I met Anna during a women tech workshop back in June, and since then we’ve become friends and allies in a journey toward sustainable change.
During our interview we discussed
Her motivation to become an ally for social equality
The key focus areas for sustainable development
Lessons learned in creating partnerships between NGOs and the For Profit Sectors
Anna Derinova-Hartmann is a passionate social impact and international development activist. She combines extensive experience in Program Management, Community Engagement, Corporate Social Responsibly and People Management.
Her purpose is to challenge social inequality and institutional barriers by empowering vulnerable social groups and communities through innovation and meaningful connections.
Anna, as she states herself, is incredibly lucky to have been exposed to various working environments and experiences: NGO sector, global corporations, social impact and tech start-ups. Thanks to this versatile experience she learnt a lot about the power of communities, social connections, mutual responsibility and open communication. While contributing to building and scaling numerous start-ups, optimizing and developing business divisions and corporations, Anna witnessed the ultimate value of cross-functional cooperation and human relations.
Anna is very passionate about supporting social impact start-ups and initiatives across the world, coaching and mentoring founders and women in Tech. She is consistently helping to leverage innovation in humanitarian assistance and international development spheres, as well as bridging an “artificial gap” (her words J) between corporate and social impact non-profits.
Anna loves her cats, her husband, reading, networking, engaging in challenging discussions with her Moving Worlds co-fellows from all over the world. She is very open to being approached on LinkedIn with any requests, suggestions, initiatives or just topics to chat about.
Welcome to our episode. Welcome to the show, Anna.
Anna Derinova-Hartmann 1:32
Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here. Honored since I'm a big fan of your podcast. And I'm incredibly happy to be here and be one of them.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:40
Thank you so much for saying that. I think the podcast has been a surprise for me as well, over the time that I've had it.
Anna Derinova-Hartmann 1:47
That's usually the best way you know. Once you plan, it all goes just boring, according to the plan. But the surprise usually comes the best.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:56
Absolutely. Absolutely. So I wanted to talk to you a bit first about your inspiration to do social impact work. I mean, when did you first think about becoming a leader in this space, and tell us about your journey to becoming an ally for social inequality.
Anna Derinova-Hartmann 2:13
Definitely. I actually consider my life so far on my professional experience a little bit of a computer game. When you go from one level to the other, collect achievements, and then unlock some next level, and you get to fight the boss demons. So that's exactly what my journey has been so far. I graduated with my third Master's from Central European University in Budapest and Hungary, which has always been the symbol of democratic values and freedom in Eastern Europe. And that already gave me a little bit of a feeling that okay, this is the field where I want to stay. But I will need very special tools and weapons and experience and knowledge to fight that battle.
To add to that, also my experience, studying at Northwestern, which has always been quite traditionally back in the US one of the democratic universities as well. So I found myself in Hungary when I finished with my education on the mastery level, at least. And that was exactly the time when the city was flooded with the refugee crisis when we had refugees stuck in a train station, not being able to go, not able to actually leave the place without proper food, without proper resources, not even proper hygiene and basic sanitary opportunities.
And then I just went there together remember back days with open society foundation volunteers, we just started sharing food, just talking to people trying to help them. And that was the first time when I realised that there is something the way the system is designed is not entirely okay. And I'm not a big fan of this phrase that the system is broken, I don't think it's broken. I just think that it's designed in a certain way that we might want to redesign. And then I got to work in order to design something right, you need the right tools.
So I started working with NGOs, especially in the field of partnership and cooperation with other stakeholders across and this is the first time when I saw how powerful the cooperation between corporates and the nonprofit sector can be. They just don't know it yet. And once I worked with NGOs for a while, of course, I got that first fever of “God we constantly chase the money.” And it's so hard to actually get enough funds to do all the good.
And I became curious. I'm always curious, I became curious to see how does the process run where the money lies, which is corporate. And, this is where I went next. I worked in a corporate for quite a while. I learned a lot about people and property management experience. And I acquired a lot of tools and knowledge there. Many people will say it's a heart-wrenching experience. The corporate kills your soul. No, actually it doesn't. It just depends. If you do have a purpose, and it's strong enough, it actually won't, it will enrich you because you get the right tools. And after the corporate, I moved over to working actually with startups.
And this is when I realised that one of my passions is working with social impact and social impact startups. And this is where I brought combined my people and business management experience, pro bono consulting, and support. This is where I learned how important it is to be empowering and supporting women, especially in tech. And this is also where I found an opportunity to channel how to, for instance, support refugees arriving in Germany, especially women, to find their niche and to also find an opportunity to work in Tech.
