Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:01:46: Squiggly Resources and support
00:03:00: Leadership and followership explained
00:06:47: Self-awareness
00:07:12: Modes and moments
00:10:30: Effective leadership
00:10:49: Skill 1: setting direction
00:11:53: Action: involve, don't solve
00:14:44: Skill 2: space and support
00:17:33: Skill 3: communicating with clarity and enthusiasm
00:21:38: Effective followership
00:22:15: Skill 1: manage yourself well
00:22:37: Action: anticipate the blockers
00:24:15: Skill 2: build your competence and credibility
00:24:49: Action: focus your followership
00:25:30: Skill 3: communicate with honesty
00:26:00: Action: use the if/then framework
00:30:33: Rotating leaders
00:31:51: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And, you're listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast, where each week we talk about a different topic to do with work, and share some practical ideas to help you take action with your development.  Today's topic, I think, is a bit tougher than we thought it was going to be when we started to research and plan for this podcast.

So, the topic, which sounds quite simple, is knowing when to lead and when to follow, and it was inspired by the conversation Sarah and I had last week about collaboration, when we both realised that one of the things that can sometimes get in the way of our ability to collaborate effectively is when we're both trying to lead each other, and it might sometimes go a bit wrong!  We thought, maybe this is a problem that other people might face in their career, and therefore talking a bit about when to take a leading role and maybe when to be a brilliant follower could be a great topic.

It turns out that there's not a lot of research on it, so we've had to look all over the place and tried to come up with some really clear ideas for action, and we think we've got to it!

Sarah Ellis: We had a few philosophical debates along the way; had to start and then stop and then come back to do it again, because we needed a break from it!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, we did need a break.  And we put all out notes together; we call it a script, but it's not a script, everyone, it's just where we keep all our notes so that we can refer to them if there are conversations, and it's probably one of the messier ones that we've ever done.  So, let us know.  Hopefully, it makes sense.

Sarah Ellis: We'd love your feedback.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, this is a really good episode to give us feedback on, which you can always do that, but this one in particular.  Email us after today; we're just helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com, and let us know whether this has helped you in terms of your thinking about your impact, or maybe it hasn't and we'll, I don't know; we'll do something different next time.

In addition to giving us feedback, there are some other support and resources that can help you with the topic that we're covering today.  So, three things to help you: first of all, PodMail is our weekly email and it collates all the different things that we produce in one place.  So, if you ever struggle to find some of the things that we refer to, sign up for PodMail; the link to that is in the show notes.  And again, if you can't find it, just email us.

You can also download the PodSheet, so that's a one-page summary which has some coach-yourself questions on and some ideas for action for you.  And join PodPlus if you have got questions after today.  This doesn't have to be a one-way conversation.  You can join PodPlus.  That happens every Thursday at 9.00am.  It's a 30-minute zoom with sometimes it's both of us, sometimes it's one of us, but it's always with the lovely Squiggly Career community, lots of like-minded learners who share their insights and ideas as well, so it's a great place to spend some time.

Sarah Ellis: So, to kick off, to frame today's conversation, I think it is useful to be clear about what we mean when we talk about leadership, followership, and then how those two things are connected.  I think that makes a difference, because there are quite a lot of assumptions that we make about especially leadership, I think, and then what it means to be a follower.

So, the two definitions that we're going to work to: the leadership one comes from Sheryl Sandberg, so it's a quote from her that we both really like, which is, "Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure that impact lasts in your absence", which I think is a really nice way of thinking about leadership.  Followership is, "Where you are committed to a purpose, principle or person outside of yourself".

So, how do we make sense of this a little bit further?  The first thing that I think is really important is that you are not a leader or a follower, and this is not about your position in a hierarchy or on an organisational chart.  We don't need to, or try to need to label ourselves as leaders or followers.  It's about recognising that we all play different roles at different times, probably within the same day.  So, we are all leading and we are all following, and neither of those roles is more important or better than the other; they are equal, but different activities. 

