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Ep 20. Frank Fletcher, CEO Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust: Sailing through the Pandemic
19 Plays3 years ago
“The partnership puts young people at the centre and not brand … we should all be working together to achieve Mission, rather than brand awareness or the size of our turnover or how many staff we employ.”
Frank Fletcher is CEO of The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust.
The Trust supports young people with cancer, engaging them in outdoor activities, to help re-build their confidence and their lives, after cancer.
We talk about how the Trust pivoted to a Virtual Summer during 2020 and what it has learnt during the pandemic in order to better support young people recovering from cancer.
We discuss the Trust’s newly formed partnership with Teenage Cancer Trust and CLIC Sargent (now Young Lives vs Cancer) - a fantastic example of leaving brand differences at the door to truly focus on what is best for young people.
Frank shares his learnings on establishing this formal partnership and strongly encourages other charity leaders to follow suit.
Recorded May 2021.
Guest Biography
Frank Fletcher has been CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust since 2005.
The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust is a national charity that inspires young people aged 8-24 to believe in a brighter future, living through and beyond cancer. Supporting young people through sailing, outdoor activities and virtual year-round engagement, the Trust helps young people feel more positive, accepted, confident and independent, as they look ahead to re-establish their place in the world.
Before his appointment at the Trust, Frank worked at the UK Sailing Academy, another youth charity utilising the power of the outdoors to transform young people’s lives.
Unsurprisingly, outdoor pursuits feature heavily in Frank’s personal life; he enjoys walking, paddle-boarding, cycling, swimming, and running. Other spare time is spent relaxing in his allotment, and with his family on the Isle of Wight.
Links
https://www.ellenmacarthurcancertrust.org/
Frank Fletcher is CEO of The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust.
The Trust supports young people with cancer, engaging them in outdoor activities, to help re-build their confidence and their lives, after cancer.
We talk about how the Trust pivoted to a Virtual Summer during 2020 and what it has learnt during the pandemic in order to better support young people recovering from cancer.
We discuss the Trust’s newly formed partnership with Teenage Cancer Trust and CLIC Sargent (now Young Lives vs Cancer) - a fantastic example of leaving brand differences at the door to truly focus on what is best for young people.
Frank shares his learnings on establishing this formal partnership and strongly encourages other charity leaders to follow suit.
Recorded May 2021.
Guest Biography
Frank Fletcher has been CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust since 2005.
The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust is a national charity that inspires young people aged 8-24 to believe in a brighter future, living through and beyond cancer. Supporting young people through sailing, outdoor activities and virtual year-round engagement, the Trust helps young people feel more positive, accepted, confident and independent, as they look ahead to re-establish their place in the world.
Before his appointment at the Trust, Frank worked at the UK Sailing Academy, another youth charity utilising the power of the outdoors to transform young people’s lives.
Unsurprisingly, outdoor pursuits feature heavily in Frank’s personal life; he enjoys walking, paddle-boarding, cycling, swimming, and running. Other spare time is spent relaxing in his allotment, and with his family on the Isle of Wight.
Links
https://www.ellenmacarthurcancertrust.org/
Recommended
Transcript
Youth Support vs Branding
00:00:00
Speaker
Does it matter if a young person does something online in COVID, whether that happens to have a teenage country trust logo, a click sergeant logo, or an Ellen MacArthur country trust logo on the Zoom page? No, it doesn't. Actually what matters is that young person is getting the support. And that's hopefully what the partnership does, is that it enables us to worry a little bit less about, is my logo front and center,
00:00:29
Speaker
worry more about actually is that young person getting the services that they need. I think the partnership will mean that young people are better supported and that at the end of the day is what matters.
Season 2 Introduction
00:00:47
Speaker
Welcome to Season 2 of the Charity CEO Podcast, the podcast for charity leaders by charity leaders. This is the show that gets beneath the surface of issues, engaging in meaningful and inspirational conversations with leaders from across the sector.
00:01:03
Speaker
I'm Olivia O'Connor and each episode I will be interviewing a charity leader who will share with us their insights, knowledge and topical expertise on challenges facing our sector in these turbulent times. This show is for everyone who cares about the important work of charities.
Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust's Mission
00:01:20
Speaker
Today, I'm speaking with Frank Fletcher, CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust. The Trust supports young people with cancer, engaging them in outdoor activities to help rebuild their confidence and their lives after cancer. We talk about how the Trust pivoted to a virtual summer during 2020 and what it has learnt during the pandemic in order to better support young people recovering from cancer. We discussed the Trust's newly announced partnership with Teenage Cancer Trust and ClickSargent,
00:01:49
Speaker
which is a clear move of leaving brand and logo at the door and focusing on what is best for young people. Frank shares his learnings through establishing this form of partnership and strongly encourages other charity leaders to follow suit. I hope you enjoyed the show.
Frank's Career Anecdotes
00:02:06
Speaker
Hi, Frank. Welcome to the show. I'm really pleased to have you with us today. Great. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very honored and really excited. Really looking forward to chatting today. It'll be great.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yes, you're very welcome. And you know that we start the show with an ice break around. So if you're ready, let's dive straight in. Yeah, absolutely. I've been thinking about these most of the weekend, and everything's changed. So maybe I have the answers. Maybe I'll go for your life. We shall see. So question one, what was your first job? So my first job was actually in Pizza Hut in Catford, South East London. I think you can learn more working in a fast food restaurant.
00:02:44
Speaker
than anywhere else. I worked in the kitchen at Pizza Hut when I was about 16 and I stayed there for a few years and yeah it was great. I met some wonderful people and yeah you do learn about work, leadership, management, working for an organisation like that so yeah it was good fun. I enjoyed it not all the time but fantastic.
