135 | The Evolving Role of Modern Leadership

When you're asking questions, you gotta listen to the answer. You can't be waiting to get your spoken. If you genuinely, deeply listen, you'll find that connection, and that connection will actually build that trust, build the business opportunity.

At Inspiring Change, we're here to help build work cultures that bring out the best in people. We created this podcast to share real stories and insights from people shaping better workplaces every day. So grab a cuppa or pop in your earbuds, wherever you are. Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast. We're excited to have you with us.

Quick ask, as I always do at the start of each of these episodes, it really helps the growth of the podcast if you're to spend literally 5 seconds as you're listening, giving us a little review, 4 or 5 stars is absolutely fine, and a comment. So please, if you could just take a minute or two to do that, I'd very much appreciate that. Today we're going to be talking about leadership and particularly maybe with a lens of learning, because my guest today is Derek Conley, who is the CEO of Common Purpose.

Ireland.

Now, Dara and I have a bit of history. I've been on, in fact, I'm currently on the Lighthouse program, one of Common Purpose's leadership programs. I was in, any of you that follow me on LinkedIn or on Insta will have seen I was in Mumbai recently on a global Common Purpose program. And I just thought it would be really good to get Dara on to give his perspective on leadership particularly. So, Dara, good morning.

Good morning, Scott. Thanks for having me. Honored to be here.

You're welcome. You're welcome.

Nice to see you. Well, listen, let's kick off as we always do, because you're much better at telling your story than I am. So why don't you tell us a little bit about you, your career journey, your role today, and about maybe a little bit for those that don't know Common Purpose, a bit about Common Purpose.

Okay, Scott. All right. So I'm with Common Purpose 6 years. And Common Purpose, to just kind of give the old elevator pitch, is is a global social enterprise and it's based around peer-to-peer experiential learning. What does that mean? It means that we very much put place at the center of learning for leaders. Now we work with senior leaders, we work with high potential leaders, we work with young people, and we also work with specialized programs around things like biodiversity. But at the core of it is around people teaching people. Okay? So if you create the right environment, and the right setup and atmosphere, if you want, people will open and start teaching each other. And it's that cross-pollination of skills, experience, inspiration. That's effectively what we do in Common Purpose. As regards myself, I'm here 6 years myself, as I say, but Common Purpose is around for around 32 years around the world, started in the UK in 1989. So yeah, we basically bring people together, cross-sectoral leaders together, together. And that's, I suppose, is a good example of the type of career that I've had. I've worked in different sectors. I've worked in Temple Bar for a number of years as the head of property and business development. I've set up a number of different companies, mainly social enterprises, because that's very much where my emotional interest stands. I've worked in the private sector, 'cause I worked with SOMEX for a number of years, and Woodchester, because I'm a reformed accountant. Scott McInnes. And just, I suppose, kind of moved into kind of business development and kind of different worlds of business around mid-2005. And I've just, yeah, enjoyed myself since then, Scott. Enjoyed myself since then.

Cool. So when you think about all the experience, I mean, look, we work with leaders all of our careers because we generally always have a boss, right? But also you're now through the Common Purpose programs that you curate and you run. You're seeing a lot of leaders coming through your, your programs. So what do you believe is the critical role of a leader in today's organizations?

Okay, uh, short question could be a huge answer. I'm going to try and keep it fairly succinct. Um, okay, so I do have the honor of working with some incredible people, um, and I suppose the beauty of this job is that if you had you're interested in people, you're interested in people's stories, this is the best job in the world. So we do get a chance to actually, to really understand how leaders tick and actually what keeps them going, okay? So we, the common purpose works around a number of different competencies and that would be agility, influence, self-awareness, purpose, empathy, all these key competencies that it doesn't matter what sector you're in, these are key elements that you actually have to have in your armory to be able to be a better leader. But if you ask me what is the key piece at this time, of course communication, you know a little bit about that, but connection. Okay, that is about around connecting people in your organization, getting them to work well together, but it's also about creating connection outside the organization and spotting those opportunities. And spotting those opportunities, I suppose my mantra for this year is get together, we are stronger. I try to bring a mantra into my head once a year. And that is the fact effectively looking for those opportunities, we're looking for those synergies and bring them together. If you know you've got one skill set and another skill set needs to be brought in to actually complement an opportunity, a work, a tender, whatever it is, you bring them together. But it is that whole creation of trust, creation of can you work together and understand each other? And that is very much at the core of the common purpose piece. How do you work with somebody else? How do you find those complementary skills and experiences that if you actually came together, you can actually bring a stronger front and deliver for your customer?