That's the point we really want to think about today, is how you can have the agility and flexibility to move between leadership and followership, because when you do, it means that you can collaborate better, it will make you more adaptable and I think in the context of a Squiggly Career, where we're working on lots more projects, we're in lots of cross-functional teams, we're probably working in quite different ways, I think that ability to flex and adapt your style and to think about what skills might be most useful in this situation, is really helpful. 

Actually, it is somewhere where, as Helen said, we've done quite a lot of reading for today, and there's not a lot of people talking about how perhaps our careers now are breaking down some of the relationships between leaders and followers, and then what that might look like for all of us.  So, it is a really interesting area.  If anyone listening wants to do some research, that would be great!

Helen Tupper: Just in terms of some of the things that I've read on this, one was completely random and one was more relevant.  I even, if my deep dive into this topic, I ended up reading about salsa dancing, which was really random, because there were leaders and followers in the dancing and I was like, "Oh, is there anything that I can learn from effective salsa dancers that I can bring to the podcast?"  The answer is no.

But another thing that I did read that was more relevant was in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and what I really liked about that is it recognised the impact that can be made when you have leadership and followership going on in a team, and it talks about, "Innovation might come from an individual, but sustainability is an act of community".  It was this idea that flexing between being a leader and a follower and having those roles within a team actually helps you to sustain the impact.  But on their own, leadership without followership actually doesn't mean that you get the sustainable impact that we want to in teams.

Sarah Ellis: And it reminds me a bit of that quote from Helen Keller where she says, "Alone we can do so little and together we can do so much".  I might not be 100% accurately quoting her there, but it is this sense that when we come together, we can achieve so much more; and especially, I think if we do this in a self-aware way and have that understanding of, we can adapt and can plays different roles, because I think we all know that we do this.

When you start to think about this, you do recognise that, "Oh, of course in certain meetings and certain projects, I'm leading.  In certain projects and meetings, I'm in a more supportive capacity".  I think we all intuitively see that and feel that in our day-to-day, but I'm not we're always as conscious as we could be about thinking, "What skills therefore are most useful?  How can I be most helpful; how can I have the most positive impact?"

Helen Tupper: So, maybe let's talk about those two things: self-awareness, and then the skills to increase your impact; and then ultimately, the collective impact of the teams that you work in as well.  So, in terms of that self-awareness as a starting point, one of the things that Sarah and I thought was useful was to reflect a little bit on the mode that you spend time in, and the moments when it might be useful for you to adapt your mode.

So, two coach-yourself questions to start with, and maybe we can then respond to these for you to bring them to life.  So, the first coach-yourself question is about the mode and it's just, "What mode do you spend the most time in at work?" so follower or leadership mode; and the second coach-yourself question is about the moments, and that question is, "What moments could be even better if you adapted your approach?"

So, Sarah, if I asked you that one, so what mode do you think you spend most time in: leader or follower?

Sarah Ellis: Leader.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I'd agree, and I'd say the same for me, which is why we're having this conversation!  And, what moments do you think could be even better in our business if we adapted our approach?

Sarah Ellis: Well, I think we often struggle at informal meetings.  When we've got a more formal meeting, where we've perhaps talked about it before and we're very well-prepared maybe, or it's quite a well-structured conversation, you and I -- and I can think of an example where this exactly happened last week; it was very structured.  We'd got 20 minutes to do a presentation and we were both really clear about the roles that we were playing, and I think that we showed up really well and I think we both felt like we did a really good job in that 20 minutes together.

So, I think the moments where I always spot that sometimes we could be better is informal conversations, or exploratory conversations, where I think one of two things sometimes happens: sometimes we both try to take the lead, and then that means we either talk over each other, or you cancel each other out; or I think more recently, because we've been so consciously working on this, then we both stop talking, which also doesn't help. 

