Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the influence and impact podcast for female leaders.

My name is Carla Miller, and I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self-doubt, become brilliant at influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. We'll be talking about all the different topics that affect you as a woman leading today. Think of it as personal development meets professional development. And I want to become the leadership BFF you didn't know you were missing until now.

Carla Miller 00:42
Welcome to this episode of the influence and impact podcast, where I'm talking to Claire Warner, about how we can prioritise well-being in the workplace. Now, I loved this conversation with Claire, and we could have spoken for hours and hours, because fundamentally what we're talking about is starting to genuinely put people first in the workplace over productivity and over profit. I think that's a shift that's happening. It's something I want to explore in further podcast episodes, but we certainly talk about it a lot here in really practical ways. Now Claire Warner is a former charity fundraising director and senior leader turned workplace culture and wellbeing strategist. It was in trying to throw herself back into her beloved fundraising director role after 12 months treatment for aggressive breast cancer, that Claire realise the focus and memory loss side effects and heart condition her treatment left her with. Plus, the life changing experience of the illness itself meant that gutting that 300% commitment 50 plus hours a week fundraising director role was no longer an option.

On looking into what others do in this situation, Claire discovered the field of workplace well-being the research work of Professor Carrie Cooper, the Gallup organisation and Simon Sinek. And she hasn't looked back since.

In 2018, Claire launched her own piece of research into the well-being of fundraisers and when it concluded in 2019, over 700 fundraisers have taken part. The results of the research were used to further inform and refine the work Claire does with organisations and individuals in the charity sector. Now we should say we refer to the charity sector in this discussion, because that's where Claire's background is, that's her clients is where my background or at least some of it is. This is every bit as relevant to you if you work outside of the charity sector as well. We're talking about some really foundational and fundamental shifts in terms of leadership, mindset, and priorities and also some really practical things that you can apply in any situation.

In 2020, Claire won the best digital leader award at the social CEO awards, and in 2021, she curated the first charity wellbeing summit, and was named as one of 20 pandemic pioneers by charity times.

Today Claire Warner wellbeing exists to help charity and nonprofit organisations and professionals to recognise and reap the benefits of prioritising personal and workplace well being. The majority of the company's work is in the areas of workplace culture and wellbeing, consultancy, management skill and confidence training and life balance coaching, and you will find all the links to get in touch with Claire in the show notes. I think some of your charity folk may definitely be getting in touch with her. But like I said, there's lessons for all of us in this. So, I hope that you really enjoy the episode.

Carla Miller 03:46
Lovely to have you here on the podcast, Claire, how you doing today?

Claire Warner 03:51
Thank you. I'm good.

Carla Miller 03:52
We've known each other a little while and you've got a really interesting background that's led you to the kind of work that you do. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that and why you would like to focus now on the well-being and culture piece.

Claire Warner 04:05
I started in the charity sector in 1997. I fell into fundraising like a lot of fundraisers in the charity sector do because it was an organisation I really want to work with. And I spent 19 years in some amazing roles, absolutely loved fundraising. If you'd ever told me I was going to do anything else I'd have told you were wrong. What were some amazing organisations achieve some really brilliant things with some really amazing teams. And then out of the blue in 2016, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which I was told I'd found early but that was a very aggressive form of breast cancer. And I had to take about somewhere between eight and nine months totally off work in order to get the treatment for that. I obviously thought that I would just have the day off when I was in hospital or the day of when I was having chemo and chuck back into it. It did its job it worked. very well, but I was really, really, really poorly. So, I had to, after about three weeks of trying to work, I had to say, I'm really sorry, I'm gonna have to pause all the contracts I'm working on, I was working freelance at the time, and I have to pause them, or give notice on them, lots of people just said, pause, come back.
And so, at the end of my physical treatment, one contract, I actually went into back in with drains in because I so wanted to go back to work, what I found was, the brain capacity did not match the will. And so, I, I just had brain fog, I was left with a number of side effects that I still have and will probably have for the rest of my life. One is a heart condition, the brain fog, a whole host of things that I never even thought about. But just cut very long story short, I got fed up of myself, I got fed up with not being the person in the role that I wanted to be, and that everybody else was waiting to return. And so I just handed my notice on all the contracts, I had said, I can't do it, I can't ask you to wait any longer. And then hit a real slump, a really big mental slump about it has never been any secret. That that's exactly how I defined myself, I might remember after talking to you about work for an hour that I also had a husband and some children. And that's not to say I don't love them, but I absolutely loved working in fundraising. I loved doing that. And so it really, really what came as another blows, I couldn't do it. I couldn't go back to it.

