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Ep 11. Debra Allcock Tyler, CEO Directory of Social Change: Leadership of Courage and Hope
92 Plays4 years ago
“You learn to be courageous by stepping out of your comfort zone; being absolutely terrified and doing it anyway… courage is about being beaten back but then taking a step forward.”
Debra Allcock Tyler is the CEO of the Directory of Social Change, an organisation that provides resources, training and support to enable all charities to be successful.
In this episode we discuss the key opportunities and risks ahead for the charity sector in 2021. Debra provides some practical advice for leaders to thrive through the ongoing crisis; as well as lessons learned from the pandemic that we should carry forward.
Debra reflects on her own career journey and shares the fundamental skills that she thinks are vital to being a good leader: courage, resilience and vision.
A passionate advocate for the voluntary sector, Debra affirms that if you are connected to the Vision and Mission of an organisation, then anything is possible.
Recorded January 2021.
Guest Biography
Debra Allcock Tyler has been the Chief Executive of the Directory of Social Change (DSC) since 2001. She is a renowned authority in the field of leadership and governance in civil society, an internationally published author of several books, and writes ‘The Last Word’ column for Third Sector magazine.
Debra is a Trustee of In Kind Direct, the Berkshire Community Foundation, Vice-President of the Soldiering On Awards, and an Ambassador for women and girls at risk of or affected by female genital mutilation and other harmful practices for the Africa Advocacy Foundation (AAF). She was the founder Chair of the Small Charities Coalition and served as a member of the Charity Commission’s SORP Committee.
After a brief stint in the private sector, Debra has spent most of her career in the charity sector. Following a short period as a management consultant in her 20s, she moved into leadership roles covering a range of functions including campaigning, policy development, sales, product development, media relations and training.
Debra has a degree in psychology, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Royal Institution. She admits to being a slave to a basset hound called Arthur.
Links
https://www.dsc.org.uk
Debra Allcock Tyler is the CEO of the Directory of Social Change, an organisation that provides resources, training and support to enable all charities to be successful.
In this episode we discuss the key opportunities and risks ahead for the charity sector in 2021. Debra provides some practical advice for leaders to thrive through the ongoing crisis; as well as lessons learned from the pandemic that we should carry forward.
Debra reflects on her own career journey and shares the fundamental skills that she thinks are vital to being a good leader: courage, resilience and vision.
A passionate advocate for the voluntary sector, Debra affirms that if you are connected to the Vision and Mission of an organisation, then anything is possible.
Recorded January 2021.
Guest Biography
Debra Allcock Tyler has been the Chief Executive of the Directory of Social Change (DSC) since 2001. She is a renowned authority in the field of leadership and governance in civil society, an internationally published author of several books, and writes ‘The Last Word’ column for Third Sector magazine.
Debra is a Trustee of In Kind Direct, the Berkshire Community Foundation, Vice-President of the Soldiering On Awards, and an Ambassador for women and girls at risk of or affected by female genital mutilation and other harmful practices for the Africa Advocacy Foundation (AAF). She was the founder Chair of the Small Charities Coalition and served as a member of the Charity Commission’s SORP Committee.
After a brief stint in the private sector, Debra has spent most of her career in the charity sector. Following a short period as a management consultant in her 20s, she moved into leadership roles covering a range of functions including campaigning, policy development, sales, product development, media relations and training.
Debra has a degree in psychology, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Royal Institution. She admits to being a slave to a basset hound called Arthur.
Links
https://www.dsc.org.uk
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Transcript
Introduction to the Charity Sector's Resilience
00:00:00
Speaker
The thing about voluntary sector is we've never ever ever had it easy ever. It's never been easy to fundraise. It's never been easy to get our case across. It's never been easy to get laws changed. It's never been easy to get the ear of a politician or a local authority. And so we have developed the most insane skills.
00:00:18
Speaker
to be able to do those things. I mean, we just can't be defeated. We can be battered. We can be bruised. We can be trucked under a bus. We can be abandoned. We can have almost no money. But somehow or ever, we never actually get defeated. And I think that's those years of those skills being honed. And so I think that whatever comes up this year and in the years following, whatever economic crisis there are, whatever other crises are, if there was ever a sector that's got the skills and the experience and the sheer guts to keep going, it's ours.
Season 2 of the Charity CEO Podcast
00:00:57
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.
00:01:13
Speaker
I'm the Rio 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.
Leadership Insights with Deborah Alcock Tyler
00:01:30
Speaker
Deborah Alcock Tyler is the Chief Executive of the Directory of Social Change. In this episode, we talk about the fundamentals of good leadership, and Deborah shares some practical tips for leaders to thrive through the ongoing pandemic in crisis. Deborah doesn't beat around the bush when saying that it really is tough at the top for chief executives.
00:01:50
Speaker
But her enduring message is one of hope and optimism and of the real importance of the charity sector in improving the lives of so many of our beneficiaries. I hope you enjoyed the show.
00:02:05
Speaker
Hi, Deborah. Welcome to the show. Delighted to have you here today. Hi, Divya. Really, really nice to be here and absolutely chuffed to bits that you asked me. Oh, delighted that you said yes. So I like to start the show with an icebreaker round of some get to know you questions. And as one of my previous guests said, this is really in order to convey to people that CEOs are human too. So I have five questions for you. And if you're ready, we can get started. Yeah, of course. So there are CEOs human.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's what we say. Like we walk amongst you as if we were human. Or superhuman sometimes. Maybe, yeah. Okay, yeah, I'm all ready. Question one. What was your first job?
00:02:51
Speaker
Oh, well, my first job my first voluntary job my very, very first job was I worked in a pub, basically, as a you know I pulled pints and things like that, and my goodness, I could tell you some stories about that some awful stories actually about how you were treated as sort of an 18 year old.
00:03:07
Speaker
And my first sort of formal kind of office-based job, I was a typist in a typing pool. This is how old I am, my darling. It was in a typing pool where you all sat in rows facing the front and the typing supervisor had a desk opposite you. She had the one and only phone and we did audio typing, but we had manual typewriters. So we had a dicta machine with headphones and then you just typed on the manual typewriter.
00:03:29
Speaker
There was no photocop or anything like that. We had a stencil machine that you copied. And with the typing we used to use, I've forgotten what they were even called now, but that's all the ink things that you copy, that you, as you were typing, you got several copies of paper. Oh yes, there's carbon paper. Carbon paper, that was it done here. We had carbon paper copies and we had, you know, we rubbed out mistakes and things like that. Literally, I'm literally that old. We didn't have a fax machine, we had a telex machine.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, so those are my two first jobs. My first volunteering role was when I was 16 and I volunteered. I had two. We did like respite care. The school I was at for people who had kids with disabilities and particularly learning disabilities. And I also worked in what we used to call in those days the old people's home. But in fact, it was a care home for older people, basically. Yeah.