And that idea of connection, if I'd have asked you that same question 5 years ago now, pre-COVID, if I'd have asked you that same question, would you have said connection then as well? Or do you think that connection, the idea of connection, the leadership capability of being a better connector, has that gotten stronger and more needed since COVID Particularly in regards to the way that we work now?

That's an interesting question, Scott. I do try to avoid the C word as much as possible because I don't think people are sick of it, but I do realize, and we absolutely changed our model in COVID. And it was a remarkable example of where common purpose was tested at a level that it never was before because ours is experiential programs. I talked about place. We were physically in, unusual, unique stimulus and places that really bring out the curiosity in the individual. What am I here and what am I gonna learn? So that was the core of our model. We were actually in prisons, mosques, tech multinationals, government buildings, anything that would bring out the actual learning of a theme that we were doing. We look for exemplar models of the themes that we explore, okay? So when, when the Big C happened, our team was ripped up. So then we actually, the whole organization as a global entity had to come together like never before. So that connection within the organization came to the fore. So in other words, your curation of the programs, your delivery of the programs, you had the design of the programs, but you also had the actual sales element, the absolute key to bring the people in the program. So we actually had to go back to the board, and within 3 months, we actually turned around an online program. And in fact, COVID, would you believe, was very, very good to the organization because we reacted. We were that agile piece. We were influencing how people were going, doing, but we actually, at the core of it, we were bringing senior leaders together to support each other, to create those mentors. We had a phenomenal program the first day from March up to June, August. We, the team was 34 senior leaders senior leaders on it. And literally, they were all looking at each other going, what the hell are we going to do here? And they were able to bounce off. This is what's working for me. This is not what's working for me. I tried this. Have you tried that? And that together we are stronger is absolute gold. So, and that's your question, connection before it. Absolutely, connection is always there, but connection around time of crisis where people really need to come together and to learn and understand each other and to work with each other Absolutely gold. Now we've come out the other side of it again, thanks be to God. And in fact, just last autumn we went back to fully in-person programs after doing a hybrid for a number of years. And there's no— we'll stay in the connection theme here. People were craving, let me get into a room, let me talk to somebody, let me see the whites in their eyes so I can really genuinely trust them. And again, so that's the popularity of our programs and why, you know, we're doing— the organization is doing very well.

So if we think about connection on a day-to-day basis, and I always say to guests in the pre-brief, come on the podcast and give us some ideas and thoughts and theory, but actually give us some real practical thoughts as well. So when you think about being a really effective connector or using connection day-to-day as a leader, give us a couple of examples of what leaders can be doing to really bring that to life.

Take a step out of your comfort zone is the key one. It's about building that muscle. It's about getting out there. And sure, who loves the old networking, right? You know, and we'll never use that expression. So if you actually get into a room and really start talking about something, a theme, a challenge within society, and find that commonality, find that commonality, and then that commonality then allows you to actually to build that trust. So it is about exploring. If you're asking me for key skills, Again, it's about really experiencing different things, okay? Because you never know where those doors are gonna go, all right? But as a coach, you would know this well yourself, and I coach myself, asking questions rather than talking about yourself and talking about your organization. Two ears, one mouth, that's that classic scenario. Ask the questions, really draw out, try and find that connection. And you find that connection, then you build that trust, the business opportunity will come afterwards. But the key, of course, when you're asking questions, you gotta listen to the answer. You can't be waiting to get your spoken, to get your speak. You're genuinely listening to the answer. And if you genuinely deeply listen, you'll find that connection. And that connection will actually build that trust, build the business opportunity. So that's very much what we talk to our participants when they come on the program. Leave your business behind. Leave it behind. Don't be throwing the card across the table. The business opportunity will come about when you create that trust.

I love that. And it's such powerful advice. And I was actually only talking to somebody yesterday about networking and saying that when you say that word, it just makes people cringe. And I was kind of saying it's just about going for a cup of coffee and being interested in people and giving them more than they're giving you, or giving them more than you expect of them to start with. And that's, I think, for people like us, that's kind of just That's kind of just what we do. We're just kind of human beings and we like the chats and we like the cracks and we like the cups of coffee and the odd pint. And that's a good thing to do. So that sense of connection strengthens through those, just through that humanity, I think. And that word you used there, which I love, curiosity. I think that we are not curious enough. We think that, oh, maybe I shouldn't ask this, maybe I shouldn't ask that, maybe I shouldn't. And there are definitely some questions that we shouldn't ask. However, You know, being curious can get us to places that perhaps we would never have gotten to.

