prepared people for the world of work in the past has not been excellent. So let me put it that way. So how do we prepare people for the world of work? And I think Learning is the New Working does two things. One is it sort of tells the story of how modern work and how it looks like work is going in the future is going to be highly dependent on the ability to learn quickly and effectively.
That's always your best bet in a world of change, right? It's like this, the secret sauce of humanity is that we can be plastic, we can learn, we can respond, we can adapt, and we can be agile. And that's particularly useful in times of change. And a lot of what I'm reading tells me that we are at this time of incredible change. So that's one thing. Learning is one of the ways that you will be more effective in work increasingly in the future. The second thing is that as I studied this, it turns out that learning is really hard especially once you get past your middle twenties. You absolutely retain the ability to learn and brain plasticity is available to you through your entire life. I'm a big fan of lifelong learning but It gets hard, right?
It happens with no effort until you're in your mid 20s. And then it requires an extraordinary amount of effort to really learn new things, new models, new processes, new behaviours, and new facts and information. And so I like Learning is the New Working from those two angles, because it talks to the future of how we're going to get by at work. And it also talks to something that I feel very strongly about. And that is a new scientific approach that we need to help people get better at being learners.
Katherine Ann Byam 5:36
Absolutely, I think that's such an important part of the story. I would say that for myself, I have pivoted careers at least every four to five years and radical pivots as well. So I probably don't necessarily agree that it gets harder but I do agree that it gets harder to sell it when you're pivoting and changing. And I wanted to ask you a little bit about sustainable development and the goals around that. There are two goals in particular that I feel I need to talk about in this podcast as it is sustainable leaning. One is goal eight, decent work and economic growth, and the other one is called for quality education. And my question for you is which one do you think we are likely to struggle to get to more? Will it be a challenge around decent work and economic growth? Or quality education?
Chris Pirie 6:29
Well, the first thing is, I love this frame for your podcast. I mean, to be honest with you, I wasn't super familiar with the sustainable goals - the United Nations' set of goals. I definitely came across them but hadn't really studied them. And I love it. I mean, I think it's obviously a codification of the challenges we face as humanity. And that's very much in frame right now. And so I like it and I like that approach of your podcast. So congratulations on doing that. Couple of things I would say. One is that studying the international aid sector, this is not my area of expertise. But it's something that I've really enjoyed studying and learning from. And I'm going to frame it up. I'll come back to your question specifically, but I want to frame it up first. I think the work of international aid is fascinating. I mean, it's loaded with post colonial baggage.
But it's a $200 billion worth of activity around the world. And when you meet people who are engaged in that, they're usually super people that operate with purpose and integrity. And I love being around those people. And one of the things that I learned was, the whole business of international aid is essentially two things. One is funnelling money to where it's needed. And secondly, it's finding the capability and coping capacity to get the work done whatever it is - water projects, education projects, health projects, and so forth. So it's cash and it's training in its simplest form. And because it operates under such a lot of constraints. I really learned a lot about training and workplace learning by studying the sector. And I really did learn a lot.
And some key principles in my work come from that. For example, one principle is to use what you have. In the private sector, where I come from, we spend staggering amounts of money. In fact, more money is spent in corporate workplace learning, (the best estimates $360 billion) that is spent in international aid. And so that's Workplace Learning investment to a very tiny fraction of the human population. And it's actually not really very good. That's the dirty little secret.
So anyway, point one is I studied the international aid space not as an expert but as somebody who wants to learn from great work that happens there around agility and impact and so on and so forth. The twin goals of education and work are really, really interesting. As I read them carefully, a lot of the education which I think is number four (is that correct?) It's a lot about childhood education. That's not my area of expertise at all. I really defer to that one. But it's clear, you know, if you read works like Hans Rosling's work, "Fact Fullness," which is one of my favourite books.
You know, he'll tell you the correlation between educating children and moving humanity and society forward is so blindingly obvious that we just need to get better at doing it. We need to spend more money doing it and we need to be equitable and how we give people childhood education opportunities. It's crystal clear. It's out of my expertise, my league now, but just whatever we can do to improve that seems to me absolutely a slam dunk.
Katherine Ann Byam
Added links to your earlier point as well about how easy it is at that age as well to assimilate.
Chris Pirie
Yeah, true. I mean that's absolutely true. And I think when you get uneducated youth in the world, bad things happen. They're easily exploited. They're put to bad ends. It's clearly not good. So educating kids, educating women, educating everybody should be a massive priority. End of story. As far as I'm concerned, what can we do to make that happen? There's a really interesting story that I love. One of my favourite episodes of the podcast. And it wasn't me doing the interviewing.
It was a friend of mine called Lutz Ziob, who does a lot of work in Africa. And he found this amazing guy called Rob Burnett, and Rob is a Scotsman. And he ended up in East Africa. He's built this incredible organisation. It is a model for so many things. I remember the episode. Yeah. I think a lot about the future of work and one of the things that I did when I first started this project was I went to learn how to think about the future because there are people who do that.
And it's not crystal ball gazing. It's a discipline and a science. There's tools and techniques you can use and I wanted to understand them a little bit. And one great phrase that those people throw around a lot is, is actually a science fiction writer whose name is escaping me right now. He says "the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed." And so you look for futures around. That's kind of a little bit about what I do in the podcast. I'm looking for possible futures, people who are doing things really, really well, people are on the cutting edge.
And Rob Burnett is one of those people but his future is quite dystopian because he tells a story of how things in 2019 in East Africa. 1.2 million people will graduate from the education system, to your point, goal number four. Job well done. 1.2 million people are educated so somewhere between the age of 16 and 18. These people are educated. They're skilled and they can read and so on and so forth. And they come out of the education system. And less than 5% of them get a job that you and I would recognise as a job. I go somewhere you go religiously every week and get a paycheck at the end of the week.
So these people go onto the streets and they find ways to operate. And I'm not going to tell his whole story. But he helps those people. He reaches out to those people. And he gives them skills that they need to do what they do more effectively. And he calls it the hustler MBA and he speaks in the language and cultural tropes that they understand. He's built this network of 5 million people. And he started by producing a comic, like using what he had, like the simplest technologies he could get his hands on. And he's gone on to build social media that really accelerated his practice.
