Episode 22
Leading with Simplicity in Mind
Leadership is not about having all the answers, but about drawing the best out of people, allowing them to flourish, and creating a container for them to experiment and try new ideas.
Generative leadership involves listening, creating psychological safety, removing barriers to growth, and adapting to changing circumstances. Generative leaders learn from mistakes, are open to feedback, and foster a culture of resilience and flexibility.
Dave Hill is a transformational coach who has been on the front lines of the battlefield and in the boardroom. He’s the founder of Simplicity in Mind, an organisation aiming to create more space to help veterans who are struggling, along with their families. Dave has a background in military leadership, having served as a platoon commander and company commander. He’s passionate about drawing the best out of people, allowing them to flourish, and creating psychological safety.
Links
Transcript
Leading in the most abject of environments such as war torn countries can really
Speaker:test what leadership is really about.
Speaker:My guest this week has been on the front lines of the battlefield
Speaker:and in the boardroom, and has been pointing to the simplicity in mind.
Speaker:You'd think that common sense and simplicity would prevail, but when
Speaker:faced with complex situations, humans tend to over-complicate solutions.
Speaker:I'm Julia Rebholz.
Speaker:Welcome to Generative Leaders.
Speaker:I'm Dave Hill.
Speaker:Uh, I am a transformational coach.
Speaker:It's something that I've been doing full-time for the last couple of years,
Speaker:but, but that doesn't explain to how I got to doing that in the first place.
Speaker:So, and why I started off as a soldier soldiered for 17 years and
Speaker:leadership was the sort of b bread and butter of, of what I was doing.
Speaker:I, I was a, started as a platoon commander and finished off as a company commander.
Speaker:And, and the whole journey was about leadership in that sense.
Speaker:Um, and I was fascinated by seeing how people tick and, and getting them to,
Speaker:to be the, the best that they possibly could be in some of the most uncomfortable
Speaker:places that they possibly could be at the same time, and how that might work.
Speaker:Uh, and then after that, I spent a year working for Amazon, in a leadership
Speaker:role with them in a very different environment, in a big shed somewhere,
Speaker:uh, which wasn't quite my cup of tea, uh, but I learned a lot from it.
Speaker:Um, and, and then I went and worked for Standard Life Investments,
Speaker:um, as it was as a project manager for about five or six years.
Speaker:But during that whole time out of the Army, I'd been volunteering
Speaker:to help rifleman mainly from my, from my regimen, but veterans more
Speaker:broadly that were struggling in the, in their day-to-day lives.
Speaker:Uh, people that just, just phoned up saying, help, please.
Speaker:And I decided to set Simplicity in Mind up, the company that, that
Speaker:I now operate to do more of that.
Speaker:Uh, I realized that my time was limited, having a full-time job, being
Speaker:a parent, and wanting to do more.
Speaker:And I decided to flip that on its head and be my own boss, deliver,
Speaker:uh, an offering to organizations and individuals in an effort to create
Speaker:more space to help veterans that are struggling and their families.
Speaker:so in, in your, in your opener, Dave, you talked about the acts of leadership.
Speaker:Um, and obviously, you know, this podcast is all around generative leadership.
Speaker:What, what have you learned about generative leadership and, and what do
Speaker:you think sort of makes it different?
Speaker:It's a great question.
Speaker:I think for me, leadership is always generative in, in, in, in the way
Speaker:that I've experienced it and seen it.
Speaker:That doesn't necessarily to say that's what I've always experienced when
Speaker:I've been led or when I've been in a leadership position, but, but at its
Speaker:core, that's what we're trying to achieve.
Speaker:We're trying to draw the best outta people, to allow them to do their best
Speaker:work in whatever capacity that might be.
Speaker:To allow them to feel the opportunity to explore new ideas in a position of
Speaker:sort of psychological safety rather than necessarily physical safety.
Speaker:But knowing that we've created a container for them to experiment and try, and as
Speaker:long as they're doing that with the best of intentions that we've got their backs.
