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Ep 16. Catharine Brown, CEO Designability: Doing Important Work!
40 Plays4 years ago
“Despite all the discrimination legislation that exists and despite the equality, diversity and inclusion that we are (all) talking about, the needs of disabled people are not routinely met...”
From using augmented reality to help dementia patients make a cup of tea, to building electric powered wheelchairs (the Wizzybug!) for physically disabled children, Designability creates practical products to enable disabled people live with greater independence.
Catharine Brown, CEO of Designability, shares with us her charity’s work to improve the lives of the UK’s 14 million disabled people. Creating products based on principles of Design Thinking, the organisation puts the needs of disabled people at the centre of the user experience.
Designability’s vision is to ensure that every disabled person has the products they want, to live the life that they choose.
We talk about the leadership challenges and benefits of flexible working in a post-COVID world. Catharine shares her personal experiences encountering in-flexible working practices as a young mother and how even today the ‘motherhood penalty’ still affects women and their career choices.
However, that certainly did not deter Catharine in her pursuit of doing ‘important work’.
Recorded March 2021.
Guest Biography
Catharine Brown is the CEO of Designability, a charity which creates and provides products to enable disabled people to live with greater independence. Catharine joined Designability in 2019 and created a new strategy for the organisation, helping people with primarily physical disabilities with their mobility needs, as well as expanding the charity’s reach.
Before her role at Designability, Catharine’s career has been in two halves – firstly in the commercial sector in marketing and leadership roles for brands including Selfridges, Marks & Spencer and The Economist; and then in the charity sector where she held Interim Director posts for five national charities, as well as provided consultancy services for charities on fundraising, marketing and leadership strategy projects.
Catharine has been a Trustee of the Bath Festivals and has served on the Board of ActionAid UK since 2015.
Links
https://designability.org.uk/
From using augmented reality to help dementia patients make a cup of tea, to building electric powered wheelchairs (the Wizzybug!) for physically disabled children, Designability creates practical products to enable disabled people live with greater independence.
Catharine Brown, CEO of Designability, shares with us her charity’s work to improve the lives of the UK’s 14 million disabled people. Creating products based on principles of Design Thinking, the organisation puts the needs of disabled people at the centre of the user experience.
Designability’s vision is to ensure that every disabled person has the products they want, to live the life that they choose.
We talk about the leadership challenges and benefits of flexible working in a post-COVID world. Catharine shares her personal experiences encountering in-flexible working practices as a young mother and how even today the ‘motherhood penalty’ still affects women and their career choices.
However, that certainly did not deter Catharine in her pursuit of doing ‘important work’.
Recorded March 2021.
Guest Biography
Catharine Brown is the CEO of Designability, a charity which creates and provides products to enable disabled people to live with greater independence. Catharine joined Designability in 2019 and created a new strategy for the organisation, helping people with primarily physical disabilities with their mobility needs, as well as expanding the charity’s reach.
Before her role at Designability, Catharine’s career has been in two halves – firstly in the commercial sector in marketing and leadership roles for brands including Selfridges, Marks & Spencer and The Economist; and then in the charity sector where she held Interim Director posts for five national charities, as well as provided consultancy services for charities on fundraising, marketing and leadership strategy projects.
Catharine has been a Trustee of the Bath Festivals and has served on the Board of ActionAid UK since 2015.
Links
https://designability.org.uk/
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Transcript
Introduction to Electric Cars and Accessibility
00:00:00
Speaker
It's absolutely shocking that the needs of disabled drivers have been ignored as technology for electric cars has developed. Despite all the discrimination legislation that exists, and despite the equality, diversity and inclusion that we are talking about, the needs of disabled people are not routinely met.
00:00:30
Speaker
Their basic needs can be met by the state, but their broader needs to live the lives that they want to live are not met. And that shocks me that that is still the case in this day and age.
Meet Catherine Brown of DesignAbility
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.
00:01:30
Speaker
Today I'm speaking with Catherine Brown, CEO of DesignAbility, a small but mighty charity based in Bath. There are 14 million disabled people in the UK today, and DesignAbility seeks to improve their lives by designing simple yet practical products to make their everyday lives easier.
00:01:48
Speaker
Whether it's the whizzy bug for under fives or the aptly named bottom wiper, Designability creates products that put the disabled person's needs at the center of the user experience. And it is their passion for this work that led Designability to win a third sector award for the best place to work in 2020. This is their story.
Catherine Brown's Ambitions and Inspirations
00:02:09
Speaker
I hope you enjoyed the show.
00:02:13
Speaker
Hi, Catherine. Welcome to the show. So lovely to have you here today. Hi, Divya. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's my pleasure to be here. As a regular listener to the show, I know you are familiar with our I Spoke Around, so let's dive straight in. Okay. Question one. As a child, what did you dream of being when you grew up?
