91 | Enlightened Leadership Embraces the Power of Failure | Gill Kernick

Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast, where I talk to leaders about how internal communications, engagement, and leadership all play a key role in creating amazing and successful cultures.

One of the biggest jobs of executives is welcoming bad news, actively going, okay, what's the bad news I need to hear about? What's all the stuff that you're worried about that you know is going to come down in the next 2 months that if we got on top of it now, we could, we could perhaps head off? How do you actively create environments where you Welcome, bad news.

Hello there and welcome to this episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes. Gosh, this is the first episode that I've recorded at my new stand-up desk. So let's hope that I don't wander away from the microphone too much. If I am going in and out, you'll know why at least, that I've just got on, got my dancing shoes on and I'm moving around the office. First of all, big thank you as usual to our friend and supporter Workvivo. If you want to learn more about their employee engagement platform and how they can help you as an organization create stronger ties with your people, particularly as we move into the more hybrid world of work with people working from, from many different places, then they are well worth a look. So workvivo.com for a little bit more on them, and you'll hear a bit more about them later on too. Now, today's guest is Really interesting. And we had a great chat a couple of weeks back before she came on. Her name's Jill Kurnick. She's an expert on safety, culture, and leadership. And she's recently written a book called Catastrophe and System Change, born out of, very sadly, the Grenfell Tower disaster that many of you will remember a few years ago, the tower block going on fire. Jill used to live there. And actually, when the tower went on fire, she was in the block just nearby and was watching it from afar. She's also looked at at catastrophes like Piper Alpha and started to think about what is it that makes these things happen and why don't we learn from them. So, I'm really interested to have a chat with her today about culture, about leadership, about psychological safety and trust, and a whole host of other things that I think are very, very, very applicable as much in the world of business as they are perhaps in the world of big catastrophes where lots of people lose their lives. So, Jill, hello there. Welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Scott. Thanks for having me.

No, you're very welcome. Listen, let's kick off as we always do. Let me just give you a few minutes to tell listeners a little bit about you, your background, and what you do today.

Great. So it was interesting as I was preparing for today, I was thinking, well, what would I say about myself? Which, if you're as old as me, becomes increasingly difficult.

You're not that old. Stop now. You're not that old.

Come on. Oh, Jeremy. But if I was to go, well, tell you about me, I think the— The thing that I'm most passionate about is people and, and particularly the potential of people. So what happens when human beings come together in all our messiness and create something extraordinary together? So that's been something I've been interested in my entire life. I grew up in an apartheid South Africa, so I have a strong bent for social justice and equality. But very much, um, well, what can we as leaders do? What can organizations do to create a world that's frankly better for all of us is what I would say my passion is. And then what I actually do is I'm a consultant. As you mentioned, I work in high-hazard industries, really on the domain of safety leadership and culture. So how do you create the culture to prevent accidents And I have a particular passion for catastrophic, low-probability, high-consequence events.

So those low-probability, high-consequence events, I guess, are things like Grenfell and Piper Alpha, the big oil blaze in the North Sea, which I guess must have been back in the '80s?

Yes.

I would think now. Yeah. So why do these things happen? And what do we do to avoid them happening again and again? Because you said when we had our little pre-chat, there are quite a lot similarities between some of these big catastrophic events that happen. So how do we stop them happening? What's getting in the way of that?

Well, there's this wonderful statement, which is there's an awful sameness to these tragedies. And a lot of those are technical in nature, but a lot are human in nature or cultural in nature. And one of the big ones, which is one of my huge passions, is around people speak up and they're not heard. So one of the typical themes that you find across all disasters really is that if you dig in, you'll see that there were people often at the front line who had concerns, who raised concerns, and whose concerns were dismissed. So that's one example. But in answer to your question, I would actually go, why they keep happening is because we don't shift the paradigm we think from. So, you know, the world is increasingly complex. Catastrophic events are complex in nature. There's never a single root cause. There's multiple things that happen that lead to them. And as we move to the, you know, Fourth Industrial Revolution, the digital— digitalization age, the world is becoming more complex. But I don't think as leaders, um, we've necessarily shifted the paradigm we think from. So we still think of the world as this ordered, controllable cause and effect linear place that we can manage through some control and command kind of way, if that makes sense. I think that's probably, I would say, the biggest reason we keep having these catastrophic events, 'cause we don't shift how we think about them.

