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Kate Lee: The world has changed post pandemic and therefore what
we all need to do is not how do we get back to where we were but
how do we now reeinvent ourselves for the future.
Paul Thomas: Welcome to a brand new episode of Starts at the
Top, our podcast about leadership digital and change.
I'm Paul Thomas.
Zoe Amar: And I'm Zoe Amar our podcast is all about leadership
and brings you interviews with leaders who we believe are
driving a positive change in the world.
Paul Thomas: Change comes in many forms. And we're equally
interested in speaking to leaders who are making
incremental change and shifting the dial within their own
organisations. As we are talking to people about huge systemic
changes that impact the world of work. The driving force of our
podcast is to share these stories across sectors and
industries so that we can all learn from each other.
Zoe Amar: Today we're sharing our conversation with Kate Lee,
Chief Executive of the Alzheimer's Society. We have
been looking forward to sharing this episode ever since we
recorded it back in September, it is a banger. Kate is an
amazing leader and someone we both follow closely for a number
of years. She's totally inspirational. And this was a
fantastic conversation about how she is adapting her role, in her
words, from that a director to producer.
Paul Thomas: I really love this discussion with Kate,
Alzheimer's Society is a cause that's very close to my heart.
And I can't think of a better episode to close out 2023. And
yes, this is our final episode of 2023. In what's been an
amazing year for the podcast. So we've released 20 episodes this
year 21, including this one. And they've all been wonderful
conversations with some inspirational leaders. We've had
best selling authors, AI startup founders, mental health
champions, campaigners for the four day work week and a number
of digital experts sharing their stories with our listeners. So
what have been some of your highlights?
Zoe Amar: Oh, there have been so many. So two episodes that
really stand out for me is it was just fantastic to talk to
Sarah Hughes, CEO of Mind. And I thought her episode on
leadership and mental health and how we're all dealing with the
mental health kind of fallout to some extent from the pandemic
was absolutely fascinating and really thought provoking if
you're leading a team at the moment, lots of really practical
advice in there. And also really enjoyed talking to Samuel
Kasumu, the author of The Power of the Outsider, which is a
really fascinating book about inclusion and what it means to
feel like an outsider, and how that's actually a real strength.
So I found that to be a really fascinating book, and it was
really interesting talking to Samuel. He's very thought
provoking.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, he was great. I think one episode I'd like to
highlight was the episode we put out in July with Soma Sara,
founder of Everyone's Invited, which is an anti rape movement.
That had a big impact on me at the time, and the conversation
never really left me this year. So I've recommended Soma's book
to so many people. End of Year lists, people have asked me for
contributions to end of year lists. And that's the one that I
keep checking in and hope more and more people read it. And I'm
still in conversation with my son's school. I emailed them
today for an update to find out about donating copies to the
school library. If you haven't listened to that episode yet,
I'd urge you to go back and listen. It's a tough listen, but
an essential one, I think.
Zoe Amar: It's a really important issue. And the book is
so interesting, Soma's so inspirational, and the change
that she's already brought about is fantastic. So yes, I think
it's, I think it's one of the most important episodes we've
ever done, actually, in terms of tackling one of the big issues
of our times.
Zoe Amar: And it's been a great year for books too. So as you've
Paul Thomas: Definitely
mentioned, we've had some fantastic authors on this
season, from our joint hero, Bruce Daisley, who I think we
described beforehand to each other as being Beyoncé adjacent,
and also the wonderful, and also the wonderful Ian Dunt,
journalist and broadcaster about his book about Westminster and
why it needs to change. And other authors such as Mathilda
Della Torre, founder of Conversations from Calais. We
love a good book here. And we've got plans to speak to more
authors. And we've got some great interviews coming up in
that area in 2024.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, looking forward to that. And also
because it forces me to read books, and I remember being on I
think it's probably the podcast we did at the end of 2022, where
I said, one of my resolutions for the next year was to read
more books. And I failed miserably. I think I mean, I've
read more than I did in 2022. For sure. I don't think my head
was in a very good space in 2022 for taking on any more
information than the information that was being pushed into my
head day to day. In 2023 it was a bit better, certainly having
been reading the books and listening to the books as well
on jogs and runs for this podcast, so I'm determined to
take that one back into 2024. And make more time for books.
Other things that we should just touch on, one thing, one
conversation that's happening in our, in our WhatsApp group in
our Slack group actually was a conversation that you started
about something you'd watched on TV recently. So TV highlights of
the year one of yours is the Ronnie O'Sullivan documentary.
Zoe Amar: Yeah, so the Ronnie O'Sullivan documentary, which
has been getting quite a lot of pickup on line, lots of people
probably have seen social posts about it, as it's called The
Edge of Everything. It's available on Amazon Prime. And
it's really about what it takes to be that level of successful
because he's one of the most successful sports people of all
time, and the kind of mental process he has to go through to
win. And he's absolutely someone who's very open about self doubt
about impostor syndrome, about struggling with anxiety, and
childhood trauma. I think this is one of the best documentaries
I've ever seen. One of the most interesting I've ever seen about
mental health, and really rare to get that kind of access to
someone so famous, who is really, really open and
transparent about all the different issues he's faced and
how he leans into them head on every day. So I highly, highly
recommend that to anyone looking for something to watch over the
festive season.
Paul Thomas: And he's just won another tournament hasn't he.
Zoe Amar: He has yes, he has. Yes, I was cheering him on. I
Paul Thomas: You're gonna be queuing up for Crucible tickets
don't know what's happened to me, but I seem to become a
snooker fan.
later next year.
Zoe Amar: Maybe, maybe. Can offer me those for Christmas
then? [Laughs]
Paul Thomas: In terms of TV and taking completely different
tack, one se series that's been up for mass discussion on my
WhatsApp groups this year has been The Bear on Disney Plus,
which I fell in love with from the moment the opening episode
of season one ended with my favourite Pearl Jam track. And I
fell in love with it there. Number one, it's got a great
soundtrack Wilco all over it which who are one of my
favourites but The Bear yeah. Once hyper stressful in places
but absolutely essential viewing about a restaurant in Chicago.
