Zoe Amar 0:04 We are delighted that this episode of Starts at the Top is sponsored by Arvato CRM Solutions. Arvato CRM Solutions designs and delivers award winning customer service, business process outsourcing, and digital and intelligent automation solutions with some of the world's most respected brands, as well as innovative charity and public sector clients. They partner with clients to help them define their customer experience and transformation strategies by implementing the right technology, people and processes to improve their customer journey while driving new efficiencies and helping them prepare for the future. To find out more about how Arvato CRM Solutions could help an organisation like yours, and to receive a free no obligation chat visit arvato.co.uk/walesairambulance Kate Lee 1:02 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 1:25 Welcome to a brand new episode of Starts at the Top, our podcast about leadership digital and change. I'm Paul Thomas. Zoe Amar 1:32 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 1:41 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 2:01 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 2:31 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 3:08 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 3:58 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 4:40 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. Paul Thomas 4:58 Definitely. Zoe Amar 4:58 And it's been a great year for books too. So as you've 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 5:39 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 6:43 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 7:48 And he's just won another tournament hasn't he. Zoe Amar 7:49 He has yes, he has. Yes, I was cheering him on. I don't know what's happened to me, but I seem to become a snooker fan. [Laughs] Paul Thomas 7:52 You're gonna be queuing up for Crucible tickets later next year. Zoe Amar 8:02 Maybe, maybe. Can offer me those for Christmas then? [Laughs] Paul Thomas 8:07 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 10:05 Oh, bless you. Paul Thomas 10:05 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 10:12 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 10:53 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 11:40 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 12:42 Perfect. Here is our conversation with Kate Lee. Zoe Amar 12:46 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 14:30 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 14:37 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 15:00 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 16:08 And what were those techniques? And how did you have to adapt them? Kate Lee 16:13 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 18:03 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 18:30 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 19:48 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 20:05 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 21:15 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 21:46 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 24:17 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 24:41 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 26:58 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 27:12 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 31:05 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 32:08 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 36:46 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 37:27 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 38:55 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 39:53 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 47:17 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 48:44 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 52:41 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 53:00 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 54:50 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 55:02 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 56:57 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 57:20 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 1:01:14 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 1:01:34 Always, always. Lovely to see you both. And thanks so much for inviting me. Paul Thomas 1:01:38 Thank you. And thank you for bringing football to the podcast without me having to mention it. Kate Lee 1:01:44 Always, always. We have so many footballing analogies in the Society, we've been talking about who are our strikers. Paul Thomas 1:01:52 Strikers and goalkeepers they're the important ones. Kate Lee 1:01:54 Always. Paul Thomas 1:01:55 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 1:02:22 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 with our marketing efforts. Please do subscribe to our newsletter, which is in the show notes so you can keep in touch with all the latest episodes that way. Paul Thomas 1:02:49 Thank you to Syren in particular for putting up with us. Well, me really, we really do appreciate it. And as always, you can support the podcast by leaving us a five star review. Other numbers of stars are available, but they're just not as helpful. So wherever you listen to us, whether that's Apple podcast, Spotify, or Google for all the time that that has left in existence, you can you can rate and review us on all of those. Zoe Amar 1:03:14 And if this podcast has made you think of someone who you hadn't spoken to in a while then hit Share and do send this episode on to someone else. Thank you for listening this year and we will see you in 2024. Paul Thomas 1:03:28 See you then, and bye for now. Transcribed by https://otter.ai