And it's a really amazing story. So I think that's a little bit of an illustration of if we get people through school, the job isn't done when they leave school. They're going to continue to need to learn. They're going to continue to get experiences. They're going to continue to need skills, many of which have an increasingly short shelf life. And yeah that's the kind of area of work where we hang out.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:03
And it's interesting because I think we have had a number of overlapping challenges come upon us in 2020, in a way that we hadn't expected. So even as a workplace futures person, you would have been surprised at what we were able to do in 2020. And how things have changed, right? So we have this sort of perfect storm. It's and it's either actually going to be a storm or an acceleration, right? I'm not gonna say which but history tells us that depressions and recessions are followed by opportunity and by growth, but history never had AI. And I think there are a lot of things that this can challenge. So I probably have three parts to this question. So I'll ask you one at a time and that's good. One is how can we ensure that this strain on services, the climate change impact this whole Biodiversity bit, as well as the rapid advancements in AI do not become a permanent loss in jobs for humanity.
Chris Pirie 15:11
Yeah. Wow, that's a huge question. And I do think that one possible future is what we think of as jobs today don't exist in the future. There are many people who think that there's Rob Burnett's world in East Africa where that's already true. You know, the idea of having one contractor with one employer who takes care of benefits and salary is really under threat. And it's under threat from a number of different directions and it's likely to evolve.
And we know this because as you say, you look at history as a guide, right? So when I think I always like to start, and I spent six months at the beginning of this journey, thinking about what are the forces at work? What are the macro forces at work? And this was of course before 2020. And the forces at work were really maybe sort of unarguable things that would likely change the way everything happens. One, of course, was climate change and what's going on with our environment. And that's really hard.
I think for people to get their head around (because it's happening in) in such an abstract way for many many people - if you don't live in these extreme climate areas, you probably haven't noticed the change. But I can tell you, the oil industry has noticed the change. The people who live on these edges and in these futures, they noticed the change and you're seeing the behaviours happen. So that's one thing that I don't have a lot of expertise in. But clearly, it's going to drive a lot of shifts in population.
You can map out what's likely to happen as a result of climate change to humanity. The second thing is technology. And I think he talks maybe in your introduction about the fourth industrial revolution. We know what happens when a radically new technology comes along. It changes how we organise our work. It also changes how we organise our society, and maybe even how we think about our gods. I mean it has fundamental changes and we know that over the last 300 years, there was this kind of steady drumbeat of changes really based on energy. Actually, at the heart of it, the energy we use to power the tools that we have, that we've invented in that kind of era. And so this is all well documented.
In 1860, people moved from the farm and into the workshop, and then into the factory. And then we started to automate things through computing in the 1960s. We had this sort of 100-year drumbeat. But there's nothing that says 100 years is the magic number. And in fact, here we are just like 30 or 40 years after the information age. And we've got this incredible new set of technologies that most commentators think is described as the fourth industrial revolution. It's the technology that's going to change our world.
So fundamentally, we'll have to reorganise around pretty much everything, especially work. And you mentioned AI. AI is clearly going to have a massive impact on the world of work. Machines are going to be better. We know these machines are better at doing things than we are. That's why we build them in the first place. And thinking of machines, as some people call these AI machines are going to be able to scour much more data than we can ever consume as humans.
They're going to be able to compute at a much faster rate. And already we can as humans. They're going to be able to organise themselves. And so this is a profound shift. And one of the things that really made me sit up and take notice of AI was when somebody said, "you can think about the impact that AI will have on the world, in the same way as the impact that electricity had on the world. So it's not something that's just going to apply to a few niche areas and jobs and vertical industries. It's going to change absolutely everything. And so that's kind of a lot to get your head around."
One of the reactions that we're seeing is this shift to thinking about humanity. Like if we can't calculate as fast as this machine, if we can't consume data as fast as this machine and we can't make connections and learn as a cohesive unit the machines can, what can we do? Where is our strength and where does our advantage lie? And this is what gives me a lot of hope, at the moment the answers to these questions all lie in our very humanity. And I think the interesting work that's going on today is kind of focused around that. And I can see it large even in the corporate world where I hang out.
And then let's just talk a little bit about 2020. When I started this project, my mission was to disrupt the industry that I just spent 30 working years working in because I felt that we weren't moving fast enough to help all the people that needed to be helped. And I felt that our practice was out of date 100 years old, moving people into training courses, and telling them what to do, and then sending them out and expecting them to do it. You know, this was the work of the early 1900s.
And we haven't really moved beyond. And so I had this notion that we needed a new learning science that helps people be really effective learners based on progress that we've made in a number of different scientists in scientific disciplines. And I wrote this little book,which was the kind of me getting my thoughts together around the whole project. And it was called a Learning Disruptors Handbook. It was going to be like an album by The Clash and it was gonna be a call to action and to tell people how they were wasting their time. And then along came more disruption than I could have possibly imagined in the form of the global pandemic.
And this has been the most disruptive action of my life and probably my generation, and probably this era. And all kinds of amazing things have happened. And we all sat here with our heads spinning, figuring out what if this is going to be permanent? And what's gonna happen afterwards? How do we build back better to use one phrase? Or, how do we get back to the new normal to use another phrase. So disruption, whereas my call to action was to disrupt yourself, my thinking has evolved. And my call to action is, rebuild yourself. Rebuild yourself thoughtfully and carefully with technology but with humanity at the core.
So I'll give you one really simple kind of frame around this that I've used for many years. For 20 years, I was an evangelist for the kind of technology that you and I are using today. This was my world. Of course you can use technology to teach people to be more effective in their workplace. That was my job. And we experimented with all kinds of things. And we evangelised elearning, and we evangelised digital learning, and we evangelised global cohort programmes. And we did some really interesting experiments. The next thing you know, the evangelism job is done because people have no choice. And the only way to operate now is through this kind of technology through digital interactions. And so the job becomes different.
The job now becomes not how do we force everyone to use this slightly annoying technology? But how do we make it more human? How do we make it better? How do we take away the tyranny of Zoom fatigue? And how do we find technologies that bring back serendipity and bring back more effective collaboration and bring back happenstance, and bring back the hug, so to speak? And we will (as we know this is what humans do) build better tools. But that's the new job. And we have the opportunity through this disruption to reset the agenda. Whether we'll take it or not remains to be the big question.