00:02:34
Speaker
I didn't have any particular ambitions of jobs that I wanted to do but I wanted to be important. Now that sounds terribly sort of arrogant but I wanted to feel that I was doing important things.
00:02:53
Speaker
I didn't know what they were, I didn't know much about the world of work, so I didn't know how well I would go about doing that. And it certainly wasn't about money, but it was about feeling like I was doing important things. And I think I do that. You'll hear all about the charity that I work for shortly, and I think we do amazing, important work. That was my ambition.
00:03:15
Speaker
Oh, I love that. Question two, what would you say is your professional superpower? I think my professional superpower is probably that I am an enthusiast.
00:03:29
Speaker
And in my career, I've done lots of different things and been enthusiastic about all of them, whether it's helping people with osteoporosis, farmers in Kenya, young disabled children.
Global Issues and Personal Interests
00:03:44
Speaker
I am enthusiastic about pretty much everything I do. There's a fantastic Ron Dahl quote about being an enthusiast, which ends with the line, Luke warm is no good.
00:03:56
Speaker
And I think anyone who knows me will know that I don't really do lukewarm. I'm pretty passionate and enthusiastic about most things. Brilliant. Question three. If you can wave a magic wand and change one thing in the world right now, what would that be?
00:04:14
Speaker
Oh, well, that has to be COVID related, given where we are at the time that we are recording this. And I think that would be about vaccinations for everyone in the world. At the moment, there is lots of fuss in the news about which country has got which vaccines available to its people. And it's apparent that those in poorer countries
00:04:40
Speaker
will struggle to get vaccines that they need for some time to come. That would be what my magic wand would wave. And in the context of Covid and lockdown, question four is, what has been your favourite TV show during lockdown?
00:04:58
Speaker
Well, I don't have one favourite TV show, but I have to say my husband and I have watched so many crime dramas, from Scandi Noir to Killing Eve, and again, at the risk of dating this podcast, the new series of Line of Duty, which has just started. We are real Line of Duty fans. We've watched more crime drama in the last 12 months than I think we have in our entire lives.
00:05:26
Speaker
And our final icebreaker question, if you have 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? My response is probably a little unusual in that the person I would like to interview is a man called Sir Barnes Wallace.
00:05:45
Speaker
Some of your listeners may know him from having invented something called the bouncing bomb, which was used in the second world war and featured in the film, Damn Busters. That's not actually why I would want to meet him and talk to him though. That's because he was actually our charity's first president. So I worked for an organization called Designability and Barnes Wallace worked with our two founders
00:06:11
Speaker
and created a design for calipers or leg braces as we call them now for children who had a condition called Podio and whose legs needed straightening and adjusting due to the condition. So I'd love to know more about how he came to be involved in our charity and how he approached that design.
DesignAbility's User-Centered Approach
00:06:33
Speaker
That is a brilliant segue to our main discussion for today, because Catherine, you are the chief executive of Designability. And there are nearly 40 million people living with a disability in the UK today. And I understand that your organization helps make their lives easier through creating and producing practical products. So tell us more about Designability and its mission.
00:06:56
Speaker
Thanks, Debbie. Yes, that's absolutely right. So Designability are a national charity based here where I live in beautiful Bath in the southwest. And we create and make products for disabled people to help them live with greater independence. We were founded over 50 years ago by an engineer who worked at the university in Bath and a surgeon who worked at Bath Hospitals Trust.
00:07:20
Speaker
and they began making medical equipment originally and then as often happens with small organizations the mission shifted into becoming a national charity helping disabled people. In those 50 something years we've created over 300 products which have helped hundreds of thousands of disabled people.
00:07:42
Speaker
So I'll tell you a bit about some of the products that we've made in our history. Yes, please. One which always brings a wry smile is a product called the bottom wiper. So this is essentially an extendable arm which holds toilet paper and it's enabled over 95,000 people to be independent in their personal hygiene since we first designed it in the 1980s. It's a good example of how really simple design
00:08:13
Speaker
can have a transformational effect on someone's life. I'm sure we can all imagine the indignity of having to rely on someone else to have to help us in the bathroom. So we're very proud of how products like that can really change somebody's life.
00:08:28
Speaker
In more recent years we've created products for people with dementia and their carers and another product that we're well known for is a digital day clock. Now essentially this is a clock that tells the time in words rather than through hands on a clock face or through digital numbers. So it will display the time by using words like now it's Tuesday morning
00:08:55
Speaker
And that can help people with dementia who've lost the ability to tell the time in a traditional way and therefore often get confused. People with dementia can very easily lose track of what time of day it is. So the clock tells you it's Tuesday morning, it's Tuesday afternoon, it's Tuesday evening.