00:03:04
Speaker
life lessons from Pizza Hut, that's great. Absolutely, two rights. Question two, what would you say is your professional superpower? So I've been thinking about this quite a bit and actually I don't think I have one so I've spent most of the weekend thinking how am I going to answer what my superpower is and I've actually decided that I don't have one and actually maybe we're expected as chief execs to have superpowers and maybe we just need to admit that we're human and we don't so
00:03:32
Speaker
I'm afraid that is the one I spoke a question that I decided I didn't have an answer for, which is I don't have a superpower. So I'm afraid I'm going to let you down on that one. No superpower. Yeah, no, not let us down at all, Frank. Actually, that's a very nice reflection there that we are all just human beings trying to do the best that we
Lockdown Coping Strategies
00:03:51
Speaker
can. Question three. What are three things that you could not have survived lockdown without? I'm very lucky I've got a garden and I really did enjoy my garden in the lockdown.
00:04:02
Speaker
I think I'd have found it really hard. I say, luckily, I haven't had to self-isolate. I haven't had to stay at home, so I've managed to get out every day and walk. Actually, I think I'd have found self-isolating really hard. I've made lots of people have had to do it and like that they did it, but I found that daily walk was really important. I suppose Zoom in a depressing way. We've been in a pandemic even 10 years ago with technology the way it was 10 years ago.
00:04:31
Speaker
I think it would have been a very different pandemic. So I suppose technology being where technology is has really helped us during COVID. So garden, walk-in technology, and actually I was very lucky. I've done lockdown with my family, which has been really great. I wonder if anyone had bought shares in Zoom at the beginning of the pandemic, how that would be looking now. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Question four. And I wonder, Frank, if you had actually thought about this one.
00:05:02
Speaker
If you were a Spice Girl, which one would you be and why? I hadn't thought about this one. I didn't know you were going to ask me this one. If I was a Spice Girl, which one would I be and why? Well, I'm definitely not posh. I'd love to say I'm sporty and I do try, but I'm definitely not sporty. I don't know. I was quite like Ginger Spice. I always thought she was the one who had the most to say. And I'd probably be Ginger Spice. And that's not because I have
00:05:30
Speaker
I don't have Ginger's hair, but just because I think she was the one that was the loudest voice and had the most to say, there you go, I would be Ginger's voice. Wasn't expecting that as the answer.
00:05:42
Speaker
I'll be honest. Well, I realised that I've asked a number of my female guests that question. And so in order to not appear sexist, I felt absolutely fair that I asked the male guest as well. Right. And our final icebreaker question, if you had the opportunity to interview anyone in the world dead or alive, who would it
Interviewing Nelson Mandela
00:06:00
Speaker
be? And what one question would you like to ask them? I did think about this a lot. It's that sort of question dinner party question that people ask you. And so
00:06:08
Speaker
I'd really like to meet Nelson Mandela for lots of reasons. He would be my choice too. Oh, good. The question I'd want to ask him would be around forgiveness and the fact that he was able to forgive. I have lots of questions to ask him, so hopefully I'd get more than one. But if I only had one, I'd want to ask him about how he managed to forgive.
00:06:30
Speaker
so effectively I suppose is the word but yeah hopefully that would be one of many questions that we could continue but yeah it would be Nelson Mandela and how did you manage to forgive such a remarkable human being and i would see actually forgiveness was probably his superpower and now he did have a superpower definitely had lots of superpowers and probably one of his superpowers was forgiveness he definitely has superpowers you're right
00:06:56
Speaker
Indeed.
Post-Cancer Support Through Community
00:06:57
Speaker
So Frank, let's start off now by talking about your organisation, the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust. You've been the Chief Executive there for over 15 years. So tell us about the charity. Who was Ellen MacArthur and what does the Trust seek to do? So the Trust, we work with young people through and beyond cancer and we use the outdoors to help young people re-engage after treatment. So we work really closely with Team As Tense Trust, ClickSargent, lots of other
00:07:26
Speaker
cancer charities, all of the primary treatment centers around the UK. And we bring young people together who have been through cancer treatment. They live, sleep, eat on a boat for four days. They go sailing, but actually it's not about the sailing. And what we try and do on board is get young people to spend time together. We try and create this quite special family atmosphere where
00:07:53
Speaker
they feel safe to either choose to share their experiences with other young people who've been through the same experience or actually decide not to and just decide to be young people together for four days, but understanding that they're not the odd one out, that all of the young people are the same. We try and help them to see a brighter future, to be that switch between the end of treatment and then going on to do
00:08:20
Speaker
other things, whether that's in employment or education or neither of those, something else in their life. But it's about that re-engagement with society following cancer treatment. And that's really important because actually we talk to a lot of young people who've been through treatment. Life doesn't just go back to normal on the day that they finish treatment. The effects of their cancer and the treatment for their cancer continue for many, many years.
00:08:47
Speaker
So we're an organization working with young people post-treatment to try and get them to re-engage. We happen to use the outdoors. We happen to use sailing in the outdoors, but actually we could be doing anything. It's about that engagement of young people after treatment. And who was Ellen? Ellen was a sailor and she took part in a race called the Vendée Globe. And then she held the record for the
00:09:13
Speaker
Single-handed round the world knuckles, but the reason the trust and in terms of French charity And I now apologize to anyone listening to this podcast You can speak French because I want and you're about to realize that but the French charity that I pronounce the chaffons from cap There are now people screaming at the their podcast player this fantastic French charity We've done some work with them since do exactly what we do and one of Ellen's very early employees
00:09:42
Speaker
had a brother who had cancer who'd sailed with a sasson from Cap and persuaded Ellen to go and meet them and go sailing with them. And she was very nervous, but she loved it. Absolutely loved it. Loved meeting these young people, carried on that involvement with those young people in a hospital in Paris.