Wholly recommend that if you've not seen it. And yeah, on the
music front, Wilco had an album out this year and I spent one of
my big highlights from from this year music wise, was a trip in
April to Iceland to go and see them play three nights in
Reykjavik which was just... I'm so upset that I haven't got
something like that to look forward to in 2024 I wish they
were going back and doing it again. So I could rebook but
that was an absolute highlight of 2023 and something I'll never
forget going out to Iceland and then the family coming out to
join me there. That was absolutely fantastic. And other
things this year other music that I've really enjoyed the
Mitski album has just been an absolute soundtrack to the end
of the year. I think we both really enjoyed the Romy record.
Last night, I was watching that and her new album is full of
bangers as well. Say full of bangers as it starts with a
bunch of bangers it might go off a little bit and also the
boygenius album was really good, Caroline Polachek was another
good one. And then going to see Feist at the Roundhouse was a
highlight and I've just booked tickets and massively excited in
2024 to be going and seeing Jane's Addiction, that was just
one of my favourite bands from the 90s.
Zoe Amar: Oh, bless you.
Paul Thomas: I can't tell you how excited I am about that one
for 2024. How about you any musical highlights that you'd
like to share with us?
Zoe Amar: Oh, yeah, I mean, just briefly a couple of gigs that
completely blew my socks off seeing Laurence Guy do an
amazing DJ set at Rough Trade East was just one of the best
gigs I've ever been to. And then seeing Jessie Ware at Ally Pally
a few weeks ago with my friend, Catherine. Absolutely
phenomenal, she totally owned the room. And she was also so
lovely and so sweet to the crowd and just amazing stage presence.
So that's who I'm going to channel on my Zoom workshop
tomorrow, I'm going to turn up in gold and just give it the
full Jessie Ware [Laughs].
Paul Thomas: Channel your inner Jessie Ware it sounds like a
good idea to me. And then a thing that you're hoping for in
2024, I've given you one I'm gonna go in to see Jane's
Addiction, but also, and it sounds quite trite to say, but
there's an awful lot of conflict and hate around the world at the
moment. And it seems trite to say, world peace. But at the
same time, I see real hope emerging in this emergent
leadership that I'm really hopeful that there will be a
sort of a current generation of leadership that sort of
literally dies off and something else coming up to replace it,
something better. I'm also going to be launching my new brand
Excited by Digital in the new year. So I'm excited about that.
But yeah, world peace, tried to say it, but I think it's important.
Zoe Amar: Well, speaking of emergent leaders, I do want to
take a moment to say thank you so much to everyone who's
listened to the podcast this year, who's given us their time
and very kindly supported us. And also to all the amazing
leaders who have come on the podcast this year, we talked
about who some of them are. And plenty more if you go to the
episodes page on our website or just explore wherever you get
your podcasts, we really want to hear who you would like to hear
on the podcast next year. So as we said before, leaders or
emerging leaders who are just leading differently and doing
something different and interesting, and doing some sort
of social good in the world and they can be from any sector,
they can be running a small organisation or a campaign or a
big organisation or they could be authors or campaigners. So
just let us know you can drop us an email, or you can tweet us
alternatively, and just let us know who you think would be a
great guest in 2024.
Paul Thomas: Perfect. Here is our conversation with Kate Lee.
Zoe Amar: We are very excited to welcome Kate Lee to Starts at
the Top today. Kate joined Alzheimer's Society, the UK's
largest voluntary provider of dementia support as chief
executive in March 2020. How's that for a timeline for starting
a new job? Since joining she has driven transformational change
in both culture and strategy, introducing new values
delivering their highest ever fundraising results, and
building a shared understanding and organisation wide focus on
the impact Alzheimer's Society delivers to people affected by
dementia. In 2023 Alzheimer's Society entered the Sunday Times
Best Places to Work list. This role is the latest in a
voluntary sector career that spans nearly 30 years, including
as CEO at Children's cancer charity young lives versus
cancer, previously known as CLIC Sargent, where she won charity
time CEO of the Year. And previously Kate was also Myton
Hospice, a large adult palliative care charity in
Coventry and Warwickshire. Kate is driven by leading by example,
a keen supporter of partnership working, she founded both the
young people's Cancer Coalition and the one dementia voice
group. She has led sector wide initiatives to improve the
openness of charitable reporting, producing award
winning trustee accountability reports publicly discussing the
successes, but also the failings of the charity she has led. She
is a passionate advocate of equality, diversity and
inclusion, and has spoken openly about her own mental health.
Kate Lee is very much our kind of guest. Welcome to Starts at
the Top Kate, thank you so much for coming on.
Kate Lee: Thank you, thank you. I'm not sure I'm worthy to be
here, but very, very privileged to be invited. So lovely to be
here.
Zoe Amar: Oh well, the pleasure is all ours and we know how busy
you are so we really appreciate you taking time to come on. It
was so interesting reading your bio, because I began just by
looking at that March 2020 start date, which I think we touched
on when we spoke earlier in the summer and goodness me what a
baptism of fire, what a time to start a job. What was that like?
Kate Lee: Well, I started a month early for various reasons
I started a month earlier than I'd planned. I was due no to
start until the start of April. And in some ways, I was really
glad I did because it meant that I was absolutely there in the
very early days of some of that pandemic planning. And so it
kind of worked well. Difficult because a huge job to be done at
Alzheimer's Society, as you'd mentioned, kind of cultural,
financial strategic turnaround. And felt relatively confident
about my ability to do that, but not from my bedroom. That was
the untested parts, not being able to meet anybody not being
able to kind of win them over, you know, my chief cheerleader
stuff very much based on having been in the room with folks not
having those one to one personal relationships that really helped
you get people's trust and loyalty. So had a lot of my,
what I'm going to call my traditional leadership
techniques, ways that I've done change in the past, kind of
taken away overnight. So yeah, challenging in different ways.
Zoe Amar: And what were those techniques? And how did you have
to adapt them?