00:09:12
Speaker
That was something that we designed as a result of a piece of research about 15 years ago, and we've sold tens of thousands of those day clocks ever since. So that's another example of where what looked like some really simple design solutions can actually have an incredible effect on people's lives.
00:09:31
Speaker
We've been refining our strategy since I joined the charity two years ago and part of that strategy work has been bringing some focus to who we are here for and how we can help them. You mentioned 40 million disabled people, that's right, there are one in five people in the UK have a disability.
00:09:52
Speaker
For a relatively small charity like ours, we have about £2 million worth of income a year and 25 staff. We can't help all of those people, so we needed to do some work to decide who we are here to help. So we created new vision and mission statements, and our mission is to create and provide products to enable people to live with greater independence, with a focus on people with primarily physical disabilities and their mobility needs.
00:10:19
Speaker
Our vision is a future where every disabled person has the products they want to live the life they choose. So there's a few bits of emphasis that are really important in there. Products they want is not the same as products they need. Often disabled people receive products they need from the state, from the NHS, from social care providers.
00:10:43
Speaker
Our vision is around making sure that people have products that they want to use so that they can live the life that they choose. So in our user-centred design work that we do, that's about listening to disabled people and what they want and helping them to help us to create products to do that.
00:11:01
Speaker
So the product that we're best known for now is a product called Wizzibug. This is a powered wheelchair for young disabled children and it gives those children who often have conditions like cerebral palsy, spinal muscular atrophy,
00:11:18
Speaker
the opportunity to move by themselves often for the first time. It's called Wizzybug because it's red and it's got little googly eyes painted on the front. And it looks like a ride on toy. So children love it. And that's a really good example of what's called user centered design because it's by understanding children that we've created something that doesn't look like a wheelchair. It looks cool.
00:11:44
Speaker
And they love it. And from a clinical perspective, by giving them the opportunity to move by themselves for the first time, they're able to make choices.
00:11:58
Speaker
All children choose what toys they want to play with, who they want to play with at Playgroup, and often disabled children aren't able to make those choices. So by giving them mobility, which is what Wizzybug does, it allows disabled children to have all the developmental benefits of making their own choices.
00:12:18
Speaker
So we love it. We're really proud of it. We provide it to families free of charge on a loan scheme funded by charitable donations. That's an important part of our work today. I think the work you do is so fascinating and it's really interesting to hear about the impact that assistive technology can really have on people's lives and how simple design and products can actually really be
00:12:42
Speaker
game changers and I know that one in five disabled children have a mobility impairment and so it sounds like your wizzy bugs really completely change their lives and giving them that freedom to move. I mean how many do you make in a year of these wizzy bugs and what is the need?
00:12:58
Speaker
So we have about 500 children on the loan scheme at the moment. Our research estimates that there are between 1,000 and 5,000 children a year who could benefit from a WYSI bug. So we have big plans. We have great ambitions to significantly increase the number of children who are on the scheme. When we first designed it,
00:13:24
Speaker
We thought we were probably going to make five or ten and then see how many children would want to use one. It has huge potential. We need to invest in growing the loan scheme and reaching new families. So yes, it's a really good example of where assistive technology can help many more people.
00:13:45
Speaker
Assisted technology is an incredibly broad term and can mean lots of different things. I think for people who don't work in this space, the assumption is always that that's a high-tech solution of some kind. And there is indeed all sorts of high-tech solutions out there at the moment in the world. But assisted technology can be some really simple solutions. I've talked about a couple of those that designability has created.
00:14:12
Speaker
It's a wheelchair, it's a walking stick, it's a braille reader. It doesn't have to have a computer chip to necessarily be assistive technology. The market for products for disabled people is absolutely huge. There's a lot of commercial manufacturers who have big public sector contracts and emerging technology from startups and from university research teams.
00:14:37
Speaker
and design abilities have been involved in a number of high-tech projects in the past. We've worked as part of research consortium on robotic care for the elderly on how driverless cars can be controlled by disabled people and elderly people and a project that we're finishing at the moment which is how augmented reality can be used
00:15:01
Speaker
to remind people with dementia how to do simple tasks, prompting them on the next step to take in a simple task like making a cup of tea. And a really exciting project that we're working on that we've just announced in the future is helping disabled drivers access
00:15:22
Speaker
charging for electric cars. Yes, I was just going to say, let's talk about electric cars. It's absolutely shocking that the needs of disabled drivers have been ignored as technology for electric cars has developed.
00:15:39
Speaker
The charge points that are available in public spaces, whether that's a car park or on street or in a service station, are almost completely accessible to most disabled drivers.