00:10:00
Speaker
throughout her campaign, but then really wanted to set up something similar in the UK. And that's where the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust comes from. Such a brilliant story and such important work indeed, Frank.
Pandemic Adaptations
00:10:12
Speaker
And I know, like pretty much every other charity in the sector, that this past year, when the pandemic struck, you had to pivot and deliver services virtually. Can you talk about the impact that this past year has had on your organization? We had a choice really 12 months ago. I was talking to someone about this earlier.
00:10:30
Speaker
today, actually. It's almost 12 months to the day where we knew we had to cancel our trips. By this point last year, it was obvious that we weren't going to run any trips in 2020. And at that point, there was a school of thought that we furloughed all the staff, we put the keys through the letterbox and came back nine months later. And that was something that we considered. And what we kept coming back to was that young people really needed the MacArthur Cancer Trust.
00:10:56
Speaker
There were lots of reasons why if you've been through cancer treatment, you were going to find COVID and lockdown really hard. So lots of young people who've been through cancer treatment are very completely understandably concerned about their health. There were young people who felt very afraid of COVID. And actually if you think back to a year ago, we didn't know what we know about COVID now. I'm an asthmatic and for a while they thought asthmatics were going to be really affected by COVID. That's a tiny comparison to having been through cancer treatment.
00:11:25
Speaker
But we had young people who felt very anxious about this disease, having been through cancer treatment. We had young people who'd been through isolation because of their cancer. So they'd had a bone marrow transplant, and then they'd have to do what all of us now experienced in lockdown. A lot of our young people were classed as clinically extremely vulnerable, so they were having to shield.
00:11:47
Speaker
One argument was that we just close our doors and we put our keys through the letterbox and off we go and that's it. And then the other part was this desire to support these young people that we knew needed our support. And so we took the decision to do the latter. And then we went out to all of the young people that we work with. We went out to the professionals that we work with. We went out to our partnership organizations.
00:12:13
Speaker
we went out to everyone we knew who could have an opinion, but most importantly, the young people and said, how can we support you through, I suppose what we thought at that time was going to be a two months, three months lockdown. I mean, I got the whole COVID prediction completely wrong. I told everyone we'd be back in the office in two weeks. Well, I don't think that one went quite right. So we talked to young people and partners about what could we do? And then we came up with this virtual summer.
00:12:43
Speaker
And it had the obvious things, you know, the quiz nights, the socials on Zoom, but then it also had some things that we got from young people. So one of the things that young people said to us is, can you do a, we call it trust letters, but basically it's a penthouse scheme. I remember someone saying this to me and I was like, look, this isn't going to work. People don't want to write, who writes letters these days? It's still going. And it's going really well because actually that really appeals
00:13:11
Speaker
And the other thing that we realized is that what a lot of young people get when they come on our trips is that opportunity to talk about something that they wouldn't have talked about while they were going through treatments, but becomes really important post-treatment. We get young people come on a trip. I used to skip a lot of trips and my background is working in outdoors with young people. I remember many years ago, I was skipping a trip and I was washing up and there was a conversation going on behind me.
00:13:38
Speaker
that I needed to not be involved in any way, shape or form, but I needed to listen to to make sure that the young people were okay. So I held the record for washing up one mug for about 40 minutes. And these young people were talking about things that they would never have talked about with professionals. They were talking about the after effects of their cancer treatment and how that affected their fertility and what each of them, who they were talking to. And they didn't need a 40 year old bloke joining in.
00:14:07
Speaker
But what they did need was a need to make sure that they were okay. And so what we did on the trips was we used to have people would have these conversations and then we could help sign post people. We could send people in the right direction. They could have these conversations between themselves. Because actually, if you're a 22 year old, the person that you actually want to speak to your opportunity or your survivor guilt or your concerns about relapse or all of the other things that happen to young people post treatment is other young people.
00:14:35
Speaker
And you couldn't do that in COVID. So we started these conversations with, which were opportunities for young people to talk to each other, but have professionals there that could give advice, could signpost, could make sure everyone was okay. And we partnered between a cancer trust and click sergeant. I know that's something that you might want to talk about a little later. We got their leading expert on X to come and talk and then
00:15:00
Speaker
young people who go off in breakout rooms and talk to themselves. So we did all sorts of activities over the summer that really supported young people. And one of the reasons we were able to do that, our funders were wonderful in that we went to two funders in particular, you know, children in need and people's post-med lottery. We went to them and said, look, we can't run our trips this year. You're two of our biggest funders. You fund what we do, but this is what we're going to do instead. Will you repurpose
00:15:29
Speaker
your grant to us. And actually not only then, but every, almost every thunder that we spoke to basically said, you're still supporting young people just in a different way. So we'd like you to support that. So COVID was really hard for everybody and harder for some people than others. I feel very privileged. I've come through COVID reasonably, I'm scaved. My dad caught COVID, but he came through it. I haven't lost anyone close to me. I said earlier, I haven't had to, but we,
00:15:57
Speaker
As an organisation, I think we managed to support young people throughout COVID and that's what was really important and perhaps that's taught us about other ways that we can support young people going forward. I think it's been a really interesting time for the sector because you've had to try different things and
00:16:13
Speaker
We were lucky that our funders were very supportive. I love the example that you gave there, Frank, of the pen pal scheme. And actually what that came down to was encouraging and providing memes for young people to connect with each other. And I think perhaps that's why it was so successful. And it's great to hear.