00:04:18
Speaker
And I realised actually that my respect for people who can do that work, because I just wasn't emotionally or mentally strong enough to do that kind of frontline work. So my respect for people who can do that kind of work is just through the roof. Question two, what would you say is your professional superpower?
Hope as a Professional Superpower
00:04:38
Speaker
My professional superpower, I think, is probably hope.
00:04:45
Speaker
I always think that however bad a thing is, it can be sorted or fixed or changed or solved. My superpower is that I'm never ground down into helplessness, probably. Yeah, I would say that. If hope can be a superpower, I don't know, but yes. I love that. What are three words that your team would use to describe you? Impatient, talks a lot, bulldozer.
00:05:11
Speaker
Excellent. Yeah, that's on a good day. On bad days, you know, probably one or two expletives. I know they would, honestly, but we like we have a very open feedback system at DSC. So, you know, they trust me, they tell me when I pissed them off. Excellent. Question four, tell us something that you learned about yourself or perhaps a new skill that you learned during lockdown. Oh, I don't know much about a new skill, per se.
00:05:39
Speaker
What did I learn about myself? That's such a good question. I think I actually learned about how impatient I can be.
00:05:47
Speaker
And how actually sometimes I just have to slow down and just let other people catch up and give them time and space. You know, it's something I have to work really hard at because I work at the speed of light person. I speak fast, I write fast, I type fast, I eat fast, you know, everything I do really, really fast. And sometimes that disenfranchises the people that I'm leading. So, you know, I think I've, I mean, I always kind of had a sense of it, but it's really come home during this pandemic that sometimes I'm rushing people far too quickly.
00:06:14
Speaker
and I need to give them a little bit more space and time to either grieve or think or, you know, argue. So yeah, probably that actually. Nothing good. Well, you're right then in saying that your team described you as impatient. So our final icebreaker question, if you had the opportunity to interview anyone in the world dead or alive, who would it be and what one question would you like to ask them?
Interviewing Kamala Harris on Resilience
00:06:39
Speaker
Oh, flippin' air. I thought these were supposed to be fun icebreakers, did you? I feel like, you know, like you can ask me desert island display. Fun with purpose. Yeah. Right now, I would love to interview Kamala Harris. Yes. And I would love to ask her, what's the single thing that kept you going all those times when you faced
00:07:02
Speaker
discrimination and having to fight the system because wasn't she only the second black senator or something in the senate something like that so I'd really love to ask her when you're facing those kinds of things what's the one thing that keeps you going so yeah but Kamala Harris I would love to meet her
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love the answer to that. In fact, she's a half Indian. Yes, I know. Her grandfather is from the same town in India as my grandparents are as well. My grandmother was mixed race Anglo-Indian and my mother was born in India. I didn't know that. Yes, yes. So my grandmother was born in Samastipur and she was mixed race. She looked, you know, she's very, you know, not very dark, but dark colouring, dark eyes, dark hair. You know, if you watch an Asari,
00:07:46
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? So yes, so so we come. So I have all myself have Indian heritage. I mean, you know, much paler. My mother was born in Puna and she was brought up speaking Hindustani fluently, obviously. I mean, my mum doesn't remember any of it now because they moved away because my grandmother married my grandfather, who is from Liverpool.
00:08:03
Speaker
you know, and he was a soldier. So she then started following around the world with the British army. But yeah, so there's a connection, you see. Brilliant.
Empowering Charities through the Directory of Social Change
00:08:10
Speaker
I love that. I must admit, I am so looking forward to this conversation because there is just so much I would love to get your perspective on.
00:08:19
Speaker
Let's start off by talking about the Directory of Social Change. You have been the chief exec there for, is it almost 20 years? Yeah, 20 years this year. Wow. So tell us about the work of the Directory of Social Change and how has the organization evolved since you first took the helm?
00:08:36
Speaker
brilliant questions so at the core of what we believe at DSC is we believe that the world is made a better place when people get off their backsides and do something to help each other to help themselves so we think that kind of community action social action those things are what moves societies forward what makes the world better for people
00:08:57
Speaker
And we think that charities are one of the most effective vehicles that enable that innate goodness and desire to help to come out of people. So we don't particularly care what your charity sets out to do. We don't mind about your cause. We think the mere fact of charities existing
00:09:15
Speaker
enables this real goodness in human beings to come out and for the world to get better. So that's DSC's core belief. So we believe therefore that if charities are run well, doing their work well, attracting volunteers, getting the funding, thinking ahead, being strategic, lobbying, campaigning, all the rest of it, if they're doing that well, the world is going to get better.
00:09:34
Speaker
So therefore, everything that DSC does is about enabling that. So that's why we run courses in governance and law and charity law and management and leadership and managing meetings and sharing. That's why we write books and publish books. That's why we provide funding information. So anything at all to do with how you can have a really successful charity, that's what DSC is there to do. So we're not representative. We don't have members. We speak our mind. So we gather intel. We know what's going on for charities. So we will therefore come out and say,
00:10:04
Speaker
We don't think this is right or we think this needs to change, but we don't ever call ourselves a voice for charities. We just, we have our own voice, but it's informed by the charities that we serve, which is, you know, all of the sector really, but at least probably 15,000 charities a year use DSC services, buy a book or come on a program or
00:10:21
Speaker
know something like that so yeah so that's what we stand for and so in terms of what's changed that hasn't changed that has always been DSC's core belief that the world is made better and that charities that kind of formal vehicle enables that to happen but the way in which we deliver the work has changed you know so
00:10:40
Speaker
more online, it's more digital, we've got kind of bold and braver, you know, that sort of thing, I think it's probably changed. And I think we've become, you know, when we started out, sort of back in the 70s, it was probably a bit more, it was good willing patriarchy, you know, it was doing on two. And I think as society has changed, we've changed with it, and we're much more
00:11:02
Speaker
engaged and we're much more sort of humble probably for want of a better word still is outspoken and still is you know ready to tell people what we think but yeah and I think that the other thing that's that's unique about us is that you know we're as likely to tell our fellow charities off as we are the government or funders you know say like come on it's no excuse don't be a wimp get on with it you know so yeah that's broadly DSC
00:11:25
Speaker
Brilliant. So basically telling everybody to get off their back sides and do work for good. Yeah, but do it right. Do it well. Do it properly. Absolutely. So where and how could colleagues access some of the resources that you mentioned there for those who don't know or not familiar with the DSC? Sure. Well, obviously our website, which is www.dsc.org.uk. And of course, following us on Twitter, we have a Twitter feed. I have my own personal Twitter feed.
00:11:54
Speaker
devil cop Tyler, that's my Twitter handle. And we share, so some of the stuff we charge for, cause that's how we fund ourselves. We have very few grants, mostly we fund ourselves through charging for our work, but we also give away lots of free resources and advice and things like that. So the website is the first place to come and signing up to our e-newsletter and things like that. Excellent. So talking about the sector-wide perspective a little bit more then, what do you see as some of the key risks and opportunities ahead for 2021?
