Why Care? #21: Pat Phelan - Self-Reflection as a Superpower
“I asked the team – Where should I go? What should I read? What should I look at? I had conversations with my own team members around certain areas that genuinely I didn’t quite understand…..I would have been the first person in the world to say ‘I do not see colour, I do not see gender’…..and it’s the most cliched, most inaccurate thing someone in my position could ever say”
In the first episode of Season 3, I am joined by Pat Phelan, Chief Customer Officer at GoCardless. As well as being our Season 3 premiere, this episode is a special one as unlike the majority of my guests, Pat isn’t a DEI professional, but rather a business leader who ‘gets it’ and truly role models inclusive leadership. During the episode Pat talks about the stages of self-awareness and reflection he went through to acknowledge his privileges. It’s a journey from self-admitted ignorance to inclusion, and why he thinks there is no single definition of a good leader.
We open the episode by discussing Pat’s life journey. He describes his early years as being quite unplanned, drifting where the winds took him – which included all the way over to Dubai to sell carpets! Eventually returning to London, he often found himself doing ‘leadership things in non-leadership roles’ as many leadership skills came naturally to him. This eventually evolved into actual leadership roles, putting him on the path to his current position.
Pat then acknowledges that on reflection, being able to move into a leadership position without really planning to, was a large example of privilege. Pat goes on to talk about his journey from being rather ignorant about DEI related topics, including the infamous “I don’t see colour” line, to becoming an inclusive leader. He describes GoCardless’s courageous response and conversations following the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 were a real catalyst for this growth.
The final section of our conversation, Pat explains what he feels it means to be a good and inclusive leader. Pat shares that he believes there is no one single defined way to be a good leader, but he outlines a collection of qualities that are important to good leadership. These include: self-reflection and introspection, normalising failure, self accountability, respectfulness and putting in the energy.
Links:
Pat can be found on LinkedIn at Pat Phelan
For more from GoCardless visit their website at: https://gocardless.com
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Transcript
Pat Phelan
There is a fear that you say the wrong thing. There is a fear that your lack of understanding comes out as ignorance or again, back to privilege or whatever that might be. But I remember making a really conscious decision at that point in time that I'm going to educate myself now. I have to educate myself if I'm going to be a good leader if I'm going to really start to understand things that are outside of my realm and fundamentally just not have any inherent non-deliberate biases, but just inherent ones because of my experiences, I've got to push myself.
Nadia Nagamootoo
Hi, my name is Nadia Nagamootoo; a business psychologist, coach, speaker, and founder of Avenir Consulting, which creates organizational growth and success via inclusion and diversity. We've been discussing the benefits that diversity brings to a company's bottom-line performance for decades with more and more evidence. But there are so many questions organizations still have about how to achieve it. How do you create a culture where people feel valued for their uniqueness and the qualities they bring? I believe it's crucial to the future success and sustainability of every organization that they find the answer to this question to make sure that each employee is not only supported but also appreciated.
With this podcast, I aim to get some of the key challenges to creating inclusive workplaces out in the open and start uncovering the solutions to embracing a culture that cares for everyone. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most inspiring people in different countries and across industries who are pushing the boundaries on inclusion and diversity in the workplace from topics such as parenting in the workplace, ethnicity, age, gender, mental health, and all things inclusion. I want to create a movement to change society by sharing life experiences and creating more empathy and connection. Why care? I believe that once we have organizations and societies that accept and value everyone for who they are, we become healthier, happier, and better in our roles both inside and outside work.
Nadia Nagamootoo
Hello and a huge welcome to season three of my “Why Care? Podcast.” This is set to be a phenomenal season. I'm so excited to share the DEI discussions that I've had with some incredible minds, passionate leaders, and inspiring people. First, on the season 3 list, I speak to one of the most genuine and insightful leaders that I have come across, Pat Phelan. Pat is the chief customer officer at GoCardless. Over the past 20-plus years, he's held multiple leadership roles in both AMEA and globally and operated in industries such as E-com, HR tech, and social media management. What I love most about talking to Pat is his self-awareness and his ability to say what he's great at and also what he just has no clue about.
We discuss the fears that inevitably come up when stepping into the space of inclusive leadership and how he was made to feel safe to enter a different and challenging conversation. Pat shares the fundamental skills of an inclusive leader and how he creates an environment in his team where they can have productive conflict and collaborate despite disagreement. This episode is packed with insights and best practices. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Pat, welcome to the “Why Care? Podcast.” It's fabulous to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.