Because we're both mindful of trying to give the other person that opportunity and the space to then be heard, I then think we are thinking about that more, and I see us both lose our flow at times.  It is often where we haven't had the chance beforehand to consciously say, "We've decided to spend this time together with this other person", whether it's within our team, or externally with someone we're working with, and we just haven't taken that moment to go, "Oh, you lead on this and I will take notes and I'll be the person listening, or I'll ask any questions at the end".  Sometimes, it can be just those 30-second, 1-minute check-ins beforehand that can make quite a big difference.

I think we are very inconsistent and ad hoc as to whether we remember to do that, and we're still learning about what it looks like for us to run a business together, and I think we both find those moments very frustrating.

Helen Tupper: So, clearly the outcome of all of this is for you to be at your best and also, for you to be better together.  So, that's what we want to achieve, and those first coach-yourself questions will at least help you to get some self-awareness about what this looks like for you right now, and where some of the opportunity areas might be.

What we want to do next is support you with the skills.  So, Sarah's going to talk through effective leader mode.  If you think, "I want to consciously be in that mode more", what could that look like, with some ideas for action.  And then, I'm going to talk about effective follower mode.  If you recognise that at times it's useful to put yourself more into follower mode, what could that look like and how could you do it?

Sarah Ellis: So, let's start with effective leader mode, and we've got three skills that we think are helpful.  Of course, there are lots more skills that go with effective leadership and effective followership, but we've tried to choose some that are as distinct as possible and that are specific and where we can give you an idea for action to try out.

So, the first skill, in terms of effective leadership, is about setting direction.  So, this is about being really clear on why are we doing what we're doing, and how are we going to know whether we've been successful?  It is amazing, I think, how often you do work where you lose sight of that.  You lose sight of why is this important; because why is talked about a lot now within organisations and people who've watched people like Simon Sinek's TED Talk, this can feel like it has to be a massive question.  But I just think it's being really clear about why something is important; why is it linked to our objectives; why does this matter as part of our team? 

Once you're clear on that why, also knowing the how is also equally important.  Sometimes we do one, sometimes we do the other, but having the clarity on both of those, I think, is a really important role that a leader can play.  If I think about all the best leaders that I have spent time with, and back to this point about leadership is not necessarily about hierarchy, lots of those leaders are not people I've necessarily worked for; they are all very good at doing this: being really clear on the why and really clearly on the how.

Our idea for action here is to involve, don't solve.  So, I sometimes think when you are trying to spend more time in leader mode, you put a lot of pressure on yourself to squirrel away and think, "I've got to do all the solving myself, and then I need to present these plans that are fully formed, fully thought out in a sort of ta-da, 'I've cracked it!'" and when I think about myself, and even though I definitely spend more time in leader mode and that's where I feel more comfortable, I have definitely done this lots of times.  I can think of loads of examples where I've done this and I think it often comes from positive intent; you're trying to be helpful, you think it's really important, this is what you're paid to do, you should go away and think about these things.

But if we think it through, people are much more committed to objectives that we've been part of creating and plans that we've been involved in forming.  So, I think the most confident leaders, and I think it does take confidence, are really prepared to involve people as part of figuring out the why and the how, and they invite people to contribute and to share their perspective.  So, by the time you do share whatever it is your why and your how looks like, I always think you know you've been successful where it's not a surprise and where people have been part of that process, and it feels like it's something that you have created together.

I feel like increasingly, your role if you are leading a project or a team or a campaign internally, whatever it might be, is you're leading that process to happen.  So, you're making sure that people are coming together, you're making sure that people get heard; you're perhaps condensing it and summarising it so that people can continue to provide their feedback.  So almost, you're leading the process more than you are feeling like you need to leave all of the creation of all of the content.