But I think all of us have the opportunity, especially now to think ( as this comes back, as the world opens up in the great work of science and vaccines saves us from the brink) what we want it to be like. Let's make this a deliberate, thoughtful choice. And let's write about some of the wrongs that may have happened in the past. Let's be deliberate. And so that makes this a really, really exciting time and I want to double down and do better work.
Katherine Ann Byam 24:52
To touch on the point about technology. The technology is already there and developing even further for us to have a more intimate experience of this, right? So yeah, even with the screens or even the haptic suits or these types of things that are coming out. So I'm sure that this will improve with technology. But I guess one of my questions remains which is, are we accelerating at a pace that we can no longer continue in our current state? Chris answers this question in part two of this episode.
(Part 2)
Katherine Ann Byam 0:01
This is Part 2 of a two-part episode. Please be sure to listen to Part 1 before getting into this one.
Are we accelerating at a pace that we can no longer continue in our current state, - so we can no longer continue with technology external to ourselves and, do we need to internalise technology in some form or fashion to continue to keep this pace? Or is there another shift?
Chris Pirie 1:55
Hmm. Are you talking about the sort of and so on and so forth?
Yeah, the book "Sapiens" and "Homo Deus" are really scary future models there. The ideas are really powerful. So computers are an extension of ourselves that enable us to do extraordinary things. They enable you and either chat across continents and then share that with other people. I mean, it's extraordinary. And that is an extension of ourselves. And there's also a branch of this where we change our physicality through drugs and through technologies of one sort.
The book, "Homo Deus" really does a nice job of playing out what that might look like. I did some research. It turns out that one in four kids in North America is regularly using some sort of behaviour modification drug. I mean these are not recreational drugs - these ADD medicines, and so on, and so forth. Actually, we are starting to use pharmacology to be more effective, not just in sports, but in learning as well. And that's clearly going to be a force and an interesting one and one that I think is going to be hard and take some time for us to get our head around. I would say before we do that... before we change our physicality, there is a lot of work that we need to do. And there's a lot of great work going on around what I call sort of collectively learning science.
And there's always been a good, well-documented 100-year history of people trying to understand how learning works and pedagogical models have come out of that work. But we seem to be at a point in history where a lot of progress is getting made on a couple of fronts. And I talked about four things - I've talked about computer science. So computers will help us learn and they will help us learn not by just delivering content to us, but by actually taking off some of the burdens of learning, right? So, for example, you used to have to memorise a lot of things to be good at anything. Well, you don't really need to do that anymore because computers can do that much, much better.
You can focus your learning time on more conceptual things. One example, so computer science is going to help us be better learners. And we should be all over that. The second area is neuroscience or brain science in general. And there's a lot of subcategories of that where people are really starting to understand in a lot more detail how the brain works, how cognition works, how plasticity brain works which is sort of magic kind of essential attribute that humans have that is extraordinary and allows us to be so adaptable.
People are really understanding that at the chemistry level, and in sort of behavioural terms as well. So then you've got sort of behavioural science and social sciences that are really understanding one very important piece of learning. Perhaps the most important piece of learning, which is motivation and how you get people's attention. Because it turns out that once you're an adult, if you want to learn something new when you want to unlock your brain plasticity, it's really hard work. And you need to be highly motivated to do it. I think we all know this from our own experience.
And some, a lot of adult educators are in the business of motivation. I had a great conversation with a guy from a language learning company in Germany. It's one of my favourite episodes. And he just talks about the 5 million people who are learning together on their platform and what that allows them to do is to watch the behaviour, like what time of day do successful learners study, and what their study patterns look like, did they do a little bit, and often do they go deep? So we now have these kinds of laboratories, whether it's in a MOOC context or in a language learning context where you have millions and millions of people doing learning behaviours that we can observe in different kinds of ways.
I think this is going to unlock all kinds of techniques and tips and hints on how to be an effective learner. And then we've got this extraordinary work that's going on in terms of human motivation. This is related to what you mentioned in the sort of pre-read that you sent me a little bit about the inequities of wealth distribution, and what's going on with technology companies that are becoming so powerful in our world. We all use Facebook as everybody does as one example of that but there are many others. Really, what these companies are figuring out is how to get human attention.
They are really, as we say, monetizing eyeballs, and monetizing clicks. And this is really all about the attention economy, right? Getting your attention on whatever they can monetize, is kind of huge, and it's happening in a very disciplined, thoughtful way. And it's using what we're learning about the brain and human motivation to make it work. And we need to co-opt that. We need to co-opt that approach to help people be more effective learners, and to get people thinking about the right kind of problems. So that's the amazing sort of macro forces at work in our world today. And then the last thing I'll say about this is the most recent piece of work that I've done, I've done in collaboration with some people at Red Thread Research.
And we've just finished a podcast season on the topic of Purpose. And purpose, it turns out, is attention. It's about human attention. And the people that we meet, and the people that I've met on my entire sort of journey through podcasting and research, the people who are successful and the people who are doing interesting things are the people who are purpose-driven. And I really tried to understand that. And I think it lies somewhere in the area of people with purpose and are highly-motivated. And people who are highly-motivated are really effective learners.
They know that to get the job done, they're going to have to steal ideas, they're going to have to learn what they can, they're going to use what they have, they're going to be clear on what the problem is, and they just get to be very, very effective people in their domain and in their sphere. So I'm very hopeful that this work on purpose and the trend towards purpose-driven organisations, whether in the international aid sector or the private sector is going to be helpful.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:05
It sounds as if purpose is also akin to innovation in the work that you're doing.
Chris Pirie 9:10
Yeah. I think that's interesting. When I think about innovation, I think a lot about experimentation. And I love experimentation. It turns out that one observation from the companies that I've worked with in 2020 is that the ones that were very open to experimenting before the pandemic and the crisis were the ones that were able to adapt very, very quickly. Because I think experimentation is part of this mindset shift - this growth mindset idea that says being open to new ideas, being curious, being focused on solving the problem, rather than leveraging whatever is you have - seems to lead to sort of greater success and more agility. So yeah, I think experimentation and innovation go hand in hand.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:04
Yeah. My final question is if you can tell our listeners a little bit about Humentum and that organisation that you have founded.