Pat Phelan
Nice to be here. Thanks for asking me.
Nadia Nagamootoo
We've only really just met, and this is only our second conversation, however, I was totally inspired by the first time we spoke, and I really just felt we need to share your story because as a leader and someone who's not a specialist in diversity and inclusion, because many of the guests on the “Why Care? Podcast”, they have a diversity, equity, and inclusion background and they're very much sharing what's going on in their organization through that lens. But as a senior leader at GoCardless, I was intrigued by your story but also curious about how you've developed that understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion. So, I'm so happy that you're a guest on the show. So, thank you.
Pat Phelan
It’s a pleasure.
Nadia Nagamootoo
So maybe just by way of introduction initially, you could just briefly share your career path. So, what drew you to leadership?
Pat Phelan
Yeah, I mean it's a good question. It's definitely one I reflect on a regular basis. I was actually talking to someone this morning a little bit about that. My career path I mean as would probably anyone of my generation has been less than linear, I would say. I started out back in Ireland, the first one in my immediate family to go to university, I didn't particularly realize the privilege I had at the time, like most people, I dragged my way through the first year. I finally got my act together and eventually went to Dubai as part of my first role believe it or not. I actually sold carpets in Dubai for something like 11 to 12 months back in 1996 or 7, I think it was an Irish company.
Nadia Nagamootoo
Were you good at selling carpets?
Pat Phelan
Not great. I was good at making relationships and that was kind of the first step into the workforce. When I came back to London, I followed a path really, which was based on being around people and bigger groups and just the excitement that London brings to anybody who is 21 or 22. From a leadership point of view, again reflecting a lot on that, I think the early stage of my career was very much based around being a leader without being one if that makes sense. I've always had a general sense of knowing how to engage people and how to motivate people. When I think about my first maybe seven or eight years as an individual contributor and there definitely was a theme that was recurring where I found people coming to me a lot for either advice or a little bit of direction in some cases. I found it very natural for me to engage with others when I saw scenarios that were maybe not working properly or uncomfortable and I was always very open and honest with people. So, it was very interesting. When I look back on that, it was in no way deliberate, it was a very natural motion that I've always kind of had. For a long time, I've always put that down, quite frankly culturally Irish people are genuinely fairly well-liked and were fairly fluid in terms of how we engage with people. It was really only in the last probably 10 years that I started to realize actually it's not just about that, it's actually something that I think I enjoy that comes very naturally to me and I feel like it's reciprocated in most situations that I'm in.
That kind of evolved into leadership quite naturally. Again, never deliberate on my part. I never looked at a role and thought I want to be a leader, I want to be a manager, it was complete evolution. It's really fascinating now to look at that journey in the context of diversity and inclusion, in the context of the conversation around the privilege that I would've had and that I have had. That's the bit that's really, really interesting to me as I think about it and genuinely think quite deeply about it. With the opportunities I’ve had, there is skill involved and there's ability involved, but also it feels very luxurious for me to say that I never planned this, it just happened to me. It's really interesting as I look at my teams now and as I look at my groups and make sure that you don't apply a similar kind of naive lens to their journeys. That's a really interesting view as I look at how I've progressed.
Nadia Nagamootoo
So actually you raised a really interesting point there where you called it luxurious, the luxury of just having the potential of being a leader. I suppose what I’ve heard from you was that you took it for granted at the time, that it was a possibility you could always go into a leadership position if you wanted to and if you wish to. And so there's something that when we spoke last time, you really mentioned particularly 2020 - May 2020 with Black Lives Matter and that sort of new conversation that entered GoCardless in particular. And I'm really keen just to hear again that realization because it hasn't been something that you've always been aware of that other people haven't had the same opportunities as you.
Pat Phelan
Yeah, absolutely.
Nadia Nagamootoo
Could you talk a little bit about that?
Pat Phelan
Yeah, yeah. Happy to. It still feels naive when I even talk about it now in terms of where I was versus where I would say I am on topics like that at the moment. And over the course of certainly my career, I've always had the ability to have opportunities that were solely based on let's say my own skill or a perception of what I was capable of. And as I look at my progress, there's no doubt that certain elements of that opportunity were also based on a like-for-like kind of basis - Where a lot of the people that were making decisions were like me or I was like them. Either culturally or from a gender perspective but there was a comfort in that there was a connection there that just kind of potentially made it that little bit easier on reflection as well.
