Life Beyond The Numbers

"Businesses are fairly unhappy places to be at the moment. People, young people, bright people who've done everything right, who've got a good education they've paid through the noses for, who've worked hard and they've got into these elite organisations and are saying "Is this it? Is this what I want to do?" They look 30 years ahead 40 years ahead to the bosses and say, "Is that what I want to be...

"We're really focused on the core fundamentals of organisational clarity, communicating that clarity, over-communicating that clarity, minimising confusion and politics. And when that's present, then you have the good stuff. And for me, the good stuff is that you're creating that environment for people to flourish and thrive." Sheila Walsh.    Sheila Walsh takes me through the tumultuous year in a...

"We have a very progressive organisation that values its people, but the most satisfying and motivating thing about an organisation like Pukka is the genuine feeling that we are making decisions for the right reasons." John Collins   John Collins saw his accounting qualification as a passport and had opportunities to travel with Diageo - he says he was a 'walking stereotype' (Irish, red-hair and w...

"A professional summary and professional summaries, in general, tend to be these sort of really abstract statements." "There's no sort of connection to the human being. It could be anybody. I'm like, well, let's try to find a way where we can actually write these professional summaries that relate to the human being on this piece of paper." Megan Haupt.   Megan Haupt started career storytelling as...

"We are, the first international mentoring scheme for public finance, the first, scheme to be totally virtual for public financial by management." "I see public finance by women as being a powerful network to try and influence the status quo and change the status quo." Gillian Fawcett.     Throughout her career, Gillian has focused on making public services more efficient and more effective on a l...

In this episode, I've pulled together some insights from guests on 'work-life balance' - what is work-life balance, how do you know you have it, does it exist and more.   I introduce the episode with an overview of 'body-budgeting' - a phrase coined by neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett.  She is the author of 'How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of The Brain'.   This episode i...

This week's episode includes a selection of insights from seven of the first 21 episodes.   We start off with stories of how we can compromise ourselves at work from Mags de Valois (#13) and Mark Samowitz (#21). Then a story from Helen Joy (#6) about how your personal life influences your work life but also how you can learn from good and bad experiences.   Marcus Thompson (#15) tells us the secre...

"And if you don't understand the language and the financial impacts of the words being used in that language you're completely in the dark, right? No wonder people are dead scared and have this fear.  So we want to remove the fear of the language and empower people to speak finance confidently."  Mark Samowitz.   We chat about the fear non-finance people often experience when it comes to working w...

"I have been in situations in the workplace where it was just a toxic environment. How do we protect workers from entering into that type of scenario? How do we help companies to make better decisions when it comes to hiring to help them to retain staff, to create a better and more collaborative environment. But also how do we match?" "How do you find that match between a person and an organisatio...

"If we can understand other people's culture, whether it's racial culture or national or organisational we are then in a better place to start making those bridges and making sure that we can work together effectively and actually benefiting from other people's cultures and understanding."  John Cammack.     John began his career in International Development with the job title Disasters Accountant...

"I realised, okay, so I've done all this left-brain clever stuff, you know, like accounting, finance, languages, strategy, marketing, dah, dah, dah. I feel suicidal. So clearly I am missing something.  My father was in sales, my brother is in sales and I realised there were people who were far less academic than me who were leading much happier lives and were not trying to kill themselves." John P...

"...one of the days the security guard said to me, "why weren't you in on Sunday?" It was like, Oh God, I know I haven't got this right."  "...the last couple of months have shown us that spending time, doing things with people you love and being able to take time to read books and go for walks ..... makes you more productive at work."  Kim Bowden.     Kim got into accountancy by accident and has...

"And it's a real skill to be able to distill your thoughts and message:  what is it that I want to say, what structure is best to put around this and then how you say it. And it's one of those things in life that can be easier said than done." Elaine Lynch.     If you are curious about how you can improve your communication skills this episode is for you.  Elaine and I talk about Toastmasters Inte...