So that, you know, this what I meant by metaphor of a computer game. I feel that throughout my whole journey, which I'm sure hopefully only has begun, I've been collecting all those hidden coins, like Mario and I'm sure there are many more coins lie out there. But what I really learned is that, you know, the job experience might seem a little bit sporadic when you try lots of different fields, and then you feel, “Oh, but that doesn't mean I'm not consistent enough.” No, it doesn't mean that it just means that you try a lot.
You realise what you want, what you don't want, but every time you learn a lot, you get more and more tools into your bag. And then you carry that bag with you and you just become stronger in what you do. And your next journey. And next adventure.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:40
I love everything you said, I don't know which one to pick up first. But I'm gonna start with one. So you mentioned about systems being either broken or designed poorly. I love that. So what’s really coming out here is that we have systems that are designed for a certain outcome. And that's, that's a fact. That's what's happening in the world right now. And that outcome is not something that we realise that we want. So so it really takes a lot of reengineering, but it's a reengineering of our psyche. It's a reengineering of our way of thinking, our approach to the planet, even when we think about things like circular instead of linear. So what has been your experience in sort of pivoting that mindset in the places that you work?
Anna Derinova-Hartmann 7:28
And I would say that it's incredible and great that you mentioned mindset. And this is, I think, a very important starting point. This is what I learned. When Currently, I'm combining working in with corporate right now working in a startup, which is trying to turn into a corporate while working with social impact startups, refugee communities, working with the World Food Programme - that kind of startups as well. And what I see that all unites them is that exact mindset. But the mindset, which is very, very open towards changes towards improvement, you know, the worst that can happen if you want to.
If you want to change the world around you, you don't have to be here. You don't have to wear a cape, you don't have to have a Harvard Law degree. Go there and change the world. I mean unless you're Ruth Ginsburg. I mean she's one of the most badass women I've ever heard about. But what is really important here is your mindset and readiness to break the silos. The most dangerous part that I've seen, is when the silos are being created when one group, for instance, humanitarian people who work in the humanitarian field or in a startup field stop feeling exquisite, stop feeling special, and they just keep doing things because they have been done like that for the last 50 years.
Once that happens, you pretty much the social impact of such mindset is that maybe not dud at least, but definitely hibernating. So that's why I feel that there is such enormous potential and strength in this partnership between different bills. big corporate together with UN institutions, together with startups together with leaders, consultants. And it doesn't matter which one belongs to as long as there is this one strong purpose and the mindset that unites you. If you focus on that, there is so much you can learn from each other. There is no right or wrong definition of impact, right. It's just either there is one other is none. And at this point, I think as long as we remember that we can still hop on this train to you know, to turn a little bit of an imminent disaster that is coming - to turn it around.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:01
Absolutely. Again, more juice for the discussion. One of the other things that you just said as well, is about really bringing that mindset together in the social impact startups. And I found in my own work, and especially now that I've become an entrepreneur, become a startup myself, that actually, the easiest place to move is in the startup community. So even in my consulting work, I can influence more in terms of mindset, with companies that are just starting out to design, right, first time, I guess, as opposed to existing, well-established companies and even existing well-established NGOs. Because they all have a similar dated mindset, in some ways. So working with startups is so refreshing because they're open, just like you see. So it's so exciting to be a part of that movement.
Anna Derinova-Hartmann 10:58
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. But you know, funnily enough, what I also realised is that, if there is a way there is a possibility to bring this fresh, fresh air into a really existing and kind of established organisations, it is much harder but it is possible. And that's why for instance, I believe it is quite a tough battle too. For instance, by jumping on the ship of corporate social responsibility or community engagement in a big corporation, because right away, you need to try to understand what's the real motivation there? Is it marketing?
Or is it really something that the company wants to change? And but trust me, in my experience, even if it is marketing, I still strongly believe that there is a way to turn it around. Because in the end, you take these crazy resources that this organisation has and you start the conversation by conversations, step by step it will take forever, or for sure, but conversation by conversation, tiny step by tiny step by asking the right questions. And I'm a huge fan of asking questions. Well, exactly asking fantastic questions, by asking these questions, you will start very slowly, like waterworks with the stone, you'll start turning it around. But of course, that requires lots of hard work, perseverance, stopping this, if you will. But then the impact is enormous. Really?