I think the scenarios in 2020, as we went through that period, GoCardless as a business I think was just spectacular in terms of how we handled that particular topic and that situation. What was super impressive about Black Lives Matter at that time was the team that engaged on that topic did so in a way that felt incredibly inclusive when it could have been very different. It could have felt very easily like a scenario of one versus another, but it didn't. The team really over-indexed on education and they over-indexed on starting the conversation around the topic.
Nadia Nagamootoo
What do you mean by they’ve over-indexed on education? What exactly did they do?
Pat Phelan
They spent so much time over the course of that week explaining the origins of where we are today. I still get goosebumps thinking about it because there were so many of those webinars and it was all on Zoom obviously. So we were all remote. It was humbling and cathartic for me walking away thinking I genuinely have no clue, I have no idea. So then the next question is like, how do I make sure I educate myself from this point forward? And one of the really difficult kinds of conversations to have in scenarios like that is there is a fear that you say the wrong thing. There is a fear that your lack of understanding comes out as ignorance or again, back to privilege or whatever that might be. But I remember making a really conscious decision at that point in time that I'm going to educate myself now. I have to educate myself if I'm going to be a good leader, if I'm going to really start to understand things that are outside of my realm and fundamentally just not have any inherent non-deliberate biases but just inherent ones because of my experiences; I've got to push myself.
It was just really interesting that from that point forward I had some genuinely really good conversations with people on the team on areas and topics that I didn't understand. But for the first time, I genuinely felt okay to ask without fear of me looking stupid basically, or looking like I don't know what I'm talking about here. I asked the team where should I go. What should I read? What should I look at? I had conversations with my own team members about certain areas that genuinely I didn't quite understand.
Nadia Nagamootoo
For example?
Pat Phelan
A really good example is for a long time I would be the first person in the world and it just embarrasses me to say it, but I'll say it because I think it's important. I would've been the first person in the world to say I do not see colour, I do not see gender. Looking at it now and having researched it, it is the most cliched, most inaccurate thing someone in my position could ever say. It's because of these conversations that I actually understood now why that is absolutely counterproductive because my take on it now is like, it's not about not seeing it. You have to understand the different paths that people take and the different obstacles that were in front of people as they take those paths in order to be able to engage with folks in a different way.
That doesn't mean to say that you have to over-prioritize one versus another, but in order for me to make and create an environment that is genuinely inclusive, I have to understand what got people to this point as best I can. And where I can't or feel like there are still gaps or naturally will be, let's say again I go back to this concept of inherent gaps that just are part of my own lived experiences, it's just there. Then I have to have people around me that can plug those gaps and I have to be comfortable to be able to say, if you can't talk to me, you need somebody to be able to talk to. That was the biggest takeaway I think I've had career-wise in that context and it really is something that's front and centre in my mind right now and always and has been since then.
Nadia Nagamootoo
How has that shaped your leadership? How do you see yourself now in how you lead and reflect back to your leadership prior to 2020?
Pat Phelan
Yeah, I think it's added another dimension to the way I lead and my thought process around leadership which I think is hopefully going to make me a little bit better at what I do. I'd always consider myself reasonably reflective and fairly empathetic in terms of the fact that I do put myself in people's shoes a lot when I make decisions and when I think about what the strategy of the organization needs to be. Up to maybe that point, a lot of me putting myself in people's shoes would usually have evolved around areas like career progression or ability or level. What would I feel like if I was an entry-level intern and what would I feel like if I was a manager? Like I'd be pretty good at kind of looking at those scenarios and connecting the dots. Obviously, gender diversity has been front and centre for a long time and it would’ve probably over the years evolved into a kind of an ability to be able to now add that dimension into how I think it would feel in a performance review. Let’s say we don’t have a salary conversation when we probably should have if it was a male or a female. Understanding that there are certain things that certain groups are going to do better or not than others doesn’t mean you just don't do it. It means that you just have to create a different environment to let that surface or advocate on someone's behalf, quite frankly, when they're not in the room.
