Managing in the Middle with Julie Nerney
Graham Allcott 0:07
My guest today is Julie Nerney. Julie is the author of Own Your Day new light on the mastery of managing in the middle. She's worked at the heart of government and played a key leadership role in the London 2012 Olympics. And she's also a Sussex dwelling Aston Villa fan just like me, which is how we first met. In this episode, we talk about the unique pressures of middle management and Julie offers some great advice on how to do meetings, how to disagree productively, and how to build trust and influence as a manager. This is Julie Nerney.
With Julie Nerney, how are you doing?
Julie Nerney 1:28
I'm doing very well. Thanks, Graham.
Graham Allcott 1:30
So we're recording this on a midweek morning as we start to exit out of COVID lockdown and make some of those transitions. what's been the last few weeks for you? What what's been your sort of experience of COVID and potentially post COVID?
Julie Nerney 1:51
Oh, the days getting lighter have made a difference? That's for sure. As long down in January, February was tough, wasn't it? So it was a combination of the days getting lighter, the vaccination rate rolling out? There's a cautious hope, I think cautious optimism.
Graham Allcott 2:07
Yeah, I'm feeling that too, which we definitely felt as Villa fans earlier in the year about our football season. And it seems to have dissipated our cautious optimism about Villa doesn't it?
Julie Nerney 2:17
Yeah, but short term ism versus long term ism. I think I think compared to last season, we're doing really well. Now the few buys in the summer will be grand.
Graham Allcott 2:24
Yeah. So and we kind of so we kind of met through Aston Villa. Right. So we're both living in Sussex and members of the Sussex Lions, which, whenever I've talked to people about Sussex lions, they just think it's just this mad thing. So do you want to just explain what Sussex lions is?
Julie Nerney 2:41
So Sussex Lions, that's a collection of like-minded souls with excellent taste in football, I have made the ridiculous choice not to live anywhere near the ground. So we have a kindred spirit of supporting a club that's 260 odd miles away. And so there's a nice social network and paternity of people who share the highs and lows being an Aston Villa fan. It's a nice place to be when you're a long way from Villa Park.
Graham Allcott 3:06
Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I really love about that, as well as it's the same. So I've got a season ticket on the whole tender villa. And like the guy who sits in front of me was quite senior at Cadbury's chocolate. And then there's another guy that I think worked at rover and yeah, those are like the most, I suppose those are the most stereotypical jobs that most people in Birmingham would do, right? But you have this like a real mix of people. And in Sussex, Lyons, there's every everything from like tradesmen to teachers, to social workers, and all kinds of different people who were all just sort of united by this love of a generally crap football team, right, who have got a bit better recently, by suppose I gravitated really naturally to you and a couple of others just because of the nature of a lot of the work that you've done over the years. We've had some really fascinating conversations about work before. But like, So my first question, because I'd love to talk about a couple of the jobs that you've done in the past. But my first question is like, how do you describe what you do? Because when you look at your LinkedIn profile, and everything else, like you've got all these non-exec director roles, you've been a chair of lots of stuff, you've been a CEO of lots of stuff. But like, there are so many different facets to you and what you do, like how do you how would you describe it if you're in a lift with someone
Julie Nerney 4:27
badly? It's the answer. I wish I wish I had the tagline at my other half tells me she picks this stuff is the shorthand, which is simplistic, but neat, I guess. It is the common thread, through all the different types of roles and sectors. It's about driving and securing change, but doing that in a way that's got kindness and compassionate at its heart. So it's about cultures. It's about creating environments that allow people to excel. So whether you're sitting on a board where you know, you're the most senior strategic guiding mind in an organisation and you're setting the tone, whether you're in there with your sleeves rolled up in a chief exec or an intern role, or whether I'm speaking or teaching or mentoring or coaching. It's that's the common thread. For me. It's about creating environments that allow people to be the best version of themselves. And yeah, I think that's, that's, that's the job of it all, isn't it, you do that and that's where the magic happens.
Graham Allcott 5:25
Once Harvey coattails character in, is it Pulp Fiction where he's like Mr Fox or something? And it's like, something's gone wrong. And it's like, we found Mr. Fox, and he's sorted out. So maybe you're like the Mr. Fox, Mrs Fox have sort of public and private sector.
Julie Nerney 5:43
Sometimes it's not all negative places. You know, I've done stuff which has been about organisations in crisis alternatives. Sometimes it's, you know, working with startups have got a really exciting new thing that they want to take to market or helping businesses who are on that kind of outgrown where they're at. And they're going on to the next phase of their development. So it's not necessarily it's why the fix it bit is a bit simplistic, but it is about kind of the catalyst for change, I think, yeah,
Graham Allcott 6:06
I will come back to the empathy and kindness. Part of that later on as well. I suppose a couple of the roles that you've done that I wanted to pick out. One was you were the head of transport integration for the London 2012 Olympics, or low cog as it was at the time. So you worked for on the Olympics for most of the year before, and then through that period, and just after the Olympics happened in 2012. So what was that, like? I'd love to hear more about that.
Julie Nerney 6:40
So I always say to people, it's probably the thing I'll be most proud of, because what a great showcase for the country. There was something optimistic and happy about that time, maybe there's with rose tinted glasses with the decade that's come since then, but I never want to work like that again, in my life, because it was so utterly and relentlessly demanding. I think, part of the challenge was when the Olympics set up, and you have the committees, you have all the different functional areas, and transport is just one of many. And you get your leadership team in place for years out, you lock down your plans for the year to go, you're good. And for a whole host of reasons. They've had a change in leadership. So they didn't get a transport director till not long before I joined. And I joined in October 2011. So we have 23 people, and we have 23,000 at the time of the games. So we had to do four years worth of work in a year. And then add to that, that our operation started early. Because when the athlete started to arrive from April and May and go into training camps, we were transporting people, then we had to run the operation converted all through the game. So I did 17 consecutive night shifts throughout the games in the Paralympics. And then you have all the knowledge transfer and the handover to the IOC. And you've got Rio in Brazil at the time, they're learning for next time. So it was fundamentally the most intense period of my working life. And it was just over a year, seven days a week, 20 hour days, me or my boss in tears at two o'clock in the morning going it can't be done. As long as one of us was in tears. It was fine. Both of us being in tears. But it would have been a disaster. But it but it and it's a great example of how you know, people think oh, I must be easy, because everybody wanted the Olympics to succeed. No, wasn't that easy. And transport in London? You know, a lot of my friends said that's career suicide, you know, don't touch it. So it was difficult stakeholder environment, there was a lot of politics. But I think it's a real lesson in the power of purpose and people to make the impossible happen. We shouldn't have been able to do that in a year. We really shouldn't have been fired, it went so well. We were all exhausted afterwards. But you know, there was there's a sense of pride, about being involved in something on that national scale as well. So yeah, there are lots of Tales I could tell from behind the scenes. Yeah.