And so, I started looking at what do people do? What do people do when they for whatever reason, just can't do the work they want to do. I knew I didn't want to work full time I couldn't do at the time. And it seems I'm guessing happens a lot, especially to females, if you want to go work part time, the opportunities for you in a really senior role to work part time and are not as great as the ones you know, you could go and do administration, you could go do other things. I didn't want to do that. I couldn't find a way of getting back to where I wanted to be.

Anyway, so I kind of stumbled across the concept of workplace wellbeing. I saw a TED Talk by a guy called Jim Harter who works for Gallup, the global polling research company in America. That was about what makes up the well-being in the workplace and how, when you focus on Being Well, actually, everything else drops into place, and way better than if you put being well at the end of the list. And it was almost like a lightbulb moment that made me realise that. So, my experience is only in the charity sector. And I can't say it doesn't happen outside, I just don't have an experience of it. But how often do people say, we'll have to put the needs of my beneficiaries or the cause first, and one of the total joys of working in the charity sector is that it's all for purpose, there is purpose behind all of it. But also, we either inadvertently or habitually or are asked to give way more than of ourselves than we realise we're doing until it's too late. And then you don't know how to kind of wind it all back. And that was when I got to.

So, I looked for research about what do we know about well-being in the charity sector, we don't know a lot. My bag, as you, as I said, was fundraising. So, I decided to run my own piece of research. So, in 2018, I did around a piece of research called Charity Well and we did it just at that time for fundraisers. And just over 700 people took part and told us all the things that make them unwell. What are the challenge? That was the question, what are the challenges, what things challenge your well-being? And the things that came out were amazing, because the people just gave us loads of really rich data about not just what. but how does it occur? So, the big things were, workload, the heart versus head competition between I know that I should be taking some time back for myself, but I don't feel I can, I can't let the supporters down. I can't my colleagues down, I can't let people down. Lack of management skill. And so, the results of that being again, workload, competing priorities that nobody actually ever defines persistent change and the stress of dealing with persistent change in the workplace, and some of things, some things around culture around toxic behaviour not being challenged around bullying. The thing, those were the main things, the detail we got behind those was really rich. And so that's what I've done. I've worked with a series of other freelance specialists and a couple of virtual assistants, and we've created some programmes to help people look at what actually does this mean to you as an organisation? And how can we, as the people who've done the research help you. So that's kind of how I ended up here.

Carla Miller 10:10
So much to unpack there. And amazing that you have turned what sounds like an extremely difficult, not only short term, I'm sure gonna feel very short term at the time experienced, but actually something that has those long term, that long term impact on you into a career that you're now finding really fulfilling, so much in there resonated with the, in fact, I'm going to do a separate episode on the guilt thing about putting our needs first, definitely in the charity sector, I completely resonate with that there's this sense that the needs of the beneficiaries and when you're fundraising, the needs of the supporters must come before your needs as an individual. And then I think as line managers as well, we work to this myth that the needs of our team are more important than our own needs. And we take on kind of the emotional responsibility for our team. And it can be confusing kind of a blurred line between caring for your team and creating a great working environment. And basically, taking a maternal approach where you're going home and worrying about them.