Katherine Ann Byam 12:36
Yeah. No, massive, massive appreciation for what you've said, because I understand exactly the journey and I know what it feels like, as well as I feel the excitement of things changing, even if it's slow. Absolutely. So I wanted to ask one more question about these Sustainable Development Goals. So a lot of companies that are posting, their commitment to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, even countries and you know, the UK has this rewiring project, bridge, etc. Where they focus on six of these goals. Which one of these do you think is most important to move first? And why?
Anna Derinova-Hartmann 13:18
Tough question. Oh, my God. I mean, it's like in a candy store. Which one do I pick? Right? Well, I'm a big fan. Incredibly passionate, I would say I have my top three. My top one is definitely battling zero hunger. Is that something that I mean, that's the basics, that something without I mean, let's put it that way. I cannot expect a person or a human being to be fighting for democracy and rights if he or she has nothing to eat or cannot feed his or her kids. And it's just how it works.
And this way, I'm an absolute fan. And I'm in love with the workflow programs and everything they do and how they combine innovation, partnership management actually and humanitarian action. And my top two is responsible consumption because this is something that we can actually directly fix. Honestly, if we want to. I mean, if you, for instance, compare it to water or environmental, I think we're so far already by screwing the environment around us that it's very hard to turn it around. It's still possible, but it's incredibly hard with responsible consumption is something that we are directly responsible and accountable for.
And it's just if we don't want to change it, well, that's not so I think there's something we can do. And the top three for me is the third one is a partnership because I strongly believe that the partnership is the way to go forward. The partnership is actually the only way that the only way to do to achieve success is the quarter success and my purpose. Personal purpose has always been breaking those silos, as I mentioned, not creating them. I think the only way to get better at this is to establish a partnership.
And I would imagine exactly in this particular order - battle hunger, while we look actually how we consume to make sure that we're, for instance, reducing the waste, the food waste, and we see how we can partner with each other because we won't be able to win this battle alone.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:18
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. Finally, in closing, if you have any tips for social entrepreneurs out there who are trying to make a difference who are building eco-friendly businesses, do you have any tips for them on how to grow their businesses, how to have the right conversations, and how to generate interest?
Anna Derinova-Hartmann 15:38
Oh, absolutely. It's always easier to give a tip rather than to do it myself. I'm joking. Honestly, I would say, first of all, identify your purpose. Be very clear about your “why.” I've seen so many startups that were jumping into solutions because it's fancy to build a tech app. And they did not actually start with understanding the reality and ecosystem around them. Do not jump to solutions. And because a technical app is not actually the answer in the end, but most of the time, it actually isn't. Be curious.
I think every entrepreneur should be willing to understand how everything works around them and why it works this way. Very often, when you ask the questions when you are naturally curious, you'll get people around you. And you understand the reason why the system works much faster that way. And I would also recommend developing your product, whatever that product is in small iterations, and keep building on those. Because this way, you're more flexible, you can move 180 degrees, if that's needed.
And honestly, what COVID-19 taught us is that it's very hard to plan ahead about a week even. Do network and be brave, no one will do better marketing for you than you do. So just open up their talk, be it digitally or physically present. Hopefully, their physical presence will return again very soon. But be brave and network with people. And yeah, be open to partnerships and collaboration, because you're not alone. Fortunately, you know, COVID brought up actually so many social entrepreneurs and impact leaders and sustainable businesses that I think we're actually having much more hidden than we thought is there. And as I mentioned before, through this partnership, and collaboration, I think we can fix much more than we even dare to think.
Katherine Ann Byam 17:35
Wonderful. Anna, it's been a pleasure to host you on the show. I've loved this session. I think I'm going to be playing this back a few times. Thank you so much for your consideration. Thanks for listening.
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.
006 Creativity on Purpose - Finding Meaning in Work
About this Episode
I discovered Todd Henry during an online summit on Productivity, and I've followed his work ever since.
We had a great chat recording Where Ideas Launch - The Podcast for the Unexpected Innovator, where we talked about the privilege of finding meaning when many are simply are trying to survive.
Efficiency is overrated he said, and effectiveness contributes to real value in an organisation.
Positioning himself as an “arms dealer for the creative revolution”, Todd Henry teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of four books (The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, Louder Than Words, and Herding Tigers) which have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he speaks and consults across dozens of industries on creativity, leadership, and passion for work.
He's got a new book on the way. The Motivation Code. Tune in to our podcast on your favourite player today.
wonderful to have you. Todd, I invited you to the show first, because I love your work. My personal mission is to inspire one million people to transcend the very notion of work, replacing it with purpose and meaningful activity. I believe your book Die Empty expresses this very well. So I wanted to start with one question. You talk a lot about purpose, and that each of us has our own voice and needs to find it. Yet, as the world becomes more digital and inter-connected, it's difficult to slow the noise and find out white space and even earn a living once you found that white space. How would you go about guiding people who may be struggling right now to approach their search for decent and meaningful work?