And that command and control, and I think when you think about organizational structure and it's that pyramid with a CEO at the top and then an exec team and then their team and then their team and then everybody else down, down beneath many, many levels, that is that command and control structure. It's always been there. But obviously the issue that's happening to your point there is that information that people are seeing at the frontline, which regardless of whether you work at a bank or in an oil field, the people at the frontline are often the ones that have the best information. So why isn't that getting back up the line and what can we do to get it back up the line?

So my big response to that is actually pretty simple, is just listen. So in my experience working with organizations, if you can get the most senior executives to stop thinking that they need to have the answers and to actually get interested in the inquiry and spend meaningful time with people both in middle management— because I think often we forget about the middle layers— but both in middle management and at the bottom and at the front line, to understand the challenges and to understand where things are going to go wrong and shift their role from, I need to have the answers, to I need to remove barriers. I think you create fundamental shifts, but it's when that authentic communication— that sounds like a trite statement— but that authentic communication happens, something begins to shift culturally in organizations and meaningfully and rapidly.

And what have you found that's getting in the way of that happening? Because to me, that's something that we've been saying for years and years and years and years. Leaders need to listen, they need to be more authentic, they need to clear barriers out the way. Why are people not doing it?

How do we select CEOs? Mm. Do you know, I think there's a huge— I actually have a lot of compassion for people in the C-suite, because I think we put them in an incredibly difficult position, because we select them because of their knowledge. And their ability to direct and know. And then we tell them, oh yeah, you need to be authentic and you need to listen. And there's a big dissonance between those things and what shareholders are demanding of people and the kind of humility that's needed to create that kind of authentic relationship with the frontline. So I think we often don't give the C-suite executives sufficient empathy actually for how difficult it is to hold that I'm the CEO, Shareholders have confidence in me. And yes, I'm going to remove barriers from some, one at the frontline raising a concern. That's a tough ask.

And I'd argue that that ask is the same from the CEO as a leader all the way down through the organization. Everybody generally is promoted in organizations, particularly in command and control organizations, because they're technically really proficient, not because they're really good people, people. So, the same is true of that. And then of course, that whole idea that the CEO is answerable to a shareholder group or to other external stakeholders, actually then the leaders within the organization are answerable to that person. And therefore, that objective cascades down the organization. So, we all end up in that sticky mess, don't we?

Exactly. I mean, I don't think our organizational cultures— sorry, structures help us or our shareholders. Structures help us. Because really what you're looking for, if you think about it as a shareholder, what you're looking for is a CEO that's very directive, that knows their stuff, that's going to leave you confident that they're in control. But control is frankly an illusion when none of us are in control. And certainly the pandemic, I hope, has led people to realize that actually you can spend years making up wonderful strategies, but you're not in control. So I think there's kind of like a paradigm shift around the whole world of business and organizations and leadership that we all have a role to play in, from shareholders through to CEOs.

And of course, a lot of what we're talking about now is embedded very much in the whole psychology of change in organizations and what organizations need to do to stop this stuff happening. And actually, I always think it's interesting because it's not about necessarily stopping the bad stuff, just about stopping the bad stuff. Stuff happening. It's actually about putting in place systems and thinking that helps more of the good stuff to happen. And in doing so stops the bad stuff happening. So, I just wonder, when we spoke before, you talked about change often being piecemeal and not systemic. Tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that and how organizations can maybe be a little more strategic in our systemic in how they change.

