Transcript
Speaker: on zencastr Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abysseedah and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Speaker: I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abysseedah. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the Independent Minds is made on Zencastr.
Speaker: Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple and YouTube Music, which is Google.
Speaker: Zencastr really does make making content so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr, visit zencastr.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abysida.
Speaker: All the details are in the description. Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
Speaker: As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think. that we are hoping to make you think. Today, my guest, Independent Mind, who I met on Matchmaker.fm is Clark Dodd, who is a project manager with a difference.
Speaker: Although Clark is based in London, he has travelled all over the world, so he's a bit of a traveller. I wonder if he makes his travel arrangements at the Ultimate Travel Club like I do.
Speaker: At the Ultimate Travel Club, I can access trade prices on flights, hotels, holidays and all sorts of other travel-related purchases. There is a link and a membership discount code in the description.
Speaker: Now that I've paid the rent, we can make a podcast. Hello, Clark. Hello, Michael. And thank you for hosting me today. And have to check out the Travel Club myself because I'm sure that would help with some deals for the future.
Speaker: That would be great. I'm sure they'll be pleased to help you. But before you start any more traveling, please could we start the podcast with you giving us a pottish history of Clark Dodd? Yeah, of course. So I graduated many, many years ago and I first moved to London as a teacher.
Speaker: So I did a programme called Teach First, teaching business and economics in what was a challenging London academy at the time. I started consulting after that, which was quite a transition.
Speaker: and spent the best part of a decade working my way through PwC, Morehouse and Beringa. I traveled all over the world and specialized in something called operational excellence, which is how do you get results quickly by changing processes and how people work.
Speaker: After a year in telecoms working on the outsource side of the business, I've recently set up as an independent cons consultant. Congratulations. Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you. That's a very interesting summary of your of your career to date. But something tells me that you missed a little bit out of your your summary. um So it depends how far we want to go back.
Speaker: um Well, I think there's a part of your career which is a little bit different because early on in your career, early on in your academic studies, in year one, you received an offer in the first year that you were doing your degree from one of the big merchant banks, the big investment banks, didn't you?
Speaker: Indeed. So many, many years ago, whilst I was quite a frivolous student in Manchester, ah did an internship at a really well-respected investment bank called Credit Suisse.
Speaker: Now, that organization has now been acquired by UBS, but was one of the leading investment banks in the world at the time. So this was quite ah a bold decision as a 20-year-old, where although I did three months of work, got great feedback, met lovely people and had an amazing experience in London for the first time,
Speaker: I had an offer that was more money than I'd ever owned before and was quite brave and or foolish to reject that offer and try and explore what else I might be doing post-university. Yes.
Speaker: What did you do post-university? Yes. So what I ended up doing, um in all honesty, was probably quite arrogant having turned down the offer. My logic at the time was, well, if I've got the absolute best feedback possible from one of the world's best investment banks, then finding a new job would be easy.
Speaker: Unfortunately, it wasn't. I had after rejection after rejection after rejection. in my third year and as a result didn't have anything lined up as a graduate so decided to go over to Borneo, live in the rainforest for three months and do some voluntary work.
Speaker: Nice and that didn't stop there though did it? Exactly so as soon as I did yeah come came back I was lucky enough to get a position on Teach First But then throughout my entire career, I've done 37 different countries around the world.
Speaker: So I've been very lucky that particularly whilst I've been a consultant, I have done lots of international work everywhere from North America, London, Europe, and as far as Asia, even having living lived in Malaysia for about four months, few years ago.
Speaker: Nice. So all over the world, all sorts of different experiences. And I think it's that international experience working in the different cultures, working in very developed countries and also some very underdeveloped countries and countries that are in the middle, the developing countries. That's what makes you different, isn't it?
Speaker: Yeah. so i think I'm really lucky that because of the work that I decided to specialize in, um which was heavily focused on face-to-face training, required face-to-face presence with a lot of the clients that we had at the time.
Speaker: So it was really interesting for me to compare, let's say, a really developed and prestigious company like Goldman Sachs and how they operate to a hospital in the north of England that was maybe a little bit dysfunctional.
Speaker: um to a shared service center over in Malaysia. And each of those three are quite really polar opposites in terms of how they operate, the culture inside, um and the problems that they face.