Opportunities and Risks for Post-Pandemic Collaboration
00:12:22
Speaker
Well, I want to start with the opportunities. I think the main thing is, one thing that I think almost all of us have experienced, whatever size of charity we are, is this kind of overwhelming willingness for us to cooperate with each other. During, you know, a lot of my early career in the voluntary sector, bear in mind, I've been working for a charity, for charities for over 30 odd years, more than 35 years.
00:12:44
Speaker
We used to be quite viciously competitive really and i use the word vicious advisedly you know the first people to stab each other in the back of a bitch and alone about the fact why did that get charity get the money and we didn't we do it better than things and i'm not saying that critically i'm just saying that's how it was you know we were. We were all competing for small pots of money and things like that and we were less than we tended to come at collaboration with real suspicion.
00:13:05
Speaker
you know, with real sort of like, yeah, I'll collaborate so far, but I don't really trust you because given half a chance, you're going to run off with my funder or my, you know. And I think that what this pandemic has done has kind of chucked masses of that away. And I really, really hope we can hang on to it. I really, really hope we can have this working together thing. I think it takes really strong leadership to do that, actually, because our instinct is to protect our own organization or to promote our own organization.
00:13:28
Speaker
I mean, I was, you know, I had a lot of kind of wider meetings with colleagues and peers in the sector. And we were having this conversation about, you know, this particular initiative that's out there where some of our colleagues have gone back to the old ways of feeling, you know, oh, my toes are being trodden on, you know, why are they doing that on my patch and, you know, me basically making the point.
00:13:48
Speaker
it isn't about patches there are vulnerable people out there who desperately need our help and it's our job not to get all sniffy about who does the work but to make sure the work gets done and immediately i could immediately see my colleagues coming back to yeah you're absolutely right you know so i think there's something that we're going to have to keep reminding ourselves because it's normal human nature to like slip back into my charity you know i need to get the credit i need to
00:14:12
Speaker
you know, be the one to be seen as the sort of the hero heroine of the sector. And I really think that that hasn't happened. So that's the opportunity. The risk is we slip back into the old ways when things settle down, I think very much. In terms of other stuff, you know, the thing about the voluntary sector is we've never, ever, ever had it easy.
00:14:30
Speaker
ever. It's never been easy to fundraise, it's never been easy to get our case across, it's never been easy to get laws changed, it's never been easy to get the ear of a politician or a local authority and so we have developed the most insane skills to be able to do those things. If there is any, I mean we just can't be defeated, we can be battered, we can be bruised, we can be you know, chucked under a bus, we can be abandoned, we can have almost no money but somehow or ever we never actually get defeated and I think that's those years of those skills being honed
00:15:00
Speaker
And so I think that whatever comes up this year and in the years following, whatever economic crisis there are, whatever other crises are, that if there was ever a sector that's got the skills and experience and the sheer guts to keep going, it's ours. So I'm not dismissing the challenges at all. I mean, DSC has got massive challenges ourselves, of course, but that we've got the skills and the experience to do it. So I'm hugely hopeful, hugely hopeful about the future, because I think we've got the skills. I mean, like, you know, to this,
00:15:29
Speaker
a long time ago now, probably 10 or slightly more than that years ago, I very nearly lost my job. And it was a horrible, horrible time. I was very frightened. I remember going home to my father and saying, dad, you know, I'm going to lose my job. I lose my income. I was on my own at the time as well. I'd just come out of the divorce and I was on my own and I was worried about, you know, the world really. And I said, I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to lose my income. I'm going to lose my reputation. I won't be able to work in the sector anymore. You know, all the things that I care about as I'm sobbing, you know, as you do. And my father said to me, he said, Debs,
00:15:58
Speaker
All the skills and qualities and learning and abilities that got you to where you are now, nobody can take that away from you, nobody can. So if all those bad things do happen, you will just pick yourself up and you'll take what you've learned and what you can do and you'll apply it again in a new place. Best piece of advice I've ever been given, and I think that's absolutely true of us in the voluntary section of our charities, you know, no matter how bad it gets, how hard we have to shrink, how much money we lose, nobody can take away from us our skills, our ability and our commitment.
00:16:27
Speaker
Well, you did say that hope was your superpower, so it's great to hear sort of the real optimism there. And what do you feel we have learned from the pandemic that we can and should carry forward? Can you give some specific examples there?
00:16:41
Speaker
Oh, sure, flexible working, 100%. You know, the fact that it turns out that no matter how hard it is, people can balance a cat, a toddler and a job at the same time. I think we've learned that work doesn't have to be done between nine to five. We can be a hell of a lot more flexible with people about their working hours. So we can say to people, you're contracted for 35 working hours, but you choose when you do those hours. You know, so if you need to spend most of the day with your kid, no problem, you can catch up at the work in the evening, that's fine. You know what I mean? So I think we've become a lot,
00:17:11
Speaker
I think we've learned to be a lot more flexible. I think we've really learned the value of communication. So I'm spending more time with my peers in the sector than I ever was before. I meet my fellow chief executives at least once a week, you know, and before I would have maybe seen them.
00:17:27
Speaker
or spoken to them properly maybe once a quarter. We did exchange the old email or maybe a phone call, but this is kind of the regular communication. And as a result of that, I think our partnerships are stronger, our voice is stronger, our resilience is stronger. So I think definitely that. I think we've learned how to cope with even more with absolutely no money. You know what I mean? It's like, that's really tough. Yeah, I think each individual organization
00:17:55
Speaker
will have learned very specific things. But I think overall, as a sector, we've definitely worked to learn about just keep on, let's keep seeing each other and talking to each other all the time. Yeah, so that probably. Plus Zoom.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yes, I think collaboration is definitely something that stands out to me in terms of everybody and certainly in the sector having to do better and people being actually a lot more intentional about connecting because we're being forced to do everything remotely and via Zoom, et cetera. So I definitely see that as a positive.
00:18:27
Speaker
I mean, there are downsides though to it because one of the things I've noticed is that we take away the kind of, because everything feels so pressured. We don't allow the time for the chitchat. So like when you go into a Zoom meeting and so many of them have rules like, please don't go and chat, don't interrupt, keep your mute on. And so half the time you're speaking into a blank space. Now I think that's a bit of a pity and I don't think it's necessary. I think we can build in some of that sort of little chitchatty stuff in our Zoom meetings just as you'd have them in a normal meeting.
00:18:55
Speaker
So I do think we've lost a little bit of that. That's a really good point, Devs. I mean, how do you do that at the DSC with your team? Do you have an example of do you all start off by talking about something personal? What do you do at your team meetings?