Great. So, so let me say a little bit. This, the piecemeal versus systemic change, was really a discovery that I had when I was trying to answer this question when I was writing my book, which is why does our failure to learn make sense? So you have a catastrophe like Grenfell or Piper Alpha or, or the pandemic. So you have something that's low probability, high consequence, and people do an enormous amount. So they put regulations in, they change rules, they're— there's what I call a huge amount of busy work, but it ends up with people working incredibly hard and not much fundamental changing. So you'll get what I call piecemeal change. So in the case of Grenfell, there'll be fire doors, you know, which were non-compliant and found to be non-compliant in thousands of homes around the world. You'll get the right fire doors in That's important. So we do need piecemeal change, but we are not looking at, well, what are the— what I call, what are the conditions holding the systemic things in place? So what are the shifts in mindset that we need? And systemic change needs a very different approach and very different questions.

So it's about fixing the problem and not fixing the symptoms.

Yeah, you could say like that. Like in piecemeal change, you'd go, what's wrong with the system? And then you'll put in place whatever technical solutions typically to fix that. But for systemic change, you might ask a different question. So why does our failure to learn make sense? For example, those are the kinds of things that you would ask in that situation.

And how do you create change? What is it then? What are the conditions that need to be there to create that change in organizations that don't necessarily want to change? Are change-averse or don't have senior teams that want to change or see the need for change?

So I was thinking about this question. I'm not sure, do any of us want change? So, you know, there's these trite things that we say, like, you know, the only constant is change, etc., etc. But I think as humans, we're resistant to change naturally. And I think we should give ourselves a little bit more room to welcome the resistance, because change is upsetting. It's kind of like it takes us out of the known, and we like to be certain. Written and feel like we're in control, and we're not. But I do think, um, for me, one of the big things is we need to be willing to engage with what I call dissonance. So I think often what happens in organizations is we go, we need a new strategy, or we need some bold new vision, and we do all this la la PR, nice documents, fabulous looking strategies. This is our timeline over the next 5 years. But actually, our access to change is where that's not present in organizations. It's, it's in the areas of dissonance, in the narratives that are happening around the coffee machine that are different from what we've espoused. And I think unless we can embrace dissonance and dig into those gaps, you don't create meaningful change. You just end up with, you know, nice documents and 5 years later, you look and you go, well, what actually fundamentally changed? Maybe piecemeal, but not systemic change.

Yeah. And as I'm listening to that, as somebody that works in and advises clients on what really good internal communications look like, I think there's definitely a role for that la la nice documents piece at an organizational level. But I think what you're getting to there, what I heard was that It's leaders that really have to step in and teams have to step in to understand their role in that change. So, if we're painting a picture of what a better future for the organization looks like, then that's going to mean different things for somebody that works. If it's a hospital on the frontline providing nursing care or healthcare versus somebody that works in finance or somebody that works in risk or somebody that opens and shuts the car park entrance and exit. So, for me, there's a role for leaders in helping to address that dissonance, is there? In terms of what does that mean for us? How can we change and making those little micro changes happen through an organization?

Yes. And I would also say that I think the role of leaders is to create space for people to discover versus to tell. So again, it's kind of like, I'm going to tell you what your role is in our new strategy. Is far less appealing than, "Here's our new vision and here's our new strategy. I need to understand from you how you feel you can best fulfill and align with that and what support you need," which again goes away from the command control.

Yeah, absolutely. How do I help clear barriers? And I think that whole idea of creating spaces for that knowledge and wisdom to come out is really important because I think, you know, often, and it's not done in a bad way, that internal comms teams will say, "We're going through a change. Here's a pack. There's some speaker notes in there." They'll send it out. It'll be called a team talk kit or something like that. But then what you end up with is leaders who take the slides, put them up on screen, and read the notes, and then they're done. "Right team, back to work everyone. We've done the change piece." There's more to it than that. And I guess it comes back to that point that we talked about at the top of leaders and CEOs needing to actually, whilst fulfilling what other stakeholders are looking to them for, being that authentic leader, being that person that gives that space and creates that space for people to come with knowledge, with ideas, with wisdom, right?