00:16:32
Speaker
all of the learnings that you've had through this experience in terms of how the trust can better support young people recovering from
Collaboration Over Prestige
00:16:40
Speaker
cancer. And Frank, you mentioned there about the new partnership with Teenage Cancer Trust and the Flix Surgeon. So perhaps we could just talk about that bit more. I attended the Civil Society Spring Summit a couple of weeks back where you and fellow CEOs, Kate Collins and Rachel Kirby-Rider talked about this partnership. So tell us about how this partnership came about and how you see it working. COVID really pushed it over the line.
00:17:02
Speaker
I mean, we've always really worked closely with Click Sergeant and Teenage Country Trust. We've always worked really well together. And you and I first met through the coalition of young people's country charities. Yes. Collaboration has always been a huge thing for me. You might not get me off the hobby horse of putting calls before brands. But so we'd always worked really closely with both organizations. And at the beginning of COVID, we probably would have ended up here without COVID, but it would have taken a lot longer.
00:17:31
Speaker
What we all went into Covid realising is that we were all going to be working in a different world. At that point, none of us really knew what the future held for our organisation. I don't believe there was a charity CEO 12 months ago who wasn't thinking, oh, is income just going to stop? How are we going to support our beneficiaries? So it came about quicker because of Covid, because actually we went like
00:17:55
Speaker
We need to make this work and we need to do it quick. What the partnership allows us to do is to really cut down on the duplication between the three organizations, but then also to really effectively signpost to each other. So there is no longer any barrier between click sergeant saying to someone, you should go and access this from Teenage Cancer Trust or Teenage Cancer Trust going, we're going to signpost you together in the class of Cancer Trust. So I think what it's really allowed us to do is have really
00:18:25
Speaker
open conversations at all levels. So at the chief exec level, at the service lead level, at the frontline level that says the three organizations work together and we will make sure that if someone is receiving services and kick sergeant that they're also receiving support from team of culture trust and from the element class of culture trust. I mean for the element class of culture trust it was a lot simpler, we're tiny compared to the other two and we rely
00:18:53
Speaker
the vast majority of young people who access our services come via TNO Clamps Trust and Clicks Sergeant. So in terms of ourselves, it was formalizing the best practice in the best parts of the country. And that then allowed us also to get some standardization across the UK. We work with young people from Aberdeen to Falmouth and everywhere in between. And it just meant that we had that formal relationship
00:19:21
Speaker
across the UK. I think what it does is it puts young people at the centre, not brand. And I think this is the really important thing that we as a sector need to change. We think about our organisations and we shouldn't think about our organisations. We should think about the people that the organisations are there with them. It's not always people, but the cause of that charity is not just about your organisation, it's about wider.
00:19:50
Speaker
Does it matter if a young person does something online in COVID, whether that happens to have a teenage cancer trust logo, a click sergeant logo, or an L.M. MacArthur cancer trust logo on the Zoom page? No, it doesn't. Actually what matters is that young person is getting the support. And that's hopefully what the partnership does, is that it enables us to worry a little bit less about, is my logo front and center,
00:20:18
Speaker
worry more about actually is that young person getting the services that they need. And I think, I mean, I can't speak for Teenage Cancer Trust or ClickSargent, but I think that's where the partnership gets really exciting. I think the partnership will mean that young people are better supported. And that at the end of the day is what matters. And it's interesting, the funders reaction to it, I know someone asked a question at the summit, the funders reaction to it has been superb. So I've got a high net worth funder who I speak to once a year.
00:20:47
Speaker
and very business-like, has a real personal connection to our cause and was so delighted that Clicks House and the Teenage Cancer Trust and ourselves had come together because the reason they support us is, yes, because they like us and they like what we do and we've got that relationship, but actually they're linked is to the cause and to young people. I think it's a way forward for the sector is to think more about how do we collaborate so that we're achieving our mission
00:21:16
Speaker
There are very few charities who have a completely unique mission to anybody else and actually we should all be working together to achieve mission rather than brand awareness or the size of our turnover or how many staff we employ.
00:21:31
Speaker
Yes, I think it's so important, as you say there, Frank, to essentially put the young person or the service user at the heart of that service delivery and therefore this collaboration is vital in achieving that. But I'm curious about something that you mentioned earlier in terms of barriers. So what barriers existed or perhaps what stopped you from doing some of this signposting before you sort of entered into this formal partnership with ClicSargent and Teenage Cancer Trust?
00:22:00
Speaker
And we did some of it, but it's now front and center. So actually now what happens is the service leads for Click and Teenage Cancer Trust and the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust all get together once a month on a Zoom call, don't take very long, but they share. Kate, Rachel and I always spoke that now there is a formal structure to catching up. Some things happened at their best, but what now happens is there's a formal structure that these things will always happen.
00:22:29
Speaker
and that they happen in a much more organized, formal way, so things don't get missed.
Charity Mergers vs Collaborations
00:22:35
Speaker
And it's at every level of the organization. So some of these things happened in best practice, but they didn't always happen. And now, actually, they'll always happen. And I think the other thing about formalizing the partnership is it becomes much less about individuals. If I left tomorrow, a new chief exec would come in, but that partnership would already be there.