Speaker:And so for me, leadership is all about creating the possibility of
Speaker:achieving more than the sum of the individual parts of whatever that is.
Speaker:Whether that's an organization, whether that's a military formation,
Speaker:whether that's a group of friends that are trying to do something.
Speaker:It's about pulling the best outta people and allowing them to flourish.
Speaker:And potentially taking away pinch points that that might get in the way
Speaker:of them being able to achieve that.
Speaker:It's really interesting, isn't it?
Speaker:'cause it, you know, you think about kind of people and nature and actually
Speaker:people are part of nature and it's their nature to grow, to develop to, you know,
Speaker:flourish unless something gets in the way.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, the lovely point that I think you've, you've just been pointing
Speaker:at is, well, isn't it the leader's role to help remove whatever's getting in
Speaker:the way of that flourishing and growing?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And you know, when I was leaving the Army when it was 10, 11 years ago, I,
Speaker:I spent a bit of time reflecting on my career and what I'd learnt about
Speaker:leadership and about just doing my job.
Speaker:You know, I didn't really see myself directly as a leader.
Speaker:It was part of my job, but actually all I was was Dave.
Speaker:I was Dave with some, some rank and responsibility, but I was still just Dave.
Speaker:Um, and how did I show up as Dave in a way that would allow the people
Speaker:working alongside me and for me to, to be the best that they could be?
Speaker:And I think one of the biggest things I took away from that, from
Speaker:that sort of reflection and looking back was realizing that I loved
Speaker:the fact that there were people way more capable than me working for me.
Speaker:And being able to give them the opportunity to just be themselves
Speaker:and flourish and be better than me and be comfortable with that.
Speaker:Still my responsibility at the top to, to keep everything together, 'cause
Speaker:that was the position I've been put in, but I, yeah, he's way better than me.
Speaker:Let's, let's, let's get him out and, and let him run the show, and,
Speaker:and not get in the way of, of that.
Speaker:And just be there going, right, cool, there's the container, go away, run with
Speaker:that, show me what you're capable of, show everybody else what you're capable of.
Speaker:Because my time in this role is limited and everybody else that's
Speaker:working for me is the future of that role and that capacity, you
Speaker:know, to, to fill those shoes.
Speaker:And I think that's one of the beauties of, of the military system
Speaker:is, is that you are only ever in a job for two or three years tops.
Speaker:Someone will always be coming along behind you and it's part of your responsibility
Speaker:to bring people on to fill your shoes.
Speaker:Hopefully you are moving on and up yourself into somebody else's shoes.
Speaker:You might not be, but you will be moving.
Speaker:And it's your responsibility to make sure that the, the team that you have is robust
Speaker:enough to thrive without your leadership.
Speaker:You know, the Army's got a slightly fatalistic way of looking at that
Speaker:because you might not be around, because you might, you may end up being
Speaker:incapacitated or killed or whatever, that takes you out and the system still
Speaker:needs to be able to operate without you.
Speaker:You know, you can't have people as single points of failure.
Speaker:And I think that's where sometimes we get confused about leadership because we
Speaker:think all the responsibility sits with one person and they need to, you know,
Speaker:they need to be making all the decisions.
Speaker:And if they're not there, oh my goodness, we've, we've lost our capacity to operate.
Speaker:That's never true.
Speaker:It's, people might feel that, but actually, when circumstances come along
Speaker:and change the way that you think you are operating because someone important
Speaker:has been removed from, from the process at, at, at that moment in time,
Speaker:everything regenerates on its own, the system self, self heals and carries on.
Speaker:There might be a little bit of discomfort in the process of that.
Speaker:There might be a little bit of uncertainty, but it will thrive,
Speaker:given, given the capacity of the, of the people within the organization.
Speaker:And I think that's a wonderful thing, and hopefully allows leaders to realize
Speaker:that while the responsibility lies on, on them, it's not all about them.