Exactly. And also with their disbelief. So I often talk about the difference between espoused and embodied. So you get that, and I'm not arguing we shouldn't have the espoused values or strategies, et cetera. But until it's embodied within the organization, kind of really at deep levels, so if you go to Schein's levels of culture, for example, so in our mindsets, our beliefs, our attitudes, you'll never create sustainable change. All you'll have is the strategic imperative for change, which on its own doesn't live in an organization. You know, an organization's a vibrant, living organism.

Yeah, of course. And it's like having espoused values where you have them up on the wall or on your mouse mats or on your screen savers, and actually nobody lives them because nobody's respectful to each other, nobody works together, nobody does what's asked of them, nobody innovates, nobody comes up with new ideas. And once that starts to happen, the wheels come off and then change doesn't happen.

Exactly. And again, that goes back to, it's where there's that dissonance that I think change is possible. But we're psychologically not bent for dissonance. So actually, your opportunities for change are, there are the values on the wall, but the behaviors that I'm seeing don't resonate with the values on the wall, let It's talk. Why is that? Let me understand what's going on. What are the barriers to us actually fulfilling what we've espoused? And for me, the more experience I have, and Grenfell changed me a lot in this direction, is our access to change is dissonance. We need to stop shying away from it.

Embrace it.

Embrace it. And it's a very, very, very difficult space to hold, particularly for— and that I think is one of the biggest jobs of senior leaders is holding that space of dissonance dissonance, ambiguity, complexity, not knowing, which is again, as we've spoken about, against everything we traditionally want them to provide. Yeah.

Well, I think people still look up organisations and expect their bosses to have all the answers. And actually, to your point, it's not about having all the answers, it's about having all the questions.

Exactly, exactly. And the space to engage in drawing on the wisdom of the organisation and then actually making something happen with that wisdom.

And how then in the case of if it's a BP oil field or the Valdez running, the Exxon Valdez running aground or Grenfell, there were people at the front of those organizations on those ships, on those oil rigs, working in those tower blocks who had the information. So how are we getting it back up? What practically are the systems that need to be in place to get that information back through the system, back to the people that need it most?

I think there's a systemic and there's a cultural answer to that question. So in the case of Grenfell, it was as much as it was some of the workers, it was actually the residents. So the residents had raised concerns, including to their member of parliament. So they raised concerns through all the political structures and were still ignored, you know, fundamentally their concerns were not taken seriously. So I think there's a cultural element which is called how much do I actually value what people have to say versus dismiss it. And there's something critical for me about exploring what I call the narratives that we use to silence, which can be very subtle, you know, it's kind of, you know, just what are the narratives, the internal conversations, or the conversations we have with colleagues that unintentionally silence certain voices, like, they are this way. In the case of Grenfell, it was they're aggressive, rebellious, troublemakers, etc., etc. So I think there's this cultural aspect of it which narratives is a very good access to. And then there's the systemic one. So people have reporting mechanisms, etc., etc. Um, on the reporting mechanisms, the big one is that it doesn't go into a black hole. So many people report and nothing happens about it. And we see this again in disaster after disaster. I mean, I live just near Ladbrooke Grove where there was a big rail disaster and people had raised again and again that the signals were not good at a particular time of day because of the sun and nobody took that seriously. Well, people took it seriously, it was reported, but it wasn't fixed. So there's the whole black hole of systems.

It's very interesting that often it's such small little things that can make all the difference. We've got actually, I was only thinking about this last night, near where I live, there's a fairly kind of a fairly chunky junction where 4 roads come together with traffic lights and stuff like that. And where I have to go right, you're not, it's a filter. So it just has a standard set of traffic lights, but you don't get to go right until everybody else has gone beside you, has gone straight on. So they get a green light, and the number of times that people in front of me have said, oh, there's a green light, on I go, even though the light for going right is still red. And I'm kind of thinking to myself, I wonder why nobody has just changed that red light to a red arrow so that we know that it's red for turning right. And, you know, actually it's probably, I'm probably pointing at myself now 'cause maybe that's something that I should be doing by getting in touch with the council and suggesting it But we just don't, do we? Because we just think, oh, maybe somebody else will do that, or I'm sure somebody thought of that, or there's probably legislation against it, or—

They know what they're doing. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. But that's also a perfect example of how we can kind of engineer out risk, because there are silly things like that where, I mean, I know because I often see traffic signals and I don't drive, I live in Central London, so I don't drive much. And I'm like, I would wouldn't know what to do. So how could you make that clearer? And the tacit knowledge of drivers is really important in accessing that.