Kate Lee: So I think I'm used to kind of really getting to know
people and I do a lot of things like I really think about who in
the organisation are the informal kind of communicators,
who are the people that people look to to see whether
everything's okay, which isn't often through their really
formal traditional routes of leadership management tiers, but
to get in an organisation the size of Alzheimer's Society, so
just under 2000 staff, so usually I would really make a
point of honing in on those people getting to know them
really understanding those folks, I love looking for people
in the organisation that are quite eccentric, people that are
really competent and speaking out, you know, people who are
definitely going to tell me the truth and sometimes you come
across those people through being out at events and
conferences and workshops, you know, and you just, you know,
gravitate to people who are real kind of controllers of power in
the organisation often informal and you just can't do that on
Zoom because it's so transactional, those people
don't always kind of come to the fore not so those people are
really amazing and it took me far longer to, okay the real
rock stars and are of the organisation so some of that was
harder to do you know, showing my true colours here about
sometimes how you have to implement change can just get
into know my directors, I unfortunately had to make a lot
of change in my senior leadership team quite quickly
and reduce the size of that just because of the financial
pressures of COVID. And, you know, just trying to win people
over find time for those informal chats, you know, when
we were all so unused to work in that way, now feels probably a
bit more comfortable. But at the time, you know, it just seems so
alien.
Zoe Amar: It really did, didn't it? And that's something we
heard a lot from other leaders, because as you know, we began
this podcast around the same time, and it was so interesting
to hear how people's leadership styles were having to flex and
change in real time. Is that something that you got peer
support with? Because, you know, we hear about those CEOs,
WhatsApp groups, which sounds great, were you all supporting
each other, and how are you adapting your leadership styles?
Kate Lee: Absolutely, absolutely... Incredibly gosh, I
leaned incredibly heavily on my networks during that time,
because also Alzheimer's Society was in crisis, that, you know,
we obviously had a very difficult few months very
negative publicity around the organisation just before I
started, people were very low. Some people in the organisation
were very angry, because the way the organisation was being
portrayed in the media was not the organisation they saw. So
you know, coming in and having to kind of deal with that, at
the same time, rebuild people's confidence, give them real hope
for the future, listening to people, when you just couldn't
get out and be with people was very frustrating. And I
definitely both formal networks, so some of the brilliant formal
networks are on offer through things like, you know, their
business schools, and I joined in a brilliant webinar event,
hosted by Martin Drake regularly and so some of those formal
routes snd also yes, I am a great advocate of the chief exec
Whatsapp group, and I am in several with my like "this is
really hard" WhatsApp, certainly now and then with lots of love
heart emoji replies, which is sometimes all you need.
Zoe Amar: That must be so helpful. We had Sarah Hughes
from Mind on, we just recorded it into her last week, actually.
And she was all about the peer support. I mean, it's so good
that that is something that feels like it's quite readily
available to leaders in the sector.
Kate Lee: Yeah, Sarah and I are in exactly the same groups. But
very small groups that we regularly reach out to you know.
But people like Sarah, I mean, it has been a profound help to
me and building some of those networks. I feel really strongly
about building and maintaining networks. It's something I've
always done in my whole career. I love having coffee with just
unusual people feeding my curiosity. You know, sometimes
I'll contact people. And I think, unfortunately, in this
day and age, certainly in this hybrid working people are like,
Why do you want to meet? What's the agenda? What do you want to
get out of it? And sometimes I feel like, you're a really
interesting person and I have no clue what the answer to those
questions are but I will have once we've met, you know, I just
want to meet you, explore how we might work together, you know,
thoughts you might have about my organisation. So I've always
really invested quite heavily in networks. And, and it has been
harder to do that. Since we became home based. I don't live
in London. So you know, some of that has been a bit more
complex, but it takes a bit more work, but always worth it.
Zoe Amar: Yeah, I totally agree. That's one of the reasons why
Paul and I run this podcast, because just having those agenda
free conversations. I mean, you know, I don't want to, I mean,
obviously, we do some some research, despite appearances.
And we always have talked about, you know, here's some things we
can potentially discuss. But it's so nice to have that
unscripted time that agenda free time, we believe, because that's
where all the ideas come from, don't they? And that's where the
innovation get the sparked doesn't it, on all sides.
Kate Lee: Yeah, I think the other thing is we are really
genuinely moving in a very, very fast paced environment. And I
think as leaders we're having to really change and adapt very
quickly because our organisations are, I mean coming
out of COVID Alzheimer's Society as we've seen really exponential
growth. I mean, crazier than I have seen in any charity I've
ever worked out over a fixed period. On all our KPIs we are
absolutely smashing it, our income is above where we thought
it would be, our service user reaches out, our commissioning
services is going well. You know, our evaluation is
excellent, our impact's great. But we've almost got growing
pains. How weird is this going on in the organisation about the
rest of the ability in the organisation to keep up with
that? So you know, our legal teams and our procurement teams
and you know, those backroom teams that we're all really
really heavily cut in, in the pandemic, and we were kind of
coming out of COVID going, you know, these teams, we could keep
them really small and slick. And, you know, and now we've
almost got growing pains in that we've seen this huge growth in
our delivery people coming to us, our research or influencing,
really taking off, which is fabulous, our brand growing
really, really quickly. And some of those background teams, you
know, some of those amazing folks in IT and as I say, you
know, the people who process the merchandise saying, Well, wait a
minute, we haven't really built our teams, and how do we keep
up? And so I think for me, you know, it isn't something even
two months I was thinking about, but now two months on, I'm
thinking about, like, you know, how do you run an organisation
that doesn't necessarily need transformational change, but
does need to deal with its growing pains? How do you do
that efficiently, effectively. So like, even in two months, my
headspace as a leader is in a completely different area,
thinking about tolerance levels, capacity, risk, risk tolerance.
You know, it's just moving at such a pace, I think what we're
expecting to process as leaders so that informal space is so
important that un-agenda space because even agendas set last
month for me in this month, I'm like, Oh, I don't know, we want
to talk about that. I think we've got this other things
overtaken it. So it is so important. How do you get that
agility without it just being a complete kind of chaotic,
everybody's talking about what they want show.