Speaker:It's not all on their shoulders.
Speaker:They've got potentially hundreds of people in the, in their world that
Speaker:are working towards the same aim.
Speaker:And that's, that's a really important point, isn't it?
Speaker:Because sometimes people are not working towards the same aim.
Speaker:Um, you know, we think that they are, but, but they might not be.
Speaker:Um, so what, what have you seen about that, Dave?
Speaker:You know, what have you learned about humans and, and helping people
Speaker:to kind of come to the same aim?
Speaker:I think it all comes back to this, you know, this, there's the, the
Speaker:most simple of human things and just listening, and realizing how
Speaker:connected you are as a group of people.
Speaker:And that's not to say that if someone seems a bit distant that they are,
Speaker:you know, away with fairies or not paying attention or malingering or
Speaker:whatever, whatever you might de decide is going on in their world, what's
Speaker:going on for them that's not allowing them to be in this conversation?
Speaker:Um, and how do I invite them back in, in a way that doesn't feel
Speaker:like they've been called out.
Speaker:Because I want their expertise in their opinion, and at the moment I can see
Speaker:that I haven't got their attention.
Speaker:And that's neither of our faults.
Speaker:It's just, there's, there's something in there that's that's, that's got
Speaker:a little bit, uh, disconnected.
Speaker:Let's try and reestablish that.
Speaker:So that's one thing.
Speaker:And, and the other is allowing people the opportunity to play back.
Speaker:What they've heard from what your intention is.
Speaker:Because quite a lot of my life has been around the military,
Speaker:you have formal sets of orders.
Speaker:You give people clear direction of what you want to achieve, the reasons
Speaker:why, and potentially some of the, how they might go about doing it.
Speaker:One of the biggest things that I learned going through training was then, as the
Speaker:person that's received those orders, sitting for 20 minutes if I've got the
Speaker:time to reflect on that, to see what questions come up for me, and then go back
Speaker:to my, to my boss and say, right, this is what I think you've asked me to do.
Speaker:And then from being able to play that back, get the opportunity
Speaker:for him or her to go, well actually no, this is what I meant.
Speaker:Okay, thank you very much indeed, I now understand.
Speaker:But it's, there's a sort of, right, I've, I've been told once I should probably
Speaker:get this, I better go away and start doing stuff and, and bring my homework
Speaker:back when it's 100% complete, and I might have gone off on a completely
Speaker:wrong tangent, completely innocently, all because I didn't have either feel
Speaker:I had the opportunity to or felt that I would be heard if I was checking
Speaker:the direction that I was going in.
Speaker:Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it?
Speaker:You know what, what we hear isn't necessarily what somebody said.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And what somebody said may not actually be what they meant.
Speaker:What they meant either.
Speaker:So there's, there's a whole load of potential flaws in the way that
Speaker:we communicate as human beings.
Speaker:That's just an act, an accident of nature.
Speaker:That's just the way it is.
Speaker:But being prepared to be open and flexible with that and allow people the
Speaker:opportunity to just double check what it was that they thought they heard, to make
Speaker:sure that they are going in the right direction, and if they come up against
Speaker:something to come back and question again.
Speaker:Well, as a leader, that's, that's surely what what we're supposed to
Speaker:be trying to do is the conduit to achieving our organization's intention.
Speaker:if someone's got a question, bring it please.
Speaker:it might be a simple answer.
Speaker:It might be something that you've been told before, but if.
Speaker:If you don't know the answer, I'd much prefer to hear you hear you ask
Speaker:the question than than try and work it out on your own, and it's probably
Speaker:gonna be quicker in the long run.
Speaker:And, and Dave you talked about earlier, you know, being in situations that
Speaker:people's physical safety is at threat.
Speaker:And you know, lots of people that are listening are running
Speaker:organizations where, you know, it literally can feel like a war zone.