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So interesting you should touch on risk. So let's talk a little bit about risk, because we're always saying to— particularly, I think, in, in the commercial corporate world— we need to innovate. You know, the numbers of times you'll see innovation think differently, as values on the walls of large corporations. I wonder how you balance risk-taking with progress, because you hear all the time, again, back to something you said at the top about trite statements, "Well, if we're not taking risks, we're not making progress. If we're not failing, we're not making progress." How do you balance risk-taking with progress?

So for me, I think the big thing is to search for vulnerabilities and particularly to search for what are unintended consequences of what we do. So I love innovation. I am not a, we should, I don't think the world is wonderful the way that it is. So I'm all for, we need to innovate and there's huge opportunities with digital, et cetera, et cetera, for us to do some amazing things that really impact equality, poverty, et cetera, et cetera. But I think often what I think what people fail to do from a risk perspective is to consider particularly low probability, high consequence events distinctly. And your access to that is looking at what could the unintended consequences of this be, which is a systemic question. So if we take this action, what's the chain of things that that could potentially set off that could lead to something catastrophic? And we tend, particularly from a financial mindset, to ignore things that have a low probability of happening. But in the case of safety, high consequences, multiple deaths. So we need to have a particular regard for those kinds of incidents and search for vulnerabilities actively, look at unintended consequences would be what I'd say.

So is that the role in the corporate world, say in banking or financial services or healthcare? Is that the role of risk and compliance experts to be focused on those things? Because it strikes me that in some organizations, they may be given too much too much weight, and they're given too much opportunity to say no?

I don't— so I have a particular thing about compliance, because I think we kid ourselves that compliance is going to guarantee safe outcomes, and it just doesn't. So I certainly wouldn't give it to compliance officers. I think compliance officers' job should be to make sure you're covered if you go to court. So let's make sure that we comply with the regulations, but regulations don't guarantee safe outcomes. So that should be the kind of very lowest bar that we set ourselves in terms of safety. I think it needs to be multidisciplinary. How can you possibly have one group of experts looking at what are the unintended consequences of what we're doing, or what are the vulnerabilities? You need to get multiple stakeholders together to look at that. And frankly, the job of the board and senior executives and C-suite is, is assurance in that area and really interrogating not just, "Oh, we've got the compliance checklist, we're okay," but no, they need to interrogate the searching for vulnerabilities and assure themselves that decisions being made are sound decisions.

I agree about the multi-party approach that it's then up to senior teams to look at the data in front of them, look at all the data points together, and then make a decision. It's not just about, "Well, it all seems to make sense, but risk have said no, or compliance have said no, therefore—" The answer is no.

And also, because I think part of our reliance on kind of this old paradigm, I think we have to consider what kind of data we accept. So, you know, the softer data is as important as our traditional lagging indicator hard data. So there's this group of people, they're called post-normal scientists. I love their work and they look at risk in a particular way and they talk about the need to acknowledge or include different ways of knowing, not just our traditional expertise. We need to expand which data is valid. Hmm. Okay.

Which I guess brings us interestingly into maybe the whole area of bias. And I just wonder how much of what happens and how much of our lack of willingness or ability to learn is based on the biases that leaders or people in organizations bring with them to work every day?

So bias is absolutely a stopper to learning, but it's not so much the bias, it's our unwillingness or lack of mitigating against bias. So the lack of bringing in diverse voices or people that will challenge or that kind of creating an environment where we're responsible for not being blinded by our bias, if that makes sense. So we're not— we're just not that good at that yet. We don't understand. We talk about diversity, but again, I think we talk about diversity from that kind of espoused moral standpoint, which is absolutely— I'm for that. But actually, diversity is your biggest guard against bias.