Chris Pirie 10:12
Yeah. Well, just to be clear, I was on the founding board. I was the board member of one of the component pieces. We brought three organisations together to form Humentum. And there are wonderful people working at Humentum. The predecessor organisations that do all the work but I got inspired to be part of that. Humentum is a membership organisation. There's 300 organisations that work in the international aid space. So you can think about all the big charities and organisations that are doing international development and so it's hard. It's a sort of consortium model.
There are some things to do that are hard that we can't afford to invest in and so let's, let's collaborate, let's come together and solve these problems sort of collectively. And it's focused on the really common fundamental problems that all these organisations have - How do we get our people well trained? How do we build capacity in the places where we do our work? How do we operate with transparency and integrity in a very highly regulated financial environment? How do we advocate for sets of standards that will make our work more effective, and so on, and so forth. So I love that it's collaborative.
I got involved because of the learning aspects of the work they do - training and educating people, building skills, standards, building capacity where it's needed in the global south. It struck me that some of my experience with technology and learning might help. But I love the work that these guys do. I love that they came together - three separate organisations put their egos aside and formed this “better together” organisation and they do great work. And if you have something to contribute - projects, dollars expertise, then go check out humentum.org and see their work and they're doing good stuff on they're really poised to have even more impact.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:34
Wonderful. So in closing, what would you like my listeners to follow about you? Is it the podcast which I would absolutely recommend? Is there something else that you'd like them to download?
Chris Pirie 12:47
Yeah, so So I would say go to www.learningisthenewworking.org. And you can listen to some of the amazing conversations that we've been able to have, and more importantly, you can suggest people that we should talk to - people who are doing interesting things around the future of work or learning at work or in the international aid space. We are really always interested in talking to people who've had some sort of breakthrough or doing interesting work. So please go check it out. And I hope you enjoy it.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:22
Thanks for joining me, Chris. It's been a pleasure.
Chris Pirie 13:24
Yeah, great. Thanks so much. Nice to talk to you.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:29
Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you today by career sketching with Katherine Ann Byam and the space where ideas launch. Career sketching is a leadership development and coaching brand offering personalised career transition and transformation services. This space where ideas launch offers high performance, leadership, coaching and strategy facilitation to businesses and the food and health sectors. To find out more, contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn
007 & 008 Overcoming Adversity
About this Episode
Dani Wallace Is a Public Speaking Coach, Incredible Singer, absolute survivor and a guest on my show.
We talk about her journey to overcome adversity and build a successful business and life for herself and her children. I chose this topic, because many people need hope right now, and Dani delivers this in abundance.
About Dani Wallace As a former serial self-saboteur, having grown up on the council estates of Preston, Dani has survived the adversity of domestic violence, homelessness and single parenthood to become a leading voice in empowerment around the UK.
Dani uses her knowledge of both traditional employment in the corporate sector and self-employment in the entertainment industry to deliver memorable, inspirational and thought-provoking talks. Through her world class courses, masterminds and VIP experiences Dani helps people all over the world create incredible talks that help them stand powerfully on stage, reaching more of their ideal audiences.
Fearless leader of the I Am The Queen Bee Movement and creator of the Fly Anyway Foundation, Dani helps people the world over Show Up Wise Up and Rise and is a reminder to anyone who enters her orbit that they too, regardless of their journey can #FLYANYWAY!
Hello, everyone, good night and welcome to the fourth edition of transcending work, harnessing the courage to lead. It is such a pleasure to have you all this week and a pleasure to host my guest today. So my guest is a person who I met just around April, May June area this year. She is an incredible public speaker, former singer, a former corporate employee, former many other things and she has made her way through life in the most amazing and incredible way that you can imagine. So without any hesitation, I introduce to you, Miss Dani Wallace.
Unknown Speaker 0:55
Hello, Katherine. Hello, my darling.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:01
Hello, Danny, and welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Dani Wallace 1:06
So good. I am so thrilled to be here.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:09
So I see your backdrop is your morning show. To tell us about this morning show.
Dani Wallace 1:19
So at the start of COVID, there was a very real possibility that because I'm a singer and a public speaking coach, and I'm really very lucky that I've got like an online business, but I had a whole entertainments business offline, I would go out and do gigs on down the country. And when lockdown in the UK was announced, there was a very real possibility that I was going to end up extending and extending my lane. And it was gonna get late to relate to that was going to have a real effect on my productivity. So what I decided to do was to go live every morning, Monday to Friday, and get ready for work. So I'd get up at 8 am. And go live and do what I'd done. for pretty much the last seven or eight years, I've been going live on Facebook for the last seven or eight years.
And what I would do is, as a singer, you often play dressing room roulette, in that when you turn up to a venue, you never know where you're going to get put in order to get ready, nice decided to stop playing dressing room roulette. And instead what I would do is I would put my makeup on in the car, and to keep myself safe, I would put my phone up on the dashboard and talk to Facebook while doing my makeup. I thought well, why not kind of go back to my roots a little bit and I just got to put my makeup on for work in the morning.
And then realised two weeks ago that was gonna get really boring. And so I started to invite my friends on I started to invite the entrepreneurs in my space, inspirational people, motivational people in my space to come and get ready with me in the mornings come and get ready for the workday together. And as well in an answer to that, you know, putting on the news in the morning, which especially during that time was it was horrible. Yeah, it was hard to go in and to be motivated people and inspiring people are getting excited about stuff instead of allowing ourselves to be really weighed down. So then I carried on and then another week went by and another week went by and then all of a sudden I've been doing it for the past eight months.
Katherine Ann Byam 3:29
It's incredible. Every morning at 8 pm I get a notification that Dani Wallace is Live. It's incredible. Dani, you said you said seven, eight years you've been doing these lives on Facebook, etc. Tell us about 10 years ago, tell us about your journey, your transition to becoming the absolute superstar that you are.