00:19:07
Speaker
We have daily check-ins, so 9.30 every day, everybody signs in. And really, it's because we just want to make sure that nobody died in the night. You know what I mean? Because people are on their own. I mean, I'm exaggerating slightly, but you know what I mean? To make sure that people are okay and they're there and they're functioning. Just as if you walked into an office and you say, good morning to everybody, it's the equivalent of that. So it's not a work thing. It's, hi, how are you? You know, we talk about what's been going on on telly. You know, lately we've talked a lot, obviously, about what's happening in America and
00:19:35
Speaker
you know, Trump's impeachment and things like that. And we just sort of, it's just a little chat for 10 minutes. So we do that. But the other thing mostly is to do with us giving people permission. So we actually say to our staff, we want you to gossip. We want you to chat. We want to catch you not working. You know, if we want you to ring each other and just say, let's have a quick 10 minutes or a quick 15 minutes, let's have a cup of coffee together in a chat. You know, so we've tried, so we've done some of the formal stuff like everybody else does, you know, the zoom quizzes and all that kind of thing.
00:20:01
Speaker
But mostly what we're doing is giving people permission to not work, to chat, because actually I always say that is work. You know, that's part of how you're building up relationships when you're, you know, when you're chatting about what you've got in common or what happened in the football or whatever.
00:20:16
Speaker
you're building a relationship, which then translates into a better conversation when you need to talk to that person about a piece of work. So all the former stuff that everybody else has done, but mostly it's about giving people a mission to hang out. Absolutely. So again, really being intentional about communication and
00:20:32
Speaker
talking about intentional communication devs, you are a celebrated author and have written a number of books on leadership and management.
Essential Leadership Qualities in the Charity Sector
00:20:41
Speaker
And I know your first book for the charity sector leaders, it's tough at the top is really widely hailed as a Bible for sector leaders. So I'd like to ask you, what are the key qualities or traits that you see as fundamental to good leadership?
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, quality is an interesting thing because I think leadership is learned. I suspect there are some people who are born just automatically and instinctively being a good leader. I'm not one of those people. As my mother says, you were born bossy, darling, it's not the same thing, which is true. So whereas I think leadership is very much a set of skills that you can learn. And I think that sometimes we call something a quality when actually it's a skill.
00:21:24
Speaker
So if I explain what I mean, so I think one of the most important qualities you can have as a leader in the voluntary sector is courage. But I think you can learn courage. I don't think it's innate. You're either brave or you're not brave. I think you can learn to be courageous and you learn to be courageous by stepping out of your comfort zone, being absolutely terrified and doing it anyway and suddenly discovering that the world doesn't end or
00:21:45
Speaker
getting massively beaten back, but realising that actually courage is about being beaten back, but then taking a step forward. So I just want to make that distinction about qualities versus skills. All of these things can be learned. So courage, definitely. Resilience, absolutely. You've got to be able to take the blows. You know, and particularly at chief exec level, I mean, it's lonely at most levels of leadership on a certain degree, but once you get to chief exec level, it's incredibly lonely because you don't have a team.
00:22:11
Speaker
you don't belong to anybody. So you don't belong to the board and you don't belong to your leadership team, you know, and you're going to get the blame coming up and the blame coming down and the blame coming sideways and things like that. And I think that you have to learn to be able to self motivate. Like I think chief executives who like, you know, complain about, I'm not getting the spot for my board. I'm not getting spot for my leadership team. You should be, of course, but if you rely on it, the job is always, always going to be harder.
00:22:37
Speaker
So I think that really powerful leadership is where you're developing yourself this inner resilience. And I don't mean resilience like, you know, going until you drop over with exhaustion and, you know, get sort of locked away somewhere because you can't cope. I'm not talking about that sort of resilience. I'm talking about being able to put things in context.
00:22:54
Speaker
you know, it's like understanding that people are going to moan about you because you're the boss and that's okay. And nobody's ever going to understand what it's like to be the chief executive until they've been the chief executive. And then all of a sudden they're going to say, oh my God, I had no idea. And I remember years ago, I seen a director I worked with who basically, you know, was in charge of, a colleague who was in charge of like a massive, like his departmental budget was bigger than the whole of DSC's budget for this particular charity that he worked for. And I can remember him being very dismissive and saying,
00:23:21
Speaker
you know I think you'll find out that I completely understand what it's like to be a chief executive because you know my budget is xd million pounds and I have all these thousands of people I'm employed by. Anyway he then became a chief executive shortly after that about three months I came back to he said I had no idea what I was talking about you know it's so different when you get here and I think you just have to get that nobody's going to know and that's okay I guess it's a bit like you don't appreciate what it's like to be a parent until you become one
00:23:47
Speaker
You know, you don't understand what it was your parents and I don't want to make that kind of parent child analogy because being a chief executive is about being a colleague. It's absolutely not about, you know, this kind of parent teacher role. You know, I think that's where we go wrong. So, yes, I think courage, I think resilience, that sort of ability to pull yourself together. And then I think most importantly, connection to the vision.
00:24:07
Speaker
If you can connect to what it's all about, everything is bearable, everything is. If you can connect to what it is you're trying to achieve as an organisation, there is no argument you can't win. There is no person you can't win over when you talk about who you're serving and what it's all about. There's no change that can't be implemented.
00:24:26
Speaker
if you link that change to achieving the vision. If you talk about change because it's about we've been doing it really crap and we need to do it better then you're going to get loads of resistance and you know but if you talk about change like if we do this this means that you know Harry or Jane or Sagata or Shreen or you know Kamal or whoever is going to get a better service because of this change people will then go along with you. So yeah courage, resilience and vision.
00:24:51
Speaker
Yes and I absolutely agree with you that particularly in the charity sector it's all about connecting back to that purpose and that mission and being real custodians and stewards of that purpose and mission is really important. So what would your top tips be for leaders in order to thrive through this ongoing crisis? Because we're recording this early in January 2021
00:25:13
Speaker
We're currently in our third national lockdown in the UK and I know we're all feeling a little bit battered. So what are your top tips? Yeah, death rates are through the roof and things like that. I have so many really practical ones actually. So first off, it's not your job to fix everybody's mental health or their mood or their wellbeing.
00:25:33
Speaker
you know, you can't. And also there's something, we almost dishonor people when we don't allow them to have down days or to be really miserable and fed up and to just disappear for a bit. You know, I have a long-term mental health condition and I was taught very early in my therapeutic interventions, how to distinguish between when I was ill and when I was just having a normal functional reaction to a really bad situation. And I think we've gotten into this kind of fear state where we think anytime anybody says I'm really a bit down,
00:26:02
Speaker
you know, I need some time off. We almost panic and over blow it rather than saying, do you know what, it's of course you feel down. That is completely normal. Please take two days off, go to bed, get under your duvet. Don't come out for two days, but after two days, give me a ring and let's see where we're at. Do you know what I mean? It's like allowing people to grieve and to be in pain because it's a horrible time. You know, I've been saying to colleagues, if you're not feeling frightened and anxious and a bit tired and like scared and wanting to go and
00:26:29
Speaker
that's probably means there's something wrong, you know, because these are normal reactions. So I think it's really important to allow people to do that. And also yourself, you know, I think it's you also need to be able to say, you know, I'm just going to take Friday off because I know I'm not managing well, because there's something really important about we
00:26:46
Speaker
We need to be seen by our staff to be able to be always thinking about moving forward, that it comes back to this hope thing. If your staff or your team or your volunteers or your trustees think that you've lost hope, they will lose hope. So you have to find ways to make sure you can always talk about the hope, about the future we will get through this, we will get forward without being wishy-washy, kind of like, you know, chicken soupy, you know, I'm not talking about genuine things.