Speaker:You know, everything's being thrown at them, they're trying to
Speaker:deal with a whole load of things.
Speaker:What have you learned about leading in those sort of very high stress
Speaker:situations where your physical safety is at risk, to help that,
Speaker:bringing out the best in people?
Speaker:That's a great question.
Speaker:I think the biggest difference that I've seen between how the military
Speaker:operates and how business operates is the military trains for what it does,
Speaker:and business just does what it does.
Speaker:There is no real opportunity to test and experiment with what it is that you do.
Speaker:You know, apart from manufacturing where you might make prototypes of things, okay?
Speaker:So there's a, there's a sort of developmental stage in that side
Speaker:side, but most organizations don't have the capacity to do that.
Speaker:They're just doing stuff.
Speaker:And as a result, they don't necessarily learn from making mistakes, because
Speaker:mistakes cost money and time and reputation and all the rest of it.
Speaker:And so there's a, there's a strong desire to get everything right all
Speaker:the time, which isn't possible.
Speaker:So having, having a, a sort of culture where knowing mistakes are gonna
Speaker:happen, that things are, you know, even with people working to the best
Speaker:of their abilities, with the best of intentions, things might go wrong,
Speaker:there's having the opportunity to learn from that in a constructive way that
Speaker:allows people to say, okay, so I, I was sort of making the right decisions.
Speaker:You, albeit we ended up with the wrong outcome.
Speaker:Uh, what can we learn from that and take forward for next time rather than, well,
Speaker:you got that wrong, um, so I'm not gonna give you that responsibility again.
Speaker:And that, that sort of nervousness about the fear of failure, I suppose.
Speaker:Because.
Speaker:From a, from a military perspective, you don't absolutely don't want it,
Speaker:but you, you can almost guarantee there is, there isn't gonna be a, a
Speaker:period where there isn't gonna be some form of collateral damage to you as
Speaker:an organization, be that equipment or people, or the mission that you are on.
Speaker:There is something that in that triangle that's not going to survive the intention
Speaker:that you had at the, at the start.
Speaker:And knowing that gives people the freedom to try anyway and see what's possible,
Speaker:and also call out when they go, well, I've done the, I've done the maths on
Speaker:this, this is really not gonna go our way.
Speaker:I need more resources, please.
Speaker:I'm being completely upfront about that because they know if, if they don't ask
Speaker:for those additional resources, then they're going to come off worse off
Speaker:than everybody intends and that they will be failing for not asking that
Speaker:question about additional resource.
Speaker:In an organized, In a, in a, a commercial organization asking
Speaker:for resources, normally asking for more money or more time, or
Speaker:both, and no one likes doing that.
Speaker:So they'll sit on a problem way longer than they might have done
Speaker:if they'd sit, if they'd flagged it earlier, at which point it's
Speaker:gonna cost more money and more time.
Speaker:And, and those that are making this decisions, again, why didn't
Speaker:you bring this to us earlier?
Speaker:And it's fear of, fear of failure rather than seeing that failure is
Speaker:probably inevitable at some point.
Speaker:How do we learn from that?
Speaker:How do we avoid that?
Speaker:And it's normally by seeing where weakness is popping up and jumping on it early.
Speaker:And rather than seeing that as a reflection on our ability to do our
Speaker:job, it's just the nature of the game.
Speaker:You know, certain, you know, large projects that are planned over two
Speaker:or three years, what you're, what you're doing dealing with when
Speaker:you are planning is certainly not what you're gonna have at the end.
Speaker:And quite a lot of places will go, well, no, this is what you said at the beginning
Speaker:and I'm gonna track you to, within an inch of your life on the journey of that
Speaker:to see how well you've done, forgetting that technology's probably changing,
Speaker:the business is probably changing, costs are going to change because the, you
Speaker:know, that's just the nature of things.
Speaker:But we'll then go and attack the people that were created
Speaker:the project in the first place.