I think the biggest trick that we've missed that a lot of diversity— or sorry, in a lot of organizations, diversity is about how do we get more gender balance? How do we get more people of color into the organization? How do we make sure that we have an organization that's ably equipped so that people with a disability can work here? For me, those things, yes, of course, are important, but actually it's more about what they bring, which is that diversity of thinking by bringing in different people from different backgrounds, from different cultures, from different genders, different groups. You bring diversity of thinking and diversity of challenge, and that is where the real power comes from. Is that fair?

Well, I completely agree with you. And I think often the trick that we miss is, yes, we'll bring all these different people into the organization. But we fail again on the cultural element, which is, are their distinct voices heard? And is that challenge and difference of view welcome? Versus, you know, as a woman, one of the things that I realized, thank goodness, a while ago was I was like, gosh, I need to become more male, was, and then I caught myself thinking that because I work in highly, highly technical industries. And I was like, well, let me buy some chinos and check blue shirts and then I'll fit in, right? I mean, there was this particular moment where I thought that, and then I caught myself thinking that and I went, no, that's not what I can bring. There's plenty of people bringing that perspective. What I can bring is something that's far different and has me be challenging. So I think that again, there's that cultural element to when people come into the organization, are they free to challenge? Do we create space for that, again, dissonant view?

Yeah, and for me, it's that idea. And I've spoken about this a million times on this podcast and to leadership groups. For me, I think that moment that you had, that I'm getting better at myself, is that awareness. Is actually stopping, having the awareness to stop yourself and go, "Hang on a minute. Is that the best thing? That's a stupid idea. That's not the best thing that I can do right now. The best thing I can do is something different." But you have to have that moment, don't you, to stop yourself and go, "Does that make sense?" And that's something that I don't think people are particularly good at. We keep doing the same thing, a bit like a hamster in a wheel, and nothing ever changes. Exactly. Exactly.

We just keep doing the same things over and over. I mean, who was that? Do the same things over again and expect different results.

That Einstein. I think it was actually Einstein who people say said it, and I don't think it was him that actually said it, but I do think it's absolutely true. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

And I think with change, like when we're talking about organizational change and strategy change, that is often what happens is we spend an enormous amount of time coming up with these great espoused changes.. But then we don't dig into these subtle, difficult, ambiguous, very difficult to grasp areas. And that's actually where change, where meaningful, sustainable organizational change actually lives.

And I don't necessarily think that's anybody's fault. I don't think they're not exploring those things because they're scared or they don't have the skills or the confidence. I think actually largely it's because we don't often and have the time because we're prioritizing different things.

And what, you know, how do we, what we pay attention to measure and control, do you know, one of Shine's culture embedding mechanisms, you know, what do we pay attention to measure and control? Are we paying attention to areas of dissonance? Are we measuring how much time executives are spending listening to, you know, various stakeholders or are we measuring kind of lagging indicator? So-called value-generating metrics.

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So I think the first thing is to get clear about what we mean by psychological safety. So I would go a little bit on the domain of Amy Edmondson's work, which is about being able to bring my full self to work and being able to challenge. So how comfortable do I feel within this team to challenge, to say a view that people might not agree with. So to give my real opinions and thoughts. So I think often we don't really interrogate what we mean by psychological safety and we bandy it around and it becomes this feel-good thing. But it's, it's very much for me about how do we create organizations and environments where people can challenge and bring their innovative thinking as well. So towards both the negative and the positive side of that. And I think there's very practical things that you can do to create environments where challenge is welcomed. So, you know, one of my big things is, um, I, I think that one of the biggest jobs of executives is welcoming bad news. So actually actively going, okay, what's the bad news I need to hear about? What's all the stuff that you're worried about that you know is going to come down in the next 2 months that if we got on top of it now we could, we could perhaps head off? So I think there's— how do you actively create environments where you welcome bad news, but also where challenge is welcomed? And you can You can do that by setting up, just very practically in meetings, assigning roles. So your job in this meeting, and you can switch that amongst team members, is to be the challenger. Your job is to sit back and watch us and actually intervene where you see us going down a path of groupthink, et cetera, et cetera. And when you do just simple things like that repeatedly, you'll shift the culture and people will then naturally come up with both innovative ideas, but also challenge.