Graham Allcott 8:50
I suppose the one thing just in terms of how we experienced the impact of our work, I'd imagine just because you had such a lot riding on every day and you're doing 24 hour days, did you get much of a chance, were there moments, while the Olympics were on where you could actually savour it and go, yeah, I played a role in this.
Julie Nerney 9:09
Yeah. And I think the organisation was very good at doing that. So for the opening ceremony, they did three dress rehearsals, where everybody working on the games, got to go to the stadium and see a dress rehearsal. And brilliantly, you know, Danny Boyle came out at the start and said, you could tweet, you could tell the world about this, but you'll really ruin it. And not three stadiums full of people never let anything slip about anything that came in the opening ceremony. So that was great. And, and we applied for balloted tickets, and if we got tickets to events, why the day I worked the night shift, I went to the park had a day watching the events, and then went back which was probably a bit foolish, but I just wanted a day to soak up soak up the atmosphere so that there definitely were real moments and moments of celebration in the team. You know, in the two week, handover between the Olympics and the Paralympics. There was time for us all to you know, high five each other who When we could do that, you know, in a room together and hug each other and all that kind of stuff,
Graham Allcott 10:03
actually, yeah, it does feel like like you say it does feel like slightly a bygone era already, doesn't it. But I remember, I got to go to the park for one of the days and just all of the volunteers that were there and like the atmosphere that they created, it just felt like you were kind of walking into this kind of world of just super positivity and just just the energy around it was incredible, isn't it?
Julie Nerney 10:30
Yeah, it's a very positive, wasn't it? It was it was wanting to showcase us to the world. And there was a pride and a pride, that kind of that can turn into kind of the the patriotism that flips the other side, but a warm pride, about about the things that about our nation. I'd like to celebrate in the NHS in the middle of the opening ceremony, things that are part of our culture and our DNA. I think so. Yeah. It was it was a great time, wasn't it?
Graham Allcott 10:54
Yeah. And you also worked for the Cabinet Office. And I remember talking to you about some of your tales, from just working at the heart of government as well. So tell us about that.
Julie Nerney 11:09
I have the utmost respect for civil servants. Because they are have that impartiality. They serve any minister in any government for what they need to do. I probably too opinionated to do that for a long period. And there are certainly some politicians I've enjoyed working with less than others. And
Graham Allcott 11:29
you're gonna name you can never name for us.
Julie Nerney 11:31
Well, I think having weekly meetings with Michael Gove was probably my development opportunity of a lifetime to have got through that and not actually have slapped him once. I think I still consider one of my proudest achievements.
Graham Allcott 11:45
That's amazing. Do you know what I really did not expect you to answer that question. So thank you for being honest. That's amazing.
Julie Nerney 11:51
I don't I don't mind as I said, I'm too opinionated. And I don't think I'll ever want to work for Michael Gove. Again, I don't think
Graham Allcott 12:00
I actually did some work that ended up being for Michael Gove. A few years ago as well, when I was in my my youth volunteering phase, and running student volunteer in England. And then after that I was I was a consultant doing work around youth volunteering strategy. And I ended up doing basically working on the policy that then became national citizen service. And so a lot of that got presented to Michael Gove and I only I was only in a room with him, I think twice or maybe three times. But like, just what an odd man. Like strange, just felt like a human who'd not had any of the same human experiences as anyone else.
Julie Nerney 12:45
I mean, there's something interesting about politicians about motivation. And honestly, we need great governments, we need strong democracies and it's a thankless task, isn't it? I mean, it really is. Particularly in the last year, whatever the opinion about the government and the choices they've made, it's just it's a tough job. But, I think there's a difference on there between the kind of people who are ideologically driven, and the people who are in it for themselves. And the thing, the positive thing about Michael Gove is he's got an ideology that he actually believes in. And actually then is somebody to work with and manage and try and influence, you know, there's a position where it is, yeah, are the politicians where it's about what suits them, and then they'll flip all over the place, because they want what will help them most. And that's both really hard to work with, and really disingenuous as well, given that the roles that they have. So, you know, I might not have seen it lie with him, but at least he was consistent.
Graham Allcott 13:35
Yeah, right. And you've worked, you've done a lot of work where you've been a chair or vice chair of various public bodies, including Brighton and Sussex University, hospitals, NHS Trust and Brighton college. You've also, as you mentioned, work with startups. You've worked in central government, you've worked in the private sector. Do you have any particular kind of lessons that you think any of those sectors could learn from each other? I can be interested in what what you've what you found as being fundamentally different in those different environments?
Julie Nerney 14:11
That's a great question. I think there's an element of complacency in easily funded environments versus urgency and those that aren't. There's a different energy that comes from size and scale. But that doesn't mean to say that you can't create that energy in larger organisations. It's just as organisations grow, they kind of bolt on lots of process, which, which sometimes limits things around them. But actually, there's more commonality than there is difference. And I often find this having worked in lots of different sectors, and particularly in my interim work, we want somebody who knows sector x or sector y. And you're actually what you want. Here is some leadership, some change management expertise, the ability to galvanise a team of people and get stuff done. I can learn about what you call things in this part of the world. You There is that parochial nature, I think sometimes in sectors that makes them quite closed to different expertise, which I think is can be limiting. But I think it's changing. And I think there's much more the challenges that organisations face, that there's much more in common than there there is of this different.
Graham Allcott 15:17
Yeah. And a lot of what you've done has been about creating change, leading change. And I saw a thing that you wrote recently, which is around productive tension, as well. So I'd love to talk a bit about that in terms of how people disagree. But just in terms of the change part, before we get into that, so what what do you think are the most important things? How do you approach change management? So like, when you're when you're sort of first in a new interim role, or your non exec director? How do you look at the situation, to then really set an organisation up for for embracing change in the right kind of way.
Julie Nerney 16:03
So there's the framing, and then there's what you do about it. So the first thing is always what's the outcome people are trying to achieve with big changes and change pokum. So get very focused on the inputs, you know, Gantt charts or milestones. And we're going to do this by when I kind of lose sight of the North Star and why they're doing and particularly for medium to longer term change programmes and transformations. The only certain thing about a plan at the start of it is that it's wrong. And I made that, with no judgement on the quality of the work that will have been done a bit some excellent thinking. But it's all based on assumptions. And unless you've got a crystal ball, for anything that's longer than six months out, how do you know what's going to happen, even if it's just unforeseen bumps in the road when you're delivering let alone any contextual changes or organisational changes. So there's something about being more relaxed about the input end of things, and letting the route to the destination be whatever it needs to be, you know, you might not need? No, you need to take a fork in the road until you happen upon that junction. But as long as you know where you're heading, kind of doesn't matter what route you're getting there. So I try and start to make sure the framings clear, what's the outcome we're trying to achieve? When will we know we got there? What does success look like? Let's let's not worry about how the route let's let's be focused on the destination. And then when it comes to actually doing it, it's about the how not the what if we countless organisations get obsessed with the world, we're going to implement a new IT system, lovely, shiny new boxes and screens over here. But nobody's thought about the change journey, people have got to go on the change of their behaviour. And they always leave the change bit till the end. Because that looks like a bunch of overhead and a bunch of effort and chatting and time when we want to be putting the boxes and the wires in or the process or the thing, whatever it is that they're changing. So you know, I say this all the time, half pound for every time I said this, I'd probably be very wealthy the how always Trump's the wall? Start with the how not the why the what will follow. So yeah, that's my kind of two, two principles. Really?