Speaker:And it's, you know, for me that's the biggest disconnect between
Speaker:how the military does things and how, how organizations do it.
Speaker:Um, or commercial organizations do it.
Speaker:It's the, well, we're expecting things not to go smoothly.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:That's sort of baked into the plan.
Speaker:Let's see what we can do to try and avoid all of that, mitigate all that risk as
Speaker:much as we possibly can, and still go out and, and, and do the best we can.
Speaker:Yeah, and I think what you're, what you're also, um, if I may kind of point
Speaker:to is that ability to adapt to context.
Speaker:So, you know, the context is not static.
Speaker:In your head, what you thought the context was when you actually come up against
Speaker:it is, as you said, the nature of it is changeable, and so kind of, accounting for
Speaker:that, taking it into the thought process and then, kind of reflecting on the
Speaker:situation to see what the next wise step would be is a, a key part of the process.
Speaker:Again, just things that have just stuck in my mind over time.
Speaker:The planning cycle, uh, is, is called the combat estimate at,
Speaker:at a, at a very junior level.
Speaker:But you've got a se you've got a series of questions you take yourself
Speaker:through to come up with a plan.
Speaker:And one of them that you keep going back to is, has the situation changed?
Speaker:All the time, even when you've delivered your orders and you're
Speaker:actually, you're executing your plan, has the situation changed?
Speaker:Yes, it has.
Speaker:Is my mission still valid?
Speaker:Is what I've been asked to do still valid?
Speaker:No, it's not right, boss, this, this is no longer viable.
Speaker:Either.
Speaker:the problem was, isn't there, there's nothing there, so I'm now, I'm now free
Speaker:and available for you to use in another way or I can't speak to my boss at
Speaker:the moment, I've lost communications.
Speaker:I know there is nothing for me to do in this situation, given what I've been
Speaker:asked to do, but I also know what the wider intent is of our organization.
Speaker:How best can I support that?
Speaker:Having the freedom to know what everybody else is up to and go, right, well, I
Speaker:can't speak to anybody, how do I now apply myself and my, and my team to go
Speaker:off and deliver against what it is that we're collectively trying to achieve?
Speaker:Albeit that wasn't part of the original plan.
Speaker:And that ability to be flexible, to be fluid with where you are
Speaker:going is constantly driving people to look for the most efficient way
Speaker:to do stuff, to question things.
Speaker:Not because they think something's rubbish, but because I think I've
Speaker:got an idea that you might not have seen the solution to yourself.
Speaker:What about this?
Speaker:And then for the leader to sit back and go, Hmm, yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker:And either go, I'm sorry, we're not doing that because of the following
Speaker:reasons, which at the level that I brought the idea up, I couldn't see
Speaker:or go no, that's fascinating, let's, there's some mileage in that, we're
Speaker:gonna take that and run with it.
Speaker:At which point the ownership becomes the, you know, this, the senior person
Speaker:that's taken that on and go, right, we're gonna adapt our plans based
Speaker:on this piece of new information.
Speaker:And being comfortable with the idea that that flexibility is,
Speaker:is possible at any stage based on whoever it is that brought it up.
Speaker:You know, I, I was, I was very conscious in my last job in the Army
Speaker:that I, I was one of 190 in my company.
Speaker:I was responsible for, for the whole thing.
Speaker:But I had 189 other brains that I could lean on.
Speaker:And I took great comfort in that, because they were all the subject
Speaker:matter experts in the company.
Speaker:I'd never served in this, particular organization, and I had no expertise
Speaker:in any of the stuff that my people did.
Speaker:But I was the one giving the direction and providing advice to
Speaker:my boss about what we could do.
Speaker:One of the things I'd really love to talk to you about as well is that,
Speaker:um, you know, you mentioned earlier that you are, you know, you're now
Speaker:spending quite a bit of time helping veterans, um, who've left the Army.
Speaker:Um, and we talked about, obviously when you're in the Army, you're
Speaker:in that leadership role to help people be resilient, to
Speaker:move on, to grow, to flourish.