Claire Warner 11:21
Absolutely. And, and not setting the example that says, it's really important. You look after your own well-being, I'm still going to be emailing you at midnight, and I'm still going to be whereas that whole do, as I say not as I do approach. I've heard lots of people justify it and saying, but it's I do it because it's my job, it's like, but if you're not showing people that you're putting your own well-being first, they're never going to do it because they just see you as being well, we're obviously not working hard enough because they need to work at midnight. It's a really big thing to unpick.

Carla Miller 11:51
Absolutely. And I think that the workload issue is such a significant one, not just in the charity sector. So, I think that there's just this general ethos isn't like, we must do more we must do the better. We must, you know if you're in a company, it's about more profit. But if you're in the charity sector, it's about your service users and your vision and your mission. And you're so inspired by that. But the question is at what cost?

Claire Warner 12:22
Exactly, exactly. Because I don't know about you, I end up with phrases that I hear myself say and then think I've started to sound like Buzzword Bingo, but more in the workplace is not and is not endless. It's not infinite, more is not an infinite thing. With the same results. You can't just keep squeezing and pushing and saying we need more is infinite if you add more to underpin them all, but you just can't. And it's sometimes it seems directionless than that. It's the more that becomes the focus, not the more of what and why and how. And it is. It's just yeah, more is a really interesting thing that lots of people need more. How can we get people to do more with? Why would you want them to do more? They're really squeaking at the pips. This is you don't want more, you need less, because less would actually be better.

Carla Miller 13:16
And how do you? Where do you think that comes from? Do you think it's a senior leadership thing? Or in the charity sector is part of it? The trustees that come along and say, I mean, there are many fantastic trustees, but I have certainly had my fair share of trustees that are like, well, we need to double our income this year with it without even always needing in terms of the service side of things. It's almost a status thing. But I'm sure there is a negative drivers, probably but there are also some positive drivers. I just wonder, where do you start the work? If you want to change that?

Claire Warner 13:48
Absolutely. I think it comes from it comes from all over the place. Some of it is some of it is personal. Some of it is that whole. Like we said before around the guilt I if I'm not doing that means there are things we're not doing if we if we could raise more money, we could, I don't know see more people, if we could see more people, we could it's not always it's not always money driven, but it's not always not money driven. And I think it's about that real. I guess the other thing is, it's really easy to get wrapped up in that, isn't it? Because when you're all working towards the same vision, whether it's corporate, whether it's charity, whether it's you know, our aim is to do this or this. And if you think well, we can do it sooner, or we could do better or we could do it and that's to a lot of people that's really motivating. It's just recognising at what point does the thing that's motivating you actually then start to crucify you at the same time and it's there is a definite tipping point.

And there has to be some organisational again, whether charity or corporate side, there has to be some senior leadership control and well I guess taking control that that says, at what expense at what expense does this more come? And where do we say? Okay, we could our aim is to do it in five years, we could do it in three. But if our aim was to do it in five, let's do it in five. And let's build all these other bits that mean, we'll all still be vaguely well rounded, vaguely healthy, vaguely, wellbeing filled people at those five years, not all leaving the sector or leaving the roles or what is that? Where does that tipping point come? And I think that's, that doesn't matter what industry or what sector you sit in, it's that where does the balance between more and well sit?

Carla Miller 15:45
Yeah, absolutely. And I wonder if it's about that employee, well, being just getting more status, like being right up there with the other things that are important because often, I mean, whoever is responsible for that, which is generally the HR people side of things. Sometimes they don't even have a seat at that top table directly.

Claire Warner 16:06
No, no, regularly. If you look at the again, I'm not entirely sure about the corporate world a lot of the charity in the charity world don’t even have in house, HR, a lot of people just have it outsourced. There are so many quotes from so many big business leaders around and you can't deliver anything without your without your own people being first. And I think, especially if we look at fundraising, the area where I know best, we've always known that the collab or donor, we can't put your cause first and your donor second, if you're actually not putting the people who are delivering that service on that purpose first you've got to, we can't say that one is more important than the other and yet, in some organisations are certainly in some people's frame of mind, that that the people delivering either the income or the service, or the backup functions that help those organisations operate.