Paul Thomas: It was just about to say, making time for
unstructured time. Everything has such a structure to it even
in our personal lives at the moment, you know, and I guess,
you know, Zoe, and I, as parents as well, there's a whole lot of
stuff going on with with home life, that we just don't have
any time for those unstructured conversations. Everything is, as
you say, agenda to within an inch of its life. Maybe that's
part of the issue.
Kate Lee: I think what is changing for me is, so I'm just
changing my PA at the moment. And it's really interesting that
I've been thinking a lot about how... is there a better way of
doing this? Is there an alternative way of doing this
and the traditional methods of straightforward book an
appointment get in her diary, it might be in four months time
now. You know, like, Oh, can we have 30 minutes? You know, like,
just really thinking about god, there's got to be a better way
of doing this, that there's got to be a way of, you know, I've
thought about these things in the past, you know, building in
the thinking time and you know, then you're never in the
headspace to think when you've got thinking time in your diary.
And, you know, hey, is there a better way to do this? But if
there's a better way to do it, then is there a different role
for a PA? What does that mean, in terms of how my diary time
gets booked up? What should I be spending my time on? It's like
really thinking about systemic change to support some of those
different ways of working. I think we've still got something
going on that feels like we're trying to build back to how we
all were pre pandemic, rather than really saying, Is this our
time to say, let's do something completely different? Let's...
I've been thinking a lot. I talked to you guys about my role
as chief exec being something very different going forward.
And, and that traditional charity chief exec, and how...
how do I just turn that upside down? How do I say, I'm just not
going to play that role? I'm going to do something different
because the world has changed post pandemic, and therefore
what we all need to do is not how do we work out, how do we
get back to where we were? But how do we now reinvent ourselves
for the future? And I'm finding that really tough if I was
honest, I'm finding it tough in a charity that's doing so well.
We've got no burning platform. How do you reinvent? How do you
say, guy's it's, you know what, what we've done today that has
got us here. And that's amazing. But it's not going to get us to
the next place. How do you do that? So... Yeah, it's quite a,
quite a deep conceptual time. I think both for me personally,
and for my thoughts about the sector and the role of
leadership.
Zoe Amar: And when we met earlier this summer, I think you
talked about how you would describe that potential new
role, I think as being like a producer, if I remember that
correctly. Can you tell us more about what that looks like for
you?
Kate Lee: So I think I've always thought of the role as charity
chief exec in quite a traditional way, which is very
much the kind of conductor of the orchestra, you know, and
you've got the most amazing world class, you know, pianist
and drummers and violinists. And you know, the role of the Chief
Exec is to stood at the front saying a little bit more of that
a little bit less of this dialling up that dialling down
that to get that perfect sound. And I think what I've realised
through some coaching I've had over the last year and some
personal things that I've been going through in the last 18
months, which has also meant that I've just not been able to
be all over the organisation in the way that I'd have
traditionally been as a chief exec, that to do that conductor
role first you need to absolutely know the strengths of
your orchestra, you need to know who you can dial up and who you
can't and the risks around that. And that that takes time to have
that level of detail knowledge about your organisation. And why
am I directing the orchestra when I have probably the five
strongest directors I've ever worked with in my career, you
know, the most incredible executive leadership team. I
don't need to direct that's their role. They need to work
out how did they direct this orchestra kind of corporately
and together, and I'm very lucky in that I've got a team that can
do that. And then I went through a bit of a period thinking about
what does anyone need me for them, like now I'm being like,
Oh, this is great. I've created this high functioning team. And
now I can go and play golf or, well, I don't play golf, but
whatever it is chief executives traditionally do that have very
high functioning teams. And what I have realised, through my
coaching is that the role I need to play is to take an even
further step back and to think about not directing this
organisation, if it was a film, I'm not the director, I am the
producer, you know, what does it mean for Alzheimer's Society?
Who wants to buy this product? You know, is it future proofed?
Is it right? Is it matching the needs of the audience? And to
really take a big step out of the organisation and into the
outside world in the terms of you know, that producer's
knowledge is about the outside world and the fit of the film,
the director's knowledge is about the inside world and the
fit of the actors. And how do I take that step into that
producer role now and, and it's a little bit scary, cuz, you
know, people like me who love to know, I'm doing a good job, from
the immediate feedback of people going, Oh, it's amazing, Kate
helped us with this, you know, actually stepping out of that
now and thinking about my own motivations being around things
that will be longer term benefits for the organisation,
and really thinking about not that immediate hit of seeing the
organisation doing well as a result of something I've done in
the moment, but actually, the organisation will be doing well
in seven years time from decisions I'm making now. And
that's about kind of production of the organisation. And it is
stretching me, it's exercising me, my coaches promise me that
in the event of it all going wrong at Alzheimer's Society,
I'm allowed to do what we've called the fire marshal role,
which is I can step back in in an emergency. But if there's too
many emergencies then I'm doing it wrong, but it's hard, and
it's hard, you know, my team are adjusting to that my boards are
adjusting to that I've got a change of chair going on at the
moment. You know, so a new chair coming in asking loads of
brilliant, intense questions about the organisation, you
know, as chief execs that has a tendency to drive us back into
our organisations rather than holding that external space. So
yeah, it's good, it's exercising, it's different. But
yeah, I'm enjoying it.
Paul Thomas: We spoke to the author of Two Beats Ahead which
is a great book, I highly recommend that has an entire
section on producing. So Two Beats Ahead we spoke to Michael
Hendrix, in one of our episodes, god was it 18 months ago or so
now Zoe? It has quite a way back. But this was the whole
point about what great musical minds can teach us about
creativity and innovation. So there was really, really great
learning in there about how the role of a producer within that
with a musical context is to take that step back to, to
really think about what each musician is bringing to the
party, but then also how they start to create the environment
in which those musicians can thrive. And I think that's
probably the crucial part of this isn't it, is about creating
that environment and creating that level of trust, which you
clearly have amongst your executive team, to be able to
say you take the reins, because I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna
have a look at how we create the conditions for us to be even
more successful at what we do.