That was a lens I was very comfortable with that I kind of understood, definitely, just general diversity. When it comes to just cultural diversity, that was an area that I have to say I gave little or no thought to, not deliberately at all, but it was more from a lack of understanding, but also almost like being dogmatic about what I said earlier, which is I don’t see things like this, but I felt like that’s a good thing. So that was my box ticked if you like. So it wasn’t that I wasn’t aware of cultural diversity, it was that I prided myself on being kind of like, I don’t even think about that when I do this stuff. That kind of taught me again I have to, and I have to if I want to create a safe environment, if I want to create a truly diverse environment, not just in terms of thought, education, and ability, but from a cultural perspective, from an inclusive perspective, I have to add that lens into things now. And I have to look at it in the context of how would I feel if I was here and I’m seeing this and how would I absorb that from now maybe 4 or 5 different lenses of which this is now. I’m really challenged if I’m honest, in terms of how and had been in terms of how I got on that path. But it’s in its nascency, but it’s there now and it’s very much there in the context of how we evolved the organization.
When you look at things like hiring when you look at elements like interview processes, like panelists in an interview process--let’s say just different ways of communicating, just the whole thing, just kind of put a lens of diversity and inclusion, and I just didn’t have that tool before. It throws my head into all different sorts of places when I think about it. But you have to start somewhere. And I think the key for me was acknowledging that I have this all wrong, like genuinely all wrong and I’m the one who has to own that and evolve that.
Nadia Nagamootoo
From what you’ve said. There’s something here around how the Black Lives Matter conversations that took place and you stepping away and going, oh my goodness, I didn’t understand and now I need to do more reading, to have more understanding, and to ask some questions. I guess what we’re saying here is that those initial conversations that were sparked as a result of Black Lives Matter offered you a safe platform for you to ask different questions to your colleagues and it allowed you to feel safe in doing so because a conversation had already started in the organization. So it wasn’t just like Pat is being random and asking crazy questions all of a sudden. Let’s just have a look at what actually happened in terms of the process. Do you think you would’ve felt as courageous and safe to have those conversations with your colleagues or to ask those questions if it wasn’t for the initial conversations in the organization that was taking place?
Pat Phelan
Yeah, I would honestly say I don’t think I would have. If you look at the first steps, when the team, and the employee resource groups around BLM kind of engaged in this, I emailed the leader of the group directly. Probably for the first time in my life, I kind of said look, I need to get better at this, and if I’m genuinely going to be whatever you want to use the term ‘allies or sponsors’ or whatever like I’ve got to educate myself on where my gaps are. Straight away Jade who ran it at the time got an email back with multiple resources, multiple YouTube videos, and TED Talks. But there was just no fear for me to do it at that point in time because I was invited to do it. That’s probably the key to it. And it’s not that I was ever lazy about it, it was not that I didn’t care about it, it’s just that I genuinely looked back, I didn’t know and I just didn’t understand it. And I think as soon as I was invited into that, as someone from a cohort where clearly we have to engage more and the team realized, and I think everybody realized that it’s not about alienation, it’s about actual inclusion.
That’s how we change these things. I think, even that kind of communication in two ways was like okay, I can start this journey now. Some of the conversations that kind of flowed from that were very fluid, almost like pub-type conversations. It didn’t feel like I had a checklist or anything like that. It was more about starting to understand this, as one of my colleagues said, the lived experiences I haven’t had, and now that at least just gets those synapses triggering and sparking and makes you think differently about things. That was the key I think it was amazing to be invited into it. It was such an incredibly sad and quite honestly very volatile period to have that kind of maturity and humility that the group had to be able to say this is an educational journey. Now and if anything is going to change people, people need to change with it and we know where to start.
Nadia Nagamootoo
So that’s interesting you talk about maturity because for me, and when I hear you speaking, that’s what’s going through my mind thinking, wow, that’s a mature leader who can feel okay with saying, oh my goodness, I never knew and being honest with yourself but also honest with other people around you. And I think that’s one of the biggest struggles that organizations face and particularly because we have this very clear view of what a leader should be and a leader should be strong all-knowing taking the team from A to B in a very clear way. And so there is that risk, that fear when you are stepping into a space where you are saying overtly, sorry, I didn’t understand before. I’m trying to understand, I need your help, to guide me to be a better leader. That doesn’t feel in keeping with what we know leadership to be. What made you do that? To go that way compared to the other way, which I know many leaders would be tempted to do and just go, you know what, I’m good at what I do. I’m a good leader. I treat everyone respectfully, I treat everyone fairly. There isn’t much more that I need to do in this space, I lead well.