00:15:54
Speaker
The charge point is too high for them to reach from a wheelchair. The cables are too heavy for them to lift. Even simple things like narrow parking spaces at charge points mean there's no room for a wheelchair user to get out of their car and get into their wheelchair.
00:16:11
Speaker
And I must say I find it absolutely shocking that in this day and age, the needs of people with disabilities have not been considered in the creation of these charge points that we see in every town and city in the country. It's quite incredible that there was not more consultation from government or from whoever was designing these with the experts. It's a good example of actually where
00:16:36
Speaker
Technology development can be a bit like the world west. And when you have got lots of startups popping up left, right and center in a new space.
00:16:46
Speaker
Their goal is not to be accessible to everybody. It's about being accessible to enough. So the government have brought in an ambition that by 2030, new petrol and diesel cars will no longer be available. So that gives us nine years to make sure that disabled people can continue to drive.
00:17:12
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm delighted that DesignAbility is going to be working with two partners to make this happen. We're partnering with Motability, who are the organization that provide and adapt cars for disabled people, and an organization called Ozev. Now that's the government's office for zero emissions vehicles. So we're working in partnership with Ozev and Motability,
00:17:40
Speaker
to design best-in-class standards for public charging points so that disabled people can use them. It's a two-year project that we're just starting. We're about to start the user engagement phase, which means working with disabled people to understand what the challenges are with the existing infrastructure. And then we will design best-in-class charge points
00:18:02
Speaker
which we hope that the government will then ensure are adopted by the charge board manufacturers. So it's a really exciting project for us.
Workplace Culture and Pandemic Effects
00:18:13
Speaker
It enables our charity to have impact on millions of disabled people for many years to come, as well as the hundreds of disabled people that we help directly with the products that we create and make.
00:18:28
Speaker
It sounds like, Catherine, that designability actually plays a really key role in terms of placing the user experience at the heart of the design and really matching the design of these products to what disabled people need. I mean, do you get any funding or support from government yourselves as the organisation? No.
00:18:47
Speaker
We are funded entirely from fundraising income. We have a partner in Motability who help us with some projects. Equally, we rely on some very generous trusts and foundations who are our primary source of fundraising income.
00:19:04
Speaker
We do also do some consultancy work with other partners and research partners as well. But like lots of charities that rely on fundraised income in that way, it's a white knuckle ride. And the work that we do is important because we absolutely focus on what's known in the trade as user-centered design. And that means that we don't decide
00:19:31
Speaker
anything for ourselves. We listen to disabled people and design what they tell us they need. Good design should be accessible to everybody and what works well for a disabled person often works very well for a non-disabled person. But if you start off only thinking about non-disabled people, it doesn't work the other way around.
00:19:54
Speaker
Absolutely agree with you there. And Catherine, I know that in 2020 Designability won a third sector award for the best place to work, which is absolutely fantastic. And congratulations on that. I would really like to hear about the factors that you feel contributed to that award and the culture and values that you've really created at Designability that has enabled that.
00:20:16
Speaker
We were so chuffed. So we came second in the third sector award for the best charity to work for. Even to have made the shortlist was amazing. So we were absolutely chuffed to bids. There were many, much larger charities on the shortlist. We don't have much in the way of a learning and development budget. I don't have an HR director. So we were absolutely chuffed.
00:20:40
Speaker
And personally, the thing that was so great for me was that it wasn't because someone like me filled in a nomination form. It was because of the feedback that my staff gave as part of the award assessment process they filled in questionnaires. And that was even better.
00:21:00
Speaker
We were given the award as a reflection from the fact that our staff highly rate the personal relationships that we foster within designability and the strong teamwork ethic that we have. They also have a high degree of confidence in our leadership and strategic planning abilities.
00:21:20
Speaker
And what was great was it came at a time of some quite significant change. We were doing some strategic work, which I've already mentioned, clarifying who we're here for and how we help them. We had shifted away from some research funding sources into new sources of income, and there had been some staff changes in the creation of a new leadership team. So yeah, we were really chuffed.
00:21:44
Speaker
And I think the reason why our staff felt so strongly about the culture that we have is that we really listen to people and work collaboratively. Like many organizations, we say that we're inclusive.
00:22:02
Speaker
And we're inclusive, not in a tick box way and a monitoring and evaluation kind of approach. We are inclusive because we allow people the space to be themselves. People talk about a family feel, but that really is what we have in that you accommodate people's funny ways in a family and that's
00:22:25
Speaker
what we pretty much do as well. So we listen to people, we work collaboratively, we're very supportive of each other, we know each other's families, we know each other's funny ways and we work well together and I think that's what was reflected in winning the award.