You got it, man. So, so you talk— interesting that you talk about that, asking questions and being able to ask those, say, hard questions, um, those challenging questions. But if you're coming from a point of curiosity and the other individual genuinely knows you're asking a question that's coming from a point of curiosity, not challenge, then that opens up all different kinds of opportunities. So, and that on the programs, we work around engagement principles, conventions, if you want, to actually create that safe and open environment where leaders can genuinely work with each other. And that's around being open, being positive where possible, not always possible, but possible, being engaged, just give yourself the time, invest in yourself. Your organization might be paying for it, you might be paying for it. Of course, we do bursaries as well because that's the model of bringing everybody together. We create opportunities for everybody to be on the program. But, and the Chatham House rule is absolutely key. So within our programs, we say you can talk about what you've learned, but you can't say who said it, which effectively again comes back to that creating that open and safe environment. And that's where curiosity is very much opened up.

Yeah. So we've spoken about connection. You've mentioned bravery. We've spoken about curiosity. I'm doing a bit of research at the moment with Chief People Officers and to find out what's getting in the way of them really, really getting their cultures humming in their organizations. And one that keeps coming up is leader capability, that our leaders don't have the capability, the skills, the experience to really lead very, very well. And it was really interesting that one of them said to me, But I don't really know what it is that people need. People talk about agility and they talk about authenticity and they talk about vulnerability and all these things, but I don't know how to teach somebody those things. I don't know how to find those skills and teach them into people. I wonder from your perspective and what you see, what are some of the other skills that the leaders of tomorrow, those up-and-coming perhaps high potential leaders, or even some of the younger people that you have on programs, what are some of the other skills that they need for tomorrow that perhaps we aren't quite as focused on today in terms of teaching them?

I did talk about the competencies earlier on, but we do work around a framework that we call COMPASS. And of those, they are the skills of tomorrow. So confidence— you've got to have confidence in yourself. You have to have confidence in the individuals that you're working with them and give them the space to work The authoritarian stick approach is long, long, long gone, as everybody knows. Don't have to need to tell anybody that. But it is genuinely empowering individuals to actually be creative. And, you know, creative is— some people in professions, "Scott, there's no creativity in this profession." There's creativity everywhere.

But it's also a very misunderstood word, I think, because it's not about painting pictures and doing sculpture.

Man, I'll say it myself. I'm an accountant. I think I became an accountant because I didn't think I could do anything else. I was good with numbers. Yeah, absolutely. But then that confidence around thinking outside the box, and that is creativity. That is the power of connection. That's creative. Can you put two things together to make them better? That is creativity. Innovation, other people call it, right? So that piece of actually having the confidence to move out and to try different things, to actually again ask that question, have the confidence to ask that question. Like asking a girl out, having the confidence to ask a girl out, you know? Okay, so that's the first thing. Mindset is an absolute key element, mate. So can you, how is your mind? Are you there? Are you in the moment? Are you aware? Are you completely engaged in that moment? I talk about the power of now, as you know, mate. And the amazing Eckhart Tolle book, which is my favorite book and most influential book best book I've ever read. And that is very much talking about completely be in that moment. So in other words, you're in a business meeting, your head is talking, thinking about Liverpool winning the league this weekend. No, stay there while you can, if possible. And that's, you know, meditation does, and mindfulness does train you in that particular world. So that mindset piece of being in the moment and being there fully concentrated, and they're the skills of tomorrow. But I will talk about placement. Them. Understanding context and understanding where you are and what you're doing at that time is absolutely gold. And that's why we— when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about understanding the context of where you are. Is this a formal meeting? This is an informal meeting. Am I going to be building this relationship or do I need to close? Okay. Am I, am I in listening mode or am I in telling mode, especially in leadership and understanding whether where somebody needs to really kind of vent at you or talk to you rather than you giving that advice. Again, the coaching skills are absolutely gold here. But place, and that's why we bring people to different places in Common Purpose all the time. It's about understanding place. It's about understanding the environment that is there and very much absorbing. We use the word immersion. We immerse ourselves in organization to very much understand the themes, the different leadership themes that we actually work with it. That could be suspending assumption, it could be, um, uh, challenging default beliefs, it could be situational leadership— how you— different leaders in different situations. Again, we look for exemplar models in that. So in summary, confidence, mindset, and understanding place, they're the future skills.