Now you can't if you want to deliver in a one service, you've got to make sure your people are on their A one game. And that doesn't mean A one game 24 hours a day, it means A one game at home and A one game in there, whatever personal life and whatever social life and their hobbies and their rest and all those things that actually you've got to underpin those before you can then say for 6,7,8 hours a day that helps me be in my aim on gaining work.

Carla Miller 17:37
And how has COVID and the various lockdowns impacted this area?

Claire Warner 17:41
I think it was very interesting in the first lockdown when people that I was talking to and people outside of work as well, we're saying, isn't it strange, we're all taking one walk a day now because we're allowed to that we never did previously, even though we were allowed to but some of it has kind of broken down some barriers that did exist. Things like the ability to work from home things like the ability to do hybrid working or to work at hours that allow you to fit other things in. However, as with everything, there comes a tipping point, we now find that without good boundaries, and without good expectations put around those your day then can become endless and without boundaries. So, it can just be that we're starting work earlier and finishing work later. And earlier and later than we might have previously got up or gone to bed. So, there are some good parts that have come out of it. But some of it now does need some boundaries, putting around at the say, well, what actually is what actually is going to help me be well, and that I think the other interesting thing that we're seeing is very slowly it's just starting to trickle in the idea of what does a day's work equate to? Do I need to do? Is a day's work seven hours, or is a day's work? A really great day of doing the things I need to do. But if I if I'm able to and I focus and I get that done in five hours do I should I be feeling guilty for the two hours I haven't worked on actually I've just got down and got on with it. And I've been in the right frame of mind because I'm well rested and well-motivated and I've managed to get some pressure in the morning and so there's loads that is kind of unravelling a little bit that needs totally looking at but lockdown has impacted some things positively and other things negatively.

Carla Miller 19:43
I feel like when I was coaching lots of people in the first lockdown, there was a lot more consciousness of people's mental health. It suddenly was on the agenda, wasn't it that much greater duty of care. And so, I felt like that was a positive move. I think now with the hybrid working and these, obviously, it's open things up, hasn't it? Absolutely. Which is great. And as much as you think if you go on and look for a remote job, that's part time, it's actually incredibly hard to find one. But that's starting to change. But yes, it's really interesting how things are, are starting to shift.

Claire Warner 20:24
But all too slowly, significant, serious happenings mean that we do things far faster, or that they evolve way quicker. So, the pandemic hitting, and literally being told you need to do all of this from home now meant that we suddenly broke downloads of barriers that had that had previously been there. What's really unfortunate to watch is people kind of saying, but that's over now. So, we're going to build those barriers back up, just because it's over, rather than staying actually what's good for us as an organisation, or what's good for you as the individuals within the organisation. It's that that thing that's, we've moved, we very quickly moved, so very much further forward. And then yeah, there are in some corners, people are wanting to take it back just because they can take it back rather than because it's the right decision to make.

Carla Miller 21:16
If that, that draw back to the norm, isn't it back to the old the phrase of necessity is the mother of invention. There

Claire Warner 21:24
we go. That's the one I knew that was that thought the word mother was in there. And then I thought that might be a different thing. But yeah, so many things have happened. If you look at mobile phones and things like that, those were the development of those were done, because more time the required communication ahead of any other wired communication that people use due necessity is the mother of invention, we had to all suddenly go home and be able to do things from home very quickly. And very effectively. And yeah, it's just interesting to see the reasons why people are going back, because well, it's, you know, it's the way we've always done it, it's the worst reason to do anything.

Carla Miller 22:12
And yet, that is what we're drawn to all the time, isn't it? I mean, I think it's great. The well-being is now being considered as more than the fruit bowl, and the yoga sessions that it was when I was in the workplace time. But at the same time as that awareness is it has kind of exploded, so has awareness of diversity and inclusion, hasn't it? And that fits into that wider picture of well-being doesn't it? Absolutely.