Todd Henry 2:04
There is a really great question. I think so many of us right now are just struggling to survive, right? I think even the fact that anybody is able to ask the question, How do I find meaning and my work is an incredible gift. It's a blessing right now, because so many people are just trying to find work or just trying to hold things together. So I want to start with that really strong caveat. That, you know, it is a privileged position that we're even able to ask that question right now. So if you're not in that place, I don't want you to feel anything that I'm saying as a burden or feel as if it's in any way that you're doing something wrong. I mean, we're all trying to get through to the other side of this right now.
That said, I think that there are little clues that are planted in our lives throughout the course of our life that indicate what we're wired for the places where we're wired to add disproportionate value - I call that your sweet spot. And I'm not the only one that calls it that. But that's really what it is, I think it is. The sweet spot on the baseball bat is the area where if you hit it with the same force, you're gonna get more return. The ball is going to travel a far greater distance. And if you hit it marginally off the sweet spot.
And I think we each have a sweet spot. We have an area of maximum effectiveness. But many of us never find it because we don't look for clues. We don't pay attention. Instead, we morph and mould into whatever others expect of us, which I think in the long term creates a situation where we live our lives bounded by the expectations of other people. And I want to be really clear, I'm not talking about the advice of other people we trust. We should listen to the advice of other people, we need other people in order to understand who we are. But at the same time, we can't live our lives bounded by the expectations of other people who don't really understand how we're wired, don't understand who we are, what it is we're trying to do in the world.
I am of the very strong opinion that very few people in the world are being called to change the world, right. But I do believe everybody is called to change the world around them. So I believe that the way that we discover what we're wired to do in the world is by trying a lot of things, by seeking to be resourceful and add value to any place that we are. So whatever you're doing whatever's in front of you wherever you happen to be working or living or existing or relating to others.
Just try to add as much value any place you can wherever you are and just see what clicks. See what the patterns reveal about yourself. I navigated my way into doing what I'm doing now. But I didn't set out to be an author. I didn't set out to teach. I didn't set out to you know podcast into creating content and work with clients and advise leaders. I didn't set out to do any of those things.
They kind of evolved over time as I discovered the places where I was contributing the most value and I was using my gifts to serve others. So if you take that mindset of I'm going to bring as much value as I can, wherever I am, and add value and be resourceful, and then pay attention to the patterns, then you're going to navigate to where you need to be.
Katherine Ann Byam 5:08
That's really interesting and loved it especially the part about saying that it's a privilege to be able to look for meaningful work. And, and probably I want to take a little bit of a detour on that point. And ask about, you know, how can we, as businesses even create that meaningful work for our people?
Todd Henry 5:28
Yeah, I think it just even having the conversation is a pretty rare thing. You know most organisations aren't willing to have that conversation. They're not willing to ask people, whether they feel engaged, whether they feel motivated. Most research would indicate that full three-quarters, two-thirds to three-quarters of people are actively disengaged at work each day.
And a big chunk of that is because managers aren't seeing engagement as an objective necessity, or they see it as an objective, but they don't know what to do about it. So I believe that the first thing that we have to do is we have to have meaningful conversations with our people about moments when they feel engaged, moments when they feel disengaged, how are you feeling about the work right now?
Are you feeling like your core motivations are being activated in your work? Do you feel like the work that you're doing is challenging to you, but not too challenging? Do you clearly understand expectations? If not, how can I clarify expectations? Those kinds of conversations- we just let things go and we don't have we're not intentional about those conversations. But we have to be intentional if we want to engage the people in our organisation. And so I think that that's the first step is just having a conversation about how people are feeling and living and being inside of our organisations.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:54
Yeah. Now, that's really good advice. And I want to pivot a little bit to the sort of creative industry - the traditional creative industries. So the musicians, the artists that theatrical performers, so there is an idea that they might be facing an existential crisis. I mean, some politicians have even made some interesting comments about what these people should be doing right now in terms of looking for jobs and work. But yet, I'm somehow excited about the idea of bringing this type of talent or this type of specialist into a traditional organisation to help spread creativity. So what are your thoughts on how companies can go about increasing this cognitive diversity on their teams? Without, I guess, losing what they're good at in terms of efficiency?
Todd Henry 7:45
Well, I think efficiency is overrated. I believe efficiency is a mark, not a goal. Right? I think, you know, if we can be efficient and effective at the same time, that's great. But I will take effectiveness over efficiency any day of the week because effectiveness equates the value it equates to creating to accomplishing what it is we're trying to accomplish.