Kate Lee: Yeah, it's a really weird change. I mean, I've been
talking a lot with my coach about we've been using this
football analogy a lot recently, and I found it really helpful.
And it's very fresh in my mind at the moment and it's
proliferated entire Alzheimer's Society so at the moment, every
analogy is a football one, which has been very funny for those
folks that are just not into their football, but we've got a
lot of sporting analogies going on. I think I have been a leader
that's been able to lift Alzheimer's Society out of the
championship and into the premiership. And now we're
sitting in kind of mid table premiership. And I think for me
the discussions... and you know, we've done an amazing job. And
it's been blooming hard work, and but we are really solid
premiership team. What we've been talking about now is what
it took to get us to here will not get us into Europe. And it
certainly won't get us winning Europe, you know, we will not be
the Man city of dementia, which is what we need to be from what
we've done to get us here today. And that's hard. That's hard to
hear if you've been somebody who's been part of the team
that's got us into the premiership. And so it's this
role of reinvention now, so what is it going to take to get us to
this next biggest step? And the risks we'll have to take around
that? And what are we prepared to do and invest and talk about
and do differently to take that next really big step? And I
think one of the things to me, which was a great challenge, I'm
such a massive advocate for coaching as both you guys know,
but has been really pushing myself to think well, what kind
of chief exec am I? I'd see myself as a transformational
change Chief Exec, it's what I love, I love the cut and thrust
I love the immediate seen the immediate benefits of staff
coming into their own from creating a culture and
environment where you've got that real diversity and people
really suddenly thriving. I love all that. But am I accepting
that really, my role is to get people from the championship to
the premiership, if you want a premiership side, I'm on your
CA. And actually, what I think I've decided for myself as a
leader is, this is a tough challenge for me to now say
actually, what I want to do is I want to take my team to win the
premiership and to get in, you know, win Europe and that takes
reinvention on top of transformational change, that
takes a really deep level challenge. And getting to a
point by which we can be very cut and thrust in the
organisation talking about people who have been amazing
people who've got us here, kind of graduating now, and saying,
You got us here, you're not going to get us to the next
place. And that feels very not our sector. That fit, you know,
and, and is certainly good enough, is being a good solid
premiership team good enough. And often in the sector, are we
settling? You know, Is that Is that what it takes? And so I
think, you know, sometimes it's hard to, I'm certainly not
saying I'm cutting edge, I'm certainly not saying that
there's not these conversations going on in you know, Sarah
Hughes is someone I just deeply admire. She's having these
conversations bigger and bolder than me across our entire
organisation. But it is a really, it's like that
challenge. How do you reinvent on top of good, actually on top
of excellent. How do you say to teams, fab, you know, you made
90 million last year, you're gonna make 120 this year, 30
million growth in one year, outstanding. But I want to be at
200 million in four years time. And I'm not just a chief
executive who says, Oh, I think we could double income, you
know, this is what is that going to take. And if that means
ripping out some of the procedures and the processes,
we've had different approach to risk, a different approach to
service design, service delivery, the role of people
with dementia in our organisation, you know, no holy
cows, let's look at all of it. Let's look at all of it on the
table. And they're tough decisions. And, and for me, I
think it's probably adjusting as a leader to deciding it's time
to give that a go. Rather than just saying I've done what I
know I can do. I've got us here. It's my bread and butter. But
actually, no, now for me, this is a big challenge. And it means
being a very different chief exec for the next period, it
probably means not being internal chief cheerleader, it
means being external chief cheerleader. And that's a
different role. So yeah, a lot of lot of deep processing going on.
Zoe Amar: Definitely and there's a very strong focus there on
scalability isn't there? Which I feel like we don't always talk
about enough in the sector. I know exactly what you mean, as
you described there, I sometimes think there is a sense of, let's
get to a certain point, let's get into that, you know, top 100
charities list and great, but where do you go from there? And
I think your point about focusing on reinvention, and
potential what does that new modern, agile charity look like?
Is exactly the right question. Everyone should be asking that
right now.
Kate Lee: Yeah and I'm out talking with people like Amazon
about what being just in time means for us. So if we were just
in time provider, what would that mean scalability's such a
good point. Zoe, you know, we like many charities in the UK
have pockets of apps standing excellent service. So something
like our time for dementia scheme runs across the southwest
of England. Evaluate 10 years old, evaluated superbly, but
what are our real genuine plans now to roll that out UK wide?
Why would you have things that are evaluating really high? And
you get that pushback, you know, well, to donors want to fund
something that's not new, you know, and actually then pushing
back and saying, So what's the answer to that? What's the
solution to that? You know, going back to those tough
discussions, we've always all been having, you know, what is
the holy grail of long term sustainable funding models? But
in a post pandemic world? Are there new answers to that? Are
there new opportunities that have now emerged? You know, this
huge advancement in digital in the last three years? Have we
really caught up with capitalising on what that could
mean for us now? You know, and I'm really pushing ourselves
hard with some of those, like, tough discussions when
everyone's just doing the do and you know, that's working, you
know, we are growing well, and fast. And so we yeah, we're
talking a lot about growing pains in the organisation at the
moment as well, how do you keep all the parts up.
Zoe Amar: I think this is a great question I would love more
charities to be asking now. But it really is ambitions that you
know, lots of people have what do your digital capabilities and
your processes and your workforce? What was that
actually have to look like now to meet your goals? I think it's
so good you're asking us questions, because frankly, not
enough people are asking them. I like to move us on, if I may, to
a really, really key point because I feel like this is the
ingredient X of a lot of this success you've been talking
about. When we met earlier this summer, you talked about culture
change. And you talked about how that had been absolutely
fundamental to the transformational change process.
And I remember, Paul, and I talked after that conversation
saying this is so liberating, because what Kate's done is,
culture is not about, you know, just the side order. This is the
main course, isn't it? So can you tell us about the journey?
You've been on with that?
