Episode 3 | LISA MELODY | Head of Talent Acquisition & Development, Ornua

Welcome to Face Forward, the inspiring change podcast on all things internal communications, engagement, leadership, and change. So it's a beautiful spring day here in Dublin, blue skies, cold but sunny and lovely. And here I am with Lisa Melody, who's head of leadership development in Ornua. For those of you who don't know the Ornua brand or haven't heard of Ornua before, I might let Lisa bring you through a little bit about the brand and maybe, maybe tell you a little bit about yourself and your career.

Ornua is a cooperative, and people will probably know us for the Kerrygold brand, so things like Kerrygold butter. And in markets that were very big, in markets like the US and Germany, we used to be known as the Irish Dairy Board. We rebranded a couple of years ago. We have two big pillars to the business: the foods side of the business, and then we have a big ingredients business. So we sell a lot of milk-based products and milk powders to 110 countries across the world. So we're on quite an ambitious growth journey, and we have a strategy in place called 'Renua 2021' that's taking our business to is becoming a €3 billion turnover business by 2021, and we're well on our way to kind of hitting that target. So it's quite an entrepreneurial organization, and we're a key player, I suppose, in the dairy and food business in Ireland.

Okay, interesting. Tell me a little bit about yourself as well in terms of where you've come from and your role here in Ornua.

So I joined Ornua 18 months ago heading up talent development, and I've recently also taken up looking after talent acquisition. So we have a very clear talent strategy that supports Ornua 2021. And so there's lots of exciting things happening here. So it's an interesting place to be. And before I joined Ornua, I worked in HR in AIB for about 15 years in a range of roles from looking after our corporate banking business as it grew internationally and then contracted in the tougher times, and then moving into organisation development roles my latter years. And before that, I worked with a Canadian telecoms company called Nortel and worked in the UK and Canada with them. So HR through and through, I think, for the last, sadly, 25 years.

Interesting, but a real mix of sectors, a real mix of sectors, from telecoms to banking and financial services to food.

Yeah, and I suppose the food industry in Ireland is a really interesting one at the moment. It's quite, um, well branded globally, so there's a lot of interesting opportunities and ethos here because we're a cooperative, so essentially we're earning profits to give a certain cut back to the Irish dairy farmers. So there's a nice ethos and pride in the organisation in terms of what we're trying to do. There's a really nice culture in the organisation that goes with that as well.

As you're talking, I'm scribbling down words here because I love, you know, I want to come back to this whole idea of being a very entrepreneurial organisation and that whole idea of ethos and pride. I'm going to come back to that in a little while, I think.

Okay.

At a very high level, what would you say your views are on what makes a great leader in an organization?

I think a great leader has to be authentic. I think maybe it's an obvious thing, it has to be somebody that people follow and visibly follow. I do think a little dose of charisma is probably a good thing, especially if you're in a kind of CEO-level type position in an organization. I was thinking about this. I think ego is important, but to a point. I think you have to have enough self-belief and confidence to know that you can run an organization or lead a big part of a business.

I guess that drives that pride that you talked about earlier on among your team. If you're out there banging down walls and knocking down doors, but not so much ego that you create a political, hierarchical, kind of toxic environment.

That's where the ego can kind of tip too far. Yeah. And I think somebody who really cares about their business and has credibility and has passion for their sector, and that can be quite effusive or— what's the word I'm looking for— contagious, I suppose, to other employees so that they kind of bring people with them on the journey. I think I'm a big fan personally of leaders who lead from behind, so people who let their teams take some of that glory, that say thank you, that are empathetic, that kind of drive that culture and let people shine in an organisation. Mm-hmm.

I remember that. I remember hearing one of the big polar explorers talk once, and that's exactly what they do because it's very hard to take a bearing when what you're looking at is white to white to white, everything's white. It's very hard to see where you're going. But actually, if you lead from behind, then the line that you're following is the line of your people in front of you. And I thought that was a lovely analogy that fits nicely with what you were saying there, that whole leading from behind piece.

