13 | Putting Leadership at the heart of Business

Welcome to Face Forward, the Inspiring Change podcast on all things internal communications, engagement, leadership, and change. Hello there and welcome to Face Forward, the Inspiring Change podcast on all things internal communication, employee engagement, leadership, and change. I'm delighted to be joined today by Orla Hunt, who is the founder of Human Leadership. I'm really excited to talk to Orla today because I'm aware certainly of a lot of great work that she did as HR Director and then Chief People Officer in AIB, and prior to that in RSA, or Royal Sun Alliance. So be interesting to hear some of those stories and to get some of her thoughts and feedback on what makes a great organisation great. So Orla, you're very welcome.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming on.

Very excited to do it.

Excellent. So why don't we kick off, we always kick off with a really easy one on you and where you've come from, what you've done, some of your experiences, and maybe a little bit about human leadership.

Thank you. Yes, so I have been involved in human resources and organizations going through significant change for for too many years now. If I gave a number, it would age me. Started in the retail sector in Tesco's, moved into fast-moving consumer goods with Walkers crisps, and then found myself in financial services, and the sell there was, we have a need to make very significant change, so please come on board and do this with us. And that started with AXA Sunlife, then moving into RSA where I looked after an international portfolio and then was a Group HR Director, and then I returned home to Ireland to take the Group HRD role at AIB, and then I decided that actually I wanted to explore going it alone and seeing what it was like to help a number of organizations simultaneously deal with change and stuff. And outside of work, I'm a mum to 3 young kids, and I attempt to juggle that along with a number of clients and a and a crazy dog.

So it's all happening then.

It's all working beautifully.

I find that the best thing to add to clients and 3 children is often a crazy dog. That's the way forward. Tell me a little about Human Leadership and what you're hoping to do with that.

Yes, thank you. So yeah, the company that I've set up is called Human Leadership because I'm fascinated by the changing face of work and what the impact of digital is likely to be. And also how critical human qualities are going to be in the workplace, and also how really critical great leadership is going to be in this new world of work. So it feels like there's a huge opportunity with the digital agenda to actually push great leadership absolutely at the heart of business performance, because the things that we're going to want humans to do in the workplace going forward are more about those qualities around creativity, innovation, collaboration, and to create environments in which those things flourish, we need truly great leaders in a way that maybe we were able to get away with having some mediocre leaders in, in organizations. So it feels like the world of work is changing, and you can take a kind of a Chicken Little view of that. I choose to take an optimistic one because I see this is actually creating a possibility for us to work in different ways and to value different things in organizations. And to really place a great emphasis on curiosity and learning, which are things that I'm deeply passionate about. So just that the consultancy is working with organisations who are facing into that change and thinking about the kinds of shifts they want to start to make so that they are getting ready.

And the advent of digital is an easy one to poo-poo, I think. As you say, it's easy to make the Chicken Little version of it, But actually, when you look at it, there's a really good film called Change Squared that I use quite a bit on courses that I run by Gerd Lenhart, the futurist and humanist. And he talks about the fact that machines will take our jobs. And exactly as you said, that those things that require innovation or creativity or emotion, things that machines won't be able to do, there's a role, an obvious role for humans in that and the need for leaders then to be able to bring that out of people.

And work in different ways. I mean, they're kind of— you've got that dimension, you've got the fact that we're living longer, we're going to be working for longer, so the kind of Lindgren 100-year life. So what does that mean in terms of the shape of the workforce? We're going to have, you know, far more variety in terms of age and profile, both in terms of age but also in terms of employee type. And how do you create an environment in which that melting pot is one that creates really interesting and exciting places to work, and that diversity brings about new ideas versus is all a bit, you know, crazy and dysfunctional. So I do, I think that there's huge change going on, but it's very much about getting a mindset of ownership and working out how do, you know, how do I fit within that and how do I make this stuff fit within my life and within the organization I work in.