Graham Allcott 17:53
Nice. And then. So this idea of productive tension. So how, how do you deal with it where you've got people who perhaps disagree with the change? How do you deal with it, where you've got a board of people who disagree, like just the whole notion of disagreement, in our day to day lives feels like something that we're less and less comfortable with? So yeah, what do you think is important in terms of how we disagree?
Julie Nerney 18:17
It's interesting in there, there's some there's this desire for consensus and harmony. And there's this tribe that you see in society doing this kind of tribalism, you belong to your tribe. And rather than being able to appreciate other points of view, and slightly under to answer your question, I'm overseeing Armando nuccio, said this event bonds, were talking about fake news. And I had lots of great speakers. And he said something right at the end to say, we forgotten how to debate. When I was a school, I was told to argue a point for 10 minutes, and then argue the other perspective, we don't do that anymore. Yeah, we just route ourselves in our own opinions and our own perspective. So there's something about being prepared to see another person's point of view. There's something fundamental for me about curiosity, and being open to having an inquiring mind and not being defensive about closing things down. But I think how you make it work in teams is you're overt about it. And you kind of almost need to contract around how you're going to work and how you going to operate to create an environment that makes that Okay, so if I think about boards, where we've chaired, where I've chaired, I'm always amazed when I join a board, when I ask board members, what's the purpose of the board? And what's their role? I've never joined a board yet where that's common. I say, oh, who join for different reasons. They have different motivations. So what a bit like the outcome point, what are we here to do? And how are we going to work together to deliver that and part of that is going to be dealing with difficult stuff, we're not always going to agree. You know, we need that cabinet responsibility when we leave the room. And you know, if people have lost the argument that they'll still stand behind things, right. And so there's there's both variants and flavours on that, but you kind of have that conversation to say, what what does our value set what does our behavioural framework whatever you want to call it look like for this group of people? And then how are we going to hold each other to account for it? So again, voting About boards that I've taken on on that kind of journey, we contract around it. And then we, we start to create a culture of feedback, where we give each other feedback about how we're doing. And sometimes you need to start gently with that it can be anonymous surveys, but as a team matures, and you get the confidence of the challenges come in constructively from a place of respect that is grounded in the way you're working. You then end up in a place where you get to the end of the meeting, I used to have open sessions here, how do we do today? And we've had our six principles, you know, where we forward facing enough rather than backward facing? How did we add value to the work of the executive here? Because frankly, if we didn't, what's the point of us here as a board? Right? Did it did everybody's voices get heard? Was there enough dissent? In the debate? Was it too comfortable? And we actually asked each other that question, I mean, like, okay, to have that productive tension. So it's kind of creating a permission environment but you have to contract around that, and you have to be overt about it. Because, otherwise people bring in their own preferences, their own motivations, their own kinds of things, and you don't have a common common goal to focus around.
Graham Allcott 21:02
Yeah, I love the idea that, to have productive tension. And to have a healthy, you know, debate and disagreement, you kind of have to work at that for it to be for it to be an environment where that's going to be constructive at the end of it. Otherwise, let you say people bring in their, their own ways to disagree, that would be less healthy. But yeah, the idea that you've got to kind of work at creating the right kind of environment to be able to disagree, that's really interesting.
Julie Nerney 21:31
Well, it's the culture, the culture of that team, isn't it? And in some teams, you want to actively, you know, think about the kind of startup environment, you almost want to actively create, create that dissonance because you want new ideas, and you want iteration and evolution and, and a really pointy challenge in other environments, you might want a productive tension that looks a bit different. So it's being conscious about the culture you want for that team in that organisation at whatever point that team is. And that organisation is in its lifecycle. Right? You need different things. Yeah, times.
Graham Allcott 22:02
Yeah. Interesting. There's loads of stuff in your book that I'd love to talk to you about. So you've written this book, with Diana Marsland called Own your day. Which, yeah, really interesting. I only just got sent it recently. So I've been kind of scanning, scanning through bits of it. But what comes out over very quickly is that it's a book, very consciously written for middle managers. And I'd love to just hear more about what you think are the particular challenges of people in middle management roles. And why was why was that the focus, you know, for this book,
Julie Nerney 22:39
so I have to give Diana credit for this. So I've always wanted to write a book, but I've never got around to it. And Diana approached me really passionate about doing something purposeful and practical for people in middle management. So she'd also been in non exec roles and lots of organisations and she was trying to help her realise she could only reach the odd group of people. And she's like, if I could write a book, I can reach a wider audience. And she was convinced that the powerhouse in organisations was stuck between strategy and delivery, and kind of demands from the top trying to manage the team always on culture, and how could we do stuff that kind of liberated people because that's where the potential in organisations were. And her enthusiasm was infectious. I was really keen to do it. And the other thing that struck me was, she was absolutely convinced that we had to ground this in research with our audience. So we brainstormed what we thought the barriers were for people managing in the middle of organisations. But then we went out and did primary research. Well, when I say we, Diana perfect team, we have complementary skills driven. And so she went out and did the research, focus groups, surveys, got lots of data came back, told us it was some things we were right, but some things we were completely wrong on. So one of things I really pleased about the book is it's grounded in research, it's grounded by what managers told us if we could solve these things, that would help kind of release our potential. And it's always a risk when you do that, because you might get stuff that comes back to him, if we've got anything to say about those things and stuff that we can write about. But it falls broadly into into into two sections. So one is about the environment that managers are having to operate in, you know, the increasingly ambiguous and changing world of work, and what that what that's doing in organisations and how they navigate it. And then there's the second section is all about people and how to get the best out of themselves and others kind of bit like we're talking about the top of this conversation really to get the best out of themselves and their teams. So I'm really pleased that it's grounded in what people told us that they wanted. So yeah, there's a four themes in each of the two, two categories.
Graham Allcott 24:41
Yeah, so you did research to to look at what people were actually struggling with around middle management versus what you thought they might be struggling with. And you said that there was some things that you were surprised by or things that you were wrong about. So I'd love to hear more about what those are. So What particularly surprised you when when the research came back?