Very nice.

Yeah. How do you think then, from an entrepreneurial perspective, And you saying about Ornua being a very entrepreneurial organisation, what is it that a good leader can do to help their people to be very entrepreneurial in their roles?

I think they have to encourage a little bit of risk-taking, encourage that trying something new. Luckily, we are an organisation that gives you autonomy, so if you kind of come up with a good idea be careful what you wish for because typically you'll be told, "Okay, go and do it," whereas I've worked in other organizations where maybe you then need to get a lot of buy-in to do things, whereas here it's drive on, make your mark, if it doesn't work, fail fast, learn from it, and move on. So I think that supports quite a strong entrepreneurial culture.

Definitely, and I guess inherent in that is, must be very high levels of trust in the organization if people are willing to say, 'that's a great idea, Lisa, go off and make it happen.' There must be inherently a very large amount of trust in the more senior managers in the organisation.

Yeah, so I think you are definitely trusted. I think you're also on the hook for things, so if you say you're going to do something, then you need to deliver it, which is fine because you shouldn't be given that trust if you're not prepared to follow through. So it is the kind of culture where if you sign up to a certain performance in your business, you're expected to deliver it or exceed it. So there's no excuses either. I suppose the bar is set quite high, but I think that then fosters people to go and challenge and push boundaries and think of new ways of selling to our customers, to our markets, new product development and so on.

And I guess at the end of the day, the customer is king. They're the reason that we're all here, to make sure that they get what they need when they need it at the right quality, the right price.

And I suppose for us as a cooperative, we have a funny dynamic because typically our customers are often, certainly on the ingredient side, they're other businesses. So we sell a lot of product on to other businesses that they then turn into other products.

So that would be like the flavorings in a bag of crisps or the flavorings in an ice cream?

Absolutely, we would think of, for example, the topping that goes on Coco Pops would have our Nua Dairy in it, or Irish dairy in it, for example. Okay. But because we're cooperative, we're also very accountable to our members. So the likes of Glanbia, Dairygold, Arivo, but in some markets they're also our competitors. So in our world we actually have a kind of strange dynamic of sometimes a member is a supplier, sometimes they're a customer, so it's an interesting dynamic but a really challenging one, I suppose, a successful one in terms of we've made the business into something really great, especially over the last 7 or 8 years.

Brilliant, and with a plan then in your 2021 vision and strategy to to go on to make it even bigger and better?

Yes, we do have a change of CEO coming this year, so our current CEO is leaving the organisation mid-year, so it'll be interesting to see who takes up the charge. We don't know yet, is that going to be somebody internal or external? It'll be interesting to see how does that change or drive, I suppose, the business, the culture, and our talent strategy going forward.

Okay, interesting. And I know that just kind of moving on from leadership and trust, a big part of me from a strong leader is being an engaging leader and somebody that brings their team with them. And that, of course, is something that from AIB you'd have had a lot of experience of. How do we bring an organisation from one that was very much in the doldrums, as many financial services organisations were, and actually many organisations, because I think everybody took a hit through that kind of worldwide financial crisis. What do you think it is that makes a leader a really engaging leader, what are some of the things that they need to be doing to create an engaging place to work for their teams?

I think they need to focus on their team. So really good engaging leaders will focus on their team, whereas some leaders will focus on other stakeholders or managing upwards. So having that balance of kind of managing all of the stakeholders, I think they have to genuinely care about what the team is trying to achieve, about what their team members are trying to deliver, about them as people. I think engaging people leaders will show people a way, they'll show them a path, they'll give them clarity, they'll give them direction and hopefully some stretch along the way so that people could follow them, I suppose, so that they're kind of showing people a way through sometimes business situations that can be quite tricky and quite challenging. I suppose the old cliché of people leave, people leave, they leave their managers, they don't leave organisations, just just as quickly, I think, as people stay with really good leaders in organizations as well.