Pat Phelan
Yeah, it’s an interesting one and it’s one I talk to certainly first-time managers a lot about. Coming back to my original point, I think self-reflection has always been, I would say genuinely one of my superpowers. And I don’t say that as an arrogant person, I say that I am okay with that now in using that term for it, now, it took a long time to get there, but it is something that I think I am very, very comfortable with. I’m actually quite good at self-regulating insofar as I don’t just run off with myself and ignore the obvious, I’ll always force myself to reflect on scenarios. I think the second aspect is the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem. I think I’ve always had a fairly high level of self-esteem and I thank my parents for that in terms of I’ve never needed anyone’s validation as to whether I’m good or not. I’ll always set my own bar high and if I don’t achieve it, I know it before anybody else. I think as I’ve gone through my career, those two things have been areas that I’m very strong at. And as I’ve also gone through my career, I’ve been very fortunate insofar as those two areas are areas that have been rewarded. And I’ve been in companies where those areas are ones that were highly valued because people cared about leaders who were reflective, people cared about servant leadership, they cared about people that didn’t put themselves first. And that just played so nicely into what my core strengths are.
When I talk to leaders a lot at the moment, one of the key things I talk about is the preparation that they have to go through from being high-impact individual contributors, where all the products are loaded on your ability to moving into leadership where you are getting further and further and further away from what you think people value about yourself, into a world that is so vague and so kind of esoteric in some degrees that you may never believe you’re good at what you do, but you have to find a way to be okay with that and to make sure that you know what good looks like forgetting about anybody else. When I think about that, the emotional side of leadership is an area that is so underserved. And that goes back to your point, we think about leaders, we think about Steve Jobs, we think about Bill Gates as we think about all of these kinds of all-encompassing power people. I don’t lead like that. I never have. I’m very clear with my team where my gaps are, they know where my gaps are and I don’t hide those gaps. Like they know that I go on zoom calls, I can just as easily accidentally push the leave button as the share button. I don’t hide that because I don’t expect to be right all the time. The one thing I am absolutely clear on is that if I don’t have an answer, I say it. I’m honest, genuinely honest, because what’s the point?
This was just an example of that, it felt very natural to me. I think from a leadership perspective, the best thing we can do now when we talk to leaders about these types of topics, but more broadly around being okay to not know what to do, I think the better they’re going to become because we have to get away, and I’m really obsessive about getting away from this narrative that there is a definition of a leader. I can show you leaders that don’t say two words in a week to anybody, but they’re people that I trust, they’re people that I put in charge of 200 people. I can show you leaders that can whip a crowd into a frenzy by creating their own way. Everyone comes in different shapes and forms. But I think there are two things for me, I think just the reflective ability to know in your gut that something’s not right here and being okay with that. And then the ability to have the self-esteem, not the self-confidence but the self-esteem to know that if you go to your team and say, I don’t have the answers, that’s not a reflection on you or your individual ability. That’s actually the way you want to create a dynamic in a team.
Nadia Nagamootoo
I’m curious then, because particularly with the self-esteem thing because you said that, obviously that’s something that you grew up with, that internal resilience, that internal stability and sense of self, self-worth, self-esteem. Are we, therefore, saying that leaders need to have that understanding of themselves? Is it something they can develop?
Pat Phelan
Yeah.
Nadia Nagamootoo
And should they be spending time on self-worth and inner resilience or is it something the organization can do to help support leaders to have that?
Pat Phelan
Yeah, I think there are two key drivers to that. I think to your point, going back to what I said earlier on. When people become managers and even when they become managers of managers, I would argue probably 95% of people never actually sit back and take the time to assess what they bring to the table and what they don’t bring to the table. Because your first reaction is how can I help my team? What do you need from me? What can I do to make your lives better? To make your life easier? And that’s great, that’s what you want to see in a leader. But without a true understanding of you as an individual and not just an MBTI report or a sort of a Discovery Insights Report, but fundamentally like looking into yourself and saying, Okay, I’m here at this moment in time. Something got me here, understanding what that is and that something is going to be required to get me wherever I need to go. And that’s the first step.