00:22:42
Speaker
I love how you describe that in terms of being inclusive is really allowing people to be themselves and I think so many organizations sort of talk about being inclusive or collaborative and actually don't quite go far enough in really encouraging that you're bringing your whole self to work.
00:23:01
Speaker
aspect, although all of us working remotely during the pandemic has really changed that. So I'm curious to know, Catherine, how have you managed to sustain that culture and ethos during lockdown whilst we've all been in this virtual environment? I mean, do you have any tips that you can share about how you translated that into a remote workplace?
00:23:20
Speaker
Sure, I mean I think actually that ethos that we have has deepened during the pandemic and got it even stronger. The key change for us during the pandemic is that we have talked about mental health and well-being in a way that we never otherwise would have done. That was not really something that was discussed particularly within designability before and that's been the key change. We really talk about how each other
00:23:46
Speaker
is how we're doing and we're very open about our health and wellbeing, our mental health and wellbeing particularly. So for example in the third lockdown which started in January of this year, it became apparent that it was going to be much tougher for us than previous lockdowns.
00:24:04
Speaker
January is a tricky month at the best of times for people. Dark in the morning, it's dark in the evening, Christmas is over, there's not much to look forward to. So we very simply brought everybody together and talked about it. We had a staff meeting specifically focused on a surviving lockdown. We use the things we're all familiar with now in breakout rooms in Zoom. And the staff themselves came up with ideas as to how we could all cope.
00:24:32
Speaker
in a better way so we did things like we avoided meetings between twelve and two so that staff could take a longer lunch break and get some fresh air during the daylight and tips like putting traditionally home things on your work list of things to do.
00:24:49
Speaker
So you don't spend all day working and forget that you were going to have a walk at lunchtime or do an exercise class or make a nice lunch or meet a friend to walk the dog. So by putting these things on your work list of things to do, you're actually more likely to do them. So it wasn't really about anything, any sort of revolutionary gimmicks. It was about talking to each other, listening to each other and supporting each other.
00:25:17
Speaker
So really that ethos that we already had of some close working relationships continued. For me as a leader, it was about taking a long term view. So of my leadership team of four, three were homeschooling during the first few months of this year. And that meant that they weren't able to meet some of the deadlines that they would otherwise have done. Some of the projects they were working on had to be shelved.
00:25:46
Speaker
From a professional point of view, that's frustrating because I'm impatient and I want things to happen. But from a personal point of view, it was absolutely apparent that they weren't going to be able to be as productive as they otherwise would have been. So we were very accommodating. We did move projects and move deadlines in order to ensure that staff were able to cope.
00:26:08
Speaker
And that's about taking a long term view. These are people I want to keep in the organisation for years to come, and I want them to be motivated and passionate about our work. And that means accommodating life. That's been particularly challenging in lockdown, but I think it's true outside of lockdown.
00:26:25
Speaker
If you need to leave work to go and pick a child up from something, then off you go. We'll pick the work things up the next day. It's about having that ethos and really taking that to bring your whole self to work and meaning it. Whereas I think before COVID, it was one of those phrases that was easy to say and not necessarily to me.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yes, I think technology has completely changed the way that we all work. The GenSlayer Research Institute, which conducts regular workplace surveys, recently released some data that shows that actually two-thirds of staff don't want to go back to the office full-time and are very much in favour of a hybrid or flexible model of working where you come to the office maybe a couple of days a week and you're working from home remotely two or three days a week. In fact, I believe
00:27:12
Speaker
one in four people go as far as to say that they would resign from their job if they're forced to go back to the office full time so. I think it's really interesting in terms of the considerations that all of us as leaders need to make in terms of what the future workplace is going to look like.
00:27:30
Speaker
And I'd really like to get your thoughts on what this future hybrid workplace might look like and what we as leaders can do to not just cultivate it but also ensure that it's safe and practical and also serving the needs of the organisation as well as its workforce. We've found the same in our own staff body. We set up a working group.
00:27:48
Speaker
at the back end of last year to think about how our staff wanted to work going forward once we are able to access our offices again which we've been out of for some time and they've concluded exactly the same that staff want flexibility not in the traditional definition of working every Friday at home but true flexibility and choice
00:28:11
Speaker
that some weeks they might be in the office in a different pattern to other weeks, that those locations might be at home, might be at the office, might be somewhere else. I've been really interested to see what other organisations are doing in this space. Nationwide have recently announced a work from anywhere policy and I think I saw something similar in a role that Samaritans were recruiting for recently.
00:28:33
Speaker
We aren't able to be that flexible. We have a workshop where we make our products, those stuff that can't make our products on their kitchen table. They might try, but that's not necessarily something we would encourage. We also have clinical staff who are meeting our service users face to face for clinical assessments.