Kate Lee: Yeah so I think the first thing I'd probably say is,
I think one of the things like I do really enjoy transformational
work. And I think one of the things in transformational work
and loads of people are really good at this. And not not just
people in chief execs roles, but he's really been able to look at
an organisation and think, here are the problems. But here's the
one lever that we need to push to get us out of that. So when I
was at young associates cancer, I spotted really early that that
organisation had a branding issue, and that the investment
in branding would probably be the lever that would unlock a
lot of the other changes. So you know, the financial issues, you
know, other things that were going in there. Coming into the
Alzheimer's Society, I mean, there was a huge red arrow from
what had been happening publicly at Alzheimer's Society before I
came so saying like culture, culture, flashing neon lights,
culture, culture, so wasn't probably that clever at insight,
but it was like we need to work on the culture here. But really,
starting by thinking about the culture, the changing culture
will be the investment that will unlock all the other issues in
the organisation. So we need to change culture to unlock the
financial position, we need to change culture, in order to
unlock the kind of curiosity and growth we need to change culture
to unlock why we're doing things a certain way, and that they
feel like they are so embedded and so hard to change. So
looking at, and actually starting with culture, because
we couldn't really even write a strategy for the organisation
with real clarity about the strategy. While we had a culture
by which people just felt that they couldn't look long term.
You know, we had a culture where it was confusing about whether
you could, whether you could or couldn't speak up, talking about
strategy when we had a culture where we just didn't have
diversity, inclusion, equality, right, we haven't got it right
now. But we have got a lot of the basic building blocks in
place now. So if I've tried to have a strategy conversation,
when I'd first come in, we'd have got very much the same
voices, we'd always heard, you know, very much the kind of what
we've been told forever these are the things that matter,
therefore, what I'm going to tell you, we need to do
strategically is these things. So actually saying, you know,
we're going to start with culture. And the first thing
that I did was really talk to people about articulate the
culture you do want, not the culture you don't want. And I
think that was quite hard. So while everyone wanted to tell me
why it was all broken, and why it wasn't great, and what they
were unhappy about that actually saying What do you want, then
what's going to work? Tell me what you do need it to feel like
and lots of people said lots of things like, well, we don't want
the silos, but when you unpicked it, they worked in a way that
we're driving the silos. You know, that culture and strategy
stuff is very interlinked. The strategy was written in a way
that kind of drove siloing in the organisation because it was
kind of like three pillars of delivery and those teams had
their own governance, so unpicking some of those things
also helped the culture. So I think it was a few things. The
first was an investment in a big programme about values and
unpicking the values in the organisation, we got a lot of
people with dementia, as well involved in a conversation about
1800 people across the board. What should our values be what
really matters here? I'm really talking about then saying you
can hold your own values. Of course, that's what diversity
and inclusion is about. But if you don't do these four things,
if you are not absolutely determined to make a difference
for dementia, and believe we can, if you don't see yourself
as being in a position of being a trusted expert, not the
trusted expert, but as a trusted expert in your area in your
space with that quality and confidence of your work that you
know you are operating a trusted expert space. If you don't think
about working better together, you don't really want to work in
an inclusive way. And you are not committed to compassionate
leadership and all that entails including having difficult
conversations, it doesn't matter what your other values are,
you're not going to fit in here, you're going to constantly butt
up against this, because this is what we're going to base our
future going forward on. So I think that was a really powerful
discussion, we brought, you know, brought loads of people in
on that debate started to look at that I said, I'm not writing
these values on paper that were sticking up in, I don't know,
you have to put up in your own bedroom, we haven't got a
kitchen and a water cooler to pin them on anymore. But we're
not going to do that we're going to really start to work on
challenging that. And I will be demonstrating it explicitly,
every single time I talk to you talking about transparency, we
manage the whole of the pandemic, really based on
radical candour. So being incredibly honest with people
about what was going on, you know, where we would be up to so
just constantly role modelling that getting to a point at which
we were getting people feeling more confident about speaking up
using some constant measures of that. And then just kind of
consistently rolling that out to the, you know, the directors
were already very bought into that. One of the things we then
add knowledge was the art director tier went straight into
our heads of tear, we had about 65 heads off, working into kind
of five directors at that point. And saying, that's too big a gap
to this real cultural embedding this real role modelling at
senior leadership levels of what good looks like, you know,
walking the walk, as well as talking the talk, we need more
senior leadership and we put in an associate director tier, some
of that was financial investment. Some of that was
some restructuring. And that associate director tear, you
know, put some hierarchy in very odd thing to do coming out of
pandemic when everybody was financially struggling and
Alzheimer's Society put a new management tier in, but it just
unlocked so much stuff, because we've now got 16 outstanding
leaders working under the directors doing a lot of that
transitional work, like, what does the culture mean in your
team holding culture to account and lots of stuff everybody does
work for surveys really strengthened our employee forum,
listening exercises, but mainly just really hard and a role
modelling constantly pulling people up on stuff that was then
anti culture, talking through how do you do that. And its
culture is constantly evolving. I think that's got people into a
brilliant place. We were really, really chuffed with our results
for the times top 100. You know, they they were superb. We've put
a lot of network groups in, we've won awards for things like
being a menopause employer. We took a lot of soundings from our
employee work forum on how to deal with things like pay and
cost of living challenges. And we were able to work really
sensitively around that. Lots of workforce flexibility and in
demonstrating this compassionate culture. So it's just been
holding tight to it and not letting it be fadi, we've just
absolutely built on it for the last three years, and I think
we're getting somewhere and loads more to do. We've got more
to do around accountability, control culture, you know, how
do we pass decisions down the organisation and hold people to
account for those decisions. So tonnes more to do.