I was reading last week or the week before that it was only this year or last that we had 5 generations of workforce in the workplace and all the challenges that brings, but also, of course, all the opportunity. Just because somebody's worked in a job or in a workplace for 30 or 40 years doesn't make their ideas any less valid or any less interesting potentially than somebody that's just straight out of college. They're just different.

Yeah, absolutely. And and how many people want to work on different contract types and work more flexibly, work more remotely. And yet we still need to create opportunities for people to collaborate and come together. So all of that kind of thinking about the world of work is really important now. Yeah.

And what makes— just thinking about leadership in that space and particularly as organizations are going through change, what is it that makes a leader, a great leader?

So I mean, I think it is those sort of human qualities. So I think we can all think about leaders that brought the best out in, in us. And actually, when I was reflecting on that, I was thinking they've actually had some quite different personalities. But I guess if I was to think qualities, there's a sense that they believe in you. So this kind of sense that they can see maybe some of your inner greatness, some of which you haven't totally embraced for yourself yet. I think there's a quality around trust, so both believing in you but also then setting you some kind of frameworks and then allowing you to get on with doing, you know, doing great work. There's a bit about seeing you as an individual, so really understanding the stuff that's important to you, so You know, some people don't want to talk about their families in workplace. I, you know, I do. So, you know, leaders who can kind of check in and it isn't a rote thing. And equally, I know that they don't want to hear the full Coronation Street version of my life. So, but that sort of human connection that kind of says they remember that I said it was my son's sports day last week and ask how we got on, that type of just connection that says they kind of see you and that you matter and what's going on in your Opportunities to learn and grow, so I think that, I mean, I'm doing a contract at the moment with Virgin Media and one of their values is insatiably curious, so which I think is just a great way of phrasing it, so this idea that we're constantly needing to learn and grow and leaders who foster that in their people, I mean, the Manpower Report would suggest that, you know, the lifetime of a skill is now only about 5 5 years, but the quality that we as individuals and collectively in organisations can do most to prepare for this new world of work is fostering a culture of learnability. So just helping our brains keep active and wanting to learn. It doesn't actually matter what you're learning, but if your brain, like any muscle, is continuing to take on board new things and build new neural pathways, then that means that as skills change, you can be— you can retrain, you can you know, find new things that you're interested in. And that makes a much more interesting life. I mean, the idea that you've hit your 40s and a certain level in an organisation, there's nothing more you need to learn for the next 20 years.

You're done.

You're sad, you know. So, you know, I look at my 6-year-old twins heading to school and they have just such delight in what they learn and they're dying to tell you at the end of the day the stuff they learned today. So how can we foster that excitement? Excitement about learning, and I think great leaders do, and sharing of knowledge and encouraging people to do that. And then just creating space, I guess the final thing would be creating space for the team to work on things together, so not feeling like they as the boss need to have the answers, but actually setting challenges, creating, you know, the opportunity for people to solve things for themselves and recognizing that that will probably bring different and potentially more creative solutions.

Interesting, and a couple of the points you picked up on there were actually subjects that I had in the blog over the past few weeks. Cheap plug, inspiringchange.ie/blog. One of a quote from Picasso who talked about creativity being inherent in children. The challenge is how you keep that creativity in adulthood. So there was a blog about that, but also a chat that I had to talk about, you know, the values of individual. I remember Shane Barry who now in Ornua, the Irish Dairy Board, an ex-colleague of ours, saying I'd said to him one time about me wanting— I'll treat people as I wish to be treated. And he said, well, why? Why shouldn't people want to be treated the way they want to be treated? Why do they want to be treated the way you want to be treated? That's almost something that's hammered into us as children. I think I've said in the blog generically that it's okay to treat people as you'd like to be treated if it's kind of with respect and with honesty and with trust. But when it gets into the individual, from a leadership perspective, actually picking up those people individually and finding out that, you know, you've got 6-year-old twins, you're just going to school, you've just been to sports day, that whatever the piece is, that's you and that's what makes you different.