00:27:10
Speaker
Also delegate, trust your people, we have this weird sort of culture around leadership still, which is that the leaders have to know everything, they're the best people to make the decisions, they're like our teachers or our parents, and so people have that expectation of us and they come to us like that.
00:27:26
Speaker
We kind of have that expectation of ourselves and it gets into this kind of cycle. I do not know better than my team. Of course I don't. I'm not an accountant, so I don't know better about our finances than my finance director. I don't know better about our development work than my development director. I don't know better about our research work.
00:27:42
Speaker
it's their job to make the decisions in those areas. It's my job to coordinate them and to have conversations and to ask them questions. You know, I think that my role as a leader is more to test their thinking and make sure that their thinking is linking into the strategy for the whole organization. So trust your people, they're your colleagues, they're adults, and not just your senior people, all the way down the organization, you know, it's like
00:28:05
Speaker
My job is not more important than somebody else who's dealing directly with one of our, you know, one of our beneficiaries or one of our clients. You know, in fact, in that moment, if somebody is actually talking to one of the charities we have, they are in that moment way more important than I ever am. I think we just all have different roles in the organization. I sort of think if you think about an organization is just one big circle. And in it, there are slices of pie. I'm one bit of the pie. My customer services team is another bit. The trustees are another bit. You know, if you think about I'm just a bit of the pie, but all the pie is the
00:28:36
Speaker
It's the same flavour, it's the same, you know, that sort of thing. So trust your people. The other thing is tell people the truth. Don't pretend things aren't tough if they are tough. You can tell people the truth without being negative. You can say we're in a really, really bad situation.
00:28:51
Speaker
you know, the money isn't coming in and we're really struggling and we're going to have to make some really tough decisions. However, if we do these things, we will be able to position ourselves so that we as an organization can survive and continue to serve our beneficiaries. Do you see what I mean? So now you don't have to gloss things over. And there's no point also saying that everything will be fine. It's okay to say, I don't know if it will be fine. What I do know is that if we take these actions, we have a much better chance of still being around and achieving what we need to achieve or whatever.
00:29:21
Speaker
So it's about be truthful with people, years and years ago, in fact, I can tell you when it was on, it was Friday, the Friday the 16th of January 2003 I think that's the right day at 336pm I started smoking again and I stopped smoking for like 10 years before then I gave up again afterwards but
00:29:39
Speaker
And what drove me out to have a cigarette is my then finance director came in and said, we've got no cash in the bank to pay the salaries this month. Completely oblivious to me. And this is a multi-million pound charity. No cash in the bank to pay the salaries. I was straight outside, somebody get me a cigarette! Anyway, the long story short about that is it was a really serious situation.
00:29:58
Speaker
But and my trustee said, nobody must find out about this. I mean, obviously, we put the things in place to make sure we could survive. But it was it was a really scary situation. And my trustee said at the time, they said, don't tell anybody, keep it quiet. We don't want anyone to find out about this. You know, it could ruin DC's business, blah, blah, blah, blah. You'll never be able to. And I have to say, I sort of rebelled a bit and I thought, you know, I'm going to tell the staff the truth. And I did. You know, I called them all together and said, well, we're in this really bad situation. We're running out of cash.
00:30:23
Speaker
But luckily, it was our fault. It wasn't some external thing. It was our own incompetence, basically, that led us there. And so I was able to say, look, we're running out of cash. So that's the bad news. But the good news is it's our own fault. And what that means is we can fix it. So we started that year, I'm not even kidding, literally on the verge of going bust. This is a long time ago now.
00:30:44
Speaker
And we ended the year contributing nearly £1 million to our reserves. And in that time, one person got made redundant and it was a voluntary redundancy. And one person lost their job. I won't tell you who that was, but you can probably guess. And the rest of it, we kept going. And I absolutely swear to this day that 90% of that was because I told them the truth. I trusted them. I said, you know, we together can get ourselves out of this.
00:31:08
Speaker
The other thing I will say is that with the trustees, I absolutely held my hand up. I said, this is complete money. I said, what happened? Who did what? I won't boil the details. I said, it's my fault. I'm accountable. This is my watch. And I will fix it. And I have to say, again, one of the best things I ever did was because from then on, they just always trusted me because I didn't try and blame anybody else. I didn't sort of shift it. I said,
00:31:33
Speaker
I didn't say it's absolutely my fault, this is all on me, you know, so I think that's the other thing is also about being honest with your trustees, although it's a bit scary with trustees and fairness because you can't always guarantee they're going to hear it in the right way, but you know.
00:31:46
Speaker
I often think that an important aspect of leadership is really holding the vision, holding that torch and the big picture and enabling everybody else in the organisation, your team, to be able to connect the dots up to that big picture vision and again bringing it back to purpose and mission.
The Role of Trustees in Supporting Staff
00:32:05
Speaker
And Debs, I'd like to actually talk a bit more about trustees because you mentioned them a few times there.
00:32:11
Speaker
Because this past year has also been a time when board members and trustees have really had to step up their engagement and take some pretty tough decisions. And I know that you have a huge amount of experience at board level, serving on boards of a number of organizations and have just written a book called It's a Battle on the Board, your newest book, looking at charity governance and oversight. So what advice do you have for board members at this point of time? And what do you think board members should be focusing on right now?
00:32:41
Speaker
I tend to think that if your basic systems are pretty robust anyway, your reporting mechanisms, the way you engage with your executive and the charity staff, you probably don't need to change anything very much, you know, because actually at the moment, what you're really looking for is a board of trustees' information.
00:32:57
Speaker
is what you're trying to establish what's going on, what's the situation that we currently find ourselves in. So in theory, you shouldn't be having to ask for additional information. You might be asking for information slightly more often, but it shouldn't require, you know, because if you're having to ask for information you're not already getting, you probably weren't asking for the right information in the first place. So, you know, I think it's worth thinking about this. I don't think there's anything particularly different about being a trustee in a crisis as to any other time. I think you have to
00:33:27
Speaker
Remember that you are not the expert in your charity, your chief executive and your staff, and you must listen to them. That your job is to, I think we've got it a bit the wrong way around. I think we tend to think as trust, because obviously I'm a trustee myself, you know, as you mentioned, I think as trustees, we get into this tendency of thinking like we're the ones who are supposed to know best.