Paul Thomas: It's funny because both Zoe and I run digital,
transformation digital change agencies, I guess, and I'm
working on a project at the moment that's very much focused
on the technology side of that and one of the sort of the
themes or the big pillars that they want to work on is enabling
employee voice within the organisation. And all of this
all of the Microsoft technology, really you need to look at
technology that's being put out into the market. All the
Microsoft technology is all built around enabling input,
employee voice connection, community, conversation,
collaboration, all the C's. And it's interesting to then sort of
say, well, yeah, we want to enable employee voice. And then
the leaders will know what the employees want. And it's like,
well, you can't enable employees to have a voice within the
organisation unless you step up as a leadership team, and role
model and set the example. And unless you're prepared to have a
really open, proper two way conversation, all of this
technology is going to fall down around your is not going to
work, it's going not going to be the investment that you wanted
to make. So I think that's a crucial, crucial point of so
many of these big projects that role modelling from leaders
point of view just has to be the case, certainly, for truth
technology projects going to be true of any kind of project that
you want to put into place. But that's the most important parts
of me.
Kate Lee: Yeah, I mean, we've been having a lot of
conversations similarly about both employee voice, but
obviously the voice of volunteers, but also the voice
of people with dementia in the organisation. And one of the big
things we've done over the last three years, and I'm a really
big advocate for is saying, it's not just about employee voice,
you know, dementia voice, is about power. And actually, the
discussion here is about power sharing in the organisation.
It's not about just talking and hearing, it is not about saying
people with dementia, you know, we've got all these masses of
ways that we use brilliant technology to, you know, really
engage with people in dementia and hear what they have to say,
if what we then do or our employees, what we then do is
put that through a filter, often, you know, loaded with
unconscious bias, about, you know, pulling out what the best
bits were that kind of feed what we wanted to do anyway,
actually, what you need to do is really look at how do you
transition power down the organisation so that, you know,
I sit over there employee forum and say, here are your options,
these three would all work. Which one do you want? And, you
know, they'll look, they were they used to and they start,
they'd be like, which one would you do? And I'd say, Well, let's
talk about which ones you'd like and don't like first. And at
first, you know, they'd be like, yeah, we'll default to the one
that you clearly like, number one case, we'll do number one.
Now, they're really great. They're pushing back like going
wait, well, we want a fourth option. Actually, these three
don't work. You know, we've been talking about pay. So we involve
our employee forum, we set a financial window of what we can
afford as a percentage for a pay bill rise next year. And then we
sit down with our employee forum, and we go How do you want
to allocate it then? So we can only afford 5%? Don't tell us
you want 20% or 18%. We aren't unionised. But we've worked out
we can afford 5%. How do you want to allocate in what do you
want to do? What do you think the organisation challenges are?
Let's look at the data. And we give, we are looking
consistently at how we hand power over to people not just
voice. And that's one of the things that I think sometimes I
feel quite frustrated about saying, there's loads of way we
can do voice. So I do a Monday morning briefing, I used to
throw it out in the pandemic all myself, now I do one about every
six weeks and other people do. But we have a Monday morning
briefing 10 till half past 10. Every single Monday, for the
last three and a half years. We have about five to 600 people
tune in on a Monday and about five to 600 people do it on
listen back every single week. And we take a really massive
range of topics, internal, external, we've talked about how
do you spot domestic violence, when someone works online right
through to here's what the research team are doing in how
to be curious. We've got discussions coming up about
super chickens, we take all sorts of stuff every single
week, and that's good voice. You know, the chats open, people can
say what they want. We do ask us anything. So I go online every
single month. And people can ask any any question they want. When
I first did that, over 50% of staff only would ask a question
anonymously. Now nobody asks anonymously, everyone puts their
name. And so we've got loads of ways that we hear from the
organisation but what I think is quite interesting is how do you
pass power into the organisation so that people really do own
that and you can do that but that's balanced against the
accountability you know, I say we can trust these are good
people making good choices, and doing their best work. And when
you're not and you can't tell me why it was a good choice or why
it was your best work because then we'll have a tougher
discussion about you know, your performance. But how you pass
power I think is also something that is quite exercising in
organisations like ours where money is sometimes plentiful,
and then you know, in three weeks time we could be skin
again, you know, as is the way of of many charities.
Zoe Amar: And how do you get people to feel more comfortable
with that process? Because I loved your point about the
employee form, how they're comfortable with power sharing
now. But at the start of that journey, they weren't they sort
of defaulted to that, or some power, oh goodness... How do you
get people comfortable with that?
Kate Lee: I think there's something about consistency.
Actually, I think there's something about leadership and
consistency helps. Because if you say, well, you can make
these decisions, you can make these decisions, you can make
these decisions. And then we can't make this one. But without
explaining why, and we have changed decisions that they've
made. And, and we've tried to really go back and I've taken
time out to say, I know you recommended X, I know, it was
what you really, really strongly wanted. And here are my reasons
why we just can't move forward with that. So adult
conversations... Our compassionate leadership value
is built on saying, you know, we are all adults in this
organisation, we all love it the same as everybody else. Nobody
loves it more than anybody else. We just don't always agree
what's right for it. And the debate is what's right for it,
you know, that that is the debating space, and we will have
that debate as adults. And so I think that has really helped
with our employee forum, we talk a lot about their successes, you
know, they know that they've challenged on some stuff and
consistently give them credit for the decisions they do make.
So I will say, you know, we've had Monday morning briefings
where I've said, Oh, I only wanted to give you x but the
employee forum have made an incredibly strong case as to why
we need to change this part of the flexible working policy to
be better than that. Really good examples on paid carers leave.
You know, we made a recommendation, the employee
forum push back very hard saying, you know, given the
implications of dementia for carers, why wouldn't we have,
like, world class practice around, carers leave, carer
support. That was a really, really good challenge. And then
going back and admitting, you know, to the organisation, this
is what the employee forum did. So we're just working through
that. I'm training in development, you know, for them,
as well.
Zoe Amar: So it's quite a gradual process, I understand,
isn't it? Because I think it presumably involves us all
unlearning those traditional relationships that we all have
with power?
Kate Lee: I mean, that's a really good point. I mean, I
think it does take some of that, and particularly an organisation
that's shifting quite dramatically from one style of
chief exec to another style of chief exec, you know, and we may
well change again, and I think, understanding I think, certainly
when I've worked in transformational change, one of
the things I've realised is that you, you can end up very quickly
with an organisation quite dependent on you as chief exec
and your style as chief exec driving this culture in change.