No, absolutely. And it's interesting because I have twins, so my son is, you know, is a pleaser. So So he's gone into school and he's worked out that being neat is really important, and so his writing is absolutely stunning. And my daughter is a creative soul, and there's been an ongoing battle with teachers who have a belief that A's should be written in particular ways. And she will actually turn around and say to me, "But Mummy, I can do A's, and my way of doing A's is perfectly valid." And, you know, I am delighted for her spunk and her spark. And kind of terrified that the school system will at some point win out. And she will have to do A's in the way that the teacher has decided. But actually, you know, this kind of conformist piece and wanting them all to be so, you know, the same. I look at the two of them and they've had the same parenting, but they're, you know, they're just, they're different beings and that should be celebrated.

I think it was Jack Ma from Alibaba that did a piece quite recently in the past few months where he talked about the education system being largely broken. Now that the way we are teaching kids, what we're teaching them is for the past. And actually we need to be teaching them new and different things for the future. And actually that writing your A's a different way and you think that that's okay, is okay, rather than us forcing you as a system into this particular pigeonhole.

But you're dead right, because actually that is If you think about the qualities that we're going to value in the world of work going forward and this, you know, this creativity and bringing all of that diversity to bear, absolutely we need an education system which is encouraging people's ability to learn. As part of that, helping kids work with failure, helping people understand that when you're learning and doing different things, it won't go beautifully all the time and that being okay. All of those kinds of qualities qualities are going to be much more important, as you say, versus stuffing their heads with, you know, lots of the kind of stuff that we had our heads stuffed with going through school, which, you know, it's like that Disney movie Inside Out where the Dyson comes along and just hoovers out that useless knowledge that you picked up over the years. But yeah, learning the ability to learn, to cooperate, to be creative, to work with people who are different, to be curious to, and as I say, to bounce, to be resilient, to be able to bounce back when things don't go so well because actually you're never going to be that innovative if you can't cope with things not working perfectly all the time.

And in fact you're not being innovative if they don't.

Yes, correct, yeah, by virtue of trying new things, yeah.

Let's talk for a little while about leaders and their role in creating more engaging workplaces because obviously you and I, we're on a journey for 4 years around the whole employee engagement space. What is a leader's role in creating that?

So I'm a huge believer that most engagement is about the relationships you have with your boss and with your immediate team, because I think that shapes— when you think about going into a workplace, you think about the people you interact with most, and they shape your experience. And I had a very salutary lesson early in my career with a very wise boss who kind of said to me, 'You're being incredibly fair to this leader and trying to work out, you know, what the right way to do and how much coaching it will take to get them to be kind of average, but what about being fair to the 15 people that that person manages and their experience of working in this business is being impacted by by being managed by somebody who is just, you know, a hopeless people manager. So who are you being fair to? And of course my whole kind of, you know, PC-ness sort of rose up and I thought, he's right, of course he's right. So it's, you know, it's a balance. So absolutely leaders play a critical role in creating that team environment, but that isn't about them then feeling like they have to carry all the monkeys, that they are then responsible for making sure everybody feels happy about everything in the team. It's very much about them owning the climate that they set, creating conditions that build trust, and, you know, some of those things are about giving people autonomy in the way in which they work, giving them feedback, giving them recognition, giving them a chance to stretch and grow. So actually the fact that they can see that you have that bit more in you and that you can, if you're given the right set of conditions, do that bit more means your comfort zone is going to be extended beyond that. But they did an interesting survey of people within a large financial services organisation, and they would have traded a 20% pay increase for more autonomy in how they did their work.

Wow, that's incredible, isn't it?