Claire Warner 22:39
And for me, when I start, when I talk about wellbeing, I always start with what are the things that cause you unwell being, and obviously, my work history and my own personal health history? Oh, I spent a lot of time working in the hospice sector, and in health care, health charities, but that whole prevention is better than cure, how can we get rid of the let's get rid of the cause, not treat the symptoms, or at least look at treating the cause while we treat the symptoms should absolutely be applied in every part of things going on in the workplace. And often the aspects facing people to do with EDI challenges, those very big challenges that that we're now finally waking up to. And none of this is easy stuff. And so, it shouldn't be because it's really, really big stuff that people have been putting up with for a very long time. And to do it right, you've got to do it right, there is no quick fix. There is a right fix. But you've got to look at the cause you can't just look at the symptoms. And that is across most areas where we're currently asking people through the various different kinds of movements, I guess, at the moment to look at, we need to look at the cause not just the symptoms, don't just give me yoga at lunchtime that I haven't got time to come to because my workload is too great. Let's look at my workload. And then look at what would I like to do with the time you freed up? It's that kind of tip that says, I don't want you to not look don't not look at it at all. But don't just look at what other things we can add in what other things we can genuinely do to look at cause and eradicating some of that or reducing it. And that's exactly the same. EDI is exactly the same with gender. It's exactly the same with any kind of inequality that has habitually existed. And it's about that again, isn't it? It's about just it's a habit and it's wrong.

Carla Miller 24:50
Yeah, it's interesting. If you try and break it down, there's the norm as it was, which was healthy only for a small percentage of people. It worked very well. for them, and no small percentage of people were generally the people at the top of organisations that had the power, or as we would now call it had privilege. Absolutely. It didn't work for everyone. But most of those voices heard.

But we say that as if these are terrible people, but these people could solve everything. But I coach those people, you work with these people, you know, especially you work in the charity sector, I've worked a lot in the charity sector, we're generally talking about lovely people working incredibly hard, trying to do their best. So how do you support them to improve things without making them feel completely overwhelmed that they too have been an individual doing their best. And now they're realising that the impact on other people that they've had isn't half as positive as perhaps they thought it was. And I'm interested to how you navigate that with them, and how you get people to sign up for your work in the first place. Oh, definitely to be able to go, Yeah, I'm prepared to look at my role in this. And what I can do differently and not be defensive about that. And that was incredibly hard for them as human beings.

Claire Warner 26:10
It is, and it's really interesting, the journey that I've kind of come on in the way that I talk to people before I work with them, every time I do a new piece of work, I add something else to I have a document that's about expectations, if this is what we're going to work on, I need you to have some expectations up front. And that says, I'm going to tell you things you don't like you're going to hear I'm going to have to do my job properly, I'm going to come back and tell you things that you don't like the sound of you possibly won't agree with. Because I will be telling you what other people feel. And you might not agree that that's how they should feel.