I love that idea. And for me, that whole thought of being able to come to work and provide that challenge, I think there's a role for senior leaders in that as well. I was only coaching a client recently. And he said, "Well, but if we go out with this, people are going to say, 'Well, that's something that you should have been doing years ago.'" And I went, "Are they right?" And he went, "Yeah." And I went, I went, "So say it. You're probably all thinking that this is something that we should have done years ago. And you're right. We should have done it years ago." So in that moment, people are going, "Oh, okay then. That's really honest and great." And I think you win the favor from the people in your organization. You win their trust. You win their confidence.

Exactly. I mean, I think that this notion also of never making mistakes, or humans always will make mistakes. So I think part of the psychological safety element is actually creating an organization where it's accepted that people will make mistakes and they become learning opportunities, not blame opportunities. I think that's absolutely critical, and that's both, I think, internal and external facing, is we don't go, 'I messed up, we shouldn't have done this.' That's not kind of like an accepted cultural normal. No, certainly not externally.

Because back to something you mentioned earlier on about stakeholders and shareholders, they don't like that kind of a thing, particularly not in the type of work that you do with these potentially catastrophic events. We did this wrong, share price goes down.

And I do think when we look at the ESG and when we're moving into sustainability and climate change, actually that needs to shift both from investors and shareholders. There needs to be— and also if we're to learn from one another, there needs to be far more acceptance of going, "Look, we messed up and this is what we're doing to put it right." Instead of this fear of, "Oh, well, if we tell the truth, the share price is going to tank." Yeah, for sure.

Last question for you. And it's kind of a big one to basically summarize all of your knowledge into one thing. What's the most important things do you think that organizations can do to capture and then apply those learnings from failure? If you had to pick one thing, that a listener could do tomorrow in their organization, what would it be?

I would say accept bad news, and I don't just mean that passively accept bad news. I would probably say search for bad news. One of the statements that I often use is challenge the green and embrace the red. So when you've got green dashboards, interrogate those, and when you've got red dashboards, boards really welcome those and go, "What can we do to support shifting those? Thanks for telling us the truth." So I think, especially at an executive level and the ability to shift culture, is this notion of bad news, I think, is absolutely critical. Yeah.

And it's that whole— I was actually only saying the same thing to somebody this morning on the phone that I used to do a lot of work in the customer service field. And the best thing that you can ever get is a customer complaint. Because if you don't get a customer complaint, there's nothing you can do to fix the thing that's wrong. And it's the same with the work that you do, I guess, in exactly that regard, interrogate the red. Exactly. You know, Jill, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. If people want to find out more about you, and I know you've got the book, and I know your podcast, where can they find out about you more?

Right. So, you can follow me on LinkedIn. So again, it's Jill Koenig, Jill with a G. So, I'm quite active on both LinkedIn and Twitter, not so much on Insta, but you can follow me on social media. And then the book is available through Amazon or most online buyers, buyers it's called, or sellers even. It's called Catastrophe and Systemic Change: Learning from the Grenfell Tower Fire and Other Disasters. So you can search for that. There's also a 6-series podcast that goes with the book that you can just search Catastrophe the Podcast. Again, it's available on all podcasts. Podcast, um, whatever you call them, you'll know, Scott.

Directories, channels, listening. Let's go with it. Available everywhere. I like listening things. Let's go with that.

Listening things. So you can just search for Catastrophe, the podcast, and that's got some really great guests. We've got astronauts, we've got, um, you know, people— it talks about the pandemic. We've got experts really interrogating why we don't learn from these events. Brilliant.

Catastrophe, the podcast, and Building Better Cultures, both available on all listening things. I think it's what we've just learned there.

That's your new tagline.

Jill, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. Thanks so much for joining me, and I wish you all the best with the book. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders on our podcasts, to read our blogs, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.