"Listen, question your assumptions and start with thinking the best of people." Marcus Thompson.     Marcus worked with Oxfam in many roles including emergency and humanitarian response.  Marcus speaks about deploying to Cambodia in 1979 and being in Ethiopia in 1984.  We discuss the individual traits best suited to those who respond to emergencies as well as the need for accountants on emergency...

"How can I create a checklist on being kind?  How can I ask in each situation I find myself in, how can I be magic in this situation?" "How can I apply the magic formula? How can I be magic in this situation?" John Hayns.    John and I talk about how important influencing skills are as a magician and in life.  He explains his philosophy of kindness as a choice. Magic, for example, is not about try...

"As you go through your career you learn what you're good at. And one of the things I've been very lucky to have been able to do is to choose the things that I'm good at and leave behind the things that I'm not so good at and have the confidence to say, do you know what actually that's not really my bag".  Margaret de Valois.   Mags and I talk about how sometimes we don't make choices in life but...

"Everyone seems to have some negativity, some frustration, some disappointment, even at times, anger towards recruiters.  And  when you repeatedly hear that, pretty much every conversation, you have to take a step back, which I did a few years ago..."  "And that's where I've made the decision over the last 12, 18 months to research plan and then bring to market something that I hope will bring som...

"...whether it's your job, your business, your relationships, your personal finances....the decisions you make right now - what's the impact on people, planet and economy? And that's effectively what sustainability is."   Sarah Whale.   Sarah Whale founder of Profit Impact, and voice of reason, talks about sustainability in plain English.  She shines a light on 5 Pillars for an organisation:  Fina...

“Feelings aren't a beacon of eternal truth. They're a negotiation. They're always real because they are a perception inside of you, but it doesn't mean that they are accurate, useful, or true they're things that need to be negotiated. We can reframe them and construct them differently.” Steve Haines Steve Haines takes us in-depth on the transformative power of learning to connect with our bodies w...

“I think that phrase is probably the tipping point where I was saying to myself, ok, I am not going to just keep the score I'm gonna make the numbers happen.” Jerry Harris Jerry began his career with KPMG and tells us about various roles as an FD, a FD-COO hybrid, a commercial director and as a Non-Exec. He explains the importance of the human touch in recruitment and managing first impressions wh...

“We put a lot of pressure ourselves to always be right and feel like we need to know the answer. And actually sometimes it's okay not to know the answer. And I think that's a sign of strength as well as to put your hand up say “I don't know” but I I'll go find out or I'll ask someone to help; that’s strength.” Andrew Codd.   Andrew tells us of an amazing gift he received early in his career and ho...

“Every human needs to have some form of connection, a deep connection with someone, whether that's your family, whether that's friends, we all need that kind of connection”. Clay Moffat.   Clay tells us about being a delinquent in school and his early career.  And then an incident cost him a promotion and got him kicked out of his division. He began to reflect on what he contributed to that situat...

“Give your people, the opportunity to do what they're best at, do it to the best of their abilities and the responsibility to get on and direct. And the trust to make that happen. They will bring you so much back.” Helen Joy.  Helen tells us about how in her first management role she was awful as she was afraid of being seen to be weak so she changed into this person she thought she should and for...

“I've just finished a book actually”. "I called it a Ginger Haired Underdog’s Comical Journey to the Top, although I don't know where they actually got to the top, but I've got quite near the top. I wanted summit that reflected my personality, but also had a serious message.” Gary Cox. Gary went from being a fork-lift driver in a company to a member of the finance team. Building from his CIMA qual...

“But what I think we've got to remember is. You’re never the finished model of anything, you know, you, you're always the sort of prototype of yourself.” “Well, people used to say that you're only good as your last job, but that sounds so negative like that. You know, you're always a prototype of yourself”.  Gary Cox. In Part II Gary and I continue our discussion on feedback and talk about managin...