The more that we can practise this, the more you get used to being in that effective leader mode, and this is not easy.  As I said, I can think of examples relatively recently where I've still not done this and I know it would be better to do it.  Sometimes, it's because it's the harder route too, so it's easier to go off and do something by ourselves, because we're in control of that and we can just sit by ourselves and write some PowerPoint slides, or write a one-page Word document; but doing this is the harder choice.  Also, you're probably going to deal with more emotions and people will disagree and it might take a bit longer; so, I think just recognising when could you play this role as an effective leader, when could you involve, rather than feel like you have to solve it for yourself.

So, effective leader skill number two, really good skill to practise if you want to spend more time in leader mode, is about space and support.  So, I always think of it a bit like being a helicopter where, as a leader, you've got to know when to land and when to take off and when to be hovering, which sounds actually a bit ominous, doesn't it, when you say hovering? 

Helen Tupper: I hate hovering.

Sarah Ellis: Actually, I hate it when people do that, but it's the idea that you are there if people need you.  So, this is all about giving people the space that they need, but also knowing that you're there if they need you.  And, there's a few ways I think you can do this.  You can be a bit more directive, so you can say to somebody, "This is how I'm planning to support you and this is how I'm imagining this will show up", or you can do it the opposite way round and ask someone, "How involved would you like me to be?  What support do you need from me?" which might even be the nicer way round, because then you're able to personalise your approach a bit more, because two people could be working on very similar projects, but start from quite different places. 

So, one person's response to, "How involved would you like me to be?" might be, "Well, I'd really like to talk to you for half an hour once a week, and I'd like to send you an update to get your response"; and someone else might say, "I'll come to you as and when I need you".  People can often say quite different things.  And if you do want to make it even easier for people to just get a sense of when you would like to be involved, because sometimes I think percentages at this point could actually be really useful and that's rarely a sentence I say, but I've certainly worked for people -- and, Helen and I actually do use this technique a bit already and I could imagine we might start to use it more.

I'm working on a project at the moment and I actually said to Helen last week, "How involved do you want to be with this project, this new project that we're starting?" and Helen said to me, "Can you show it to me when you're about 80% of the way there, please?"  So, that straightaway was a signal for me of going, "Okay, well I'm going to get the majority of this project underway and to a really great place that I feel really comfortable with, but so I've got enough leeway that I can still take onboard Helen's feedback and ideas and approach".  But by saying 80%, that signalled something to me.

If Helen had said, "Oh, can I see it when you're at 20%, 60% and 80%?", I'd think, "Okay, well that's involving Helen a bit more.  That's useful to know and I'll think about what the best ways are to do that".  I think it helps a bit to put a bit of a framework around, how do you do that space and support as a leader when you are working with people, whether they're people who work directly for you, or whether they're people who are part of a cross-functional team.

And then our final skill in terms of effective leadership and putting yourself in leadership mode, this does come up in everything you read about leadership: communicating with clarity and enthusiasm.  I do think that enthusiasm matters.  I think that enthusiasm looks and feels very different for everyone, but I think you could probably actually replace enthusiasm with care; so, showing that you care about what you're talking about and that it matters to you.

I was reading a really good article, when I was researching for today, that talked about just how important that care is, in terms of signalling to people who are following you in whatever capacity that it matters to you; and by it mattering to you, then it becomes something that matters to other people too.  When I think about communicating with clarity, I personally think this is really hard, because being simple and straightforward is much, much harder than sending out a 60-page slide deck all about your strategy as a leader.

So, the question that I always ask myself is, what's the one thing?  If there's any one thing people are going to remember about this project, or that I'm trying to communicate, what's the one thing; what's the three things, and, that three things has to include the one thing, if that makes sense; and then, what are the five things, and that five things has to include the three things?  So, you're not just adding and adding; you're getting very reductive essentially.  You're really trying to boil down and distil what are the things that you need people to remember about this objective you're trying to achieve, or project that you're working on, and if they only remember one thing, what is it.