Speaker:And then there's this loss of identity that happens when people leave the
Speaker:army, and they're not able to flourish and grow, and they get stuck when they
Speaker:come into, you know, real, real life.
Speaker:It can be a tricky time for some.
Speaker:You know, the vast majority of people when they leave the,
Speaker:the forces absolutely flourish.
Speaker:Um, and go on and thrive.
Speaker:You know, they, they've taken their experience and are looking forward to
Speaker:the next chapter and what that might offer them, and lean on their experience,
Speaker:and see how that can be fitted into their new organization, whatever it
Speaker:is that they're off to go and do.
Speaker:And the vast majority absolutely fly.
Speaker:Some struggle and, you know, that's, I'm not gonna say inevitable, but
Speaker:it's, it's a, it's a fact of life.
Speaker:We all struggle at times, but we have a narrative in the press that
Speaker:says that veterans do struggle.
Speaker:Um, and then so when veterans are struggling, they go, oh, crikey, I'm well
Speaker:that, yeah, I've been told that a lot.
Speaker:So they go, well, this is, this is my lot.
Speaker:And they sort of start to feel like there is no hope for them, at which
Speaker:point they stop looking for solutions.
Speaker:They stop looking for ways to help themselves potentially.
Speaker:And most of the conversations I have with people relate back to their loss
Speaker:of empowerment to do whatever it is that they think that they can't do.
Speaker:Okay, well that's, that's, that's beyond me.
Speaker:Um, I haven't got the expertise.
Speaker:I wouldn't know where to start.
Speaker:Well, that's just not, you know, I couldn't possibly ask
Speaker:someone that question because.
Speaker:You know, a whole load of, of.
Speaker:Vaguely helpful ideas that they've got to keep themselves safe from failing at
Speaker:things, but at the same time stopping them from being able to progress and,
Speaker:and, and move on with their lives.
Speaker:And, and most of the conversations come back to you are more than
Speaker:capable at at dealing with this.
Speaker:You've coped with way, way worse things than this in the past.
Speaker:And don't forget, you've got a huge network of friends that you can lean on.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:But I, you know, I don't wanna put them out.
Speaker:Okay, what happens if one of them was to give you a ring?
Speaker:Oh, I'd help 'em in a heartbeat.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Tell me about that.
Speaker:Why would you help them?
Speaker:And then all of a sudden you go, well.
Speaker:If, if you would be that for your friends, do you not think they'd be that for you?
Speaker:And that again, changes the dynamic for them slightly and allows them to
Speaker:be more vocal about the things that they're stuck on, and opens them
Speaker:up to a resource that they already had in their friends and relations.
Speaker:And so while quite a lot of the work I'm doing is with individuals
Speaker:that are struggling, I'm actually way more interested in speaking
Speaker:to their friends and family about, and when they come knocking, you're
Speaker:absolutely capable of helping.
Speaker:'Cause all you need to do is sit back and listen and care deeply.
Speaker:You don't need to know the answer, because listening with love and compassion behind
Speaker:what it is that you are trying to do will allow that person to feel heard and
Speaker:start seeing solutions for themselves.
Speaker:And that harps back to that business I was talking about with receiving a
Speaker:set of orders, sitting down, reflecting on that, going back and saying,
Speaker:right, well this is what I've heard.
Speaker:And if, my immediate leader is worth their sort, they'll sit back and listen and not
Speaker:get upset with me that I've misunderstood something, but guide me in the direction
Speaker:of where they were trying to go.
Speaker:If, however, that, that, uh, leader was to jump on me and
Speaker:go, no, you've got it wrong.
Speaker:You're an idiot.
Speaker:Boom, boom, boom.
Speaker:It's gonna stop me asking those questions.
Speaker:And so for, for this sort of friend relationship or family relationship
Speaker:with someone that's struggling, it's not about giving them the answer and going,
Speaker:oh, right, I think you should do this.