Julie Nerney 25:03
So what surprised us with the some of the things were much more what I would call timeless challenges. So we were expecting it to be much more about, you know, 21st century working, et cetera, et cetera. But actually, when you looked at the themes, that perennial challenges that have been around for decades, actually, you know, all about kind of ownership and influence change, leading teams, creating cultures, that they've existed in time immemorial. So of course, the world of work is changing the way we might deploy, some of those things are different, but it was much less kind of topically focused, if I were to take immediately, topically relevant and much more enduring, which actually gave it more appeal. Because it was, well, actually, we need to, if we solve crack these things, then we're cracking them for a while, because I've been around for 30 years or so. So I think that that was quite different. I think there was also something came up really strongly was about meetings, or bane of people's life. I mean, when we did the first set of research, and people were spending two thirds of their time in meetings as we went through lockdown, and we were validating with larger sample sizes, some of the themes that had shot up to to closer to 80, and 90%, you know, zoom culture, everything being structured, conversations not being able to happen. And that felt in the context of some of the other content in the book, really quite tactical. But it was such a big thing that came up with everybody we spoke to without we cannot, we cannot address that. And we you know, each each theme, the idea of the book is it's very practical. So it should be easy and pithy to reach in and out of and then more information to come. If we'd known about how to fix meetings coming before we went to print, we could have signposted you.
Graham Allcott 26:41
Well, maybe Yeah, I'm, I'm not always that good at my own self promotion, in fact, having a team of people who have given myself permission, but I still miss lots of those tricks. But let's talk a bit about meetings then. So what I noticed from that section of the book, because obviously I gravitated there, you know, fairly quickly is that we're very much on the same page about a lot of this. But let's talk about some of your, your your ways that you think people could really approach meetings in a better way.
Julie Nerney 27:10
Well, I think there's something here It started with purpose, which kind of a theme in this conversation really, isn't it? I've talked about outcomes and clarity, and how many times we will find ourselves in meetings, we go, why are we here? My favourite sport is adding up the cost of a meeting. I sit in the room, and I think a rough hour rate if you're here. And we're all sat here for two, three hours is a really expensive meeting. And actually about your point about sectors, it's something that public sector are really bad at. So particularly because on one hand, we it's needed to do collaboration across organisational boundaries. But everybody comes I mean, there were some meetings in the education sector, I was in a room with literally with 50 people. Yeah, very senior people very expensive. So there's something about purpose for me about why we're doing it. Why we here and outcomes I have, you know, I'm busy. As you intimated already, I added up last week, I did 63 meetings. And that's dreadful. But I go through, I don't add it up as an absolute, I go through and I go did each one of those meetings, drive something forward, resolve an issue or add value. And if they don't, I stopped going to them. So I don't mind being in meetings, if it's purposeful, but that that is where it starts. For me. It's not purposeful, that that's what's irritating to people, I think, at the root of the feedback that we're getting in there. And then you get into style and kind of how you manage the meetings and all those kinds of good things. But it starts with with the purposeful meeting.
Graham Allcott 28:34
It starts with purpose. And I think purpose is like a two fold thing, isn't it? So the meeting has to have a purpose in terms of what we try to do and what's the outcome. And then there needs to be a purpose as to why each of those people is there. And what you're doing there is actually the work that the chair should be doing often in those meetings, isn't it? It's like you're working out if you added value, but really the chair of any meeting should be looking down the list, and making sure that every single person has a reason for for being there or a specific thing that they're going to contribute.
Julie Nerney 29:05
And this routine isn't there. There's that Read Across and particularly something Diana and I see in the NHS all the time. Last month's agenda becomes this month's agenda. It's like, No, no, do we need to do that again? I was in a team meeting yesterday. We've been doing them fortnightly for six weeks, and we weren't How's it going? And we have a we have a feedback at the end of every meeting has this work? What do we need to tweak and change? Yeah, we always do you know what? We don't need this more than once a month. And they don't need it to be more than 90 minutes. Let's count it. Great. Great.
Yeah, it's like doing this becomes routinized and habitual, doesn't it?
Graham Allcott 29:38
It's like the art of killing sacred cows, right? Because the chances are most of those meetings they get started by a manager or a group of people who for them, it's like their baby is their pet thing. And then if that person has left or whatever, it just becomes a thing that everybody sort of collectively owns. And then it feels sort of wrong to just let that go. But Actually, it's one of the most powerful things you can do, I think in organisations is, is give people the space to just so we follow into productive the brewdog Mantra. So when a brew dogs corporate values is smashed shit up, and because they're like punk, right, that's like their punk ethos. But we take that really literally, we're not literally as in, we don't smash up the room, but like we, you know, we apply that across the board with everything that we do. So, once a year, when we do our strategy thing, we have a little session where we go through and we look at the meetings that we're doing, or initiatives that we have, or products that we have, like, right through to what we deliver for clients to everything behind the scenes, and just have that mentality that like, nothing is sacred. Like, everything has to have a purpose. And if it doesn't, we can get rid of it. And it's it's incredibly powerful, you know, just like you say, the cost of those meetings, if we do that with one meeting, but it's a once a week recurring thing. That's a huge saving of time over the course of a year and money and resource, you know,
Julie Nerney 31:03
but it's about creating, you've created a permission environment where it's okay to do that. Yeah. And it's about a recognition that organisations aren't static things, they're responding to their environment, they might be changing strategy, they might need to deliver different things, yet, we still pursue the same tools to do different outcomes. It's not actually you know, they're not they're not static. And I was talking to somebody this morning, looking at governance for a board. And you know, an organisation that has been through crisis is now coming out the other side. So the way the governance had to work this be completely different now. But But people don't want to let go of what they used to be doing because they're comfortable with it. Now. It's, it's the new norm. And so you have to create that permission during that opening. They say, No, we're gonna start thinking about what we need. Now in order to make it to make it productive again. You said something in a couple minutes, one of your emails or books about if you're not saying no enough, you're probably doing stuff you shouldn't be. And I yeah, people.
Graham Allcott 31:59
Yeah, it's like, if the way to know if you're saying no, regularly enough, is if some of those noes are a bit uncomfortable. Because if everything that you're saying no to is just a really easy, straight, no, then you're probably either still taking on too much. Or you're not creating the space for the stuff that matters even more. And so like the art of the uncomfortable, no, I think is a really, it's a really important art in business. Right?
Julie Nerney 32:29
Yeah. Well, people talk about prioritisation, but they never talk about what they're going to stop doing. Yeah, yeah, we need to create some space for something different, don't
Graham Allcott 32:37
we? So we need to start with no, indeed, the other thing people talk about is like, I've got 15 priorities. Right. And I just think that means you have no priorities.