And so I think one of the reasons that we typically don't like to have a diversity of thought in our teams is because the way that we measure success as organisations is often how well are we managing our finite resources versus how much value are we turning those finite resources into for the people that we serve? And we have to do both. But I think we err on this side of maximising efficiency when we need to have people with diverse patterns of thought, in our conversations, asking, why are we doing this? And this is the right thing. And what if we tried this? And what if we tried that that's very inefficient at the moment.
But it can be very effective in the long term. We measure in snapshots, not intervals. We should be measuring in intervals of effectiveness, not snapshots of efficiency if we really want to produce the best value we can for the people that were tasked with serving.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:07
Great response. The last question I want to ask today is How can parents raise their children to be more creative at a time when interacting with others is limited and where they have to go through this digital noise? I see a lot of parents struggling with the balance between screen time and sort of playtime. But even these days, when you can't interact, what do we do with our kids?
Todd Henry 9:33
I think a couple of things. First of all, you have to understand what you're trying to do with your kids. Right? So I see our job as parents, my wife and I have three teenagers. And so we have one that'll be 18 here very shortly in less than a month. You're basically an adult right at least in age. You're our job is to create wise kids.
We want to instill wisdom in our kids, meaning we want them to be able to spot patterns and make good decisions based on their experiences. So in order to do that, you have to, first of all, you have to be able to spot those patterns, which means you have to be able to think deeply enough, not be distracted, constantly by whatever comes across your field of view.
So pretty early on in their life, like we did not let them watch TV for the first handful of months of their life. We didn't give them phones and just let them have devices at the table when we went to a restaurant to keep them quiet like we made them be present at the moment, we made them have adult conversations, and we're starting to see the fruit of that. Now listen, I never give parenting advice. Because the moment you give parenting advice, you're guaranteeing that your kids are going to you know, take a left turn and it's gonna turn out poorly. Yeah, because that seems to be the pattern.
But I think, you know, understanding your objective, what are you trying to do? You're trying to create kids who are wise. So we have family dinner every night, and we have conversations about what's going on in the world. We'll talk about politics, we'll talk about what happened that day, we'll talk about things we’re frustrated about, we're talking about things we're excited about, we'll talk about what's really going on with a pandemic. And we expect our kids to have a point of view, we expect them to come to those conversations with some perspective.
And I think again, what we're trying to do is model for them how we think about things and hopefully instill a bit of wisdom in them. Your kids get anxious when you shelter them from harm when you shelter them from bad news when you shelter them from all the effects of the world. Because the reality is, they know what's going on. They suspect what's going on. And when they don't when you're not telling them, it creates anxiety because they fear that things might be actually much worse than you're letting on.
So I feel like having respectful conversations with your kids and expecting them to have a point of view. Even if it's an immature point of view, that's fine, just but have a point of view. And then talking with them in a meaningful way about what's going on, I think creates a tremendous amount of runway for them. And I think it begins to instill a bit of wisdom in them. And I think that's our objective as parents.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:19
That's really fantastic advice. I'm so glad you joined us for this talk. Probably one last question, how can people find out more about you?
Todd Henry 12:29
The best way to find me Is it my website toddhenry.com. Or if you want to learn more about my new book called The motivation Code, you can visit toddhenry.com/themotivationcode/ and that'll take you to the assessment and all the work that we're doing on understanding what truly drives people.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:45
Wonderful. Thanks for joining us, and thanks for listening to where it is lunch. Thanks for listening. This podcast is brought to you today by the depot virtual service hub. The virtual service hub is our digital transformation strategy service that supports startups needing to optimise their processes and their performance to scale up the growth. We also help medium-sized firms and modernising their operations and Our services include sustainable strategy, analytics, and tech enablement. To find out more contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn
002 How to build a resilient business
About this Episode
Where Ideas Launch was curious to learn what inspires the world's #4 Management Thinker.
We asked Alex these 3 questions:
What’s your why – what question gets you out of bed every morning with a burning desire to solve it?
We know in our world today we have a burning platform of sustainability. What do you currently see as the role of business in solving these problems?
We know from your work that Innovation is heavily influenced by a company’s culture. What are the top 3 things that companies with a great innovation culture do to sustain that culture and expand their economic lives?
Dr. Alexander (Alex) Osterwalder is one of the world’s most influential innovation experts, a leading author, entrepreneur and in-demand speaker whose work has changed the way established companies do business and how new ventures get started.