Then, once you have been really clear about that, you have to keep saying it really consistently and ideally in the same way.  Of course, you want to bring these things to life with stories and numbers and all that good stuff; but the core of what you're trying to say stays the same.  And, you have to practise how you're going to say it as enthusiastically the 20th time, the 100th time, 200th time as you did the first time.  Because, in your role as an effective leader, you're going to be talking to lots of different people in lots of different ways, and you probably are going to keep coming back to these same points.  You probably want that one point to be in most of the conversations that you might be having.

I remember certain projects that certainly I've done when I was working in organisations where every conversation I was having, there would be one or two things, the same sentences, that I would end up saying.  You don't want to lose sight of those, because that's what makes your messages stick; that's what people remember, and then they then go on and say those sentences to someone else.

Helen Tupper: Yeah.  When you hear it said back, you're like, "Oh, that's exactly what I wanted people to take away!"

Sarah Ellis: That's so interesting.  If you can somehow get close to overhearing conversations that people are having about your business or your project and then figuring out, "Are they saying what I want them to say?" because if they are, they can be brilliant advocates for whatever you're trying to achieve, because they start sharing it on your behalf.  And, if they've got enthusiastic about it and they care about it, brilliant.  That's when you're inspiring followers, and that's where you have that kind of ripple effect that you're hoping to achieve.

Whereas, if you hear people saying something and you think, "That's not quite what I meant; they've interpreted something in a slightly different way to the way that I've got it in my head", that's okay too, because that happens all the time.  But spot that and listen out for that and use that as data to then think, "Okay, I need to work a bit harder on that communicating with clarity, because the one thing that my manager has remembered after that conversation wasn't the one thing I wanted them to", they've remembered something that maybe was a bit on the edges or a bit on the periphery; or, "That person I was trying to influence in a different team, they got really hooked on a message that isn't really that important, so what do I need to do about that?"

So, just try and notice, are you clear in your own mind about your one, three and five messages; and then, how are you going to say them and how are you going to say them with care and enthusiasm.

Helen Tupper: Now we're going to move on to the skill of being an effective follower, and I just want to go back to that point that Sarah talked about at the start, which is both of these roles are equal, because I somethings think that people think of followership as an unequal role, it's a bit subservient; but I think followership is a really powerful role that you can play.  You can really take someone else's message and give it momentum.  Make sure that in your own mind, you're thinking about followership as being a powerful role, because if you don't you might be reluctant to step into it, which I think is a real shame, because we increase everyone's impact when we're able to switch between the modes.

So, let's talk about skills then.  The first skill of being an effective follower is to be able to manage yourself well.  What this really means is that you can take the initiative, so you don't have to wait for direction from other people, particularly a leader, and you can also act with autonomy.  A really important part of being a follower is that you're able to do those two things.

In order to do that for yourself, the idea for action that we have for you is to really anticipate the blockers that might get in the way of the progress that someone's trying to make, so like an initiative that someone's getting off the ground, or a message that they're trying to get momentum with, whatever it is.  You can be a really good follower who manages yourself well if you anticipate the blockers, and also you respond to bottlenecks proactively.

If I'm thinking of something that we're working on at the moment, we are creating lots of video content, and Sarah has definitely been in leader mode on that particular project.  She's set it all up and got the team behind that are doing all the videoing and editing, all of that; Sarah's been totally in leader mode, I am in follower mode. 

But one of the things that I have been trying to do, because that is a really important initiative that I want to support and I believe in the purpose of, is I've tried to think about what are some of the blockers and bottlenecks that might get in the way of realising everything we want that project to be, and how can I proactively take the initiative to stop those things holding us back or slowing us down?

For example, I've started to already talk to some of our clients about those things and get their feedback and think about how we're positioning them, and I'm running with that alongside what Sarah's doing.  I've not asked her permission to do that, I've not checked in; I'm just doing that because I can ultimately see when the bit that Sarah's done has finished with, what we need to do next, and I'm creating the runway so that we can move things forward quickly when we get to that point.