However, that is how they feel. And so, what we need to do is change how they feel not you tell them how they should be feeling that's part of a problem. But the whole there are going to be things that that you don't, that you don't like there are going to be some things that you that your gut reaction is going to be I can't believe that I was part of that I want to be part of the solution. And is that actually I was part of the problem. But everybody who has done anything positive, not everybody, but a lot of people who have made any of that kind of positive change, have come through that journey. And what matters is what we do to change it because we can't change the past. But what are we going to do now to turn it around? And, and being really clear about? What is it that we can looking at what is it we can do to make it better for the people you work with? So, you know, there are some incidents where people just feel the need to be heard, and to gain some kind of closure. But it's really important that we work with them to define what does that closure look like not that I decided or that they decided on their own, or that the organization's senior leadership does that decides it, they have to come together and decide what does feeling heard. And sometimes it's about an apology, sometimes it's about what but there's just a need to be heard. And I need to get closure around this this aspect. Sometimes it's about I need to be heard. And there are some really big things that you could do very easily that would make a really big difference very quickly. But that because they're not within your within your field of vision because they are because we all have that subconscious field of vision that says I'm not actually aware what it's like to be 180 degrees behind me, I don't know what that looks like, because I never looked there. We need to accept that just because it's not in your field of vision doesn't mean it's not in others and doesn't mean that it doesn't mean looking at and that one of the things we also find is that there's that perfectionism, procrastination, don't wait until you know you can get it perfect. You have to start and agree this is where we're going to start and then agree we're going to carry on and do some more and then do some more. But also, the biggest thing is the very first thing that says this is not a tick box exercise, we won't get to the end of it and you can't go tick that's done. This is about taking this entire topic to the table and keeping it at the table. How do we make sure that this now becomes ingrained in what we do? Rather than it's just something that we see as a weave that's now finished, and that's now done. It can't be it has to be a part of what you what your organisation does forevermore.

Carla Miller 29:39
I love that. I think that's so important that expectation thing because often people say we won't change, but they mean we want other people to we want other people to be happier. But don't ask us to actually change anything about ourselves. I think that's just human nature, isn't it? So, when we talk about things like this, it makes me wish that we could just have a blank slate and start from scratch and redesign.

Claire Warner 30:04
Absolutely. It's interesting when I get partway through this work and people saying that what can we you know, it's like that famous saying the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now, if you get if you're in a position where you can start anything from scratch, absolutely what a joyous place to be, but also possibly a bit terrifying, that whole blank piece of paper, and I've got all this myriad of things, I have to make sure that I'm putting in there. But it's about that direction of travel. If we start off by saying, we want our people regardless of ability of physical, mental, regardless of any kind of ability, regardless of gender, regardless of race, regardless of just every person to be well, to be able to define what their best looks like to know what their best looks like, and to do it, and to be supported to do that best buy a structure in an organisation that says, This is what this is how our structure works. Our structure works and says, do you get the support you need to do your job properly to do your job to your best of your ability, if we could put it that way where it was always upward facing and it was always about what can we do to help you to be that more or to be that better? Not what whip Can I crack to make you do that would just make such a massive difference to the way that that we work that Timpson if you if you've worked, you know that Simpson green model do you Carla?

Carla Miller 31:36
I know a little bit about them, but I don't know if you do.

Claire Warner 31:41
So the Timpson group, it's not charity, some outside organisation and their model is upside down. If you were to look at their Organa Graham, their staff sit at the top, it's not upside down, it's the right way up, their chief exec sits at the bottom of an inverted pyramid. And they only have one question on their annual appraisal form. And that one question is do you get the support you need from your line manager? Well, if you could do that, if that was the way that your organisation work that we that's the way that the responsibility goes. I think that's a really big turnaround for very many of the organisations we've worked with. But what even if you just thought about that? What even if that was just one of the questions on your appraisal form, and you felt able to answer it, honestly. That's a lot about it, isn't it?

Carla Miller 32:30
It is I think there's an education piece there not just for managers, but for individuals as well, because I work with people and my manager doesn't support me enough, like, okay, what support do you need? And how did you ask for it? And the answer is actually, I don't know what support I need. And maybe they shouldn't have to ask for it or that I think it's useful for us to be able to I take no, I need articulate them. But often we don't know, do we just know we feel unsupported?

Claire Warner 32:56
Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and that is that, isn't it? It's just about, tell me one thing, Ken, don't tell me all the things you need. Don't you don't feel the need to come up with a full list. But let's find one thing that I can support you vector with. And let's get that better. And then we'll move on. It's it's about we see these things as once they're an issue in our minds, they can't be and then they ruminate and go round and round, they become bigger than just the start of the solution, which is this, this is not a finite thing that's just about turning that turning the focus round and saying how could we do this? So we're looking upwards, not downwards.