So, you know, and this is FS, and this is people saying, actually, I want freedom in how I do things more than I want an immediate hit of pay. So creating those conditions, but then once you've created the conditions, letting the team lean in and take some of the responsibility for keeping that going, creating, you know, inspiration around what we're going to go and do. I mean, in the bank that you've referenced, the HR team had been very decentralised and we were introducing new systems and ways of working, so So how do you get the team to come together and believe what is possible when at the time all they can see is the change and there's going to be job losses and everything is different to how it used to be? And how do you create something that's sufficiently compelling in the future that allows them to think, no, it is worth going on this journey because that place where we are really helping drive this business forward is somewhere I want to be and therefore I will go through this discomfort of change. Because that place is so much better and therefore it's worth the journey. And then obviously there's the ongoing communication, keeping that message going, because we all have the dark moments of the soul when we think, sweet Jesus, is this another day with another big set of asks? And just having those updates and reminding yourself of the progress made and where you're going and why it matters can do wonders. And then, you know, having a bit of a laugh. At the end of the day, most of us aren't saving lives. Most of us are not, you know, curing cancer. So therefore, you know, we, we can take it all desperately, desperately seriously, but, you know, along the way we can do really meaningful work, have great relationships with the people we work with, and, you know, take the time out periodically to just have a giggle. And remind ourselves that we're all human and a belly laugh makes everything better.

It always does. In my case, it's a great big belly laugh. The laugh, not the belly, obviously. But interesting that you should touch on communications there and the role of a leader in communications, particularly during change. And for me, again, this is something I say on all the courses that I run when we're talking about leadership and particularly leadership comms, that the person who can best translate strategy for you or for their team is your boss. So they're the person that knows, again, back to your very well-made point earlier about understanding each individual person's needs and wants and values. By knowing that, a leader is best placed to be able to drop in information, to tell a story, to shape the strategy comms, to, to bring it to life in a way that really, really matters. I just wonder what your experience is on that.

So I completely agree. I do think that as organisations there is a risk that some of our kind of strategic communications have become really bland or boring or maybe more suited to the investors or, you know, which— and there's a very different set of stories that people who are investing in your business want to hear and I'm totally cool with that, but most of those kinds of things don't make your employees' hearts sing. So I think that if you're going through significant change or you want to drive engagement, having a compelling story around what it is that you're trying to do, you know, creating, you know, a great strategic narrative, something that allows people to connect with both emotionally and intellectually. So this is why we want to kind of work hard or commit, or this is what difference we're making in customers' lives, this is the reason the organisation is going on this change. So, and stories are very powerful within that. So I do think it's terribly helpful if as organizations we can do something that isn't just corporate blah in that territory. But then from that it's obviously the translation. So if that's where we're going, what part does this function and this team have to play and make that kind of exciting so that when we're toggling out on a Monday morning thinking what's ahead in the week, I can, you know, I can see how what I'm doing matters to the team I'm in, to the function, and ultimately the business. That's the Holy Grail.

Interesting. And how important is purpose in all of that? Obviously, Simon Sinek in his book Start With Why will talk about the why being the center of the world. That's, that's why we come to work, not because of what we do, but because of why we do it, because of that purpose.

Yeah, and I think people will come to work without that. I think if you want to get the best of them, the more that that's dialed up. I mean, at the end of the day, as humans, we are hardwired for connection. I mean, Brené Brown makes that point beautifully. So there's something intrinsic in us that says, I want to connect with a bigger thing. And part of that is connecting with the people I work with, and some of it is connecting into something that's bigger than the set of tasks I'm I'm charged with. If all I get to do is those set of tasks, I will do them to an extent, but if you want me to kind of be much more creative, bring more, see the opportunities for change, then if there's a why, I'm much more likely to access that part of me. I mean, as buyers, we fool ourselves into thinking that we're left brain and it's all the logic as to why that car is the right car, and all of the science would say it's totally emotional. We just post-rationalise with the fact. We make an entirely emotional decision based on buying, so why would organisations be any different? So that's that emotional purpose piece, that why, absolutely critical and underdone, and again at risk at times of corporate blast. They've actually managed to make purpose, which should be really intuitive and emotional, you know, in some organisations frankly a blah as well.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And so often you look at websites and so often you ask people about their purpose and why they do what you do and what's fed back is what they do. It's not about the why. So if I'm a people leader listening to this, because we often talk and you've talked about translating strategy and I talk about it as well. What is it if I'm listening to this and kind of scratching my head and going, well, I understand why that might be the case and why I should be doing that, but what is it I should be doing? How do I translate strategy? What does that look like?