00:22:57
Speaker
And the same for the service leader. So it's formalized and it's got a structure. And I think that's the difference, which hopefully will mean it will continue for the long term. I noticed in the chat during your session at the Civil Society Summit that there was a lot of talk from the audience about mergers. And was this partnership just sort of the first step towards a merger? And therefore, I feel like I have to ask the question, why not just merge? I mean, in terms of the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, I don't think a
00:23:25
Speaker
one million pound charity, I hate to have over with a measure of a charity, but the element of cash cash it would have been an acquisition rather than a merger. I've got the chat afterwards because when you're delivering it to the society you can't see the chat and I think you shared a very interesting stat and I'm hoping you remembered it because I can't remember the exact details. I don't think mergers always are this
00:23:47
Speaker
great success. And I'm sure you're going to share the stat that you share. Yes, the stat was basically some research collated by Harvard Business Review that shows that 70 to 90 percent of mergers actually fail to unlock expected value. And therefore, there's a lot of sort of effort and resources and time that's taken up trying to merge sometimes disparate organizations, disparate systems and trying to align everything which can take away
00:24:14
Speaker
from the cause and from actually delivering for the people at the centre of what the organisation's trying to achieve. Yeah, exactly. Thank you for that. So much better than me, thank you. Yeah, I think, well, I don't think they're that effective. And secondly, Teenage Cancer Trust and ClickSargent and ourselves, we're actually quite different organisations. We have some unique points. Teenage Cancer Trust only works with over 13. ClickSargent works with families and young people from birth to 24.
00:24:43
Speaker
We work with young people from 8, 9 to 24 ish. We're much more flexible at the top end. So there are lots of differences like that where we're quite unique, where actually a merger might lose some of that uniqueness. Whereas by collaborating in the way that we do, we don't lose that uniqueness, but we get all of the advantages of a merger.
00:25:09
Speaker
And I think the other thing was, yes, this would have happened without COVID, I think eventually, but it certainly accelerated because of COVID. If we'd started talking about a merger, we'd probably still be sitting around talking about a merger now. I mean, I know people say it doesn't take that long, but I think sometimes the merger conversation doesn't actually address the issue. The issue is, are you doing the best for your beneficiaries, your cause? And I think sometimes, and maybe this is wrong, I'm not saying I'm right on this,
00:25:38
Speaker
I might listen back to this in six months and go, God, did you say that, Frank? But sometimes I feel in this sector that we measure organization success in a corporate way. So in a turnover and mergers are about increasing your turnover. Perhaps that's not how we should measure third sector organizations. We should measure third sector organizations by the difference in the impact that we're making.
00:26:05
Speaker
As I say, I'm going to be wrong about that. There may be great arguments to why that's completely wrong. And I'm on Twitter. You can come and tell me why I'm wrong. And I'm not saying I'm just saying right with that, but it just, it feels to me a little bit corporate like you have to merge, you know, like merges and acquisitions and you've got to get bigger and bigger is better. Well, maybe bigger is better, but maybe sometimes it isn't. And maybe sometimes a small organization working in partnership with a big organization can be much more impactful.
00:26:35
Speaker
And it's like, happy to be challenged on that.
00:26:38
Speaker
I may listen back to this in the future and go, what were you saying? But that's certainly how I feel now. Well, I actually happen to agree with you, Frank. And I think there is a tendency sometimes in the sector to equate success with income as opposed to actually focusing in on impact. And I see this partnership almost as an anti merger, but perhaps is really paving the way forward by providing charities with a model in terms of how to collaborate going further because
00:27:07
Speaker
If you think about why a charity was set up, it was presumably that there was a gap that was identified for a particular set of beneficiaries and the charity was setting up a service in order to fill that gap and in order to serve that need. And therefore, when you have organisations all focused on serving a specific group of beneficiaries, as you say, emerging perhaps some of those constituent groups would actually get overlooked. Yeah, absolutely. We print
00:27:37
Speaker
the top charities by income. It's a very strange way of measuring success. Success is impact. Or you could almost argue success is your charity closing because you've achieved your mission. We've done what we needed to do. Now we're going to close the doors and go and do something else. That's probably a much deeper loner. But I had a friend who closed the charity. Someone I know really well worked with
00:28:02
Speaker
injured servicemen coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and doing something very similar to us actually using the outdoors to get service people back into competitive sports through sailing. They got to the point where they wanted to close because they'd done their mission. Thankfully there were no longer injured servicemen coming back because thankfully we were no longer fighting those wars and it's really interesting when I talked to the two people who set up that organization who I knew really well and respected
00:28:32
Speaker
They got a lot of resistance to closing, and they were having to say to people, no, there are no longer people for us to support. Therefore, it's right that we close our doors because we shouldn't just continue because people like the organization. We've done our work. We've worked with these service personnel. We've come back. We've got them involved now in a sport where they can be competitive because of what they really missed. They've missed competitive sport because they've had amputations.
00:29:01
Speaker
our mission is done, it's actually time for us to close. And I remember at the time they had people sort of phoning them up saying, no, you can't close. You're great. You're a fantastic organization. They're like, you're missing the point. We've done our job. Our job is done. It's now time for us to go and do something else. And actually both those people have gone off and done other things that are equally as impressive, but people get very attached to your brand and your organization as opposed to this is what we need to do.
00:29:30
Speaker
I think it takes a real particular bravery almost from a leader to focus on not necessarily just the longevity of an organization for the sake of it, but actually looking at, okay, who are we here to serve? What is our purpose? And as you say, if that mission has been achieved, then perhaps shutting up shop is the right thing to do. And those resources and donations actually can be diverted elsewhere where the need is still present. Absolutely.
00:29:58
Speaker
Frank, I'd like to talk now about working in a different world, as you called it, particularly in the post pandemic context.
Adapting to Post-Pandemic Work
00:30:07
Speaker
I mean, last year we all had to pivot to working and living in and through a pandemic. And I actually think that now we all need to pivot again to adapt to working in a world post COVID. And I'd like to know, what does that look like for you and your organization? And how do you think we as leaders can best support our teams to adapt? I don't know yet.