00:33:46
Speaker
And, you know, we have to make the decisions and I would say I don't think that's that I think our job is to test the thinking of our senior team of our charity staff is to ask them questions and not like combative questions like, you know, what and how makes you think that work, you know, which let's be honest, some trustees to blame like that.
00:34:04
Speaker
but more more sort of like just you know so that's okay so this is the plan Divya can let me know or you know can I ask you so what do you expect the outcome to be how you know how do we know that's going to happen what's you know in other words it's it's testing thinking it's not challenging as in you know trying to make people it's not like judge jury stuff it's about just so it's supportive really it's about working together in our ways to ask questions
00:34:30
Speaker
I think it's very much about make sure like the detail is not information.
00:34:38
Speaker
Data is not information. Information is being able to look at a picture. So we as trustees, we shouldn't be diving into the minutiae of the management accounts and arguing about where cost cuts should happen. We need to be looking at the overall picture, which is about what are the trends and what are the patterns and what are the relationships between certain income streams or cost centers and income streams.
00:35:02
Speaker
rather than the detail of let's slash the salary budget or let's cut XYZ. I think our job is to say to our team come to us with options and recommend one of the options and then we will then debate and discuss those options but I think it's like that all the time.
00:35:18
Speaker
We sort of say trustee's job is to support their chief executive and their staff, but what does support mean? Very often you see it manifest itself as just some trustee saying, oh, you're doing a great job, you know, don't get down or well done. That's not the support that chief executives normally need right now. What they need is for you not to ask for information that isn't absolutely critical. It means that they need you not to be constantly hounding them because you're panicked.
00:35:46
Speaker
They need you absolutely to trust that if they've asked you to do something, you're going to do it and you're going to do it within the timeframe. Do you see what I mean? It's like, we've gotten into the, what does support mean? And we often think it's support is, are you all right, love? And actually, you know, most of us, that's not the support we need. We need the time, the head space. We need not to be given additional work that isn't necessary and things like that. I'm conscious I've kind of like wiffled and waffled a bit. I've completely forgotten now what the question was.
00:36:09
Speaker
I think you definitely hit it. It was really about what advice do you have for board members in this current operating environment? Oh, and read my book on the board, obviously. Yes, absolutely. And I am a board member myself as well. I've recently joined as a trustee, the organisation Book Aid International. Oh, wow, fantastic.
00:36:32
Speaker
Yes, a very exciting organization helping provide books to communities and children all across the world. And I've always thought that a chief exec role and a board role are essentially complementary.
00:36:46
Speaker
And how do you find wearing both those hats in terms of your chief executive one organisation and being on a board of another? How do both hats sit on Deborah's
CEOs and Boards: A Nanny-Parent Relationship
00:36:58
Speaker
head? Well, so I use this analogy, which I think is quite a handy analogy to think about the difference between a chief executive and a trustee. And so it's a bit like the relationship between a nanny and a parent.
00:37:10
Speaker
So parents have a child and for whatever reason they can't look after the child themselves during the day so they hire a nanny. So seven o'clock in the morning they hand over the baby to the nanny and then and you know with all the rules and stuff that they want the nanny to do with the baby or the child and then they come home at the end of the day at seven o'clock and the nanny hands the baby back.
00:37:26
Speaker
Now, the relationship between the nanny and the parent tends to break down when? For example, the parents say to the nanny, I want Ed or, you know, Edwina or, you know, Kamala or whatever her name is to have, to have quinoa at 11 o'clock in the morning, every morning. And the nanny knows damn well that that child is not going to eat quinoa at 11 o'clock. That child is not going to eat that. And so the parent gets really crossed with the nanny because the child's not eating the quinoa. And the nanny keeps saying to her, she won't eat the bloody quinoa. You know what I mean?
00:37:53
Speaker
So what happens is the nanny is the expert in the baby because the parents are not with the baby while the baby's mostly in its waking hours but the baby doesn't actually belong to the nanny. The nanny is looking after the baby for the parents and I think that when the parents and the nanny understand that the nanny understands that
00:38:10
Speaker
The long term planning for this child's future is the job of the parent because it's their baby and the parents understand that the nanny is the expert in the baby and we must listen to the nanny before we make plans about the long term future of our child.
00:38:26
Speaker
It's the same kind of relationship between boards between trustees and chief executive. So I think that the relationship between the board and the chief executive or the executive team is a bit like that many parent thing is the board cannot be the expert in the charity or the work of the charity even if they think they are, you know, because they have to be a service user they are not.
00:38:46
Speaker
the chief executive needs to get that it's not their job to make the decisions about a long-term future of the charity because they're the kind of the steward of it and so as a chief executive I'm always very conscious that I'm doing this for my board I'm so my role is to advise my board to give them information to
00:39:04
Speaker
give them options to tell them what they need to know, to make recommendations about what I think ought to happen because I'm the expert, but then to accept that it's their right, absolutely right, in fact their duty in law, never mind morally, to make the ultimate decision. So even if I've strongly recommended this is the way forward, it has to be their decision and it's not my job to undermine those decisions. And then when I'm a trustee it's the same, I'm very conscious that I'm their
00:39:33
Speaker
the chief executive teams of the charities that I sit on, they're the experts. And my job is to listen to their advice, to ask questions, of course, to test their thinking, but to absolutely listen to what they're advising us to do. So yeah, so that's how I tend to look at it. And that's how I balance it myself. So I find both brilliant
00:39:50
Speaker
I have to say that I think I'm a better chief executive because I'm a trustee and I think I'm a better trustee because I'm a chief executive or was a senior leader in a charity. So I would say to all leaders in charities or whatever level you're at, please become a trustee. First off, everybody needs it. Don't make the excuses about that. You haven't got time because we're all relying on people to make time, you know, so find the time to do it and your leadership will improve immeasurably.
00:40:16
Speaker
once you understand what it's like. Because we can see each other as the enemy a bit, particularly staff looking at trustees. And I also say, if you think about it, trustees are very vulnerable because they're not doing the data work of the charity. They rely on you to give them the information. They very often feel completely powerless, even though to us, it appears like the trustees have all the power. Actually, they don't. They very often themselves feel powerless. So we need to respect that and to help them to feel powerful and engaged and give them information.
00:40:45
Speaker
you know and particularly there's no excuses at Chief Executive if you're having troubles with your board 90% of the time it'll be down to the information you're giving them and how you're providing it you know you we have so much power as Chief Executives in how in the information we give and how we provide and how to help them to have the right kinds of conversations you know so often I come across Chief Executives who just jump in and I expect the board to know how to run themselves properly this is a group of people who get together four times a year for probably a couple of hours
00:41:12
Speaker
don't necessarily have very strong relationships with each other. It's part of our role as chief executive to help to facilitate the board to get it right. Anyway, there you go. That's what I think. Well, I absolutely agree with you, Deborah. I do think that being a chief exec helps you be a better trustee and being a trustee helps you become a better chief exec of a charity and an organisation.