Speaker: And I can imagine, because I've also worked internationally quite a lot and all sorts of different countries. There's the film Up in the Air with George Clooney, where he plays an HR person who flies around America telling people that they haven't got a job anymore and he's there to help them find another one.
Speaker: And there are scenes in that film as an HR professional who's doing international work where I have lived the scenes in the film. It's not just that I've been there, it's I have lived the scene in that film.
Speaker: And it does give you a completely different perspective. working internationally in multiple countries traveling regularly and spending periods of time in those it does give you a completely different perspective on the work that you actually do great and yeah i've seen that film myself but i'll have check it out sometime yeah it's very good very good george clooney playing an hr person not really quite what you expect but it's really good for me So what sort of unique experiences has all of that travel given you? Have you got some some anecdotes you can share with us?
Speaker: Yeah, so I have um done all sorts around the world, which I'm very, very privileged to have able to experience. um A few things that stand out for me is I did an obstacle course in the Arctic Circle.
Speaker: I've lived in a rainforest in Borneo. I've done Machu Picchu and ayahuasca in a forest in Peru. Yeah, lots of things I was dreaming of in terms of being able to explore the world as a 15, 16-year-old boy has actually materialized into my reality.
Speaker: And whether that's fate or just luck and persistence, who knows? But that's something I feel very, very fortunate having experienced.
Speaker: and now I feel like because of of how varied my experience is I can understand and empathize with a much wider range of people and much wider range of scenarios.
Speaker: Yes, I think that's the important difference, isn't it? Thinking about it with my HR professional hat on, very often when we are recruiting somebody, we're looking at a CV, a resume, an application form, and seeing qualifications, job titles, time spent in different types of organizations.
Speaker: But actually the thing that should jump out from your career is not just the fact that you've worked in some very prestigious organizations and in some very interesting environments, but the fact that you've also had wide range of experience and that sort expands what we mean by experience when we're looking for new people to join our organization.
Speaker: It's not just the work experience that's important, it's also the life experience. Exactly, and I think there's, i don't think age is necessarily the best singular measure for someone's experience in that regard.
Speaker: um I think if you compare someone who's maybe 35 versus 25, but the 35 year old has had one job and lived in the same city, whilst the 25 year old has maybe had three jobs and worked in two or three different continents, then arguably the what someone who's got that range of experience can bring to the table is a lot more varied than someone who might have just done just exactly the same job for a decade or so, which obviously people
Speaker: was the default for people maybe 30 or 40 years ago. Yes, and because the success of your career is based around people seeing the range of experience and thinking almost with a outside of the box, they're thinking outside the box about the type of people that they want to recruit.
Speaker: And they are going, yeah, this person has worked in different cultures, different environments, as well as in different organizations. And that cultural awareness, that ability to survive in a different culture or even to thrive in a different culture is what the strength of character that they bring to the role.
Speaker: so and I think I, you know looking back, I think it's is it Steve Jobs who says that you can only see how the dots connect. um with hindsight. And even my first client that I've been able to secure actually brings in so much of that variety of experience that I think I'm uniquely privileged to have um because they wanted someone who knew finance but wasn't a qualified accountant.
Speaker: They wanted someone who has worked with outsourcers in different countries. And because of having spent time in those different countries, I not only understand the different from cultural nuances with, let's say, in India versus Malaysia versus Eastern Europe,
Speaker: But throughout my last year, I was getting familiar with how outsources operate. And it's also something that was required in the role. What you're doing, i suppose, is utilizing not just transferable skills, but transferable cultural awareness as well. Exactly. And whenever you're thinking of a wide range of people that you need to engage with, you have to be able to flex your style and sometimes be a little bit more direct, sometimes be a little bit softer.
Speaker: and the more exposure you have to different cultures and different ways of thinking and operating, the easier it is to then flex your style into whichever stakeholder you need to be able to work with.
Speaker: Yes. I'm thinking it's very easy to draw cultural stereotypes and say, you know, everybody from America, the United States can be very brash, but they're not. Yeah.
Speaker: You know, if you talk to someone from New York, you'll get a completely different type of cultural background to someone from the deep south or the midwest or the northwest. There are 50 different nations combined into one.