Julie Nerney 32:51
Yeah, and also people who say, I've got this for the next three years, and it'd be kind of go back to my change point, really. And certainly, you know, my approach to delivering changes, we do what's coming up for the next three months, and then we look at it again, because you've got to be course correcting all the time, haven't you? I mean, it can be uncomfortable for people to do that, you know, we work with teams where I'm working on a project at the moment, and we're our 16th version of the approach that we use to support change, because we're constantly curious and feeding and learning and stopping and smashing it up where we need to and starting again, and for people who like that, it's great, because they're curious, and they like to be outside of their comfort zone. But for some people, they find that completely exhausting. Yeah, because it just, I just, can we just stick to something for a while longer. And yeah, keep going. So
Graham Allcott 33:36
yeah, I I definitely have an energy about me, which is very curious. And, and sort of relentless. And I know that that drives some people in my team insane. Sometimes as well, who are much more, they'd much rather, like, you know, manage things and maintain things in a really like beautiful way, then be constantly changing those things. And I'm always sort of pushing for the change and the optimization, making it better and all that sort of thing or like changing my mind and ditching things. It sounds like you're also often the sort of the hide in curiosity, right. Like, that's the thing that comes naturally to you is to question everything and to be curious. So do you ever find there's like a downside to, to your curiosity, when, when you're when you're brought in somewhere? Do you ever find that like you're questioning the wrong things or questioning too much?
Julie Nerney 34:31
Yeah. And it's always about balance. And so it's about seeking feedback, I think so I try and make sure when I start somewhere that I do a feedback check in after a week after a month, after three months, I get some soundings about how it's landed. And somebody I worked with said, if it wasn't for the fact that I was a people centred individual, that kind of curiosity, drive and energy would be exhausting teams. So you have to do that. It's the how being more important than the wall again, you have to do that with people front and centre and how You take them on that journey, as it's just intimidating and demanding.
Graham Allcott 35:04
Yeah, indeed, yeah, one thing I'm talking about a lot at the moment with my work on kindness and stuff is the idea of truth and grace. So, yeah, you need to be driving through the truth of the scenario. But also, you've got to do it with a very people centred, you know, kind approach at the same time,
Julie Nerney 35:25
and compassion, you know, that's another project people I work with, are saying the only certain thing about that lovely Gantt chart is it's wrong. You know, they want to do 12,000 lines of a project plan. And you try and explain that things are going to iterate and change. So if we're going to iterate and change are frequently going to spend your whole time updating our plan, we're probably going to drive you nuts. But they'll still go, No, no, no, but I want to do that. And then the third time, they've updated it, they go, you know what, you're right. We only need that level of detail for the next few weeks, don't we? Because it's all going to change. So you have to have the compassion and kindness to let them experience themselves telling people doesn't work. I think people learn best through experience. So you can you can frame it. But it always it's always better when people get there themselves.
Graham Allcott 36:06
That's, that's such an important thing. I remember my my first job out of university was back working for the University on student led volunteering projects. And we used to describe it as what we're providing, as the staff team, who are supporting these student led projects is we're creating the safe space for them to make mistakes. And there's something really important about that, I think is is you know, allowing people to really sense it and feel it themselves. Rather than just being like, well, I did this before. And I know I know how to do it. So
Julie Nerney 36:38
it's fair, all the learning comes out. It's possibly a bit trite, but I always say to people, we failed, we didn't fail, we learned something that there's no failure ever, just learning. And I think about my early career as an entrepreneur and the business that went bust, I learned way more from that than any of the ones that went well. Because the rest of it, I could just have been lucky. But there's something and actually, it's one of the themes in the book about people fearing mistakes, and how people cope with setbacks. Because if you're not naturally curious and going, Well, I'm going to bump up against something, see where it takes me, it's gonna take me in a different direction, that's fine. Or I've tried that and it didn't work. Or I tried that I pitched it in an organisation and I got a knock back and I got a no, there's something about how you, you need to be able to respond to that to create an environment, which gives you permission to be curious. And I think it's one of the struggles for people managing in the middle of the organisation, they don't have the time and space to do that, or the confidence, or you know that they don't work for an organisation like yours, where you create permission for people to try things and learn from them. You know, it's a real challenge, I think, in the world of work.
Graham Allcott 37:42
For sure. I can't let that previous bit go without asking you. What was the thing that you learn about your business that went bust? Oh, what did you
Julie Nerney 37:51
cash? cash is king?
Unknown Speaker 37:54
Oh, yeah, there we go. I
Graham Allcott 37:56
should have known that one before
Julie Nerney 37:58
is the simple answer. Yeah, we've been trading for for five years ago, we were very young, paying ourselves too much money having too much fun not keeping enough cash in the, in the organisation. And but I've worked with a supplier over a period of time to get a bunch of cash together for a big launch for something and we handed the cash over to the supplier, they went bust the next day, we literally turned up at their office and there was no answer, why wiped our entire cash reserves. So you always need more than you need. And
Graham Allcott 38:24
they go, because that's your lot of businesses go bust not because they're not profitable, but just but they run out of cash. And and I think before you run your own business, you don't quite recognise the difference of those two things. Right. So the cash flow was also really difficult when you're, as I as I found, because we did the approach of bootstrapping. So we didn't have outside investors, we didn't borrow from the banks, we basically just ploughed all the profit back into the growth, right? But what you find is, the hungrier the growth, the hungrier your cash flow is to just hold the money there. And so you have this kind of double thing of, you know, like what, like wanting to have that money in the bank so that you can grow, but also, you're probably under pressure to increase people's salaries and to start paying yourself and all that or invest all at the same time. So it kind of feels like in those early years, like bootstrapping is, bootstrapping is sort of cruelly and doubly hard because of the sort of needs of cash flow, right?
Julie Nerney 39:28
Yeah, yeah. Really hard.
Graham Allcott 39:30
Hmm. Anything else that you learn from from that failure, and
Julie Nerney 39:36
spreading yourself too thin. So we started with a business, my first business we started in the music business. And so we had a management company, a publishing company, a record company, we had like four different arms of one business, trying to spread yourself too thin across different things, you know, build something and then consolidate it and then build from there, and that there's a pace to growth. I think And somebody says it depends on the sector. You know, if you're in fast moving technology business, that pace is completely different to to other sectors. And this I'm afraid is over 30 years ago now, and I'm talking about Greg's change, you know, I handed out flyers, and there were cassettes. I mean, you know, yeah, this is how old I am. So, so So of course, the world has changed. But there's something about the pace of growth. And you can grow too quickly. And that's where companies went out of cash. I think when you when you over trade like that.
Graham Allcott 40:28
Yeah, as I listened to thing the other day with Stuart Lee, the comedian, and he was talking about how how different it is for new comedians now, because it's all about your social media profile. And he was kind of saying, you know, when I was starting out, if you if you arranged a gig, the way that you'd spread the word is you'd photocopy something and stick it on a tree. Yeah, exactly. I totally relate to that. Because like, my teenage years, where I was, I was organising gigs, and running a fanzine and stuff, it was all it was all about the photo copiers and the trees, that was literally how you how you promoted stuff back in the day. And then I'm kind of nostalgic for it to be honest, because it's just like, just feels like so much simpler than Instagram reels, and everything else.