Ranked No. 4 of the top 50 management thinkers worldwide, Osterwalder is known for simplifying the strategy development process and turning complex concepts into digestible visual models.
He invented the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and Business Portfolio Map – practical tools that are trusted by millions of business practitioners from leading global companies.
Strategyzer, Osterwalder’s company, provides online courses, applications, and technology-enabled services to help organizations effectively and systematically manage strategy, growth and transformation.
His books include the international bestseller Business Model Generation , Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want, Testing Business Ideas and The Invincible Company published in Spring 2020. To learn more about Alex's work you can subscribe to the Strategyzer news letter by clicking here
Innovation expert, Dr. Alex Osterwalder has created and tested tools for simplifying strategy development processes for businesses and emerging business ventures. He works by turning complex concepts into digestible visual models. Examples include Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas.
He believes that for a company to be truly sustainable, it must be able to solve a problem and create value for society, its stakeholders, and more importantly and ensuring that its employees have an optimal work condition, enjoy their work, and go home happy. There is a need for companies to transform themselves into sustainable models that are crisis-resilient and that is where their work comes in to help companies reinvent themselves through the innovation they incubate and launch at Stragegyzer.
Key points:
Technological Innovation can help businesses to be more sustainable
Business organizations must have a profound “why” that brings value and creates an impact on society
If a company is sustainable and crisis-resilient, it is able to serve its purpose and create value to its most important stakeholder, its employees
Katherine Ann Byam 0:02
Where Ideas Launch - The Podcast for the Unexpected Innovator.
We are all incredibly creative, but maybe we’ve forgotten how. I spent my career working with people from more than 150 countries traveling the world and experiencing cultures, and what have I found? Creativity is everywhere. We've got a gargantuan challenge facing us, as we need to redesign a more sustainable planet. This podcast explores modern-day innovation in the age of sustainability. I interviewed some of the most prolific thinkers, creators, and educators on their journey to create sustainable incomes and businesses. My guest tonight will teach you how to be creative, create business models and explore curiosity with the courage to level up in your career. Join me every Wednesday for a new edition of “Where Ideas Launch - The Podcast.” Welcome to our episode.
Dr. Alexander Osterwalder is one of the world's most influential innovation experts, a leading author, entrepreneur, and in-demand speaker whose work has changed the way established companies do business and how new ventures get started. Alex is known for simplifying the strategy development process and turning complex concepts into digestible visual models. He invented the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and The Business Portfolio Map - practical tools that are trusted by millions of business practitioners from leading global companies. Strategyzer, an Osterwalder company provides online courses, applications, and technology-enabled services to help organizations effectively and systematically manage strategy, growth, and transformation. His books include the international bestseller “Business Model Generation,” “Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want,” “Testing Business Ideas,” and “The Invincible Company” that was published in Spring 2020. So I'm excited to welcome Alexander Osterwalder to “Where Ideas Launch - The Podcast.”
So, Alex, you were ranked Joint No.4 thinker in the world. Your books are staples in universities and companies across the planet. And you are creating methods that change the trajectory and outcomes of many businesses. I believe that business leaders, especially the influential ones, have a burning unanswered question that propels them forward. Alex, I'd love to know, what's your “why.” What questions get you out of bed every morning with a burning desire to solve them?
Alexander Osterwalder 2:47
Good question. What gets me out of bed every morning. I just love what I'm doing. You know, making business tools to help people do a better job is something I really enjoy. You know, when we see people and companies who can innovate can't innovate. We ask ourselves. So what's still missing? What's wrong? We don't blame the companies. We don't blame the people. We ask ourselves. And when I say we, it's with my co-author, Yves Pigneur. We ask - what are the tools and processes that are still missing? - or unclear? You know, where could we contribute to help them do a better job, to create change, or to create impact. And then the fun part is once we kind of figure out the challenge, we try to work on it, we play around with different concepts. And then we prototype tools that we test with real business people out there and try to make them better and better. And we're very visual in the work we do. So then we write books around the tools around the topics, and it's just a fun process. And then, of course, it's very gratifying when you see people using the tools, reading the books, and actually making a difference. So that's what gets me up every morning.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:07
That's fantastic, Alex, we know in our world today, we have a burning platform of sustainability. And I don't just mean the climate. There are many levers of sustainable development, which include education, health care, water, and food for all, as well as general well-being the climate crisis. In your work, what do you currently see as the role of business in solving these problems?