00:28:50
Speaker
they can't do those from home. So not all of our staff could work in an anywhere policy, but certainly there is much more flexibility that we can bring in and much more choice. So we are looking at a hybrid working policy that goes beyond contractual flexible working policies to give staff an opportunity to make their own choices. I am certain that we have missed out
00:29:17
Speaker
on creativity and collaboration opportunities whilst we have been working primarily from home. It's very difficult for people to be creative in a room, on their own, looking at a laptop screen. We have a design ability. We've missed seeing each other on a personal level, seeing each other face to face, hanging out, having a chat, finding out about how each other is doing. But I think professionally, we've missed out on some creativity and collaboration opportunities.
00:29:47
Speaker
So I'm looking forward to staff being able to get together again. But at the same time, we have all found that if you've got a board paper to write, it's actually much easier to do that from home than it is in the office where there's constant chatter and people to talk to. So it really is about that sort of hybrid working policy and making sure that it's built on trust. And I think that's the really key point for me that for
00:30:15
Speaker
choice to work, it has to be on a trusting relationship. And that means that organizations need to not be frightened of having difficult conversations when that trust isn't working, as much as having positive conversations about the creativity and flexibility that it can bring.
00:30:35
Speaker
My experience of the charity sector is that people tend to work harder than they should rather than the other way around. So I think it's a relatively simple decision to make, but there are always exceptions for that sort of freedom to be effective. It has to be based on trust.
00:30:51
Speaker
Yes, I personally think there are huge advantages around working remotely. I mean, not least in terms of the savings of costs and time and travel, but the ability to optimize your work-life balance and also for organisations to actually be able to access talents and skills irrespective of geography. But can also see that we've all missed out sort of the social interaction elements and being able to collaborate and be creative in person.
00:31:16
Speaker
And the sense that I get, Catherine, from talking to a lot of chief executives across the sector is that with regards to boards, a lot of boards actually feel that we may be going back into the office after lockdown and there's still a lot of talk of, oh, you know, when we go back.
00:31:32
Speaker
And I suppose the question I have, and it may be useful for other charity leaders as well who may be facing this, is how do you bring your boards on size where you have a workforce who's very much wanting to continue this hybrid flexible model of working, but you have boards that are perhaps a bit more risk averse that are wanting to see everybody back in the office. How do we balance those two needs, if you like, and what do you think is the way forward?
00:32:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think boards are traditionally risk averse. You know that I'm a trustee of action age, so I sit on that side as well as being... Yeah, I'm a trustee myself as well. Exactly. And being a trustee can be pretty frightening. The responsibilities are huge. So that does mean that trustee boards tend to be risk averse.
00:32:23
Speaker
And they need to understand the risk involved in a hybrid working policy and need to feel confident that the leadership team have the right policies, procedures and approach to managing those risks.
00:32:39
Speaker
So that's about data security policy, it's about health and safety policies, it's about knowing that the right structures are in place to ensure that people are being productive and that collaboration and creativity is still happening regardless of where individuals are based.
00:32:57
Speaker
I think it's also a reflection. This isn't a prejudice, I hope. I think data would bear out that a lot of boards are made up of older, retired people who have the time to commit to being a trustee, and therefore their attitude to work might be quite different from staff members in their 20s. And it's up to us as leadership teams to reassure boards that we are managing the challenges effectively and to ensure that outcomes aren't affected.
00:33:28
Speaker
and indeed to convince boards that outcomes will be increased by allowing people flexibility and choice in their working environment. As I said before, I think it is about not being afraid to have difficult conversations if it's not working and setting some ground rules within our organisations, whether that's everybody dials into a Monday morning meeting regardless of where they are,
00:33:50
Speaker
team meetings are always held in person on a Tuesday, whatever rules and working practices organizations want to bring in. I think it is about
00:34:00
Speaker
us as leaders, earning the trust of our boards that we can operate that way.
Career Reflections and Advice for CEOs
00:34:07
Speaker
Certainly in designability, conversations with our board for the first six months of the pandemic were, well, when we're back in the office, well, when we're back in the office. Those conversations aren't happening anymore, partly because we still don't know entirely where we're going to be back in the office. But even so, I think we have seen some huge benefits of hybrid working and working from home, and we'll continue to do so.
00:34:29
Speaker
I think as you said there, Kathleen, trust is really the crux of being able to work in a flexible manner. And I know from when we were chatting before that the topic of flexible working is very pertinent to your own personal experiences. And you told me a story from about 20 years ago, I believe, when you were a marketing director in the commercial sector and you requested to work four days a week after having your
00:34:54
Speaker
second child. So can you share that story with us now and tell us how what happened has then shaped your career? So my career has sort of been formed of two halves. I spent the first half of my career working in the commercial sector based in London and had roles with brands like Selfridges, Marks & Spencer and The Economist in marketing functions.