Julie Nerney 41:11
I'm reading a novel at the moment, there's a great line in there is talking about Irish history for a little while ago, when electricity first came to a village, and the person who's reflecting back on this period in their life says, I wonder if we're now in a new century. And it's lovely if you get old enough for your youth to become a fable of the past. Some other ways of working, which are so archaic now, you know, I talk to people about me and one of my first jobs, but there was a typing pool is dictated later, get sent to a typing pool, then it will come back to me by the time you did corrections, it might get sent in a week. And people look at me like I'm making it up. Okay, I'm now old enough for my early working life to be a fable. This is interesting.
Graham Allcott 41:52
Although I have to say I was on holiday in the north west of Ireland, two summers ago. I think it was two summers ago. But I drove past a genuine sign that said internet this way. And I would like genuinely have like two years ago. So yeah, we we shouldn't say that. It's all it's all solved. And it's all
Julie Nerney 42:13
relative, right?
Graham Allcott 42:14
Yeah, for sure. Couple of other things I wanted to talk to you about from the book. So you talk about influencing in the book and power. And, you know, having worked, as you have, you know, on boards, in politics, in big public events, and also in startups and different private companies and the NHS and various places, you must have a lot to say just about what power is. And I was actually thinking about it that power is, in some senses a bit of a taboo, because I just noticed as I was reading it in the book, I thought, I don't think I've ever talked about power on beyond busy before. So what's your what's your sort of reflections on power from the various places you've worked?
Julie Nerney 43:04
And I think it's interesting, because it'd be come from our own perspective, right? So I don't think about power. I don't think about status. I don't think about hierarchy, partly because I created my own environment. And partly because I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I carry that batch. And we forget all the time, the importance that has to people in organisations, you know, I mean, I'm working in organisations, though, it's 700 people. And there is that that's what the exact says, or that's what my boss says. Whereas Of course, when you're in different environments, where power is more distributed, you don't notice it so much. So I don't think about power. In that sense, I think about influence, but people talk to us managers definitely spoke to us about power in the research matter to them, probably where they are sitting in organisations in the middle there, where they're feeling power, less, in some respects, kind of being asked to do both. But you know, that horrible place where you have responsibility, but not accountability, necessarily. Yeah. And so there's something for me about what's changed for organisations is they have the illusion of control because it was always an illusion. And over the power they have over their reputation and their people is gone. Because it's not just about structures getting flatter. It's about social media. It's about opinion being out there. It's about information exchange, and channels being more free. But it's also about the increasing need, I think, for collaboration across organisations. So the power dynamic is softer. It's not about hierarchy. It's not about this person that instructs me. Old Fashioned No, that is anyway, it's about how you win hearts and minds around common goals and common purpose, because organisations just don't work in isolation anymore. They work in communities, either competitive or reciprocal community. Yeah. And so there's something different for me about that. That's something that's very much changed in terms of the context and work certainly in the 30 years that I've been at work, but still in big organisations, hierarchy matters, status matters where people are on an org chart. And for your I suspect that's almost on a map alone. It was a helpful reminder to That that was something that people were still struggling with?
Graham Allcott 45:03
Well, it's something that I'm conscious of when I go into organisations, right? Because then I have, then for that day, I have to respect that hierarchy and be be conscious of what I'm saying about people in those hierarchies and so on. What do you think are some of the ways that people can sort of adopt more like the new mindsets around power and perhaps, you know, build up that influence, even if they're not at the top of the hierarchy?
Julie Nerney 45:31
Yeah. So it's all about networks and relationships. And this is something I learned way too late in my career, because despite how chatty I am on the world's worst networker, I mean, I really hate being in a room with people. I don't know. Like a wallflower going, I've got interesting things to say nobody, I don't want to go into a conversation.
Graham Allcott 45:48
Well, that really surprises me from what I know of you. That's, that's really surprising.
Julie Nerney 45:52
Now I hate it. people I know. Or when I've got public speaking fine, I've got something to say. And then people come to you, when I have to go up and initiate a conversation with somebody. I find it really, really hard. And so I was really late to the power of networks and, and collaboration and I think networking and organisations finding touchpoints, finding the people who can open the door who can smooth away who can just be a sounding board for you so important, particularly in larger organisations, yeah, second becoming networked. You can do it through formal groups, you can do it informally through people, you just, I was gonna say bond with over the watercooler not that we've done that for a year or so. But so there's something there. And there's something about how organisations can enable this by just devolve in decision making, taking out the people who are furthest away from the problem, or the least qualified to know the solution to it, right?
Graham Allcott 46:42
Yeah, for sure.
Julie Nerney 46:43
Yeah, it always goes that way. Not that way. I'd love to turn organisation charts on their, on their head, because of people at the frontline, whether they're answering customer service call or whether they're doing something operation in your business. They hold your reputation in your hands got nothing. Exactly, yeah, some people at the front. So how do we devolve decision making? How do we get more voices heard? Because we just get better outcomes that way. And it disrupts it makes disrupting the power dynamic, an easier thing for people to do if they're wedded in, and kind of status and hierarchy.
Graham Allcott 47:16
And what's that about practically? Then? So I mean, back to the thing you talked earlier about creating the right kind of permissions and spaces for feedback? Is that is that a big part of it? or How else can we try and get that decision making? You know, more devolved?
Julie Nerney 47:31
I think it is. I think it's about listening. You know, when people talk about influencing, they always think about what they're going to say not what they're going to hear. And actually too much people go in with their pet actually find out what people want, find out where the problems are. Its frame. Yeah, there is a particular challenge when I was working on the games, which we don't have time to go into, but it was an impossible ask. And I thought the only way I'm going to sell this is to find out what everybody else wants to go listen, be curious, ask open questions, don't tell about what you're going to do. And then frame what you've got, in a way which is going to meet their needs. So implementing starts with listening, not working.
Graham Allcott 48:08
Yeah. Which I guess brings us back to just as we started this conversation, we talked about change, but doing that in a way that is very people centred in heart centred and centred empathy. And you talk also in the book about the idea of trust being the glue. So is that something that you learned how to do or is that something that was very innate to you and came very naturally to you?