Speaker:It's, it's way, way more about drawing the answer out from the individual, which
Speaker:they've absolutely got for themselves.
Speaker:And that just comes from creating space for them.
Speaker:So that's why I, I set Simplicity in Mind up was on, on a, on
Speaker:a sort of two front footing.
Speaker:One was to continue to help people that are struggling, that are potentially
Speaker:in crisis to allow them to get on and, and, and live their lives.
Speaker:But equally to, to share the message with whoever is prepared to listen
Speaker:that we are all capable of supporting.
Speaker:Anybody on this planet, whether we've got the experience of, of operating
Speaker:and, and living in the same world with them or not, whether we know them or
Speaker:not, we have the capacity to connect with a human being at a one-to-one
Speaker:level that feels really, really strong and empowering for the person that's
Speaker:feeling vulnerable in that moment.
Speaker:Well, I think Dave, that that's a beautiful note for us to end this
Speaker:conversation on, you know, 'cause it's such a, such a hopeful message that
Speaker:anyone that's struggling, you know, by just listening to them with love and
Speaker:compassion, giving them the space to feel heard, that we can help anyone.
Speaker:So thank you so much for, for sharing that with everyone, um, today.
Speaker:So Dave, if people want to get in touch with you, know more about
Speaker:you, where can they get hold of you?
Speaker:Um, thanks Julia.
Speaker:Um, well my email address is dave@simplicityinmind.co.Uk.
Speaker:My website is www.simplicityinmind.co.uk.
Speaker:And I've also got a podcast, uh, called Simple, uh, the Simple Reflections
Speaker:Podcast, um, which is, yeah, comes out every two weeks and is a gentle
Speaker:conversation with, with other people about how we learn from insight,
Speaker:how we can support each other.
Speaker:And it's, yeah, hopefully quite a lighthearted bit of fun.
Speaker:Fabulous.
Speaker:Well, it's been wonderful talking to you today, Dave, and thank
Speaker:you so much for being with me.
Speaker:Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker:It's an absolute pleasure.
Speaker:Such a fascinating conversation with Dave, and I was really touched
Speaker:by him on a number of points.
Speaker:One of them was checking that people have understood what you're asking from them.
Speaker:It's so simple, but how often do we ask people what did you actually hear me say?
Speaker:I know that my husband and I have got into many troubles by not actually listening
Speaker:to what the other person was saying, um, but making something up else entirely.
Speaker:The second thing, which is sort of similar is asking for everyone's input to see
Speaker:the different perspectives on a problem.
Speaker:Sometimes that can feel really uncomfortable or that it's
Speaker:gonna add more time to do that.
Speaker:But there's been so many occasions when getting a different perspective
Speaker:really brings things into place and creates better ideas that you wouldn't
Speaker:come up with, um, on your own.
Speaker:And I've certainly experienced that for myself.
Speaker:And then the third one, which has really, really stayed with me is asking for help.
Speaker:I am so bad at asking for help, but the more that I ask for help,
Speaker:the better my life seems to get.
Speaker:So I sort of have this battle with myself about why don't I ask for help more often?
Speaker:So a prompt for everyone that's listening, are there people you can ask for help
Speaker:on something that you are facing?
Speaker:Even if it's just to get you out of your own thinking.
Speaker:If you found this podcast useful and you think someone else would
Speaker:too, please go ahead and share it.
Speaker:You can do that@generativeleaders.co or any other podcast platform
Speaker:where you get your podcast from.
Speaker:This will be our last podcast for 2023, and I really appreciate everybody that
Speaker:has listened to our episodes this year.
Speaker:We've hoped you found them useful, and I wish you and your families
Speaker:a wonderful Christmas break.
Speaker:I hope it's relaxing, peaceful, and you're able to recharge.
Speaker:Look forward to seeing you on the.
Speaker:First 2024 episode of Generative Leaders.