Speaker: They have all of their own different culture. If you talk about people from Hong Kong, they're different to the people in Singapore or in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City or Kuala Lumpur.
Speaker: And those in the know call it KL. it's um it's not just about being able to identify the national culture shall we say my experience your exposure to the national cultures and learning how to adapt to those actually means that it's easier to identify the correct way correct might not be the right word to use but the most appropriate way to deal with someone who is in the same country the same background as you but has a different culture or a bit different personality or might be neurodiverse you you there's a switch that you have which says i have to be slightly different in order to communicate more effectively with this person
Speaker: Exactly. And I think that's one of the really great skills that people build within consulting is because you switch from client to client to client. um you know There's been years where I've done maybe five different clients in one year. And therefore, you're constantly...
Speaker: reinventing yourself and how you need to operate within a completely new culture. And even if you go from, you know, even if you take London as a, know, an international city, but very much based in the the range of personalities that you're going to be working with from direct or authoritative or softer or introverted or extroverted or maybe be anxious or a whole range of every different type of personality ah personality profile is what you can experience in a major city like this.
Speaker: So having that ability to flex your style becomes super important. Yeah. What do you use as your way of assessing people in order to make sure that you're dealing with them in the most appropriate way?
Speaker: I think it really depends on um where people sit within an organization. and this is with my change management hat on of people with power power and influence, but also thinking through what people's incentives and objectives might be at a more personal level.
Speaker: So, you know, someone might be, ah a little bit quieter, maybe a bit more introverted. They might want to really get stuck into the detail or the technicalities.
Speaker: Some people just want to see things happening and they just want to see, okay, tell me what's going on. What's the next step? When's it going to be done? Who's owning it? And who do I need to you don't need to shout out if it hasn't happened?
Speaker: um Other people might be a bit more strategic and thinking in longer term horizons. They need someone to have the structure to break that down. so yeah, I think there's lots of personality models that are typically in four quadrants or there's Myers-Briggs or there's Belbin. um There's lots of different personality profiling mechanisms.
Speaker: Yes. But once you, so I'm lucky that I've worked with 24 different organizations by now. And once you've worked with at least 10, you can start to do it automatically and understanding the type of person you might be working with and therefore the best way to work with them.
Speaker: It sounds as if what you're doing is a lot of listening. You're listening before you talk in order to work out the right way to talk to someone. Exactly. I think that's always the safest way to go.
Speaker: If someone is very direct um and maybe extra and quite extroverted, you're going to find that out very quickly. um So starting off with a more of ah a listening and a curious mindset, you can get to understand the types of people you need to work with relatively quickly. And you also mentioned various different psychometric tools there as well.
Speaker: I don't suppose you actually, when you meet somebody, you're giving them an assessment tool, and so but your knowledge of those tools helps you to work out what you need to be asking people to to identify the best way to communicate with them.
Speaker: Yes. So um whenever I go into a new client, I don't give them a chart and ums some because individual personas and get them to point out which one they align to. I think it's all about having a natural conversation and you can tell really in the early stage of the conversation, where that conversation goes as to what they're most interested in.
Speaker: If they really want to get to know you on a personal basis, if they want to spend time talking about the weekend and your background and what you enjoy out of work, you probably have got a good indication that relationships is pretty important to them.
Speaker: However, if they're talking around straight into the problems and what needs to be fixed, they're probably a little bit more directive or assertive, or if they really want to take a step back, go and do some research, find all the data they can, then they're probably are more towards that analytical side.
Speaker: However, I do think it's useful to build in some of these personality profilings when you're working with a team on a longer term basis. So for example, when I've worked with a team of, let's say, five people for a period of three to six months,
Speaker: I have really enjoyed using things like StrengthsFinder so that we can really understand as we work together, what do I bring to the table as Clark? What does person A, B, C, D, E, F? What does what are the strengths of each unique individual?
Speaker: And therefore, what are the the ten potential flaws within within each of us that we can be considerate of as we work together?
Speaker: Yeah, because a team is only as strong as its weakest member. And the team has to work together to compensate for somebody else's weakness. Everybody has strengths, everybody has weaknesses.