00:30:28
Speaker
I think it's really hard. We've had some great advantages from working from home, as it were. We've employed a couple of people this year that we wouldn't have employed pre-COVID because they are always going to work from home. We've got a base on the Isle of Wight. We've got a base in Largs, on the West Coast of Scotland. And not everyone wants to live on the West Coast of Scotland or the Isle of Wight. And we've probably lost good candidates because of that. And, you know, we recently employed a fantastic fundraiser
00:30:57
Speaker
and one of the reasons we were able to employ that person is that they don't want to live on the island, they'll continue to work from home post the pandemic. I think the other issue that we have as an organisation is we're an organisation that works across the UK, so we work with every primary treatment centre in the UK, we work with young people from across the UK and yet
00:31:21
Speaker
We have our offices and our bases in probably the two least diverse parts of this country. And that means that our organization doesn't let present the young people that we work with. And maybe this is not having to work in an office every day might also help with that. So we don't have to implore people now who want to live on the island or live in largs. I think this has worked for some people. I think some people have loved working from home and there are bits of it that I like.
00:31:50
Speaker
I get a bit more time. I don't travel now at the moment. I'll go back to traveling, obviously. But, you know, I can go for a run in the morning and still be at my desk reasonably early. I don't spend 40 minutes walking to and from the office or an hour and a half getting to London on a train. And it works to me because, as I said at the beginning, I live in a nice house with a garden. I've got my own workspace.
00:32:14
Speaker
I'm comfortable, you know, and in January when it was cold and I wanted to turn the heating on, I was very lucky that I just went, oh, it's cold, I'll turn the heating on. Not everyone lives in that world. And I think that that's the challenge we have is that, much as it works for me to do this, I hate it by the way, I absolutely hate it and I'm not going to do it very much longer. As soon as they say I can go back to an office, I'm back. So as much as it works for me, I know there are people in our team that it doesn't work for me.
00:32:43
Speaker
And also, I don't know if it's great for people early on in their career. And I think that people need to have that interaction. I don't think you can run a charity forever without an office or without some interaction space. I think where we'll end up, and as I say, I don't know. And I'm hoping that none of the team listening to my children team will listen to this and now they'll hold me to what I'm about to say. I think we'll end up with this hybrid model seems to be the buzzword.
00:33:13
Speaker
But I think we'll end up with people choosing perhaps to work in the office three days a week, but then working from home for two days. We've now got two people working for the organization who will always work from home that will come in occasionally. But I think the balance to be found is that there are some people who really need that interaction. And I also think there are some people, I've done Zoom calls where I'm in people's bedrooms. You don't want to be,
00:33:41
Speaker
sitting in your bedroom on a Zoom call to your chief exec. I mean, you just don't, do you? So I think it's really hard, but I think we need to be careful not to jump at, we can all work from home forever more. And I think I'll travel less. So I think I will still travel. I still will need to go to meet people that I think that I'll do some things I'll say, well, let's just grab a coffee and have a Zoom rather than me travel to you or to me.
00:34:11
Speaker
but we should leave that interaction. I mean, that's the thing that I've missed so much. I've missed that, and I've tried to replicate it in all sorts of ways, but I've missed that grabbing a five minute conversation with someone while you make a cup of tea in the kitchen. I've tried to replicate that by picking up the phone to the team. I've tried to replicate that by, you know, all the things that everyone has done, Zoom hangouts, me just picking up the phone to people, but you don't know whether you've caught them at a good moment, a bad moment,
00:34:41
Speaker
But whereas if you walk into the kitchen and there's someone making a cup of tea and you end up having a five minute conversation, you find out more in that five minutes. So I think we'll end up with a hybrid scheme where people want to work. I mean, we've always been flexible. Someone's coming around to fix the washing machine. We've always had that flexibility of work from home. And there's some people who are saying to us, we really want to do this. I've got a couple of members of the team who are saying, this is so much better than we think. I get so much more done.
00:35:11
Speaker
So yeah, I don't know the answer. I think it'll be really interesting to see where we are in a year. On a personal level, I found coming out was lockdown harder than going into lockdown. I found going into lockdown quite easy. I actually now find the whole, in three months' time, forget the law and the government regulations, but in three months' time am I going to want to shake hands with people? I know that sounds really weird, but are they going to want to shake hands with me? Am I going to want to get on a tube? Am I going to want to get on a train?
00:35:40
Speaker
How am I going to feel when I'm in a big group of people? So we have a challenge as a sector of humanity of how do we come out of this and I think it's going to be really strange.
00:35:53
Speaker
I think you've shared some really interesting insights and reflections there Frank. I know we've all seen huge benefits from remote working this past year and indeed companies like Twitter and Facebook are now permanently allowing their staff to work from anywhere and of course to what you talked about there that remote working actually enables
00:36:14
Speaker
organisations to be able to access more diverse talent and essentially talent irrespective of geography. But I do agree that social interaction element has been lost to some degree and there's been a lot more need for intentionality around communication and in some ways that formalises it.
00:36:34
Speaker
and you actually lose that sort of person to person interaction. So it will be interesting to see how different organizations and indeed different individuals are going to be able to cope. I mean, you talked about coming out of lockdown being harder than going into lockdown and sort of alluded to some of the questions around what it might be like to be on a credit tube again, but what other reasons come to mind in terms of why coming out of lockdown might be harder?
00:37:04
Speaker
People laugh at me sometimes because I come over as an extrovert, I'm very bouncy, I'm very sociable. But actually, I hate things like drinks parties. I hate things like networking events. I absolutely hate them, really do. I can't imagine anything worse than going to a networking drinks evening and having to go and talk to little groups of free people I've never met. People say I'm an extrovert, but I find I'm quite shy underneath all of that. And I think it's a bravado to get over that.