I spend a fair bit of time with leaders here on what I kind of call the personal pathway. Basically, we just do an exercise which is to get feedback from peers, direct reports, and technical feedback like MBTI, and let’s have a conversation around what your key strength themes are, five areas that you are absolutely certain that no matter where life takes you, you can rely on these things. And how do you articulate those things? And it’s a very simple exercise, but really fascinating to watch people struggle to get away from themes like; I’m organized or I’m empathetic. No that’s not what we’re talking about. I want you to articulate this in a way that if I was listening to you as a leader talks to me about who you are that I know straight away what this means. I also now want you to talk to people about what you don’t have, and what you don’t bring to the table. The exercise really is that I like to get leaders to do this in front of their teams when they take on a new team. Cause it’s very exposing.
Nadia Nagamootoo
It is.
Pat Phelan
Very exposing. But they need to get comfortable very quickly with just being uncomfortable like that because that is who you are. You can mask it, you can hide it, but fundamentally you’ll show up like this in some way. So all the better to be clear about that than not. I like to think that starts the journey of being okay to say there are a lot of things you’re not great at, but there are also a lot of things you’re brilliant at. And having the discussion that says, if the things I’m not great at are stuff that matters to you, well then let’s figure out how we plug that gap. It may not be that I’m the person to do it, but maybe you are the person to do it, but we’ll at least balance that out. I think when it comes to building that confidence in yourself, that this stuff is okay, that’s kind of the journey that I definitely encourage people to take and try, to push them. And then the other aspect and the huge aspect, I don’t think it’s an organizational thing. I think it’s very much that as an ally, a mentor, and a direct line manager, my responsibility with my team is to make them okay to make mistakes, to make them comfortable that we’ll get stuff wrong. I would rather they took big risks in terms of areas like this and get it wrong than sit back and not do it.
That’s what I would get really frustrated with because that’s easy and that’s average and we don’t want average. That’s where mediocrity kicks in. That’s where people walk away from a kind of a business experience or a company experience and go, eh, it’s ok, wasn’t good, wasn’t great. I want people to walk away from my teams going, wow, whether I liked it or not, that was something that I won’t forget. And I think being able to have leaders that kind of engage in this way is a core foundation of that because people get very surprised when you’re in a room and a leader is either that honest and open with you or that challenging with you. And that’s where great things happen because it’s not average, it’s not a talking-without-talking scenario. So there are the two key areas I would say now kind of, I would encourage and self-esteem may not come from that, but at least the confidence that it’s okay not to be worrying about everything all the time and actually taking some big risks is encouraged.
Nadia Nagamootoo
And what I love about that is that you’ve just shown how the magic of inclusion can work as a senior leader, challenging your leaders who are challenging their team to all to live in that way, in that very authentic way, demonstrating the things that they’re good at, saying what they’re not good at. And so how important then is it if you’re going to create a whole system chain, a whole culture, so at GoCardless, a whole organization that is living in this way?
Pat Phelan
Where I’ve seen Go Cardless, excel here, it’s not just talking. When I look at our employee groups for example, like super active, super proud of the work that they do, very, very engaging, and absolutely just incredibly thoughtful. I’m the exec sponsor of one of the groups. I see the work that they do for Pride and I see the work that they do just behind the scenes even in terms of working with different employee resource groups to make sure that we have a diverse pipeline of candidates. It’s astounding and they do this in their own time. This is all voluntary. So that’s the first kind of step, and Heroki made it very clear that that’s what’s been encouraged and he never shies away from tough conversations, I have an enormous amount of respect for him.
We had obviously the current situation in Ukraine, we had some very hard town halls around that topic. It’s uncomfortable in some instances, but it has to be discussed. And again, BLM was exactly the same when that was there. So I think that’s a big channel. And then that creates, I think the ability to say, okay, well this is something we actually do really care about and it feels like it’s something that’s pretty safe to talk about. So that just encourages that. And then from the other aspect we’ve just hired a head of diversity and inclusion and she is going to really start to shape that narrative in a more strategic way. I guess, rather than being very active, but maybe not as joined up as it should be or could be. And also to extend it into lots of other facets of how we operate as a business, that to me is that, plus leaders stepping into it and acknowledging and owning that themselves with what they can control, makes I think the magic happens. I love being here because of that.