Speaker: You have to work together to make sure that the strengths are maximized and the weaknesses are minimized. Yeah. Have you ever got it wrong? Oh, I've got wrong many, many times.
Speaker: um So... We all have, we all have. But it's not so much... Yeah, you would get it wrong and sometimes you can pinpoint the thing that happened that made it go wrong.
Speaker: But not everybody has the same sense of humor, that's obvious. Not everybody shares the same jokes. And in some places, words mean different things. But getting it wrong is not as important as recovering the situation.
Speaker: How do you get back to where you really want the situation to be? I think, yeah, as introduced around when I've got things wrong, but I did. So I've been working on LinkedIn quite a lot through 2024. And I started off doing a mistake Monday series, um talking through a big mistake of my life and the story and therefore what I've learned.
Speaker: But I think when it comes down to working with individuals, um building that trust upfront is so important so that as and when something does go wrong, and this could be in business or personal relationships, um you understand what the intent of that action or that comment might have been.
Speaker: um And again, if there is, so I think my issue when i was younger is as probably more on the direct direct side. um because I was always focused on the numbers and how to get the right results.
Speaker: So it's only in my yeah slightly older years that I have really been much more considerate over the the people side of the equation as well, which is equally important.
Speaker: Yes. you get the results through people exactly yeah and you you get the people to help you achieve the results by the way in which you treat them it's like nobody remembers who actually got the results but they do remember how you made them feel exactly yeah it's very personal i think yeah nobody remembers what exactly you've said but yeah how you've made them feel Yes.
Speaker: Yeah. And I think a lot of people will relate to that, you being younger, being enthusiastic. There is a very thin line between enthusiasm and arrogance, is one of the things that was said to me.
Speaker: And if people don't share your enthusiasm, then your enthusiasm is interpreted as arrogance. Exactly. yeah and you have to bring them along with you um and that is a real difficult obstacle to overcome because you can see the issue you can see the solution you know all the things that have to happen and it can be extremely frustrating when other people don't How do you bring other people who don't see what you see to the point of acknowledging, accepting and wanting to be involved in what you are trying to get them to do? Yeah.
Speaker: What sort of experiences have you had I think that's something i yeah probably struggled with early on in my career. I had such a focus on wanting to improve everything that I could.
Speaker: So I would just go run away, get things done and say, oh my God, look, here's the solution. Let's go after In my later years, definitely built more of the art on bringing people along the journey.
Speaker: So people want to understand Well, first of all, do you even agree what the issue is? What's the issue? What's the approach to solve it? How are they going to be involved and engaged as that solution has been drawn up?
Speaker: Do they feel like they have a voice when the solution is going to be implemented? Do they know when, how it's going to impact them? And again, how they can influence the solution?
Speaker: and have autonomy over the work that they do. um And then you've really got to understand people's individuals' incentives and motivations. Some people are more motivated by clocking off half an hour early and getting more time with their family and kids.
Speaker: And I completely respect that. Some people are more motivated by being seen to be more ambitious, trying to do more tasks and get the best bonus or performance rating possible.
Speaker: So it really depends on what the individual what the individual motivations and incentives are. Yes, getting to know the personality of the individual, getting to know what motivates that individual is the best way to get to, to is the best way to work out the most appropriate way to interact with that person, communicate with that person.
Speaker: But it sounds from that list as if you've given me the agenda for another another episode of The Independent Minds. Thank you very much. But for today, know, Clark, it has been really very interesting. Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us.
Speaker: And congratulations on your new ah career in the independent world. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. been a pleasure. Appreciate it. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Clark Dodd, a different type of project manager.
Speaker: You can find out more about both of us at abbasida.co.uk. There is a link in the description, along with links to some of the websites that Clark mentioned. I must remember to thank the team at matchmaker.fm for introducing me to Clark.
Speaker: If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests, or if like Clark, you have something very interesting to say, matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made.
Speaker: There is a link to matchmaker.fm and an offer code in the description. If you are listening to the independent minds on your smartphone, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data.
Speaker: So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3.0 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
Speaker: The description also includes links to all the websites that have been mentioned in this episode of The Independent Minds. That description is going to be well worth reading. If you've liked this episode of The Independent Minds, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere.
Speaker: To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think.
Speaker: Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for you listening and goodbye.