Podcast Part 1 starts here
Dani Wallace 3:48
Thank you. It hasn't always been. So where I am now is I'm in a very, very, very different place to where I was say 10 years ago. And the way it was 10 years ago is a direct result of how I grew up. So I grew up on the council state of Preston. We were very very much on the breadline. And it's funny I talk about this now. In the media and on radio shows and in magazines And things and my mom always gets upset the first time I talked about this. She was like, “Daniela, were we poor” because she was just going through it. She was making ends meet. She didn't say that that's what it was. And I was like mom Yeah, we lost our house. We were having a tough time.
My dad was an alcoholic and domestic abuse was actually inherent sort of through generationally in our family. And as a child, we absorbed that. We watched what was going on and it formed a lot of my choices when I got older. So when I was 16, I essentially ran away with the circus. So I started to sing, and I fibbed about my age and I got on a plane and I ended up singing all over the world in different places. And really what I was doing is I was escaping where I was. And then, I was all over the world. It was fabulous. But people like me, people like us from here don't go on to be entertainers or singers or entrepreneurs or online whatever's.
So there was always, "come back, get a proper job." So I came back to the UK. And I was in a relationship and really what I wanted to create as a stability, and this what I didn't have - this not chaos of my younger years, and it didn't really matter. And who was there to fill this husband-shaped hole and I just filled it with this guy. Bless him. A completely railroaded him into you know, buying a house and you know, getting married and having a baby and he just kind of went along with it until one morning and a couple of weeks after we'd sent out the invites to our wedding.
He just woke up and he went, “Dani I don't want any of this,” and he left. So I was sort of left on my own single parent two weeks after we sent the invites out to the wedding to cancel the wedding. It was too close to the wedding to get anything back. So you can imagine I was feeling, (I'm allowed to swear I'm not gonna swear?) Tonight, and I'm gonna be very guilty. Now I'm gonna keep a lid on my swear words. I just get excited that's all. And but I was feeling rubbish. I was feeling pretty poor. It weren't right Good.
So what I am going very quickly because I was in that vulnerable place. And I got into another relationship very quickly and that relationship turned sour. I experienced an abusive relationship during that time and how to get out of it. And when I got out of that abusive relationship, I was then a single mom of two children under three. And then we couldn't afford to keep the house I couldn't say this kind of corporate job going along the top here. And then underneath my life was in tatters. It was all I could do to hold on to this flipping job like this.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:07
Yeah, yeah.
Dani Wallace 7:08
And we ended up homeless. So we ended up I ended up having to lose the house. And, and we were sofa surfing, me and the two girls, Poppy and Daisy, my big flowers. And I've had it since she's like some foliage to finish my bouquet off. And we will sell photography. We will sleep in it pair in my parents’ house or sister's house friend's houses that were to and from London, at the time with my dog. So one night, and I was talking my kids into bed and I can't say that I wanted to die. But I didn't know how to live. I didn't.
I was like I'm not a benefit to anybody. I'm not helping anybody. Not even my kids like I'm doing the best that I can be the best that I can doesn't seem to be good enough. How have I ended up homeless with these two beautiful children? How they ended up on my backside like this. I can't seem to make a good decision or hold a good relationship down. What's wrong with me. And I had a real like, sort of breakdown moment and I had to decide at that moment. It was either gonna happen to life or life was gonna continue happening to me. I don't think that was going to end very well. Yeah.
So I started in that at that moment, I guess a night in the car and it's raining out. So it's very dramatic. I'm sure it is like when they make a film about my life. When somebody did beautiful or famous plays me, there'll be a scene where she's in the car and it's raining outside and she's crying in the car. And there was that real light that proper moment. And it was from there. I kind of got out of the car and sat down and spoke to my mom. And I was like mom, I can't go on like this. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know how to ask for help. You know, people at work didn't know what was going on behind the scenes people at work.
So that things went right. But I was trying to kind of put on this veneer that everything was okay and was just in transition. But I was on my knees. Yeah. So I started a journey as everybody does, whether this pivotal point to the film of my life. And when I started to do a lot of work on myself. Okay, so what did taking responsibility look like? How did I choose better for myself? How did I choose better for my kids? What could I do? How do I ask for help? And I started off on that journey. So after that, not so long after that, we found somewhere to live. We were very lucky. And we're where I'm living now.
So where I am right now is in my bedroom, in the middle still in the middle of the Council of states of Preston because that was where I had to move to. Yeah, so where I'm about to move to is like, I can't even believe that this is happening. But I've we've just said we've just bought a house we haven't we're just buying a house we're in that horrible bit in the middle where all the mortgage has been sorted in your old in on feeler. But yet we're just about to buy and move into what is the house of our dreams? So things have moved on a lot since then. Yeah, but then there was a real moment when I realised that you know, you get to choose and it's really a quote from The Bee Movie that goes, aerodynamically a bee should not be able to fly its little wings shouldn't get its fat little body off the ground. And the bee, however, doesn't care what humans think. Is it possible to fly anyway? And that was it for me. I was like, that's how you choose.
The bee don't get the memo that it can't fly. You just got to do it. Well, I'm gonna send the memo back that people like us are successful. This lingo, which is exactly what we went on to do. And it's been just a roller coaster ever since.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:52
So when exactly did you become the queen bee? Was it directly after you watch this movie? How did this materialise into The Queen Bee?
Dani Wallace 11:01
I would like to say that I watched that film and then directly the day after created a public speaking business that then went on to turn over six figures. But that's not what happened. But it sowed the seed? Yeah. And it got me to thinking so remember, I was telling you about going live in the car? Yeah. So during this time, I had lost my job in corporate. And I think it was one of those situations, whether you are sort of down with universal energy or not. I am not in too much of a woo-woo way, but I definitely am.
I definitely believe in the person and all of that sort of stuff. Yes. And I believe that sometimes when you're too afraid to jump, you shall be pushed. And that's what happens. So I came out of corporate work and started to sing full time. And then my diary filled up very quickly and was very blessed in that I'm good at what I do. So I was able to fill my diary up, and we were safe and I'd be happy going live in the car like this and talking to people about my personal development journey. And I would talk about forgiveness.
I will talk about feminism. I will talk about how to be strong as a woman, how to speak how to do all of these sorts of things, and news and stuff. Some of it would be really funny, and some of it will be serious. Sometimes I would cry and then put my makeup on again. And yeah, it was so during that time, I was really thinking okay, so actually, there were people that were tuning in. And there were people who were watching regularly they would miss me when I wasn’t there, right and there's something really compelling I don't know what it is about somebody putting their makeup on it so the people start to watch and then when they watch and they listen at the same time they started to really start to get the benefit. Yeah, so how can I create something here.