Yeah, okay, interesting. I was writing a blog piece yesterday, which is up on the website for anyone that's listening, on the whole idea that engagement isn't a destination, it's a journey. And actually, it's not about doing engagement, it's about leaders being engaging, about leading in an engaging way and doing the right things at the right time.

Yeah, no, I like that. I don't think you're ever there. I really like the idea that there isn't an endgame, there isn't an end score that you're trying to reach. It's an ongoing journey, and I think you as a leader— leaders have to have the confidence that they might not know all the answers and that they're on the journey too, so they don't have to be this perfect person for their teams. I think really great leaders will show some of that vulnerability and show a little bit of themselves, and they don't have to have all the answers. Answers, that in fact if you have real belief in yourself as a leader, you will look to your team for some of those answers. Whereas I think at times people who are earlier in their leadership journey will feel exposed if they feel they don't have all the answers, whereas actually maybe the more seasoned you get, the more you realize it's okay not to have all the answers.

And actually sometimes it can even be positive to not have all the answers because actually showing that bit of humility, showing that bit of, look, I don't have a vulnerability, I don't have all the answers, I'm only human, but together perhaps we can find the answer. I think that can be hugely beneficial for a leader.

Yeah, I remember even David Duffy, who was CEO at AIB, who kind of helped turn the organisation around at a critical time, and he would have talked a lot about, I don't have all the answers, but I surround myself with people people that have certain expertise and answers to support me so that we can lead this business together.

Yeah.

And I think Dave Ulrich talks about something similar, that, you know, success of leaders is surrounding themselves with people that are well able to kind of step up into their roles. So having the confidence to have people close to you that actually are as good as you, or even better.

Smarter, even better. Yeah, absolutely. And let them tell you the answers, for sure. Absolutely. When I think about— and I spend a lot of time when I'm talking in masterclasses or writing on the blog or talking to clients about the fact that leaders for me are a conduit to staff. They're such an important— we talk about, you know, comms channels of the intranet and posters and town halls and all the other stuff that we would look after in internal communications. But actually, probably the most important channel for me is the people leader, is the line manager, because they're the person that We trust the other person that we see every day. They're the person that knows where we are. And with the best will in the world, David Duffy couldn't know all of the people in AIB. There were 10,500 staff. He could give the shape of the organization, the shape of the strategy, the shape of where we're going in the future, the vision. But actually, for me, it was about leaders being able to take that and bring it to life for for their people because they know that Sarah's dog just passed away or Michael just had a baby and therefore he's knackered or something else has happened to somebody else. So they can land messages in a way that maybe are more pertinent and relevant and contextualized than a CEO can. So what do you think is the role of leader as communicator?

I think it's the old cliché again of You can never communicate enough, especially if you're going through times of change. So even if you're telling your team, "I have no update," or, "Here's what happened at the discussion at my level of management meeting," so that you're as transparent as you can be. So you're kind of on the journey with the team, you're being open with them, you're being honest, reinforcing messages. I think it's okay, again, for you to tell your team how you're feeling about going through a particular change. So say, for example, we're kicking off a fairly major transformation program here in Arnuaq called Project Evolve, because over the last number of years we've acquired quite a range of businesses and we've grown at such pace that we need to start to bring some common ways of working, processes, technology into the business. So there's a big change curve there. We're starting to feel some of the nerves around the edges on that, and I think it's okay, and we're coaching some of our leaders through that, to kind of say it's okay to share your concerns with your team too, and you know that we'll work through them together and we'll come to the right conclusions, and that we're on this journey together, and to remind people of where it's all heading. So that kind of clarity, direction, big picture piece, I think, is really important for good people leaders who communicate well.

And what about stories? How do leaders then use stories and storytelling as a tool in their arsenal?

