Culture Can Make or Break Organisations

"It is all about culture," he said. I was talking to a senior leader in the not-for-profit sector before I started in my current role and was generally asking for advice. A lot is said and written about how you prepare yourself for taking up a new senior leadership role. Seeking advice from seasoned leaders is certainly one of them.

Explaining in more detail about what he said, he talked about "getting into the zone". All of us live in many worlds and there are a number of things on our minds – and sometimes it is very difficult to disentangle our lives or compartmentalise them, because we do not live our lives in compartments. The point he was making was that, as we come in to work, it is really important to remind ourselves to get into the zone, just as athletes or actors do. He talked about his "touching out the Oyster card" principle, which he assiduously remembered each time he got off the tube and took the short walk from there to his office.

This is a very simple thought, but quite profound in its implications for our behaviours and role-modelling. Over the years, I am sure we all see the power of body language. And the more senior a role a person is in, the greater is the scrutiny of all that s/he says, does or even doesn’t say or do. Colleagues who see us every day are very astute in figuring out how you feel when you come out of a board meeting or a senior management meeting. This is particularly so in an open-space working environment, where the level and nature of interaction are more intense.

So when it comes to culture, it is worth remembering that every little thing does indeed matter – a word spoken or unspoken, a feeling expressed or not. Our day-to-day behaviours and our interactions go a long way towards defining our organisational culture and how colleagues experience it.

A key part of culture is about empathy: how senior leaders and managers relate to their colleagues during difficult, stressful and challenging times. I once came across a chief executive who knew that her team was working on a very intensive fundraising bid from an institutional donor. The process was quite new, complex and demanding. Expectations were also high. Unfortunately in this case, the project team did not succeed. The team leader sent around a very matter of fact mail to inform the senior managers that they had not won but that lessons had been learned. When the Chief Executive saw this message, she was very disheartened, but did not hesitate to walk up to the section where this team was located and thank them for all their efforts, for the courage and dedication in putting together a bid, encouraging them to believe in themselves and offering her support in any way that she could. That was a simple gesture, but went a long way towards cheering up the team and making them more positive. The message for them was very clear: the chief executive cared and she demonstrated empathy. More importantly, it emphasised that it was ok to fail. The important thing is that we put in our best efforts and learn from our experience.

As the saying goes "not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted". Culture cannot be "counted". It cannot be measured. Sure, there are proxy indicators that can be generated through staff engagement surveys, which can be quite powerful. But it is important to hold the thought in our minds that culture is a powerful intangible that makes or breaks organisation. And where culture is everyone’s responsibility, the tone is set right at the top.

(Originally published in the Third Sector magazine, July 2018) 

Leading on Governance

Leading on Governance 

When I took on my role as Chief Executive at ActionAid UK in August 2015, one of the first things I did was to have an informal conversation with my then Chair, Dr. Margaret Casely-Hayford. 

Margaret had been in post for over a year then, and among the various things she dealt with in her role, was my appointment. A key piece of advice I had received from a number of people when I was taking on this role was about the critical importance of the Chair - Chief Executive relationship. 

It was meant to be an informal meeting, more for me to get to know Margaret a little better. I thought Margaret did have a good sense of who I was, having gone through two rounds of recruitment and received all the references. But then, it was a good opportunity to have this conversation in an informal setting. 

While I was delighted with this opportunity a few weeks before I joined, I was certainly not prepared for Margaret coming so well prepared. She had had extensive conversations with each one of the trustees prior to our meeting, and she had taken copious notes of the discussions. She had particularly pulled out points which she thought would be important for me to know as reflections of the board. And we spent a couple of hours over a couple of coffees going through some of the reflections. I think she probably realised that I had a rather casual attitude to taking notes ....which meant that a couple of weeks later, there was a document with the compiled and curated version of the trustees' comments, that was so thoroughly done that it gave me a script, a mandate of what I needed to manage / tackle / address in my new role ! And on my first day in the office, she scheduled a Skype call early in the working day, a brief one, just to welcome me and wish me well, which was then followed by a face-to-face meeting a few days later, with a simple question : How are you doing ? 

That is the Margaret I got to know - and the more I got to know her, the more impressed I was with the amazing breadth of her knowledge, her passion and commitment to issues of poverty, inequality, injustice and diversity, and her incredible energy to reach out and support us as the Chair of the organisation. She also led the board in discussions on our new strategy, which we finalised last year, and is titled, 'Together, with women and girls'. She also led, with great passion and insight, our quest to embed feminist principles as a core element of our organisational culture. It is no wonder then, that under her leadership, ActionAid UK won the BOND Award for Governance and the Charity Governance Award for Board Diversity and Inclusivity, both earlier this year. 

I am therefore absolutely delighted that she has been awarded a CBE as announced in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2018, for her contributions. So here is a glimpse of the few important lessons I have learnt from her :

1. Speak truth to power : As a leader and a trustee, she has always welcomed discussions that are uncomfortable but that can result in a better outcome for all, without exerting power and influence. In the context of an international federation that we operate in and the democratic principles that guide us, this is really important, and has to be done rather sensitively given the relative size and influence of ActionAid UK within our federation. 

2. Being true to one's values and convictions : It didn't matter to her if she said something which could be unpopular, as long as it was deeply embedded in her values and convictions about equity, fairness and justice. She was very conscious and self aware of her relative position and privilege in society and she was always keen to use it to promote causes that she deeply believed in. 

3. There is never an end to learning : As a keen listener, she would take detailed notes of all our conversations and during meetings. She never hesitated asking a question. She did not mind saying that she didn't know something. She was never deterred by trying to do things that she was unfamiliar with. All that meant that she constantly absorbed new insights, skills, knowledge ever so effortlessly and contributed so widely. She even immersed herself in understanding rap music because she was very serious about mentoring a talented, upcoming and struggling rap artist make his mark ! 

4. Giving credit where it is due : As a Chair, it was really important for her to recognise the unique and distinctive contributions that each trustee made, big or small, and contribution by members of the staff. Her generosity of spirit was absolutely remarkable and her modesty in attributing any areas of success to herself was absolutely humbling. 

And it is especially on this last point that I am offering this as my own little humble tribute to the amazing body of work that Margaret has led. As a first time CEO, it has been an amazing privilege to work with someone as driven, committed and knowledgeable like Margaret. It was with great sadness that we bid good bye to her last month, as she took up the role of Chair of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Our loss is their gain, but we are buoyed by the fact that Margaret will continue to be an ardent and committed supporter of ActionAid UK.

Congratulations Margaret on your very richly deserved recognition - and your contributions also to the Met Police, the Co-op, Coventry University, Great Ormond Hospital, to young artistes, entrepreneurs, the BAME community and to some of the world's poorest communities, especially, women and girls ! Wish you continued success !