Nadia Nagamootoo
What I hear there is a very strong advocate as a CEO, some employee resource groups who are set up and are putting energy and effort into the organization responding to the networks and welcoming the information. Then the leaders who are willing to show vulnerability step into that space where actually it is uncertain. How you described it, how you live every day in the space of leadership, which is, I’m not a hundred percent sure what might come my way and how I might respond and I might not get it right, but I’m willing to try. If as an example, you are in an organization and you see it as a leader and you are trying your best to live that in your area of the organization, but you’ve got so many peers who just aren’t there yet who have heard maybe that have been listening to but then aren’t willing to put in the energy or the effort to educate themselves to self-reflect, to do that work and to leave that very safe space of what it means to be a leader for them and to enter that different space. What do you do then?
Pat Phelan
There’s a lot of discussion around this topic, but it’s more so what do you think? What are you doing? What’s working? What isn’t working?-- So it’s kind of like everyone’s really keen to try to make sure that, I guess we’re learning ourselves as individuals, but also we’re learning as teams and there are certain teams that do certain things just way better than I do. And I try to learn from that and vice versa, there are certain things we do that people seem to like and they’ll adopt that. So I think the culture at GoCardless is just really nailed on in terms of how we make sure that we are the best version of what we can be. At the same time, obviously, there’s a practical element that is always in play, and in some cases, you’ll find some of the sources of some of these challenges are actually way outside of the realms of our control in some instances. For example, one of the key topics that I’m sure you’re heavily engaged in is around hiring. Like how do we ensure that our hiring is as diverse as it possibly can? Now we know that there are some areas of our world that are just massively dominated by, from a gender perspective, let’s say, men. They just are. And the actual solution to that is not to limit the number of people you see. It’s actually like how can we actually help create the start of that funnel? How do we create more of a diverse kind of talent pool rather than sort of limiting what we can pick once it gets to the point where we’re looking to hire, but we’re always kind of really talking about that as to, okay, how do we work on that now and how do we help maybe work on that in the future?
Good examples are how we create programs where we can identify top performers in significantly let’s say male-dominated parts of the business and wrap training and wrap acceleration around that group so that we’re sort of again, just feeding that funnel but doing it in a smart way. And I have a lot of colleagues who are constantly thinking about that and actually in many cases acting on that. But I think historically when I’ve seen it didn’t have the focus or maybe it was more lip service than actual focus. I think the two areas for me that I’ve always kind of really doubled down on was number one, setting the bar. That’s easy. I have a team, I have processes, I can set the bar, I can lead by example and our teams can lead by example and make it a core pillar and a tenet of how we operate. It’s funny by even just proximity to that, you naturally find people either through a spotlight coming on them or in some cases seeing things that they’ve never really maybe thought about before. That naturally starts that conversation. And then the second thing is genuinely sort of if you see it from a leadership perspective. That’s a really fascinating one for me in my many walks of life because that’s probably the most difficult thing to get involved in because clearly you’re maybe jumping into a conversation and trying to make people aware of where that’s gone or what’s not been included in that conversation that we should. And you don’t want to come across as holier than thou. But at the same time, I feel a very deep level of responsibility now again given what I now know just across the board to at least provoke that kind of conversation a bit.
That takes time and confidence to be okay with that too. And I would never expect a first-line manager or a new manager to jump in with an exec necessarily immediately. But they have to be confident that at some point they will. And I have to give them the tools to be okay with that. But if someone comes to me and said, that guy did that in a meeting, I’m like, well that’s what I told them to do. So those to me are the two routes that I try and take as much as I can. And even if I don’t know why I’m saying what I’m saying and my gut is telling me this is just not right or this has gone a weird direction, I need to be okay with that and say, does anyone else feel this? Or is it just me? And that’s what I love about GoCardless, it is the willingness and the invitation to do that, and it is just pervasive across the organization. I’m very protective of that and I feel very passionately about that.
Nadia Nagamootoo
Yeah. I’m really interested in this last thing that you just said, which is around how you then cultivate a whole system doing that and the power that could come about if every leader was operating in that way, able to feel confident and comfortable to challenge it no matter the level. Even if you are a first-line manager and you are in front of Pat. What happens, what is it that is the long-term gain for organizations if leaders all dedicate the time to cultivating that culture?