So, I mean, as I said, I've seen— you make the job of that line manager easier if you have a version of your company strategy that is easily translatable, and some of the best practice that The things I've seen, as I've said, have been a kind of a great strategic narrative with stories, and then we've also created kind of chat maps to help. So if I'm that leader kind of looking up going, "Right, okay, I love that. I don't know how I'm going to do a version of that with my team." So kind of condensing that down into the questions to ask, you know, the content to share, the questions to ask to involve people in that. If you don't have access to those tools, then I think it's taking time to think about what will be interesting for your team. So what version of this will make, will be interesting, and what, how can you connect it to a broader why. So whether that's about the customers you serve, the department, the employees if you're in an HR or people function. So trying to make it more personal and Stories are an incredibly powerful way of doing that, and you know, when you can get a story in retail of the kind of things your employees did that helped save Christmas and that kind of stuff, it's mega because everybody connects into that. That's the really important service that we provide. So I think as leaders, the more you can do that, and you can do that even if the other stuff above you doesn't exist, it it's just a bit harder. But really pausing to think, what is this organisation about? What is our team's part in it? What will make it interesting? And how do I link what folks are doing every day to that? And are there any powerful stories of us at our best that I can bring? When I worked at RSA, we did a 300 Years campaign and, and we looked for stories from around the globe of things we had done to help customers. In an insurance business, clearly you're dealing with a lot of customers in crisis. What was amazing was how many stories there were and that they had all lived in cupboards. Nobody told those stories. So the individuals involved knew the amazing thing they had done in response to floods and the customer compliments and all of that kind of stuff, but the broader organisation wasn't aware of that, and yet when they came out of cupboards and we collected them up and we were inundated, there was such pride generated from that kind of internal comms campaign because it was real, it was our absolute best, and you know, and you know, we, you know, there was pictures of customers, there were pictures of the floods, and people could really connect with it. The sad thing was that those stories hadn't been being told more often.

Yeah, absolutely, and I think often in organisations there's no there's no channel there to let them bubble up. There's no way to get them up either to the leader or to the comms team. I was with An Post, the Irish Post Office, for anyone listening abroad, about 2 weeks ago with their head of internal comms, and they had recently launched an app because, of course, we run the gauntlet of, well, it's on the intranet. I can't believe you haven't seen it. But then, of course, if you're in a bank, you've got people in branches. You're in retail, you've got people on a shop floor, and in this case they had postmen and postwomen, 1,000 of them. Really hard to get messages out to those people. So they put together this app which people can have in their pockets, and then they started to publish stories. And I think it becomes almost self-fulfilling that as you start to publish stories of John who jumped in a river to help save somebody, or Sarah who helped— this is a true story actually from their app. Who had to help a lady's dog give birth to her puppies. She was like the kind of the matron over the puppy birth. And just these little real-life stories that show how important postmen and postwomen are when they're out and about on their daily rounds, the things they do over and above delivering letters, and it just makes them human.

Yeah, and you know, that's the kind of stuff that those, you know, folks being held up high means that both within the organisation, but also just that pride at home, you know, when you're in the pub or when you're talking to your family, the fact that what you do makes a difference and that it's been called out, recognised, written up in a story internally, just allows you to kind of puff out your chest a little more, which, you know, when you've done those things and you've gone the extra mile, you absolutely deserve to.

Absolutely, you absolutely do. Tell me a little bit about your leadership role models, Who is it you look up to? Could be somebody big, could be a previous colleague or a boss, who is it?