Carla Miller 33:34
I've had numerous conversations on the podcast with people about things like neurodiversity, menopause, fertility, race, all sorts of different topics in terms of inclusivity. And often they are sharing wishes and lots of brilliant insights. But often there's a core thing, which is when I asked what can you do about it, they'll have the conversation. Ask someone, how can I absolutely support you exactly like you just said. And for me, it's so interesting, because we were talking beforehand about how when you start to dive into these things, you start to see a huge list, absolutely. Don't do things that you could work on. And I've done that before with the gender side of things like oh, well, I'd really love to work within the company. But then there's a bit of policies, and there will be this and this and this and then how, you know, obviously there's intersectionality it's not just about being a white middle class, university educated women.

And so at that point, I get overwhelmed and go well, I can't be an expert on all of those and I can't do all of this. I couldn't even imagine for a manager or leader these days. How it feels for me and I think it's amazing that you go into organisations and he will support the senior leadership with this and he will be a voice and advocate for people within the organisations. For me, I've taken a step back on where, where did my skills lie? And my next evolution of the business is to include inclusive leadership training. So, it's not specific. It's not specific anti racism or anything like that, because there are people that do that very well, and that it's very much needed. And you know, those experts are absolutely needed. But for me, it's like, well, how do you help managers? How do you make a call management and leadership skill, thinking inclusively being aware of that negative impact that you have on other people, those blind spots. So you know, that 180 degrees that you talked about, is understanding your bias and the really practical things you can put in place to overcome it and creating that psychological safety? And I think that's a lot about you talk a lot about that side of things as well, don’t you that psychological safety.

Claire Warner 35:42
psychological safety, and that whole self-awareness, if you're not aware of where you're at, and we all have them? It's not like it's an embarrassing thing. Every single person has that unconscious subconscious, ingrained thing that says, it's the way I am, it's the way I've done it, it's the way I know. But if we, if we're not aware of what that way is a we're not aware of what we're missing out on. So we you know, if we all just see 30 degrees of a 360 degree circle, we're missing out on those. So a team too full of just the people looking the same 30 degrees means you've got some either some big issues that you've not even looked at, or some massive opportunities you've not considered. But also how might then my ingrained personality, my ingrained characteristics come across and what were my I inadvertently be insulting, be being prejudiced, be being all of those things that, no, they're not deliberate, but by not being aware of them, I'm not doing anything about beat making any corrective kind of behaviour. And it's that that everything we do starts with self-awareness of this isn't about pointing fingers and naming and blaming and shaming. But if you don't know where your own ingrained biases live, you'd have no hope of being able to recognise what impact those might have on anything else.

Carla Miller 37:14
Yes, we all have those biases don't mean we all have those blind spots. And we all have when under pressure. Yeah, it's not always pleasant. For other people I've spoken to numerous people are leaving organisations because their manager is having a negative impact on them. And most of them are not actually saying horrible things about their manager. Most of them are like, actually, she's a lovely person, or he's a lovely man. But yeah. But this and sometimes that's around workload, sometimes that's around when under pressure, they're snapping at me. Yeah, there's so many different things. But yeah, I'm really excited to start diving into that.

Claire Warner 37:52
And it's interesting that pressure thing says, even those people who have started to do some of that awareness stuff, when you go under pressure, any learned behaviours you've had around, being aware of correcting amending or opening up that field of vision, under stress, it just closes straight back down again, so wet that and so that is regularly where those problems occur that that word, but she's really lovely, he's really lovely. I feel really bad complaining about them, because they're a really nice person. But we say but there's a thing about it that isn't right, that we need.

Anybody who is a manager of any description needs a section of them that says I need the tools, and I need the skills and I need the experience to be able to not necessarily sawed it off, because that's not it. But to have the conversation, you have to ask the questions, you have to at least be willing to have the questions asked of you. But we need that thing that says that earlier, you have a conversation in almost every instance there is, the better, and the sooner you're able to sort it, the less off track that thing goes. And the sooner we're able to resolve it. It's all about having the confidence to either open a conversation with whoever or at least knowing that that individual know that you will be receptive to that conversation, that the way you're going to receive information is going to be just as acceptable or accepting as the way that you're gonna give it I guess.