I think it's a great skill, and I do call it a skill because I don't—

it's definitely learned—

see a huge amount of leaders who do it naturally. And yet, if you can create that picture and create those stories and those kind of hooks, that's what people remember from a particular communication. They won't remember the 10 slides with 20 bullet points on each slide that walk through the key steps of a particular piece of work or project or change, they will remember what you told them about it, how you're feeling, how you as a leader are concerned about the team. So that's what people will latch on to, and I think it's a real skill, and I would agree with you, it is most definitely something that people need to work at and consciously decide that this is how they're going to communicate. And I would say we're very new to that in Anuwa. Yeah, we're starting to do some kind of formal sort of development around that this this year in terms of that kind of storytelling and visual storytelling piece, because it's definitely something that doesn't come naturally to all of our leaders.

Brilliant. And in terms of that whole idea of that bigger change of Project Evolve, as you referred to it there, from a communications perspective, is that broad brush communications at a company corporate level, an enterprise level, or is it more about, from your perspective, kind of really drilling down as how can we get leaders to help to bring this to people in a way that they get and understand?

I think it's two things. I do think, and I think AIB, and I suppose you were part of the team that were really good at those big broad brush communications to big audiences, getting key messages across and getting them across very well. I think it's a combination of that so that everybody is on the same page with key messages, and then it's your local line manager interpreting it and making it relevant to my role and my team and what's going on, because some of those big communications won't always be relevant to every part of the business. So the ideal is that you have the two, you have those big picture messages from your CEO and your transformation teams, and then you have hopefully skilled people leaders who can manage their teams and manage the messaging for their teams.

Yeah, okay, interesting. I think for me definitely it's about how the CEO and the senior team kind of says, here's the destination that we're going to. I don't know how you in a branch in Ballina, in AIB's case, or on a farm out in Meath in Arnua's case, I don't know how you're going to do that, but hopefully there's somebody further down in the organisation that can help to show you that red thread all the way to the top of the organisation and show you how you form a really important part of us as an organisation achieving that goal and getting to that, to that destination.

Yeah, and for us in ONUA, we have— our challenge is that we are quite scattered. So head office is Ireland, but we only have 250 people working in Ireland, and we have a population of about 2,200. So we have a lot of pockets of people working in places like Africa, China, the Middle East, Africa, with bigger populations in places like Germany.

Kind of tough to do a town hall, isn't it?

Yes. So how do you make those people feel connected to bigger picture. So it just brings another dimension, which is probably somewhat similar to somebody sitting in a branch in a county of an organization in Ireland.

And how do you make those people feel connected to that big picture then if they're in Africa, Asia, China?

We use— we have an intranet called The Parlour, and we would use— we would record sort of monthly business review messages from all of our sort of key business heads, so to tell everybody how the business is doing. We have regular sort of leadership conferences throughout throughout the year for different parts of the business. We have other sort of forums, newsletters. We have a lot of manufacturing operatives who work in the organisation who wouldn't necessarily have regular access to sort of desk-based intranet, so we do a lot of comms on basic things like noticeboards, kiosks, town halls, the kind of usual range, but we still would get the message. You know, we feel we don't know enough especially for our more isolated businesses. So that whole piece of you can never communicate enough, or when you've got a vacuum, people will draw conclusions and make assumptions about things.

Yeah, fill in the noise themselves with hearsay and the jungle drums. I think it's really funny you should mention kind of posters and billboards and stuff like that, because I think the internal comms gets hockeyed a bit for the whole poster thing. And posters just aren't, you know, we just don't use them anymore because we have digital screens and the intranet and chat rooms and all that kind of stuff. But actually Exactly to that point, you pick the channel that best suits the audience. And if it's an operative on a machine in the countryside in Africa, then actually the best way to get the message across is a poster on the wall or something on the notice board they can read during their tea break.

Yeah, absolutely. And that would be 50% of our employees. So it's a really important channel for us.

Okay, interesting. You talked earlier on about pride and building a sense of pride among staff. How do you do that? How do you build pride among staff, do you think?