00:35:17
Speaker
My last job in the commercial sector was as a global marketing director, a job that I loved, but it became apparent to me after the birth of my second child that I was struggling to be the mother that I wanted to be and the marketing director that I wanted to be working full time. So I did ask to work four days a week and the response that I got was quite negative in that the concern was that the other directors who were all male
00:35:47
Speaker
would worry that marketing was now seen as a part-time function for the organization and therefore that the organization wasn't committed to marketing if I worked a four-day week. Now, I like to think that wouldn't happen anymore.
00:36:02
Speaker
There are organizations like TimeWise publishing their part-time power lists that show that there are many people in the commercial sector in big jobs working part-time. So I hope the world has moved on. It is a hope. I'm not sure that it has completely. I found working full-time at a senior level difficult.
00:36:24
Speaker
as it stopped me being the mother that I wanted to be so I took the decision to leave that job we had a whole life changed we moved from London to Bath where I mentioned that I live now my husband changed his role so that he could spend time in London and in the southwest
00:36:41
Speaker
and I became a consultant. I worked initially pro bono and then as my job as a consultant in fundraising and marketing, taking those skills that I'd learned in the commercial sector and translating them into marketing for charities. And I was interim fundraising marketing director for five national charities, as well as working as a consultant before I became chief exec for designability.
00:37:08
Speaker
I loved that flexibility. I loved being a consultant and working with different charities. But I think if I hadn't been a mother, I wouldn't have taken that path. I would have stayed in full-time roles. I hope I would still have become a charity chief exec and stepped out of the commercial sector and into a sector that I love. But I think I made those choices because I felt I had to rather than I wanted to.
00:37:33
Speaker
We all know the motherhood penalty exists and there is a lot of data that shows that women who are parents
00:37:41
Speaker
their career is negatively affected and they earn less than women who are not parents. And that's on top of the gender gaps that exist where women earn less than men. So for me, that's not just a women's issue, that's an economic issue. I'm an economic graduate and it has never made any sense to me that at the school gates, I would talk to women who had trained as lawyers, accountants and other professionals
00:38:08
Speaker
who were working part-time in administrative jobs because they felt that they had not been able to continue their career after having had children. That's a huge waste of economic productivity as much as a waste for those individuals who have felt that they've had to step away from careers that they loved in order to be the parent that they wanted to be.
00:38:29
Speaker
So I encourage leaders to encourage their staff to work flexibly, to encourage male staff to take parental leave that they're due, to encourage men to work flexibly as well as women.
00:38:45
Speaker
and to accommodate women to return to the workplace after maternity leave as much as they can. And I hope this is one of the real benefits that will come from COVID as that separation between a work persona and a home persona diminishes, and we are able to bring our whole selves to work, that we're able to accommodate men and women as parents in the workplace in a way that we certainly struggled with 20 years ago when my children were young.
00:39:15
Speaker
I know that Jolie Brilly and her team at Pregnant Then Screwed have done some brilliant work really focusing the spotlight recently on the motherhood penalty. And I agree with you. I hope we are able to move forward to better in the future. So, Catherine, looking back at your own leadership journey, what advice would you give to yourself on day one of first becoming a CEO? I would say don't rush.
00:39:43
Speaker
Be patient. The thing that I've learnt leading Designability is that it takes time to understand the organisation you've joined.
00:39:56
Speaker
It takes time to understand the people, what's important to them, and how they can help you take the organization in the direction you want to take it. One of the best things I did when I joined was in my first month, I met every member of staff for a one-to-one. And then in my second month, I met every trustee for a one-to-one. And although I was pretty shattered by the end of the second month, I have to say I was exhausted.
00:40:25
Speaker
I felt like I really understood the people that I was working with. For me, it's all about relationships. It's not about technical knowledge. Being a chief executive of a charity is a bit scary. You've got all sorts of government things you're responsible for, all sorts of financial things that you're responsible for that may be new to you, depending on the route that you've taken in your career to become a chief exec.
00:40:49
Speaker
But those technical things you can learn in time. And assuming that you're leading a financially sound organization, you can learn those things in time. The most important thing that you invest your time in is the people, is your staff, your trustees, your donors and your key beneficiaries. And understanding those relationships is really important.
00:41:12
Speaker
Divya and I are talking through Zoom so she can see me, but she can't see that over my shoulder. I have an Anthony Burrell screen print on my wall of my office at home, which says work hard and be nice to people. And that pretty much sums up my leadership mantra. I do work hard. I hope I'm nice to people.