00:37:32
Speaker
It's been quite nice for me. I can be in my house with my family who I love and don't have to see anyone else. And that sounds awful, but there's a couple of times when I quite enjoyed that every weekend I wasn't rushing here or going there or, but I don't think it's very good for you long-term by the way. And I wouldn't want to do that long-term. And I think actually long-term that takes its toll. When it recently became okay to meet up to six people outside, lucky that a couple of the team lived quite local to me and ended up in a bit of a green space
00:38:02
Speaker
in cows, looks out at sea, looks over the beach and I met a couple of the team on a Friday late afternoon at five o'clock and we all sat and had a glass of wine and chatted and it felt really strange. It was like, you're not in a little box, how do I relate to you? And I know that sounds really strange, but we've forgotten how to sit in a meeting together
00:38:27
Speaker
Are we going to sit in meetings with six people? And when we want to speak, we're going to raise our hands. Like we're in school again. Yeah. When we've said our bit, we'll unraise our hands and we'll have little cards that put emoji clap signs up. And I think it will be difficult. I think it will be hard to go back to being in groups of people. And I think we will find that hard. I think, you know, the first time there were 10 people in an office, I think we will all feel a little bit like
00:38:57
Speaker
Oh, this is strange. I mean, I hope I'm wrong. I'm quite often wrong. So I may be wrong and actually the first day will feel a little bit weird. But then the second day we'll all be eating cake and making tea and having all of that sort of office interaction that makes work fun. So I hope I'm wrong, but I feel that people are going to find this mentally quite tough.
00:39:19
Speaker
Yes, I see what you mean.
Leadership Growth and Relationships
00:39:21
Speaker
Frank, tell us now a bit about your background and your career journey. I mean, how have you gotten to where you are today? Sounds like a present job. I just happen to be in the right place at the right time. So I've had most of my working life. I've worked in the outdoors in terms of outdoor education and young people. Previously I worked in hospitality. I actually ran a pub.
00:39:41
Speaker
my 20s in London. Oh wow. Which I loved and talked to me lots about people. I think everyone should go and work by the bar for a little bit because you learn more about human beings and human nature standing in the other side of the bar than you will anywhere else. So I ran a pub in London on the Filham Road actually. People were following me on Twitter and I'm a big Chelsea fan. I ran the first pub. It came out of Stanford, Bridgington left. It was the first pub that opened on Matchday. Actually when I first left school I
00:40:10
Speaker
went and worked in a hospital for the homeless with CSE, the community service volunteers. Obviously the third sector had a call in early on, but then I went and did other things and then I ended up working in outdoor education and working with young people. I was working for an organization that again uses the outdoors to, you know, work with kids from inner cities, works with young offenders, uses the outdoors in a similar way to the trust.
00:40:37
Speaker
And I knew Ellen and I knew Ellen's business partner. We'd sort of got to know each other over the years and they wanted to set up the charity. And for the first 18 months of the Ellen MacArthur Trust, I was on the trustee. I think I was probably the most unsuitable trustee, but I was the right trustee at the right time. I stood down for being a trustee and the trust had a great manager, someone that I'd encouraged to apply for the job and he took it on and he was doing a great job. And then for various reasons, he needed to leave
00:41:07
Speaker
I was coming to the end of a project I was working on and Ellen basically asked me to apply and Mark, her business partner who was the chair of trustees at the time, asked me to apply. Yeah, and I've been involved ever since really. So I've been very lucky and then I've grown with the organization. And I suppose it comes back to my superpower comment at the beginning. I don't feel like I have a great superpower or something that means that I can be Chief Exec. I think I've
00:41:35
Speaker
I ended up in the job and I've grown with the job. I think that in terms of leadership, I think it's all about people. We forget about that. Sometimes our costs, everything is about relationships. The young people that you work with, whether it's the people who work for the organization, whether it's your trustees, whether it's your funders, whether it's your partners, it's about building those relationships with people. And I'm okay at that.
00:42:02
Speaker
in terms of leadership, I think my leadership style has changed so much in the last 15 years. I try not to look back or look forward too much. I've tried to live within the present, but actually I look back at 15 years and go, wow, if I could go back now, redo the last 15 years with the knowledge that I have, and maybe a little bit of wisdom, I'm not trying to say I'm wise, but if I could go back and redo the last 15 years with what I've now learned and the knowledge that I've got now, my God,
00:42:31
Speaker
That would just be fantastic. So I think I've grown. I think I've been chief executive for a long time and you know, should chief execs hang around for that long? I do have that honest conversation with my trustees every year. And at the point that you don't want me to be chief executive anymore, this isn't, this doesn't have to be ugly and difficult. It just has to be an honest conversation. The one thing I've always tried to do is grow. And there's some great ways for chief execs and charities to grow. I mean, I've got a mentor through the Kilfinham group.
00:42:58
Speaker
who don't charge for mentoring, I have a fantastic mentor. I got a bursary to do the Windsor Leadership course that I would highly recommend any charity chief exec to do. I find Akivo a fantastic resource. As long as you're growing, your leadership style will change. And I think my leadership journey has been about me learning and growing, rather than, and I've had a great, I mean, I've had a couple of great bosses,
00:43:26
Speaker
and the organization I worked at before the Alan MacArthur Cancer Trust, I had one of the most inspirational people I ever worked for when he left the organization. This guy took over as equally inspirational. So I've worked for two very inspirational people. And I think that taught me a lot. In terms of leadership, I think it's about growth. And I think that's what we as leaders should be thinking about every day is how am I going to grow for my
00:43:53
Speaker
organization and the people within the organization. I don't know if that makes sense. That might sound like a lot of mambling nonsense. I hope not. That makes a lot of sense. In fact, my next question to you was going to be, what advice would you give to yourself on day one of first becoming a CEO? But I think you've already answered that. So perhaps I will ask you, what is most inspiring about being CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust?