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And I think what's really interesting interesting is that as you talk about place and understanding place, what I hear is awareness and self-awareness, knowing when to do this or when to do that, knowing when to shut up or knowing when to speak, knowing when to be directive or just letting people go off on one. And I think what's really interesting with the model, and of course I've been on this, I think day 7 or 8 is next week, but being immersed into those places really, really makes you question how you do things, the decisions that you make. Even the people in the room, actually, there's 28 people in our course who all come from unbelievably different backgrounds and organizations, many of whom I, I probably wouldn't ever have spoken to, or maybe never would. And maybe that's the same for them. Would they ever speak to an organizational culture consultant? I don't know, maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't. But I think just being in that room just gives us that sense of just awareness that there's other ways to do things and really question ourselves. But I think that self-awareness is a skill which is sorely lacking in many, many leaders.

You got it, man. 100%. And that beauty of realization when you're sitting down, sitting beside a governor of a prison or a sales director in a tech company, or Jesus, an army colonel. And then you actually go, oh, so you do things differently. Oh wow, so there's a different way of doing things. Ah, that's a realization. And giving yourself that space and that awareness that you can improve. And it doesn't mean, the beauty of our programs is that there's no exams, there's no assignments. It's pure real life learning. Yeah, and if you get the mix of leaders right, which is a key curation skill of the programs that we do, You get the mix of the individuals right, then you actually— do you know what, Scott? The first day we walk into a program, we're doing a, um, we're in the Wayfinding Center and Bohemians Football Club on Wednesday with 42 high potential emerging leaders. We walked into that room, myself and Joan Ellison, the program director, um, 3 weeks ago for the first day. We saw the mix, we saw the energy, and we said, program Sorted. Okay, all we have to do is convene. All we have to do is chair, right? Now, I'm simplifying it very, very much so, using our techniques that very much get them to very much learn about themselves, learn about each other. If you get the mix right, and the awareness and the energy right, as regards the openness to learn, it actually, it's like a train, it takes care of itself.

Yeah, and you're effectively creating the environment in which people can go in and they can get as much as they want to get. I remember the first day that I walked into the room and everyone was there, and you can kind of do the whole, I'll just wander to the coffee and get coffee and be quiet over here and quietly eat a pastry in the corner and not speak to anybody. Or you can just say, you know what, I'm going to be brave, I'm going to put myself out of my comfort zone, and I'm going to go around to everybody in the room and say hello and shake their hand and say, hi, I'm Scott, it's really nice to meet you. And for some people that's really hard, but that— and for people like me or people like you, that's a bit easier. But you know, that can be difficult, but sometimes that's It's just what we need because maybe the other person was never going to do that. So us stepping into the breach and us being the person that offers the hand first, offers the smile first, is incredibly powerful. Beautiful. So you talk about confidence and mindset and place or awareness. Back to that question that that CPO asked me, how do we build, how do we help leaders build that muscle? What are we sending them on a confidence training course or a mindset training course? Are they doing some online learning module? What are they doing? How are we training our future leaders to really kind of exemplify those aspects of leadership?

So the key element there is knowing what your strengths are and knowing what your weaknesses are. Okay? And this is this classic example of surrounding yourself with people that are better than you as a leader. So if you're very much aware of your strengths, and if you just said it there, Scott, your strength would be to walk into a room and be able to be warm warm and open and effusive to be able to connect. That's your strength. But that wouldn't be that for somebody else. So if they know then that they actually walk into a room and we do take people out of their comfort zones and we actually ask them to actually to, you know, to work in different spaces that they wouldn't be, even vulnerability, right? That classic example that people keep talking about and you talked about it earlier on. Vulnerability is a two-edged sword. You got to get the balance between, um, uh, being open and being yourself, but also being strong. So that balance and understanding how you maintain that balance, you know, like, this is a leadership, um, organization. You're going to be working with people that— some people are really into what they do and some people aren't. Some people are passing through. So, you know, you can't act and operate on one approach for all. So giving yourself the opportunity to understand what approach works where, okay? And understanding from other leaders what has worked and what has not. I always say, man, I would have saved myself so much heartache in my career if I'd done something like Common Purpose when I was 25, 26. Jesus, man, I would have saved myself absolutely you know, so much heartache, because I would have made so many mistakes. Now, I'm not saying that I wouldn't have made those mistakes if I'd done it, but at least I would have had the awareness and maybe even the mentor, uh, the mentors to be able to bounce these different challenges off. So how do we do it? How does somebody prepare themselves? They surround themselves with mentors, okay? And they have people that they can bounce things off. So you don't actually make it up on your own. Own. Duplication is my, my core. If you ask me, my core thing that I can't stand, it's doing something twice, right? Or else to do something that, no, I know somebody else has done already and starting from scratch. Why not cross-pollinate? Why not actually plagiarize, if you want, a different approach from somewhere else? And, and the key element then is keeping your mind open, mate. You've heard me talking about this before, keeping your mind open. Open. Open, that could be to open to new music, could be open to, um, not a new rugby team because I'll never change my way from Munster, but, uh, you know, just change, keeping your mind open for different things and looking for those opportunities.