Julie Nerney 48:35
So I learned it the hard way. And so I've always been sociable, and I'm definitely an extrovert. But when it came to work, I was very task driven, not people driven. So non classic kind of, you know, put the underpants on the outside your trousers exhort people run up a hill exhort people to follow, you have all the answers, all that kind of thing. And I worked in a ridiculous way, a stupid pace until I burnt myself out and fell over at some point. And, you know, people started to have a mental health crisis or a breakdown. I don't know what it was, but I slept for six weeks, I was exhausted, right, I had all the physical hallmarks of it. And it forced me to really look at what was driving me to work the way that I did. So it doesn't mean that any of the practical skills or the task output or the delivery was bad. But what was driving it didn't come from a centred place. And actually, when I when I learned that, and I anchored myself back, you know, I think authenticity is just another buzzword. But I really understand what it means to be your authentic self. And it seems to be a work me and a personal me. And now there's just me, and I bring my whole self to work and have good days and have bad, I don't have all the answers. And I start with people. I don't start with the task. And that fundamentally fundamentally changed my working life in the last 20 years. And it's so important for me to start with people where they're at their motivation, what they want to get out of their work. And then give them an experience it's going to do that. And so it's I've become so passionate about really, truly authentic leadership and cultures driving performance. It's not a soft subject is a hard subject. It's like cash. It's like assets, right? Yeah, the culture, right? You get people pulling in, in the same direction, you really can create magic. And you can't be people centred, unless you're empathetic. Because you have to take the time to get to know your people. It's a bit like the point I was making about influencing every job I do. I spend 45 minutes to an hour with every member of my team and say, Tell me about yourself, not the job. Tell me about Give me your potted history. How did you come to be here, it's massively revealing it because it's never what they've got on their name, badge. It's all the other stuff that got them to that point. And there's a richness about capability and experience and motivation in there. Which if you just say, well, Bob does that you completely miss. And it enables you to think about what works for them in their world, it enables you to think about the, the, the way they need to operate a home in terms of their work life balance, and create a set of experiences, which which gets the best out of them. And I have been so in the early part of my career, you know, I wasn't people over you know, I was I was a sociable creature. But I started with this a job to do no, stupidly off the scale, completed finisher, get stuff. And that and now I don't I start with start with that end of things. So yeah, I learned the hard way about that.
Graham Allcott 51:25
That's really interesting. And so when you go into an organisation, you're spending time with people one on one to really connect and to find that empathy. If you're in somewhere a bit longer term, what does that look like in terms of your day to day operation of that? And and, you know, how do you manifest that, that sort of sense of trust and empathy with people just, you know, day to day?
Julie Nerney 51:49
So I think it's about being again, it's about listening. And it's, I think it's about creating a culture of feedback. I think all the best organisations and teams operate with feedback. It's kind of what we're saying earlier about the productive tension, and your approach to smashing stuff up, right? It's about creating an environment where people see that it's okay to challenge. And I do that through doing a regular weekly blog, in every job, you know, set of communication of frames, I do in the way we have meetings where we always ask at the end of it, is it still working? Do we need to change anything? I do it by sharing things that mistakes that I've made things that we tried but didn't work? You know, it's all about being okay to be human? Yeah, right. Yeah. Because we're all people, and we're all different kinds of people. And the things that make us have good days and bad are different. And I think by listening, you can also organise work in ways. So I always say ask people, what is a good day for you mean, I you know, when you go home, and you punch the air with joy to go get it, and that was a great day. And conversely, when you go home and you kick the cat or the dog or need a GMT or whatever it is, because you've had a rubbish day? What are the things that make you feel like that, and then I'm really aware of those things, then when I'm tasking or when we're doing stuff as a team, besides, don't put somebody in position like that, where it's really not going to play to their strengths, or, and that's different to pushing people out of their comfort zone and trying to encourage people to be curious, it's about being mindful about where people's natural boundaries are, and being respectful of that. And I think when people see that, they start to trust. And yeah, some people trust immediately. Some people you have to earn trust, but it's really old fashioned, but it's true. You know, you've got to walk, walk the talk, right?
Graham Allcott 53:31
Absolutely. And I think, you know, I often have this little phrase, which I share when I'm doing, you know, keynote q&a, and stuff, when we get on to people management is to basically say, the most important thing to remember about managing people is that humans are weird. Like, we're, we are all weird, right? And we're all different. And we have all these weird narratives that we've spun ourselves for 30 years, and, you know, and biases and, and trauma and all these kinds of things that just impact the way we show up. And I just think it's really important starting point is to just say, Hey, we're all weird, how are you weird, you know, and start kind of start from there, which really feels like what you're doing there with that whole? What's a great day? What does that look like? What does a rubbish day look like? What are the things that really bog you you know, just asking those kind of questions? I think that's so important.
Julie Nerney 54:26
Yeah, well, you have to do you have to really care about and be interesting. Yeah. Now, I work with a consultant once who was a brilliant consultant. And by that I mean, the kind of consultant who needs to be the cleverest person in the room, because that's what they're being hired to be. They show up, they're brilliant, they're clever. They're insightful. They give you expertise. Terrible leader. Right, right. So I ended up in a job where I flipped to leading the team rather than being the external consultant. And oh, my Lord, couldn't manage the team because not remotely interested. Not people centred at all intellectually brilliant, but not people centred and I think it's recognising he said people are weird. But we all play two different strengths. And it's finding, finding your groove, isn't it? And what what's right for you is, is so important. I like that. What's weird about you? That's great.
Graham Allcott 55:12
Yeah, I think I also heard that from Atlanta, but on about relationships as well. So he's got a, one of his school of life videos is kind of about how to succeed in dating, which I need to watch. Again, I think that's a whole nother story. But he has this amazing thing where he's like, the first thing you should do on the first day is you both sit down and just and you tell each other how you're weird. And he also has this lovely sort of question at the beginning, where he says, the audience who thinks they're easy to live with and like half the room where they had devotees just like, if you think you're easy to live with you are nuts, like we are all really hard to live with.
Julie Nerney 55:56
A couple of things. I've done culture change where people talk about, you know, classic exercise, put your hands up, if you've ever worked for a jerk of a boss, every. Anybody here is a jerk of a boss, nobody. Other than the bright spot one of them, you know, I think, well, that can't be right, can it I mean, just can't be can't be right. And the same with the productive tension point. And I remember working with a board years ago, where a facilitator described in a different way talked about positive conflict. We did a scale of like one to 10 with kind of obstructive aggression, artificial harmony, and then the sweet spot being in the middle. And he said in the artificial harmony, it's like people in a room going, Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, that Yeah, no, that's fine. And then leaving the room and complaining about it. And by the way, that works at home, too. No, Yes, darling. That's absolutely fine. This is the point about work and home these skill sets are Read Across all night. So there you go weirdness for dating as well as for work.
Graham Allcott 56:50
Yeah. So Chris Kinsley, who I'm working with, on the kindness and leadership programme, she has a phrase, which is like, like, nice in meetings is where you go along to get along. Right? So you go, Oh, yeah. And you know, you're not alone. So that there's that harmony, but then when you leave the room, you bitch about them. And so, it's actually, you know, it's very nice, but it's actually not kind to work in that way. And so kindness looks more like instead of nodding along you, you tell the truth in a way that is totally for that person and connects with that person, but you actually tell it like it is and I disagree or, actually, I think you're doing this wrong or you know, and actually to tell that truth in a way that's kind is a much more important thing than that sort of artificial harmony that you took back pletely
Julie Nerney 57:44
and it's my feedback is so important is the fear of trading to people when you talk about feedback cuz it's so badly right? But not providing feedback to people is unhelpful really. Yeah, I remember doing work with a big startup years ago in fact the case studies in the book and it was a time very out there holistic alternative therapies kind of stuff let's put it this way the founder said he didn't want to be chief exactly want to be called the gardener. If I saw
Graham Allcott 58:11
this in the book and and the PA is called the gardener of the dream.