And I really loved the concept of being the queen bee of making a statement, “I am The Queen Bee.” It's a very bold statement. Like I walk into places going, “I am the queen bee” and people have to get everything she has. It's not about that. It's a reclamation. When I'm saying I'm The Queen Bee. I'm not just saying - I am The Queen Bee. I'm reclaiming my birthright to success to a boom race to happiness friendships as we have.
All of this I'm reclaiming that because I was really annoyed Katherine that the Queen was born the queen and I was born on the council estate. so I'm like why neither of us got a say on this. Somebody landed easier than me and I was like why so I thought well in this reclamation in this statement and the bees do the most incredible things that I could do a whole conversation about bees and how amazing analogies for business in life we could use. But I'm the queen bee really spoke to this, standing up and this choosing to fly anyway.
I love the concept of grabbing hold of your own crown and bobbing that on and then you know what seeing your friends and if their crowns a bit wobbly straightening up their crown and sending them on the way as well and that is really how the concept started is. The more I spoke to people the more I realised that we are yes we all get to choose but you know you can say I am the queen. Absolutely as our you as our again anybody watching whether you're male, female gender, binary, you know, whatever it is king bee, queen bee, royal be whatever it is.
And Claudia MacFarlane is asking, Oh, hi, Claudia. In your journey to self-development, what were your biggest challenge and the habits you needed to break? And the biggest one for me, Claudio was the acceptance of myself. So what I always sought was external validation. And what you find is that people often let you down. And I'm not saying that people like, like your friends or your family but when you are seeking external validation when you're seeking peace and happiness, and wealth because wealth isn't just the money in your bank account when you're seeking those things from outside of yourself, then it is very difficult to obtain and keep hold of it.
So what I had to learn was how to love and accept myself in my entirety with my flaws and my perfections like I’m perfectly imperfect. And that didn't come till much later when I started to see where I am now and practice gratitude. So I needed to break being a victim. I needed to stop thinking life was happening to me and realise everything was happening for me. I just got to choose the outcome and my reactions dictating my outcome. But there was this really funny moment that I had.
And I was sad even I was feeling grateful for everything that was going on. And I’m surrounded by brilliant people. And, and when I look back, and I've done a lot of work on looking back on past Dani, that girl sat in the car who just hated itself. She didn't know how to live with herself anymore. And I look back on her and I go, God, I love you. I want to start to cry, like, Oh, I love her so much. She fought really, really hard. And then what she did, is then fought really, really hard to get to where I am now. And then I can now envisage future Dani, because I know that now. Dani loves the past Dani. That future Danny loves this Dani vehemently.
She's like cheering around saying Yes, come on, we've got the good stuff over here. You can do it. I love you. But it's me saying that to me. It's not anybody else saying that to me. It's me giving myself that validation is that understanding that it's got to come from you. In order for it to for you to be able to obtain and maintain that development. you've got to understand and love and acknowledge yourself.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:57
Absolutely. Now, absolutely. It's incredible your journey. And I wouldn't pivot a little bit to the point in time when we met. We met before as and we were in a group together. But we actually interacted because of Black Lives Matter. And I don't know if you exactly if you must’ve remembered this. So I decided to wire you up that week. And yeah, and it was about a programme you were running. It was a charity programme. Yeah. And Claudia saying that she loves your NGO. Just put that on screen.
Show notes (Part 2)
Katherine Ann Byam
So you were running, you were running a charity event.
Dani Wallace 17:39
Yeah, the Big Festoon.
Katherine Ann Byam 17:40
And someone decided to flag you for not being inclusive, or she felt that you weren't being inclusive enough. And that week, as I will just tell a little bit my story in that week. I mean, all sorts of things were happening in that week that I wasn't ready to deal with, right? So all of a sudden, it's like people have been, you know, impacted by racism all of my life. But that week, something happened. It was there was a shift, there was a movement that, that just broke things and in a good way.
But what I saw and what I experienced that week at least online was a lot of women like me coming out and speaking their truth. And I'm not used to hearing that or speaking it you know, and I felt so uncomfortable that week. I remember thinking like I can't handle this. Every story that I read or I heard I wanted to cry like it was it was just such a powerful week in terms of getting connected with things that you've been suppressing for so long. So I empathise with that lady who got in your case, and you will get to tell the story. But I empathise with her because I recognise that even I didn't know the best way to deal with feeling oppressed. So if you can speak about that,
Dani Wallace 19:02
I absolutely can. And it's really not my place to kind of fill up and get emotional for you and with your base because you're my friend and I love you. And so that week, I put on a charity event now wide. I'm a survivor of domestic abuse and often watch the media with regards to what's been commented about it because I am an ally and a spokesperson when it comes to things that happen in the news. So for example, I will speak on Channel five about it when you know there are no refuge spaces and what have you. So I've noticed in the news that there was an increase of 700%.
We were seven weeks into lockdown and the increase was 700% in terms of domestic abuse, and I was like and wall sat here in the ivory tower thinking I can do something here um, but we live every day anyway, so I'm going to make this happen. So what I did is from my bedroom, I created a charity event to raise money for domestic violence charities women's aid. I was interviewing 24 people ended up being 25 people plus 25 sponsors. So I was like interviewing 50 people over the course of 12 hours to raise money for charities. Now, it is something that I have been making a conscious effort to work on for a couple of years now to make sure that the things that I do are diverse, or we have that in the middle of what we think is our value as absolutely a real core value. So when I was creating the lineup or trying to scramble together in a couple of weeks, this lineup,
I’m thinking so it's really important. This isn't tokenism, I just wanted to make sure we had a diverse spread of people. So I didn't want a full lineup of white people. Because it was wrong. Like it. It wasn't right. So we had members of the black community, we had members of the Asian community, members of the Jewish community, we have disabled people, members of the LGBTQ community. You can imagine that's quite broad. Yes. And booked, I thought I've done okay. And like, I never should just pat myself on the back. Yes. Good job, Daniela. That very week was the week that George Floyd was murdered.