Alexander Osterwalder 4:35
Interesting question. How do I currently see the role of business in solving these problems? I really think business can make a difference, you know, great companies, they create value in four ways. So number one, they create value for customers. And we shouldn't underestimate that. You know companies create new products, new services, that create value that advances the world. Then, they create value for their organization, for the owners, for the shareholders, and that is very good as value creation. But of course, that's not enough, right? That keeps companies alive. We also, you know, love companies that create value for employees, a really important stakeholder. And don't underestimate the impact, you know, you can have as a leader, or as an owner or CEO of an organization. When you have 10 people, 100 people, 1000 people, 10,000 or 100,000 people, and you create better working conditions. You create a space where people can enjoy their work every day and do their best work. You'll actually create a better world that will have a big impact. You know, happy employees will go home and be happy, and, you know, citizens in their families and happy in society. So that's very important. But then there's the third, the fourth one. And I think that area is extremely important, which is, you know, making a difference in society, having an impact in society. And you know, take the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, you know, he didn't settle for just building a company, the vision was to really, you know, have an impact on sustainability. So today, the mission of Patagonia is “we're in business to save our home planet.” So there, you know, they definitely, definitely make a difference, or Paul Polman, who was CEO of Unilever, you know, who reoriented the company, to focus not just on profits, but really on sustainability, and not at the expense of profits, but in harmony with profits. So I think that is very important and impressive. And I think you know, more and more, not just a nice to have, it's something that companies need to do, just to retain their employees and to attract new talent. Because today, you know, a lot of young people are, you know, great talents, they want to work for a company that they can stand behind, it's really making a difference. So creating value for society is something that's incredibly important for organizations. So those are four layers where no company can really make a difference.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:28
Alex, it's so exciting to hear senior leaders in strategy, recognizing that a happy employee is a happy business. You know,
Alexander Osterwalder 7:36
We spend a lot of time at work as employees. So those hours there are important in our life. So businesses who create a great work environment will really make a difference. And you know, take founders, like Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce, he wrote a book on, you know, the power of business as the greatest platform for change, he wrote a book called Trailblazer. And he really makes a case for businesses as a change agent. And I really do believe that you know, when, when we work on innovation and help large companies reinvent themselves, we also have to ask ourselves and strategise? Why are we doing that? What's, what's our “why” and the reason is not just to help them make more money or for us to have great assignments that are interesting and pay well, no, it's also and I think that's the main motivation for myself, it's to help more to create more resilient companies that you know, can survive a crisis. And that means, you know, having more stable workplaces, because when a large company has to layoff 10,000 20,000, or 50,000, people, as has been the case, you know, in some companies with COVID-19, that is very, very painful for the employees, and it's very costly for regions and governments. So innovation is something that can really make a difference, not just financially, it's really something that can create enormous value for society. So that's what gets me excited about innovation, you know, creating value for customers, creating value for businesses, and of course, creating value, you know, for employees to create more stable workplaces and ultimately, some of the great innovations they create value for the society for the environment. So if you take Tesla, its the whole idea of not just building it, you know, electric vehicles, but building a company that is transcending industry boundaries, and, you know, focusing on solar energy in general with rooftop tiles with batteries, in order to fuel the electric vehicles. That's a great, great case of an organization that is making a difference. And there are more and more of those. And that's what's really exciting these days is that you have leaders and businesses that really understand that they can make a difference in the world. And they can be agents of positive change. And that's exciting.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:22
Alex, thank you so much for that. You shared with us four great ways of creating and sustaining value in organisations, which is “focus on the customer”, “focus on shareholders”, “focus on employees”, “focus on society”. And this is the ingredient, the key ingredient to having a resilient company. Now, I know from your work that innovation is heavily influenced by a company's culture. I attended your Strategyzer masterclass in May.
What do you think are the top three things that companies with a great innovation culture do to sustain that culture and expand their economic lives? I'm very interested in how you have brought this into your work.
Alexander Osterwalder 11:03
Great question, how about the top three things you do to help companies sustain an innovation culture, we created something that we called the innovation culture scorecard, innovation, readiness. And there, we focus on three areas. And they sound kind of trivial when you mentioned them like that, but I'll give you some examples. So the first area is leadership support, you know, around portfolio allocation, the time that leaders spend on innovation, etc, etc.