And EDI is a big area of that, that I've probably been slightly
stung on while I've been at Alzheimer's Society, and I'm
very, very passionate about EDI. You know, I've set up a lot of
networks, I attend them myself, I'm really passionately driven.
And what I started to realise is that we ended up with a little
bit of a culture going on in the organisation where people were
like, Oh, we feel we can speak out, you know, I went to our
equity network, which is our race equality network. And they
were saying, Oh, we feel we can speak up, because you're here,
Kate, you know, and you get why we feel badly about this. But if
you weren't here, you know, well, we're not sure we can
speak up. And I was like, that's just that kind of hero cult
isn't going to work for long term sustainable, EDI change. So
actually looking at what that takes in the terms of other
leaders being engaged in that debate and that discussion, and
some of that unlearning that you don't need the chief exec to
say, Yes, this matters for it to matter. Actually, other people
have power in the organisation, as long as they're saying it
matters. It's also going to keep momentum going as well. You
know, the employee forum feel really strongly about this, we
will get changed in this area, because they feel strongly about
it. And it is slightly unlearning that rather than it's
just new chief exec, different chief exec, different thing
they're interested in those things will be in the sun for a
short while and when she moves on, they'll go again. So how do
you protect against that?
Zoe Amar: That's so interesting. Kate, we know you're really busy
just before you head off. I love the point you made when we
chatted early this summer about EDI and fit and really
challenging people on that thing that we all say "oh so and so
wouldn't quite fit here". Can you tell us a bit about that
because I think that's a great closing thought to end on.
Kate Lee: Yeah, I've been... a phrase that I really struggle
with and have always struggled with throughout my own EDI
journey is when people go, look you know, I'm completely open to
having anyone in this team. You know, it would be great to have
more people of colour in this team. I love to see you know
more... You know, single moms who haven't got quite the same
work flexibility, it's fine, like anybody's here. But we
didn't employ that person because they don't. And I was
like, Yeah, but you've still just recruited another, you
know, white middle class female into your team again. And I've
been challenging this issue about people saying, they don't
quite fit. And asking them what they mean when they say fit.
Because they say, you know, this isn't, you know, I'm not racist,
I'm not sexist, you know, I'm very comfortable with someone
with a disability, but they just didn't fit and saying, What do
you mean, they didn't fit? Well, when I interviewed them, you
know, I just saw a bit of an uncomfortable, you know,
difference. And so we've been doing some work, I've been doing
some work exploring what people mean, when they say fit, and
have been pushing back saying, okay, so they didn't fit in the
interview, you maybe found them a bit challenging, but, you
know, they haven't been through Western European education
system. You know, they haven't maybe had parents who have
worked in professional roles. And a brilliant example, I can't
remember if I shared this in the summer. But someone that was
saying she's got line management potential. This is a great
phrase. And I was challenged by a young, fantastic black female
member of the team who said, Have I not got leadership? Have
I not got line management potential because neither of my
parents were a line manager and I don't know what you mean. I
don't, I've never had somebody who's managed someone else in my
entire family. And if I'm not showing line management
potential, maybe it's because I don't quite understand what you
mean. And those young people in this organisation who both their
parents line manage someone, you know, they've heard those
discussions over the dinner table, you know, they've heard
their parents in the car talking about oh, so and so's driving me
mad, I'll have to bring HR in to deal with that. I have had none
of that access. And so what I'm saying is, when you're talking
about fit, or potential, you're basing it on some really
underpinning premises about fit with the way I went to school,
the way I was brought up the way I think is the right way. And
for all your difference, and diversity and equality, just the
way you talk isn't quite my fit. And the other. The other example
I've used as I've interviewed, a brilliant, very experienced,
woman from the Caribbean, Jamaican heritage. And she
really challenged me back and I remembered my own time, I spent
some time in Trinidad, when I worked for Red Cross. She
challenged me back saying, You know what? I am a storyteller.
Culturally, I am a storyteller. And I know in interviews you
Brits all love, you know, you're just testing brevity, how
quickly I can answer your questions. And, you know, I'm
gonna tell you a story, because that is my heritage and my
culture. And if I take longer to answer an interview question,
it's because that's who I am. And if you want to test brevity,
just bring in your, you know, Northern European colleagues,
you know, that's what you will love. And it was a great
challenge. I was like, Oh, you are so right. Why do we even do
interviews this way? So really, testing fit? You know, someone's
saying, well, I don't know she'd fit. She was a bit waffly. Was
she waffly or does she come from a heritage that's a
storytelling. So I've just been fascinating. We just haven't the
funkiest debates at Alzheimer's Society.
Zoe Amar: I love that challenge. What a great note to end on.
Thank you so much, Kate, thank you for the work you're doing
challenging what a charity looks like, what growth looks like,
and above all, what leadership looks like. So thank you so much
for coming on. It's just been like having a wonderful post
lunch expresso talking to you. Thank you.
Kate Lee: Always, always. Lovely to see you both. And thanks so
much for inviting me.
Paul Thomas: Thank you. And thank you for bringing football
to the podcast without me having to mention it.
Kate Lee: Always, always. We have so many footballing
analogies in the Society, we've been talking about who are our
strikers.
Paul Thomas: Strikers and goalkeepers they're the
important ones.
Kate Lee: Always.
Paul Thomas: Midfield engine. We could go on, we could go on, we
could go on. Thank you very much. Thank you so much to Kate
for taking time out of her schedule to come on to the
podcast. We really enjoyed speaking with her and I hope you
enjoyed listening. As we said at the top of the episode, this is
the last episode until the new year. So we'd like to thank all
of our guests and all of our listeners for their support
throughout 2023 as well as our sponsors Arvato CRM Solutions.
Zoe Amar: Yes, a big thank you to Arvato CRM Solutions for
making this podcast possible. And thank you to everyone who's
been a guest and to our listeners as well. Special thank
you to Syren Studios for their continued support prepping and
editing each episode, and to Helen for keeping us on track
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Paul Thomas: Thank you to Syren in particular for putting up
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Paul Thomas: See you then, and bye for now.