Julie Nerney 58:16
You know, a dour Scotsman fd from a big he was terrible, and nobody given him feedback in his career. And finally, I won't spoil the story, but somebody gives him feedback. And he goes, You know what, nobody ever told me that I've been working for 35 years and nobody ever told me that's not kind that's not helpful. Help people grow or develop to say feedback so important.
Graham Allcott 58:37
Anti briny as a lovely quote, which is clear is kind unclear is unkind. I really like that. which feels like a really good place to wrap up this conversation because it feels like feedback and purpose and, and being people centred have just been really strong themes. Through this, I've just really enjoyed talking to you about it. So if people want to get hold of the book, and the books Own your day, and if people want to connect with you, do you want to just tell people how they can find out more?
Julie Nerney 59:14
Yeah, so you get to own your day at substack and so there's gonna be a little republished on the 11th of may we're gonna be doing some weekly newsletters and some information about how you can get involved come on to a launch or have some fun. You can pre order the book on Amazon and hive and bookshop.org I'll give you all the blurb for the podcast notes. And if you want to get hold of me I'm on Twitter at Julie nanny, my website Julie nanny co.uk
Graham Allcott 59:40
great stuff.
Julie Nerney 59:41
So many nurnies on LinkedIn, so I shan't Yeah, that's easy to find.
Graham Allcott 59:46
And just before we start recording, you said to me that you are a regular listener to be on busy. So my curiosity is how is it on the other end of it?
Julie Nerney 59:56
This is whizzed by, so
Graham Allcott 1:00:00
Goes quick, right?
Julie Nerney 1:00:01
Yeah, it goes really quick. And it's really easy conversation. And anybody who's nervous about doing this, don't worry, this is dead ASAP, like, oh, great questions. So yeah, it's been lovely to be on the other side of it.
Graham Allcott 1:00:14
Boy, it's been great having you. So yeah, Julie, thanks so much for being on Beyond Busy. My pleasure. Thanks. So there you go, Julie Nerney. Hope you enjoyed that one. And it's been a week of books. For me, I've had delivery of my author copies of how to fix meetings, very exciting. It's always one of those moments where the box arrives, and you know what it's going to be, and it contains the 10 free copies that the publisher gives you, which after all, your sweat and toil, and then your very low percentage of the sales that you get it's like, feels like a bit miserly to only give you 10. But anyway, you get a box of 10. That's pretty much industry standard. And when you open it up, there's always this kind of butterflies moment where you look at the spine and check that your name is spelled correctly, and just flick through the pages and make sure that they're all fine. If I tell you a really quick story is when I self published how to be a productivity ninja for the first time, we had about four different people working on it, we had a typesetter, we had a copywriter, I had an editor that I was working with. And all of these people were, you know, really supporting me in writing this book. And all of us, including me had missed the fact that when it got printed, and it was all laid out on the page by the typesetter, page four and page five were the same. So like, there was this awful moment where the typesetter realised it and it was too late, it had already gone to print. And I remember calling the printers because there was no publisher, it's just me. And I called the printer. And they'd gone home for the night. And it was like five o'clock I had this whole night thinking that all the money that I ploughed into this book, which was, at the time pretty much like all the money I had in the world was all going to just be pulped and go to waste. And it turns out that what happens with books is books are printed in batches of 16 pages, right? So what they did is they were able to just take out that first 16 pages that was wrong, they charged me about 300 quid more to just reprint those first 16 pages. And then you stitch it all back together with you know, the previous one. So all was not lost. But there was a very uncomfortable, not much sleep evening where I had to figure that one out. But that was back in the early days of how to be a productivity ninja being self published and not having, you know, the luxury of a career just sends you 10 for free in the post. But anyway, yeah, so how to fix meetings, I'm really proud of it. And I would love you to go and order a copy. So I've said this before, and actually had some people send me little tags on LinkedIn and stuff. When I basically said, Listen, guys, I do this podcast for free. It's a labour of love. I don't want to put advertising in it. But what it means is just If you really love these episodes, when I have a new book coming out, please just go buy the book. It's a tenner. And that can be your way to just support the podcast. And I really appreciate it. So please go and buy how to fix meetings, it's available now is on Amazon, it's also on bookshop.org if you don't want to buy it from uncle Jeff. And it's also in book shops. It's in Waterstones and who has travel in various places. So yeah, if you go in, and if it's not there, go into a bookshop and just order it, because that just alerts the bookshop to Hey, maybe this is a book that we need to start stocking. So if your bookshop locally does not have how to fix meetings, then make them do it, make them order in. So that's what I've been doing this week is, you know, really starting to gear up for publicity around that we did a couple of really good webinars, really high attendance numbers, on the subject of how to fix meetings, myself, and Haley, my co author will put one of those on YouTube. And we'll put a link to that in the show notes here. So you can go and check out me and Haley talking about the book if you want to find out a bit more. And I've also been writing so I've got this first first deadline for my new book, which is about kindness in leadership. And I've been a bit behind To be honest, it's been a bit rough behind the scenes, you know, just for me and the team in the last few weeks but yeah, getting through all of that and it's just been I'm a bit behind basically on been behind both on the podcast and also on on the book. So like you know, the two main things. I've had some really good client work as well which is always a nice thing to be distracted with. But just means I'm a bit behind us. I've ended up doing lots of basking in the glory of the new book and also just like absolutely hunkering down on the new one. And yeah, not really giving myself the time to breathe and and fully save a book five because I'm just focused on book six That's kind of like I've been thinking about that a lot recently. I kind of feel like that's just something
I do quite a lot is I don't necessarily always enjoy the good parts. I'm always kind of on to the next thing on to the next thing and I'm going to work on that and try and change that about me. So yeah, all good. That's what I've been up to. Just want to say, a huge thank you, actually to Alice and Emile, for pulling this episode out of the bag. So thank you to Alison, Emily. It's just been so reassuring to be able to concentrate on what I need to do. Knowing that it's all in safe hands with the podcast. So thank you, Alison, Emily. And also thank you to think productive who are our sponsors for the episode go to think productive calm, you should know the drill by now. If you would like to hear more about productivity training, workshops, and all the other stuff that we do as all we do a whole bunch of other stuff outside of productivity these days as well. So we can help your organisation with all the stuff that we talked about in the podcast, check out thing productive calm. As always, you can get shownotes you can get all the links to the previous episodes over at get beyond busy.com. And as always, we'll be back next week. We'll see you then with another episode. Until then, enjoy the sunshine and take care bye for now.
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