In Arnuaud, it might be a little bit easier because of the purpose of the company. So certainly when I joined, people would talk a lot about, you know, we're here to give back to the Irish dairy farmer. We are— a big chunk of what we make is then paid back through the cooperatives to the Irish dairy farmers, so people really feel there's a purpose. I suppose we're selling quite a pure, clean product, if you take say Kerrygold butter as an example, so people see that as something that they're very naturally proud of. You know, Kerrygold has been around for a long time, it comes up all the time in the kind of top 3 or 4 brands, Irish brands globally, that people miss when they're not living in Ireland or that they kind of recognize and would associate with Ireland, so there's a natural piece to that. I would say another pride probably comes from the culture, so we have quite a strong set of values in the organization 'With heart' is one of them, and that would sound cheesy but is actually quite true and genuine about the organisation in terms of it's quite a relationship-based organisation. It's quite non-hierarchical, quite a flat structure where everybody's voice can be heard. So I think there's something authentic about the culture, and when people see it at selection stage, when they come to join, they can kind of say, actually, they didn't just sell me a crock of something.

A crock of bollocks, let's just say.

It actually came through as genuine and authentic. We're not a perfect organisation by any means, but I think that culture piece resonates with people who fit in well, I suppose, are attracted to coming to work at the organisation.

And I think there's definitely a piece that when you're going through a big company-wide change, as you were describing earlier on, that that whole piece around culture is so critically important to get, to have that. I mean, if you have that in place already, it's so much easier when handled correctly to implement a change when you're building on such a strong positive culture.

Absolutely, so we're in a great position, but obviously, you know, you have lots of subcultures and I would definitely say the style of individual people leaders will hugely dictate how people experience Onew every day. And I suppose you could dial up or dial down our 4 values depending on, I suppose, the skills and experience of the people leaders that people are working for. So we're on that journey too in terms of trying to give our people leaders the best chance to be the best people leaders that they can be, and that's kind of part of my role and my team's role to do that.

Okay, interesting. It's funny you should touch on values. I want to just talk about that for a couple of minutes because I think I've been in organizations, I think we've probably all been in organizations where the values are on a mouse mat or on the wall, and that's pretty much as far as it goes. And even in worst-case scenario where, you know, we talk about 'with heart,' for example, in our new— but actually, when you look at the culture, and obviously it's not like that here, but if there's a disconnect then between what you're saying your values are and what the exhibited value is, and that of course undermines the integrity of the organisation and the culture. So how do you bring How do you bring the values to life in Arnua? How do they become real?

So they're relatively new, our new values, and we have 4 values: with heart, with vision, with drive, and with thought. And our employees— part of it was our employees were involved in creating them, which always helps, and we've seen that work well in other organizations. So they're bought into them and they're kicked about and they're tried and tested.

They're your values because you've come up with them. So they're all of our values, we've shared the creation of them.

And I suppose from a people perspective and an HR perspective, we've done a range of things like all of our development programs would have modules within them around, you know, connecting your personal values with the Onua values, looking at the Onua values and what you could possibly do less of, more of. We have things like a 360 feedback tool that's based on our values as behaviours that a lot of our leaders use. We're designing a recognition program based around our values to launch this year. We have things like a new tool, psychometric tool, and we're hiring people into the organisation that assesses their fit to the Ornua values. It's based on the OPQ tool, so it's more, again, we want to attract the people who will do well in this organisation and what is our kind of threshold of of how closely aligned we want somebody in terms of their leadership behaviours to join. So we're just about to launch that. So from a people perspective and people practices, there's lots of things that we're doing, but obviously there's a lot more to it than that in terms of what's happening on the ground, the language that people are using. So it's definitely part of the day-to-day. We've more to do because they're relatively new. We've run a lot of sessions with different parts of the business around their culture and values and what they can locally to challenge on the values. We've got some nice ideas around how you run meetings with the values in mind. And so it's the momentum there. So because we're really conscious of— we don't want it to be a mouse mat or a poster on a wall.