Like becoming a United fan or something like that, kind of?

Never talk to a United fan, mate. Um, and, uh, so, so, but I will come back to that whole piece around that knowing your strengths and your weakness. And if you've got weaknesses, you can work on them. Strengths you can tone down. We do talk about on the program, and we talk about being a leader within the conventions. That means the introvert stepping up, the extrovert stepping back. Find the balance, the equilibrium in reggae, the vibration.

There's a line that I use often on programs when I'm chatting to leaders, which is awareness precedes action. And I will often say to them, If you take nothing else from this full day or this half day that we've had together or this hour that we've had together, if you take nothing else, take those three words: awareness precedes action. Because until you've done that work to understand what my strengths are, what my development areas are, where I need to turn up the volume, where I need to turn it down again, you can't fix anything. So you can't change anything unless I have that awareness. So Yeah, so maybe that's one for listeners to take away.

Beautiful. Don't jump in, man, is effectively what you're saying. Don't just react. You know, we talk about suspending assumptions. You know, we would bring people, say, as I say, to prisons to actually tear up assumptions about society. And that is a key lesson. Then you go, "Hmm, well, I was wrong about that. What else am I wrong about?" And so when you get— and on the First Data program, we challenge those perspectives and those stereotypes that you may have and understand that real life and background and, you know, is a key element rather than third-hand information that you've received. So yeah, it is about just taking that step back, taking that breath before you say something, before you do something, before you go somewhere. And that is preparation. I mean, that whole piece about preparing, like I prepared for hours for this podcast, for example.

Obviously, we can tell from the answers. So yeah, that's plainly obvious. Um, I started playing— I'm not very proud to admit this— I started playing a bit of tennis recently, and I'm very, very rubbish at tennis. There's a moment when the ball bounces up in front of you, there is— you want to jump in immediately and you want to hit it back immediately, but there's about, I don't know, half a second, maybe less, of time where you've just got the opportunity enough time as the ball's bouncing up to look on the other side of the court to see where the person is, to see where you are, to see where your body is, to see where your racket is and all of that stuff. And be able to then make it— it's like time slows down to be able to make a call as to where I'm going to put the ball back into. And then 8 times out of 10, I put it into the net on my side of the court, which isn't ideal. But I think it's the same thing in leadership. Back to that point about just taking a breath, taking a pause. I think for anybody that watched Blue Lights, the PSNI show on the BBC, there's a guy on there, he uses a line all the time, "Take a beat, take a beat." It's a real Northern Irish thing, "Take a beat." Just take a pause and just see what's going on around you. I think whether that's leadership or tennis or policing, it's the same thing. One thing that you spoke about earlier on, you very briefly touched off in one of your previous answers on connection. You spoke about connection outside of work, connection back into society. And I know that the Common Purpose approach is kind of built on that idea of leaders not just being responsible for their teams or their organizations, but also being responsible for change in society. Now, we've covered quite a lot of ground in the past half an hour or so about what we expect leaders to be doing or not doing, being aware, being vulnerable, being curious, being confident, having the right mindset, and all these other things. Many of those leaders would argue that, well, I'm quite busy doing all that stuff without being worried about changing society as well. But why is that important? Why is that an important thing for Common Purpose?