So, I mean, I've had the privilege of working for some great bosses, so I have absolutely learned from them, and in response to my insatiable curiosity, I've also been interested in lots of different management thinkers, so I would have explored the world of sort of systems thinking and Margaret Wheatley and the leadership as a science, which I think is really interesting. And out of that, identified the whole kind of World Cafe approach in terms of collecting input from staff, which I've used in a number of different places, which is just a fabulous model for conversation and creativity. And so that, that was really interesting. I love the work of Brené Brown in terms of, you know, the whole vulnerability and just being real. And, you know, that phrase she has of, you know, it's not our first— it's not the first rodeo, people. You know, like, why do we keep doing these kind of cover-ups and trying to pretend that we're— as organizations, we didn't make the screw-ups we made, or as people, that we're better at things than we actually are? Why can't we just be who we are? And, you know, within that, you know, we've got great strengths and we've got things that we're working on and 'Just be real.' So I think that those kinds of things have influenced sort of my leadership style and thought and hopefully helped me be a better leader. But, you know, we're all works in progress, so, you know, we all have days when we are the best version of ourselves as a leader and when we are really switched on in that one-to-one and we really remember to check in with the person about how they are. And, you know, there are other days when, you know, we have skid marks, we race in, we've given no thought to 'Come on, come on,' and we go straight to task. But, you know, noticing that that's your automatic reflex, noticing that, you know, the person is looking slightly shut down in front of you. Not surprisingly. Not surprisingly. Noticing and getting it right the next time, you know, and that kind of thing. So just creating— I think as a leader, the more that we can, you know, be that best version of ourselves, which includes a level of vulnerability, and be that being of light and allowing other people to shine their light within our teams. I think that just allows that energy to flow in the best possible way.

I couldn't agree more. And I think certainly in that instance of the coming into work at high speed and not thinking about the one-to-one, I think actually being able to put your hand up and say mea culpa, I know that was really bad today and I'm sorry, there was a load of stuff going on, it won't happen again, which isn't something you often hear from leaders, I don't No, no, I think that's really powerful because everybody, everyone's had a bad hair day.

Everybody's had days in which, you know, they got snarled in traffic, or, you know, the dog stepped on them or ate their homework, or their kids had a row with them before they left home, or they didn't sleep particularly well, or whatever. So, you know, we all have those days. Now, that is not an excuse to say you can have them 5 days a week, every day, but I think if you generally make more of an effort on the day that you don't do it so well. Absolutely. You are definitely going to gain trust with your team by actually going, you know, I know that wasn't great.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Last question. I'm just conscious of time. And this is a question I ask to everybody that's been on the podcast. What one piece of leadership advice would you give to your 20-year-old self? I know it wasn't very long ago.

Obviously, only being 22 myself. Yeah. With the 3 kids and the dog. Yeah. So I think my 22— my 20-year-old self was in an awful rush. So I was ambitious, and so I think that I kind of thought I had to make it all happen. And, you know, and clearly some drive and energy is still a facet of my personality, but I guess I have learned to have a little bit more trust in that things sort of evolve and happen, that I don't have to be as hard-driving on all of that stuff. And with that trust point, giving those that work for me more, more rope and letting them work their magic, which means that, you know, I am less burdened by the many monkeys that I would have been in my 20s when I felt I needed to do it all, and allowing them the space and recognizing that for a number of them, they will do it better than I ever could. Might do it differently, but it's a lot better. So I think to chill, nobody expects you to have all the answers as a leader. In fact, asking great questions is one of the most powerful tools that you can have, and trusting that things have their path and their way and that you don't have to be there hard driving all the time.

What a great way to finish. Orla Hunt from Human Leadership. That's all we've got time for right now, so thanks a million, really appreciate the time. Talk to you again soon. Thanks for listening. For more on Inspiring Change, to read our blog, and to listen to other podcasts, please visit inspiringchange.ie.