Pat Phelan
It’s immeasurable. When I see the teams, there’s the forming, storming, norming, performing kind of model of like leadership teams. If you look at that and you think about the storming phase, performing phase, like all of that to me is based around productive conflict. Like what I get super excited about is when you have a group of people who are able to have really, really difficult conversations with each other on very, very difficult topics and actually come to a consensus and disagree and commit and move on and then do it again. Yeah. That to me is where I always try that, when I see that happening in the team, I know I’m there; I know I’m close to being there. There are two very clear drivers of it. The first one is making sure that we’re very, very clear about what safety means in that context. And I think a lot of leaders will talk about creating safety, but creating safety is not just about telling people it’s a safe space, that means nothing. And you can say it a million times over, it means nothing. People do not believe the space is safe, I would say 100% of the time unless they see it in action. And you have to lead that acts as a leader. You have to be the one going back to being okay with not having answers. Going back to getting on stage and saying, I got this wrong. That’s what cultivates people and gets them to say, okay, well if he can do it or she can do it, then I assume I can do it.
The second bit is to train people in terms of how to have a difficult conversation. We do not train people to do that. We tell them to have it and we don’t explain to them that every difficult conversation is set up to fail. Just as an FYI every time you have a difficult conversation, you have to assume it is set up to fail because it’s one person to another. So what we try and do, and I got trained years ago on crucial accountability, which is just my way of kind of dealing with that, which is I became a trainer of crucial accountability. So I’ve trained over 400 people in my teams over the last 7 years on crucial accountability and that basically is a model that is a very simple framework that says, here’s how to have a high-stakes conversation. Here’s what to do before, during, and after. It’s amazing watching people come out and the lights kind of switch on, Okay, maybe I shouldn’t go into that performance review and just say what I think. But it’s incredible. Coming back to why we don’t coach leaders on the emotional side of leadership, we also don’t coach them to have difficult conversations. So these are the two lenses that for me are critical and obviously wrapped around with respect. It has to be respectful. You can’t just say something to someone because you don’t like them. And I think the more you can role model that, the more you can hold yourself to account for it, quite frankly, the more you can reflect on it.
I sent an email to my leadership group yesterday. We had a team meeting, it got, nicely heated and I sent an email immediately afterward and said just a couple of reflections on today. I felt like this went well. I didn’t feel like that went particularly well. But it was again, trying to be positive and say, look, this is good, this is hard, but very few people do this by the way. As in have those kinds of discussions. So learn and move on. That’s the kind of constant cycle of reinforcing and breaking down. And look, it takes a long time and we get it wrong lots of times, but you’ve got to try.
Nadia Nagamootoo
I love that. Trial and error. Keep trying the yeah persistence, the resilience that it takes to keep entering that space of the unknown. Thank you so much, Pat, for sharing.
Pat Phelan
It’s a pleasure. Sorry, I feel like I’ve talked a lot there, but it’s a very passionate topic of mine, I think.
Nadia Nagamootoo
And I can tell why, I can tell why people would also want to work with you.
Pat Phelan
Oh, thank you.
Nadia Nagamootoo
Pat. Those people who are interested and might want to get hold of you or indeed learn more about GoCardless. Are you active on social media? What channels could they get hold of you?
Pat Phelan
I am indeed fully active on LinkedIn. You can definitely see me on LinkedIn, and Instagram. I try to be active on Twitter a little bit, but I think LinkedIn is probably the best way. If anyone wants to ever drop me a line, I’m more than happy to react to that. Particularly on topics that we discussed today or any other kind of topics that people might want to have a chat about. More than happy.
Nadia Nagamootoo
Well, the link to everything that Pat and I spoke about today is going to be available on the show notes page as usual on Avenirconsultingservices.com under podcasts. Pat, thank you so much. I have loved speaking to you and learning from you.
Pat Phelan
It’s a pleasure, Nadia, and vice versa. Really enjoyed it too. And yeah, thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.
Nadia Nagamootoo
That concludes episode 21 of the "Why Care? podcast." I feel so inspired talking to Pat in particular. I love his willingness to fight the fear, feel uncomfortable, show vulnerability, and dedicate time to self-education. Do let Pat and I know what you thought of today’s show. You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter with the handle @ Nadia Nagamootoo. As always, I really appreciate your support of this podcast by leaving a review on whatever platform you’re listening to and spreading the word by sharing it with your friends and family. Huge thanks to Mara Kenji for editing this podcast and Jon Rice for supporting with the show notes and getting it out there on social media.