Okay, man, I'll sum it up in doing good feels good. It is making positive change. I mean, if leaders, people with influence, resources, can do the energy, if they can't do good things, who can, right? So it is about understanding the influence that you have, coming back to one of the key points that we had. Half. So it actually adds to everything. Look, CSR, ESG, whatever way you want to call it, there's a reason, there's a business case behind this. Do your employees feel good about what you do? Do you feel good about what you do? And being— and again, I'll come back to it, man, you don't know what an opportunity will open. So if you go away and you start working with a different organization, that's a social enterprise that's actually trying to create impact, and Common Purpose is at the core social enterprise. We're a leadership organization. We teach leaders to be better leaders, what is good leadership for them to understand that. But at the end of the day, if the society benefits from that good leadership, we've done our job. And like, I'm 6 years in doing this, man. The satisfaction that get people that actually have added to their worlds by the connection that they made on the program, program. You're working with Peter McVerry now, for example, right? You know, you're going to feel, and our other different colleagues that we have are working there, they'll feel better about that. I'll come back to it, mate. I'll just come back to, to why I do what I do, okay? In a quick one, um, I, I was working in Temple Bar, um, Cultural Trust, was head of people and business development, or head of property and business development. Pretty demanding job. Didn't think I had any time to do anything else. My son got diagnosed as, as you know, he's severely autistic, and it changed my world. And what I saw when I went in, we set up a school and was running a school called Saplings in Rathfarnham, and I saw the vocational approach that people had, the satisfaction, the joy, and they were, it was the toughest job in the world, one of them, and they walked out there smiling. And that taught me, God, there's a lot more to this. This, you know. So you can always make time, you can always make time to actually to do good in the world. I'm— yeah, sorry, that's just a personal opinion, man. Um, and you know, you will feel better about it and the organization will feel better about it. So yeah, there, there's a logic behind the whole ESG, um, business argument, uh, and Common Purpose, I suppose, epitomize that and creating those opportunities to actually understand the power of actually good leadership, but also giving you opportunities to to actually make good, to do good.

And I think there's an opportunity. I think people look at ESG and look at CSR, and I think particularly ESG is still seen as kind of an investor money strategy thing that doesn't really bother me or doesn't really impact my world. CSR, we've probably got somebody doing that and CSR manager. But actually I'm a really firm believer in kind of micro change, that if everybody can make very little changes. So a leader making a change in society isn't about them being Nelson Mandela or starting up a school for people with intellectual disability or whatever it might be, it can be a little tiny thing that they just do for somebody else on their team, somebody else in their world, somebody else in their atmosphere. And I think that if we could all do that, if every leader could do that, all those little micro changes roll up to very, very big change in society, I believe anyway.

The greatest pleasure in my job is putting people together. Putting people together and seeing what actually happens when they come together. It also is about introductions. You talk about small things. It could be just an introduction. Sitting down talking to somebody and they're going, "Geez, you know, I really need this." "Oh, well, I know this guy. Let me just do an introduction." And then a year down the line, you get a call from that individual and they're going, "Geez, thanks for that introduction. That was amazing." Happy days. Is, you know, that's the power of the small thing. And again, you come back to that awareness and the power of connection.

So into the final question, we've run out of time, unfortunately, um, because you and I, I know, could, could spend hours talking about this. Um, if you were talking to somebody who's going into their first leadership role and they asked your advice on what was the most important thing for them to focus on, what would that thing be?

I've said a lot of it already. I talked about keeping your mind open to opportunities. Really always look for the opportunities. Knowing your strengths and your weaknesses is absolutely key. Surrounding yourself with people that are better than you. Don't be challenged. Absolutely take on those individuals that you think would be better, because at the end of the day, they'll make you look better. They will complement your skills. And keep keep connecting, keep looking for those connections. We've said it 100 times on this, the power connection is absolutely key. Connecting people, connecting place, connecting opportunities, looking for those synergies. They're the pieces that I would always do. And listen, for God's sake, listen to people's advice. Surround yourself with mentors. I'll leave you with this one, and 3 mentors, um, the, the coach, the apprentice, and Jedi. Surround yourself with a coach like yourself and myself, Scott. We talk to each other, we bounce ideas off each other all the time. Bringing— having an apprentice mentor, and that will be somebody that is younger than you that actually has more feel of a different demographic that you're working with. And then there's the Jedi, is having somebody above you that has been through it, done it all, and be able to bounce those ideas off you. Surround yourself with good people, man.

I love that. A coach, an apprentice, and a Aye. What a great place to leave the conversation. Dara, before we go, if people want to find out about Common Purpose and the programs, where can they go?

Go to commonpurpose.ie. My email is dara.connelly@commonpurpose.ie. Love to hear from you, but of course I'm on LinkedIn as well.

Brilliant stuff. Alrighty, Dara, thanks a million. You enjoy the rest of your day.

You're a gent. Thanks very much for the opportunity, Scott.

Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders on our podcast, to read our blogs, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.