And that week was the week where really, the lid was really lifted off the conversation as he's writing proper, about moving things forward, and how should we move things forward. But when you plaster off something that you are never allowed to expose, there's hurt there, and there's pain there. And you know, you've experienced it yourself. And, you know, being a friend of so many members of the black community are being an ally, and really sit in there and just trying to hold space was all I could do is just hold some space that week. And go and stand side by side with my brothers and sisters and siblings and speak as a white ally.
And do all of those, just try and hold that space. Because it was painful. I'd done this event because I want to pull the event. Is even right that I do it. And I just think, no because there were still lots of other people that need help him right now. And they are also members of the black community that are victims of domestic abuse. So I would be silly if I was going to stop all of this now. So what I did is I made a conscious effort on the day, I was like, made sure that we spoke about this with all of our guests made sure that you know, we were sharing relevant things on the day. And but some somebody really, and it was only really one person, but it was enough that from a real place of her was like “Your lineup is not diverse. In fact, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to create a smear campaign and say that actually.” One of the things that were said is this woman has just raised the Confederate flag.
And I was like, definitely. Because there's a difference between accepting that there's more to be done, and simply being just wrong. Yeah. So again, but as a white person at that time, it's not my place to start going, “Well, actually.” There's so much pain like even is my pain in that is nothing. So all I could do is kind of absorb what this person was saying. And this person was trying to create like me, and just sit there and hold steady and say to my audience, look, yes, there was more than I could have done.
Yeah, there's more. There's more than I could have done. But I don't know what else to do. So what I'm going to do going forward is just keep trying my best. That's all I can do. And I look for ways to move forward together. And you reached out and you were so kind to me that day because I was able to do this and feeling guilty for a bit because so many of my black friends were in pain isn't even the right word. It's generational like rage and hurt.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:59
It is such a complicated emotion. Like, I don't think I felt something like that. I mean, I felt a lot of things in my life. But I think I've not felt the pain of coming out the way I felt it in that week. Right? That it was a release. And I remember taking an action in that week, that was probably overdue for six months, right because of an experience that I'd had. And I took action that week saying I will never work with this person.
I will never do this again. You know, but it takes it took that it took that moment of realising Hey, you know, this is meant to be a balanced playing field for everyone. You have in your mind that that, you know, you don't even realise where you get this belief from. So you have this thing displayed, this track running in your head which isn't allowing you to step into yourself and step into your pride and step into who you are. So so it's been an incredible journey and I love that that's the moment that I connected with you. Because you're such a bundle of light and opening so much space for so many people, and this is why you're on my show. This is why I have introduced you to everybody. So Dani, tell everybody about flying away Fly Anyway.
Dani Wallace 25:30
I think he's, I think when you meet people when I just kind of want to say when you do meet people in those situations when you meet them in love, yes, powerful things happen. And I think that was what I learned at that time. And it was a test for myself,. Could I hold space for anger directed at me that is righteous? It might not belong to me personally. But can I hold space for that person? And the answer was, yes, it was my job. If this all I can do is hold space for that anger, and say, You know what?
Just if I could, if I could be the sounding board for that anger, for now, while you're getting your thoughts in order, then please let me be your friend. And I love you. And I will accept that anger from you. And I think that was really that was what I learned at that moment is how do I do that? And it's painful for everybody. The whole thing is, you know, as people who believe that their allies suddenly realise that that again, that they the curtain is lifted, and they can start to see, actually what they've been privy to all along. Yes. And they didn't realise it.
So on both sides plus has been ripped off and like all of this stuff. So that's really what I learned. And during that time is how do you hold space for somebody who's angry, and anger might not belong to you personally, but it still belongs to you, it's still yours, you still got to absorb some of it and understand how to make things better. So and So yeah, I just kind of wanted to say that. The Fly Anyway foundation is very exciting. It's something that I've been wanting to create for the longest time; where, if somebody like you, for example, somebody really inspirational like you or somebody like me, had been able to look after me and really helped me with my mindset stuff properly, excited to go and read books and audibles and stuff, there is a degree of having to do the work.
But if I'd have had access to business services, or like things like website design, branding, photography, because I'm clever. I'm very intelligent, which in the corporate an incredible job for years and years, and knew how to build a business. But I was so on my knees that there was no way that I could afford to have a website build, there was no way that I could afford it. But I could barely afford to feed myself and my kids. So what I've done is I've created a foundation of social enterprise, where survivors of domestic abuse who are ready are able to come and access funds and support so that they can create the businesses that they really want.
Yeah, so often, when you are a survivor, you will want to create a new identity of yourself, not a different identity. But the new improved and galvanised version of yourself as sometimes that involves like your work, like what work do you want to do, and survivors often serve as well. So you'll often find that survivors are going to be things that coaches or they'll help people.
They might not have access to brand photographers, or business coaching, or mindset coaching. So what we're doing is we are creating (and this is a call to action tonight). We're creating a bank of ambassadors who are willing to either donate or discount their goods and services because it won't be the 1000s and 1000s of 1000s of people. Yes. And then we'll have a pot of money that will fundraise so that say, for example, you're a fledgling company, and you're really incredible at what you do. But you really want to be an ambassador, we will be able to pay you for your goods and services.
You know, we're able to support grassroots because grassroots businesses are so important. Now more so than ever. Yes, all this pot of money that will be available for us to pay for business goods and services for survivors of domestic abuse and domestic violence who are wanting to build businesses. So it's almost like we get to hold hands and lift each level. We just hope. Yeah. So we become a hub of small businesses and medium-sized businesses and micro businesses and big businesses actually reaching out a hand to those people out there who are ready to create and allow them the space to do it and allow them the funds to do it as well.
So the Fly Anyway foundation is on the search for ambassadors and we're going to be having a big sort of zoom meeting about that on the seventh of November. I don't know the eighth of November if I'm live.
Katherine Ann Byam 29:55
Awesome, so people can participate. How can people participate if they wanted to support the idea? So we, we have Charlotte saying, I'd love to be an ambassador, how do we apply it?