00:44:18
Speaker
So we'll answer the first question. So the thing that I wish I had known on day one of being Chief Exec was to get rid of the word I and replace it with the word we. And I came across that a few years into my career as Chief Exec. And I wish that I'd learned that on day one because, and I know it sounds a really simple thing, but it changes the way that your team thinks.
00:44:42
Speaker
the one thing I'd want to know is start using the word we, and not just using the word, but believing it's we rather than I, because it is we rather than I. And by using the word we, you realise that it's we, not I. So that would be, I'm sorry, what was the second question? I answered the first one and then I can't remember. Yes, and actually Frank, that was really good advice and just being very conscious about using we rather than I, I think is very important. The second question was around
00:45:11
Speaker
What is most inspiring about being CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust? That's really easy, the young people we work with. So we've got about 150 volunteers, of which about 75 are adults who access our services as young people. They are a cultural inspiration to me. So I mean, one of our trustees, we've got a fantastic trustee called Claire Amalados. And Claire now is a civil servant at the Department of Health. She's, I think, deputy strategy lead for the vaccine
00:45:41
Speaker
rollout of the UK. So she's one of the brightest, most intelligent people I know. I met Claire when she was 15 and I've had the absolute pleasure of meeting them as young people and then seeing them become volunteers within our organization and play a huge part in our organization. I still try and get involved. I mean, it's not possible as much as it was, but I still try and get involved a little bit with the young people on the trips and
00:46:08
Speaker
So the inspiration is the young people, and you've worked in the sector. You know as much as I do that there are some amazingly inspirational young people out there who've gone through something that I can't even begin to comprehend as an adult. And I look back at me at 14, 15 and cannot comprehend how I would have coped at 14, 15. And yet they come through and inspire us. The trust has grown. So I started my early involvement with the Trust
00:46:38
Speaker
very much skipper in and being really involved with young people. And as you grow as an organization, you see less of the front line, but I still see how inspirational the young people are. That's what inspires me every day. And the team, we've got a fantastic team. I've already seen them in little boxes on the screen for 12 months, but we do have the most fantastic team.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yes, I completely agree with you, Frank. When I was the Chief Exec of Children with Cancer UK, it was always the interaction with the young cancer survivors that was just so incredibly inspiring. And just hearing their journeys and what they've been through and the wisdom and energy and joy that they have coming out the other side is just incredible and really takes the level of sort of job satisfaction to a whole new other height and another stratosphere.
00:47:27
Speaker
Frank, I was just reflecting there on your comment about the we not I, and I think that's so important in the context of collaboration as well.
Ensuring Effective Collaboration
00:47:37
Speaker
And one of the questions that I actually wanted to ask you earlier on when we were talking about the partnership was about whether you have any advice for other charity leaders who may be considering the form of collaboration that you've entered into with
00:47:51
Speaker
teenage cancer trust and clique sergeant. I mean, what are some of the challenges or pitfalls to look out for? What would you advise other leaders who are considering this? So I think that the comment you've made about wiener eye is really important there because it's about the beneficiaries. It's about the cause rather than you as an individual. And when I talked about wiener eye, I wasn't talking just about the world. I'm talking about the whole mindset. And if you are doing what is right,
00:48:19
Speaker
for the cause or your beneficiaries or the mission that your charity has, you leave the eye, the brand, at the door. And in terms of practical advice, buying from the top, we all talked to our board of trustees about this as chief execs. We were very committed to it. Therefore, the organization got behind it. It's about those relationships. But the important thing is, and I had this conversation the other day, I had quite a challenging conversation
00:48:48
Speaker
and our leaders, we had a leadership team meeting and they talk about something else, not about this partnership, but about something else. And we, we had quite a challenging conversation among, it's about, this isn't about the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust. This is about young people with cancer. That's the thing that Click and Tina's Cancer Trust and the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust and Kate and Rachel and myself managed to do is go, this is not about our organizations. This is about young people with cancer. So is,
00:49:17
Speaker
you can whatever your area that you work in you can go this is not about I the organization and go this is about our mission our cause our beneficiaries then it falls into place and then it's about relationships we had the relationship with Kate and with Rachel we'd all we'd all worked for organizations for a long time we knew each other so just that relationship where you've got that trust but you also got that relationship where
00:49:46
Speaker
It's fun to do, I suppose, actually. And it's the right thing to do. As a sector, we have less and less resource, so let's come together and make more of a difference and make more of an impact.
Conclusion and Subscription Prompt
00:49:57
Speaker
Frank, I think that is a great place to bring this conversation to an end. Thank you so much. It's been great chatting with you. Thank you for being a guest on the show. Thank you so much. It's been great fun, if not a little stressful. It's actually harder than I thought it was going to be, but I have really enjoyed it. I just hope I haven't said anything that's going to
00:50:15
Speaker
come back to haunt me and use to come. Well, lovely to have you on and glad to hear that you enjoyed it. Thank you.
00:50:23
Speaker
Frank is so right in saying that as chief execs, we need to focus on we, not I, and that the concept of we is a mindset that we need to bring into every interaction. So it's not just about my team or my organization, but that our focus and impact is truly on the cause or the end beneficiary we are trying to serve. If we are able to achieve that level of selfless collaboration, then our whole charity sector would be the better for it.
00:50:50
Speaker
And that brings us to the end of season two. I've had the absolute privilege of interviewing some brilliant chief execs this season, and I'm looking forward to bringing you more inspirational leadership conversations after the summer in season three.
00:51:05
Speaker
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00:51:31
Speaker
Visit our website thecharityceo.com for full show details and to submit suggestions or questions for future guests. Thank you for listening.