00:41:32
Speaker
at least most of the time. But I think what it says to me is that people actually are the most important thing. So investing that time and building relationships with people, when you start any role as a charity chief exec or any role, I think that's the most important thing you can invest your time in at
Impact of DesignAbility on Families
00:41:50
Speaker
the beginning.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yes, work hard and be nice to people. I love that. So what has been the most inspiring thing or what is the most inspiring thing about being the CEO of designability?
00:42:03
Speaker
Now, that's a really easy question. Oh, I'm glad you asked me that. The most inspiring thing about being Chief Executive Designability is to have the privilege of meeting the families of the disabled children that we help by lending them a whizzy bug. Families arrive, often the child is quite young, might be anything upwards from 18 months.
00:42:30
Speaker
The families don't necessarily know that their child is going to be disabled when the child is born. So they have been through a huge journey by the time we meet them in learning about the disability that their child has.
00:42:46
Speaker
and they arrive with a child who often has not moved anywhere for themselves. They've been carried or they've been pushed in a wheelchair or something like that. So we run an assessment appointment with that family and assuming that Wizzibug is suitable for that child, the child will often leave us driving themselves for the first time in their Wizzibug
00:43:13
Speaker
And it's just amazing and inspiring to know that that child will now have developmental opportunities that they wouldn't have had without us. It is just the coolest thing.
00:43:29
Speaker
I can so imagine and my daughter is just one and a half now and she's recently learned to walk and just seeing the joy on her face when she's able to run everywhere. I can just imagine how that must be for a child that has not been able to move their entire life because of a disability.
00:43:45
Speaker
That's exactly it. Busybug brings some of the things that non-disabled children learn when they start to move. When you've got a child of that age, they need to learn to not run out of the front door without you. They need to learn to wait at the curb so that you help them to cross the road.
00:44:05
Speaker
They need to learn that if they run too fast, they're going to fall over. So there's all of those things that a non-disabled child learns as they start to move, that a disabled child who isn't able to move for themselves doesn't learn.
00:44:20
Speaker
With one of our families, if their family is going to the park, the disabled child can often drive themselves there in their wizzy bug. They learn to wait for mum to shut the front door behind them. They learn to wait at the curb so that their parent can help them cross the road. They learn not to go too far away from mum and dad in the park.
00:44:41
Speaker
because they need to stay safe. So they're learning a lot of the things that non-disabled children learn in the course of their growing up. And for us to play a small part in that child's development is a real privilege.
The Charity Sector's Broader Role
00:44:55
Speaker
I agree. And I think the work you're doing at designability is incredible. So, yeah, very, very well done. In closing now, Catherine, do you have any final thoughts or reflections that you would like to share? I mean, what is one thing you would like listeners to take away from this conversation?
00:45:11
Speaker
I might have to choose two things. I would like listeners to take away the fact that despite all the discrimination legislation that exists, and despite the equality, diversity and inclusion that we are talking about, the needs of disabled people are not routinely met.
00:45:38
Speaker
Their basic needs can be met by the state, but their broader needs to live the lives that they want to live are not met. And that shocks me that that is still the case in this day and age. And then the other thing that I would like people to take away is that having talked about my career,
00:46:06
Speaker
The charity sector is a really great place to work. It brings all sorts of opportunities for us as individuals to do what I talked about at the beginning, important things.
00:46:19
Speaker
And we might not know what they are when we set out on our career in the charity sector, or even if we're ready to become a charity chief exec for the first or the tenth time. But it does enable us as individuals to do important things and make a difference in the world.
Looking Forward: Next Podcast Episode
00:46:38
Speaker
And that's really cool. Thank you, Catherine. It's been so great talking with you. I feel like we could have chatted for hours. Thank you for being a guest on the show. It's my pleasure, absolute pleasure, Demia. Thank you for doing the podcast. I've really enjoyed listening to other charity chief execs, and I've learned a lot from hearing how they approach their roles. So thank you for doing it. I'm so pleased to hear that. Thank you.
00:47:05
Speaker
Speaking with Catherine Brown, CEO of Designability, has reinforced how important trust is in designing our workplaces of the future. As we begin to come out of lockdown, whether you are a chief executive, a senior manager or a board member, we need to continue trusting our people to get the work done in the place and the manner that works for them. And in doing so, to truly embrace the creativity and inclusivity that a hybrid workplace can bring.
00:47:32
Speaker
It starts with building trusted relationships, really embedding all of the positives we have seen from remote working this past year, and to take a leaf out of Designability's playbook to intentionally design a workplace that enhances our lives. My next guest is Kate Lee, CEO of Alzheimer's Society. Hit that subscribe button now and the episode will automatically download when released.
00:47:58
Speaker
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00:48:24
Speaker
Visit our website thecharityceo.com for full show details and to submit suggestions or questions for future guests. Thank you for listening.