Carla Miller 39:28
Yeah, so that's what we do in coaching, we hold that mirror up to someone and help them to reflect and quite often it's also about managing your state and manage it and working on some of those, the perfectionism and the attaching your identity to your job and all of the stuff that you talked about at the beginning. So it comes up a lot in my work as well, that that fuels your going into a state of panic when someone points out that you're doing something that's unhelpful. So yeah, being able to manage your state effectively, as well. So we have we've covered so much. Yeah. Which has been we've explored a mountain and lots of different places. Now, do you want it before we bring this to close? Do you want to share with us how you ways that people can work with you? Because I know there's a number of different ways. It's not just the work with organisations, is it you also work differently?

Claire Warner 40:20
Yeah. So, the work that I do tend to be growing shortly, because I can't do it all on my own is largely about creating some of those tools, some of those, those kind of starting points. So we do go in and work with organisations, sometimes we because we've gone out and said, This is a project we're working on, would you like to be involved in it? And around? What about if we looked at so you said before about policies and processes? So we have a project that says what about if we were able to take a well being approach to your policies to your recruitment to your now that's not as an expert in any of those areas? But it's looking at what are the common areas that cause unwell being in those places? To give you the starting point, to go and have a look and say, well, let's go and ask people, let's not second guests. Let's go and ask our colleagues.

So there's that also specifically wrote a management training course about what are the skills not leadership training, but management training to me and I know you there's, they're, they're linked, but they're not exactly the same. But in order to be that manager that says, How can I? How can I What can I do to start those conversations and what those conversations regularly are, what the behaviours are that regularly come up, and what some of the causes are, and how to start dealing with them. So we wrote a management training programme specifically aimed at the challenges to managers in the charity sector. I do some one to one coaching on personal well being on well on personnel and workplace wellbeing for people who are generally in a period of transition or challenge in terms of how can I prioritise my own well being when I've got this going on over here. And, and we are going to be launching in October, we're going to repeat the wellbeing survey that we did, but we're going to do it not just for fundraisers this time, it will be for anybody working in the UK charities.

Carla Miller 42:24
Brilliant. Well, I'm sure they'll be lots of people that will be following you and engaging with that going forward with the link to them, all the links, everything in the show notes. But thanks, Claire, for sharing your own journey. And for exploring this with me, I'm sure it will create a lot of interest. I mean, we could do about 10 or so. different bits of it individually. But it's been great to have your experience and I love that you are we both love the charity sector. It's my background as well. And we also both see its flaws. And I think it's fantastic that you're able to work with the individuals and the leaders in those organisations to help make them less unwell. So thanks for everything that you're doing. And thank you for sharing your expertise with us today.

Claire Warner 43:19
Thank you for asking me.

Carla Miller 43:27
If you've listened to the podcast and you want to know more about how we can work together, here are a few places you can look.

First of all, I've got a couple more freebies. I've got a free PDF on increasing your leadership impact at work, and I've also got a free masterclass on becoming a more influential leader without letting self doubt hold you back. So head on over to the website to book yourself a place on the masterclass or to download that PDF.

There are my open programmes influence and impact for women at management and leadership level and be bolder a four week live assertiveness and confidence course for women at any level.

You can preorder my book closing the influence gap, a practical guide for women leaders who want to be heard.

You can also work with me one to one particularly if you're a senior leader, and you can hire me to work in house to do talks for awareness weeks, one of workshops, a series of workshops or to run my influence and impact programme or be bolder programme in house as a women's leadership or women's empowerment offering.

If you want to talk about any of those on my website, you can drop me an email or you can also book a quick 15 minute chat so we can talk about what you need and how I might be able to help you or your organisation so I look forward to chatting to you. Take care