00:41:34
Speaker
And at the end of the day, we are all working together to move things forward for the charity's beneficiaries and doing that in the best way that we all possibly can.
00:41:43
Speaker
Yes.
From Commercial Work to Charity Leadership - Deborah's Journey
00:41:45
Speaker
Debs, I'd like to delve a little bit more now into your own personal background and personal leadership journey. You mentioned right at the beginning of our conversation that your first voluntary sector job was in a care home as a volunteer. So talk to us about what really attracted you to the sector and how did you get into this line of work?
00:42:05
Speaker
Well, I volunteered to do the help I did. I hated it. I wasn't emotionally strong. People kept dying, you know, or that was just awful. I was just not emotionally equipped for it at all. But I understood the principle behind it, if you see what I mean? So it's even though I wasn't very good at it and I got far too attached to people and I found myself completely unable to move through, you know, the challenges of people's lives.
00:42:26
Speaker
So I didn't think that I wanted to work for a voluntary sector organisation as I was going through my career. In fact, I wanted to be an actress, actually, as the honest truth. Ever since I was like three years old, all I ever wanted to do was be an actress. And for various different reasons, I didn't end up going to university or achieving any of that, because it turns out being a drama queen doesn't qualify you. Again, I'm not going to do it today.
00:42:48
Speaker
doesn't qualify you necessarily doesn't mean you necessarily have acting skills so and hard lessons i've learned along the way. So I did a year at college doing like a business assistant degree. And then I ended up my first job was as a typist and a typing pool, as I said, working for solicitor and then I ended up working for an insurance company.
00:43:05
Speaker
And then my parents were based in Germany, so I went to live with them for a bit, and I was a voluntary support teacher for swimming, you know, and I helped out in the school and stuff and basically lived off my parents for a bit. And then when we came back to the UK, I ended up working for a bank called BCCI, which, you know, you won't remember, but which actually went bust very dramatically, I have to say, after I left. So, you know, but so it was all my background was in the commercial sector.
00:43:30
Speaker
And I ended up applying for an admin job in an organization called the Industrial Society, which doesn't exist anymore. But it was like literally the best luck I could possibly have because it was a charity itself. It campaigned to improve the lives of people in work. So we did a lot of work with businesses. So I have a lot of private sector experiences, but from within the context of working for a campaigning charity, because a lot of the work we did was trying to get businesses to treat their staff better and
00:43:59
Speaker
engage better and things like that and it was an organisation that passionately believed in leadership so literally from the day I walked in there I was being trained in how to be a leader and you know things like that so and I was there for 14 years so I was really really really lucky and that's why when I said earlier about innate skills versus taught I was taught all of my leadership skills sometimes I've been beaten into me you know but I really did have that background that experience
00:44:24
Speaker
Although I have to say to you, I was saying about this the other day, the sexism was breathtaking. We used to have a group of people called management advisors, and almost all of them in our organisation at the time were men. There were a few women, but not very many. And the few women that they were have been brought in from outside, so they're already quite senior business people in their own right brought in.
00:44:43
Speaker
And we have this internal promotion scheme, which is a very good scheme. But when I applied to be promoted I wanted to become a leadership trainer, and I was told by my director at the time that he said that he said he supported my, my being promoted from being an admin.
00:44:59
Speaker
to being a management trainer. Well, the first thing he said to me, he said, you're a very, very good business administrator, Deborah. Why don't you stay doing that? Why do you feel you have to become a management advisor? And I said, well, at some point you were a very good clerk. What made you decide to become a director? I was that impatient about it actually. He said, okay. And then he said, so you can be a trainer, management trainer, but it has to be in secretarial development or comm skills. Because I was a woman.
00:45:27
Speaker
You know, anyway, I wasn't having any effective I fought and I had to fight. You know, I was like no I want to do leadership training, you know, and they did they even if the organization I love they put me in a department where I was the only woman, and I was the youngest woman by about 20 years probably.
00:45:45
Speaker
And it was all men, it was a department, apart from the admin staff, the management train, I think there were about 10 of us and I was the only woman in that. I wasn't given any of the good contracts, I wasn't, you know, it's like everybody had a company car except me. And when I went to my boss and said I need a company car to get around my patch because you have to go visit the companies in their areas.
00:46:04
Speaker
He just changed my patch to central London, and then he gave my patch to somebody else and gave them a company car. Seriously? Oh, my goodness. Britain, you women think you've got it hard today. Let me tell you, back in the, you know, in mid-80s, it was hell. However, having said that, those were pockets of, you know, the organisation itself was fantastic, you know, and the culture was right, and they were ahead of the game in so many ways. So this was just my own particular difficulty, but it was still way better than anywhere else.
00:46:32
Speaker
So yeah so that gave me a real passion for campaigning work and you know my last role there I was head of campaigning and I just loved it and so and then you know I took redundancy and then I went to do something and I could sort of set up my own small consultancy with with my best friend and we both hated it because it didn't feel connected to a cause you know so that came back and I said you know I need to go back and I need to work for charity and so yeah the rest is history.
00:46:59
Speaker
I love hearing all of your stories, Deborah, and thank you for fighting the good fight and sort of paving the way for the female leaders behind you. That's absolutely brilliant. Well, I'm not the only one. We've really had to. It's not been easy. And often it's the, I mean, you will understand about this, of course, in microaggressions around race, but you will also understand as being a woman. So you get the double bloody whammy. Yes. I at least only had the single whammy of all the micro, like not being invited to the pub.
00:47:27
Speaker
you know, being excluded from things, you know, golf days, you know, high that males club did all that stuff. I mean, you know, which still exists, but nowhere near to the scale it did back in the day. Yes. The old boys club, I think is still very much alive and well, but hopefully certainly for the generation coming now in terms of the young women, young women leaders, things are different and the playing field is much more even. I hope so. I would say to young women,
00:47:55
Speaker
Please don't be too disappointed if the older women that you look up to don't seem to, you know, not all, some of us fought so hard, it's kind of really difficult for us to make it easier for other people. You know, some of us women that got stuck in, I had to fight, you need to fight too, because it toughens you up. I personally don't subscribe to that. I think absolutely my job is to change the bloody system so that, you know, and to promote women into positions of seniority, particularly women of color, I have to say, so that, you know, they can be their own example.
00:48:25
Speaker
but also we need to forgive those who, you know, because it was hard. Yes, and I think we have to remember that system change takes time. Yeah, exactly. Indeed. So thinking about your own leadership journey then, Deborah, looking back, what advice would you give to yourself on day one of first becoming a CEO?
Challenges and Rewards of Being a CEO
00:48:47
Speaker
Don't do it!