Alexander Osterwalder 11:41
That's where leaders can make a difference, they need to invest in a portfolio of innovation initiatives. And not just one because in innovation, you can't pick the winner. Turns out actually that you'd have to invest in 250 projects in order to create one outlier. So when you're an established company, you need to invest in at least 250 projects to create a big success that can go into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, if you're a smaller organisation, that might be three projects to invest in to get one winner. But the ratio is that you can't pick the winner. And in the venture capital world, in the startup world, we know that for ages, because there is no venture capital investor that believes they can pick the winner, they've done this for a long time, and they still can't, so they invest in a portfolio, where one company they invest in, will create the return for the entire portfolio. So we need the same kind of logic in established organisation. So besides the execution business, the execution portfolio, managing the businesses that you have, you need to create a portfolio of innovation projects. So that's, you know, one of the themes in the first area leadership support, and investing in a portfolio and resource allocation. The second area is organisational design. So no company today doesn't have innovation activities. But mostly, it's innovation theatre. That's what Steve Blank, you know, the inventor of the Lean Startup movement, Rita McGrath, from Columbia Business School, myself, we call innovation theatre, it's for the show, there are activities there, but they're not real. So what you really want is to give innovation power, and that's a relatively easy thing to do. You know, so either it's the CEO who spends time on innovation, my favourite example is Bracken Darrell, who spends 40 to 60% of his time on innovation, or you need to have a co-CEO, who fully, you know, focuses on innovation. So a great example there is that Chinese company, ping on in finance and insurance, they transformed themselves to, you know, a company that transcended industry boundaries and became a tech player, when Peter Ma, the founder, said, we're gonna get disrupted, we need to invest in innovation. And he established a co-CEO with Jessica Tan, who focused entirely on innovation. So it wasn't somebody reporting to the CEO, you know, because then you kind of subordinate the innovation activities to the execution activities. No, it was at the same level of power. So it's very, very important that you give innovation power, either by having the CEO focus on innovation that symbolically signals that innovation is important. People will realise that it's not a career suicide to go into innovation, or the alternative is that you install innovation at the same level as the CEO. So both of these options give innovation power and signal to the company that it's very important. And then the third area of innovation culture is actually the easiest one. It's an innovation practice. So you need to establish the right tools and processes in your organisation, but also establish the right skills and experience. Because just like, you know, becoming a world-class manager, that you don't do that overnight. So becoming a world-class innovator, you know, you have to gain experience. I like to compare this to the medical profession, you know, a doctor, let's say, say, a heart surgeon, has to go through medical school, learn, you know, physiology, anatomy, for a very long time, and then become an intern, until you become a heart surgeon takes a lot of time, a lot of practice, the same in business, you have to learn the anatomy and physiology of business, to learn how it works. But you also have to practice because you can't learn business, from reading books, entrepreneurship, from reading books, innovation from reading books, just like you can't become a doctor or surgeon, just by reading books. So there are very strong similarities. So the right talent and experience in innovation is crucial, because it's a completely different profession than management. So those are the three areas you need to invest in leadership support, organisational design and innovation practice. And that's how you will help innovation become sustainable. In your organisation. It's fun, you know, to see with the Strategyzer, how we're getting into companies, and we do these assessments to see how companies are innovating or not, you know, they're performing innovation theatre. And then once you visualise that, the leaders really realise that they need to change, and they need to, you know, perform their innovation activities in a completely different way. So innovation, I think today's growing up is maturing, and companies are really realising that what was good 5-10 years ago is not good enough anymore.
Katherine Ann Byam 17:17
Alex, thank you so much for joining us on Where Ideas Launch - The Podcast. This session was so informative, so indicative of what makes a company strong and resilient. Thank you for all the work that you do. And we look forward to you joining us again in the future. Thank you, Alex, and thank you to our listeners.
Thanks for listening. This podcast is brought to you today by the Dieple Virtual Service Hub. The Dieple Service Hub is a digital transformation strategy service that supports startups needing to optimise their processes and their performance to scale up growth. We also help medium-sized firms and modernising their operations and our services include sustainable strategy, analytics, and tech enablement. To find out more contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn
000 Exploring the Question - What Problems Do You Want to Solve?
Where Ideas Launch – The Podcast for the Sustainable Innovator
Every one of us can be the change. In fact, everyone of us must. The most important thing we can do is stay in the question.
Where Ideas Launch aims to answer the tough questions of how do we sustain our world, by asking deeper and better questions. It aims to prompt change not by staying in the analysis, but by originating a new genesis.
This podcast:
Challenges the status quo: show you how to speak truth to power, in a way that sparks momentum for change.
Explore creativity from the eyes of educators, business people, entrepreneurs, and artists.
Examines sustainable business models, impact models and other ways to support the UN sustainable development goals.
Join us every week to look at our shared future from a new perspective, so that we understand the questions, that give rise to better ones.
Interested in reviewing your Sustainability Strategy?