Dani Wallace 30:06
So we are just in the process of creating the invitation and space on my website where you can go and register your interest to be an ambassador. So before the end of the weekend, there'll be a space on the name of The Queen Bee website, where you can go on and register your interest. And then we'll send you an invite to the zoom. And it's going to be like a town hall at seven o'clock UK time. On Sunday, the eighth of November, we've chosen the eighth of November, because that was the day I was originally meant to get married. So that was the day that the wedding was cancelled. And also the day that I got homeless.
So I wanted to make that day a day where actually I took real action. So at 7pm on Sunday, the eighth of November's anybody who wants to be an ambassador, can either just make us make themselves known to me. Come into my world, follow me on socials for more information. And then in the next, say, in the next four or five days on my website, we'll be pushing out, how do you sort of sign up to come on to that zoom?
Katherine Ann Byam 31:05
Yeah, fantastic. So I'm absolutely willing to promote that. So when you're ready to send me the links. I will share it with everyone. And the last thing I guess is to tell us about your book. So So a little bit of story before we get to the book, right? So I think it was about a month ago, maybe just under two months ago, Dani just locked off the show and started writing this book. I have never seen someone turn around the book in what, two weeks?
Dani Wallace 31:33
Yeah, it was three and a half if you add for procrastination. Yeah, it was a book in two weeks is what I'd seen. So tell us about your new book.
Dani Wallace 31:46
So what I wanted to do so I wanted to create a book. So I've got a little book, which is like a how-to it's called “Closed Mouths Don't Get Fed.” It's just this tiny little book. So we're a public speaking coach. But because I share my story as a motivational speaker about everyone, really everything that we've spoken about this evening, about my story, where I come from, and how specifically, I overcame the years of generational self-sabotage, to go on to create a six-figure business in the online space, and all of that sort, all of their kind of the entrepreneurial. I've got successful businesses. It's nice. It's good.
And but I really had to do a lot of work on myself in order for me to do that. Because if you remember people Iike us don't go on to make a success of themselves. Right. So what I wanted to do is pull together a mixture of an autobiography that flushed out some of the talks that I gave it give a bit more detail a bit more background on why is that I do what I do. And then so tell the story of the last 12 to 18 months, because then that's when things have gone from that to this. Whereas now you know, you know, I am asked to you know, pass comment in the media on stuff and I am and I do sellout events now. And it is just, it's just phenomenal.
Yeah, so wanted to do not how-to but like a beginner's guide to getting out of your own flipping way. And, and I thought now more than ever, it's important because I think when you're in fear, and a lot of people have been in fear this year, and rightly so. Because if I hear the word unprecedented one time, I'll just I'll get vomit. But if I could give a survival guide to at least introduce how to get out of your own way so that you can create success and you stand up and say, “I am the queen bee too.” And that's what I wanted to do. So that's the premise for the book. It's called I'm the queen bee how. This is how I overcome self-sabotage and how you can, too.
And which released next Thursday you can't buy it yet to buy on Thursday next week because we've got a best seller campaign.
Katherine Ann Byam 33:57
Alright, so I will be tweeting and commenting and posting that everywhere next week.
Katherine Ann Byam
Wonderful. Any closing notes from you Dani on how people can find you, how people can follow you, or even get into your morning show. Tell my audience.
Dani Wallace 34:16
If you would like to come and speak with me and get ready for the day of the show, The Rise Up show applications are open on Friday. So please do give us a follow either you know on Instagram or drop if you're watching on LinkedIn, drop me a message on LinkedIn.
And even though I'm not super active on LinkedIn, I am in my inbox there so you can DM me. You can get in touch with me across the socials at The Queen Bee Dani and all of the kind of kickoff info will be on there so you can apply to be on the show from Friday. If you want to become an ambassador for the Fly Anyway Foundation, we’ll be banging that drum from Monday onwards. And yeah, I think you just come and get in my world. And I'm excited. I'm excited because I'm working with you too.
Katherine Ann Byam 35:02
I’m excited. So don't judge my public speaking performance yet. Okay. But as of last night, I am working with this woman to help me to be the best I could be, which is so exciting. Like, I can't, I can't wait to get roped into this. And the journey has been incredible for me. I mean, I can tell a little bit about that as well. But when I started in my business, I was afraid to be visible.
I was doing everything behind the scenes, right? I didn't want to be out there. And that's slowly changed, right? It's slowly changed from around this time last year, but it really changed from around April after I got over the shock of all my business going away with COVID. I suddenly realised hang on here. No, I need to show up here. I need to do something. I need to be who I am meant to be. I need to take space. And it's taken me a while. It's been a journey over the last six months. But I would have never imagined going live on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever a year ago.
Dani Wallace:
Oh, We’re having a chat on your podcast.
Katherine Ann Byam
Oh having a chat in the podcast - it's crazy. No the latest in the podcast is 17 countries now. So it's nuts and top 10 in eight countries. Like seriously, it's nuts. And I never would have imagined that could possibly happen. And that's been a journey of being prepared to put me out there. And it's like, it's not that I had any training, right? I just went, I just did it and now I'm gonna improve those skills. But yeah, but part of it is to just go. It's about courage and I like to say to people confidence is overrated. It's all about courage, right? It's more about standing proud in your courage and saying, “Hey, I'm out here, and I'm imperfect, but I'm still gonna do it, I'm still gonna push on.” And I think you embody that.
Dani Wallace 36:59
And that's a difference between people who make it in inverted commas. They're the people that are willing to do the thing that everybody else isn't willing to do--- that are willing to record that podcast and put it out there, that are willing to turn up live at eight o'clock every morning, that are willing to write the book, that are willing to spend all the plates of the incredible businesses, that you run, that are willing to put themselves out there invest in themselves. Confidence is a hat that you put on knowing and accepting of yourself. Confidence doesn't arrive one day people wait for confidence to arrive and it's not a step that you take. You take steps towards confidence.
Katherine Ann Byam 37:36
Yes, absolutely. So I hope we have inspired many people tonight. If not tonight I hope they all watch it on the replay. If you do watch it on the replay, hit #replay so that we know that you watched and you know we will post links so that you can follow Dani, etc. So thank you Dani for joining me. This has been an absolute pleasure. I love your energy. You lift my energy. So it's always a pleasure to spend that time with you. And thank you to everyone who's joined and asked questions and interacted with us. So see you next week for another edition of the show. Claudia says thank you very much. Fabulous. See you next week.