Yeah, absolutely.

Kind of consciously, we do have the mouse mats, I must admit.

As long as it's not just a mouse mat. A mouse mat's fine, as long as it's not just a mouse mat.

Yeah, but we're trying trying for them not to be a poster on the wall that nobody remembers.

Brilliant. And it sounds like certainly by doing some of those big things, but also some of the small things like meeting etiquette, for example, somebody might say, well, that's ridiculously small, but often the small things are things that stick and can really make the difference.

Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. So tell me a little bit about who your leadership role models are. Who do you look up to?

I was trying to think of— well, firstly, I did my famous people.

Obviously. Is Barack Obama on the list?

No, he's not on the list. No, no Barack Obama.

That's a first.

I mean, Nelson Mandela is your— is my sort of hero in terms of he's so forgiving that I don't know if many of us could be as forgiving and humble as he was as a leader in terms of what he went through before he went on to the roles that he had. I mean, he's kind of iconic. And for me, there's probably a bit of a theme of I am drawn to leaders who have that low-key leading from behind approach. So people like Joe Schmidt, I really admire. Aidan O'Brien, the horse trainer, you know, I've kind of seen a few documentaries on his style in terms of how he runs. I mean, there's a serious passion and obsession there, but he definitely is quite a low-key approach to leadership. And then I was thinking of leaders, I suppose, in in the real world that I've had more direct exposure to. I touched on David Duffy already. I think he came into AIB at a time when we really needed a really strong charismatic CEO, and he certainly, I suppose as an HR professional, he really got the importance of people in turning the organisation around, which was admirable. Here in Ornua, our current CEO has a really strong people focus, so that makes our lives in HR really easy when you're pushing an open door with a CEO and a senior team who are really open and supportive of everything that we're trying to do, and that's part of our brief in hiring his replacement, which could well be an internal candidate, we don't know yet, but having that strong people focus will be critical, and our chairman has kind of reiterated that message that it's really important that we continue on that journey. There's other leaders within the business that I would think are very strong role models. We have a lady called Roisin Henerty who runs a big chunk of our foods business in North America, and she's been with the organization for 30 years, joined here as a graduate, very admired, running a big chunk of P&L for the business. So I suppose seeing female leaders do well also appeals.

Okay, okay, interesting. Last but by no means least, this is a question that I ask everybody., and I'm going to put together at the end of the year a bit of a compendium of them. What one piece of leadership advice would you give your 20-year-old self? I know it wasn't that long ago.

Sadly.

I know it wasn't that long ago, Lisa, but what piece of advice would you give your 20-year-old self?

I was thinking about this in preparation for our conversation. There's definitely a piece about it's not all about you and your career, because I think when you start out in your career, it is in your head all about you. And I'm sure back in the day I had a kind of millennial mindset, and so if I knew that earlier, I might be less focused on myself. For me, a big thing I learned sort of a few years in was the whole piece of there's always a solution to a problem, so don't jump in, go away, consider it, don't feel you have to have all the answers, but you will find you will work your way through any situation that you come across it in a business context by yourself or with the support and the resources that you need within an organisation, but you will always find a solution to challenges and roadblocks along the way, so don't sort of panic or don't lose heart. And really pay attention to leaders around you. I think I would say that to my younger self. You know, I think you absorb some of it by osmosis, but Consciously look at the people that are around you that are leading, that you're working for, and learn the good and the bad from them. I think we probably all have experienced things that we have taken to use as our own from leaders that we really loved working with, and I think we've also probably learned a lot from leaders going, 'I will never do that when I lead a team,' in terms of the experiences that we've had along the way. So just be more attentive to that earlier in your career.

Excellent, wise words. Lisa Melody, Thank you very much. It's been lovely talking to you.

You're very welcome. Thank you.

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