00:48:51
Speaker
Seriously! Listen, I remember going through my career, going to listen to chief executives of massive national railers at the time, or the BBC, or huge corporations, Marx and Spencers, really big, successful businesses, and these chief executives, always men, would be sat there saying, I love my job, it's really good fun, it's so rewarding, it's the rest of it, and I fell for that.
00:49:14
Speaker
I thought, oh my God, being a chief executive must be like, it's just a breeze, it's great fun, you get loads of perks and loads of adulations. Oh my God, it could not be further from the truth. One of my senior staff, you know, so you're going to have to forgive my language listening, but I'm going to quote back to exactly what he said. He was acting in absence for me while I was away at one time, a few years ago now, he's moved on now, but
00:49:36
Speaker
When I came back and we were doing the handover, like he was handing back over to me, you know, from his acting and absence thing. And he said to me, he said, oh, my God, he said, I've suddenly realised, he said that by the time the shit gets to the top, it's really stinky.
00:49:52
Speaker
Well, he's absolutely right, because if a problem is easily resolved, it's normally resolved in the right place. By the time it gets to you as chief executive, it's always really horrible. You know, there have been mistakes littered along the way. You've suddenly got, you know, personnel issues or industrial relations issues and things like that. And that's when it gets to you, they're normally quite sticky.
00:50:13
Speaker
So a lot of the chief of sex job is that and also the loneliness and all the rest of it. But it is also joyful, you know, because never mind. So for me, the passion for me is about when charities get it right, people's lives are saved. You know, I can't I don't feel divorced from that. I know every single time somebody working with disabled people who comes on a DSC fundraising program is going to go away and get money. And as a result of what we did, some child somewhere is going to have access to help that they wouldn't have had if they hadn't come on the course.
00:50:43
Speaker
every time someone picks up one of my books.
00:50:46
Speaker
and reads it, I think to myself as a result of them reading my book, there is some person out there who didn't jump off a ledge. There is some person out there who got access to mental health provision or stuff. So I feel very connected to that. So that is a real privilege. But the other joyful thing is about actually being able to create the space within an organization to do exactly those things we were just talking about, to develop and grow people, to see people thrive and shine. We just have this real rule at DSS that we're all adults.
00:51:17
Speaker
You know, it's like, I'm not your mum and I can't fix your problems for you. Let's work it out together. And there are things we're doing wrong at DSC. Tell me and I'll try and fix it. But you also need to understand that you might just have to suck it up. That's how it's got to be because of the situation that we're in. So we're having adult, adult conversations as much as we possibly can. So being able to create cultures like that. I mean, don't get me wrong, we're not perfect at DSC. We're going to stretch the imagination.
00:51:39
Speaker
And pound to a penny, if anybody went digging, there would be somebody to say like, you know, we didn't do something right or they didn't like us, that would probably be fair enough. But it's this real sort of sense that you can create this culture and I think that we have a really strong culture at DSC. I'm really proud of
00:51:56
Speaker
how passionately committed my staff are to inclusion and to being good kind loving people to each other and to the people that we serve and I think yeah so it's a challenge that you get to help to create that kind of culture so it's definitely worth it but but it is you know I don't want anybody to think it's not an easy job it's lonely it's tough and you get the blame.
00:52:18
Speaker
you know, rightly, often, because that's what we pay for. I mean, I was talking to, again, a bunch of TV sectors before, and I was saying, you know, like right now, it's probably one of the most stressful, difficult times I've ever experienced in all my, you know, 30 odd years in the sector. But actually, this is what we're paid for. It's these times of crisis that that's when our leadership is tested. All this is is a test of our leadership. You know, so that's how we need to see it instead of seeing it like, oh, my God, it's just all too stressful and awful thing.
00:52:47
Speaker
I've been training for years to do this, to have my leadership show up in a crisis because anybody can be a good leader when things are going well. Anybody can get on well with their stuff when there's lots of money rolling in and nobody's miserable and unhappy. Times like this, it's a test of your leadership and it's actually okay to say, this test is a test too far.
00:53:11
Speaker
You know, it's okay. Say, do you know what this my skill set isn't up to this. I need to step aside and do something else. There's no shame in that at all. But if you start to feel like a victim as a chief executive in this, like nobody understands how hard it is. I'm really stressed. I'm really tired. Well, you know, this is kind of what we're paid for and paid a bit more than others. Not that much, you know, but yeah.
00:53:33
Speaker
So most recently I was the Chief Exec of Children with Cancer UK and I really derived so much energy and inspiration from doing that role because above everything I knew that what I was doing was helping save children's lives. Yeah, even in the tough times Divya, I bet you. And I bet you had really tough times as well.
00:53:55
Speaker
Absolutely, had lots of tough times. But again, just really driven by the core mission and the purpose, you know, helping children and families affected by childhood cancer and knowing that I was helping save a child's life through some efforts that I was doing.
00:54:11
Speaker
It's joyful work, isn't it? It really is. Yes, it absolutely is. I love the charity sector. So, Deborah, we have come to the end of our podcast. We are almost out of time. So, what final thoughts and reflections do you have? And what is one thing that you would like listeners to take away from this conversation?
00:54:31
Speaker
You are incredible. You are absolutely incredible. If things are going tough, it's not because you're failing. We are living in the most like incredible times. I don't want to use that word unprecedented because I hate it. But this is a weird time in which to be if you're struggling for funding, it's not your fault. If you're having to cut services, it's not your fault. It's just to remember that what you're doing makes a massive difference. And there is somebody out there
00:54:57
Speaker
who as a result of your work has battled cancer or overcome an addiction or created a relationship when they've been incredibly lonely or found the support to help them communicate with other people because of your work. You never, ever, ever need to be embarrassed when anybody asks you what you do for a living when you're a leader in our sector. You know, you don't have to sort of mutter into your tea and say, you know, I run a
00:55:22
Speaker
credit card company or a bank or an organization that distributes food parcels let's not go there you never have to be embarrassed about that you know the work that we do matters and is worthy is important and don't let anybody patronize you or make you feel that you're less you're more because you work in the volunteer section you lead in it that's what i want people to get from this
00:55:44
Speaker
Absolutely. And on that inspirational note, thank you so much, Deborah. This has been such an enjoyable conversation. Thank you for your candour and for being such an energetic and great guest. You're so welcome. I've loved it, darling. Absolutely loved it. Thank you.
00:56:03
Speaker
Wow, what an inspirational conversation with the fabulous Deborah Alcock Tyler. I love Deb's energy and she is such a passionate advocate of the charity sector. To those of you charity leaders out there who are feeling a little bit weary of dealing with all the shit that goes with the job, I hope this conversation gave you a little bit of a boost and helped raise your spirits. Thank you for all the incredible work that you do.
00:56:30
Speaker
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00:56:56
Speaker
Visit our website thecharityceo.com for full show details and to submit suggestions or questions for future guests. Thank you for listening.