The second skill to be an effective follower and to put yourself into follower mode more is to build your competence and credibility.  Really good followers are good at what they do and they're seen as good by other people.  And the more you know effectively about something, the better that you can be, the more help you can be.  That can be, you've got more insight maybe than the leader might have, or you've got access to some information on a project, or maybe there are some people that you know that can help move things forward.  You effectively make it easier to make things happen, and that's what makes you a really good follower.

One way that you can do this, and the idea for action that we've got for you, is to really focus your followership.  You don't have to try and do everything to make an initiative happen, but you can really concentrate and focus what you're contributing.  A good question to ask yourself in order to do that is, "How can you fill a gap that your leader has got?"  So, if there's something that they're trying to do, really think about what is a gap that they've got, and that might be knowledge, they might not know about a particular area of the business that you might have more expertise or insight into; it could be relationships, there might be some people that you have a relationship with that you could help that leader move things forward with.

Then, the last follower skill that is worth you thinking about is the ability to communicate with honesty.  So, really effective followers are not afraid to give feedback to improve the outcomes.  The real super skill here is to be able to disagree agreeably; so, not disagree to be difficult, but disagree agreeably, and I reckon it's a fine line to tread sometimes.  So, maybe getting some feedback on your ability to give feedback is probably a helpful thing.

Some ideas for action to have in mind if you're going to approach disagreeing agreeably: when you do this, don't disagree with the person.  So, this isn't, "Sarah, I don't agree with you", it's more about the approach or the process or the approach to the problem that you would be disagreeing with.  I think it's also quite important that at the same time, you might provide some alternative options or outcomes that could be pursued.  So, we know sometimes it's difficult to put this into action without really imaging it, so it might sound like using if/then as a bit of a framework for the feedback.

So, "If our objective continues to be making careers better for everyone", just to give an Amazing if example there, "then I'm concerned that spending our time on X, Y and Z is taking us away from achieving that outcome".  So, that would be me framing that feedback in a way that was agreeable, because I've focussed on the thing that we were committed to, but I'm also disagreeing with what we're doing.  So, try and think about an if/then statement that could help you to do that.

Then, in order to provide the solutions, making that conversational rather than confrontational, could just be framed as, "How might we take a different approach?" or, "How might we realign what we're spending time on with the mission that we set out to achieve?"  So, just think about those two framings: the "if" and the "then" for the feedback, and the "how might we" for the solutions.

Sarah Ellis: Always sounds so easy, doesn't it, when you're doing it as an example?  I was just listening to you there thinking, "I'd love to disagree agreeably the whole time", though I did try to.  It was actually making me smile, because when we were putting together our ideas for this podcast, I think you'd written a few things that I did disagree with and I was thinking, when you're doing it in writing it's particularly interesting, because I was thinking, "We've not had a conversation, so I don't know if this is you taking some research, or is this your point of view?" 

Also, when you read something, I think you do also have a different reaction to when you're speaking, because you've got no intonation, have you?  You can't describe, you can't smile, or any of those things.  So, I did actually write a few sentences, then delete them, and then wrote some different sentences, which you don't know; I'm obviously telling you this now!

Helen Tupper: That's so funny!

Sarah Ellis: I read something and I think my first reaction was, "No!"  I thought, "I'm not sure that's really disagreeing agreeably or that helpful".

Helen Tupper: Constructive!

Sarah Ellis: I thought, "Okay, so then if I want to be useful, I need to do that point about proactively suggest some alternatives, but also think about it's not that I'm not fundamentally disagreeing with Helen".  I go, "I don't think I agree with that approach for what we're trying to say; could we explore this way instead?"  And it's funny, because we actually created this podcast today, which is not a typical process that we necessarily go through, but there were a couple of voice notes, there's been different things that we've both read; there's been all sorts of bullet points and structures, because we were so keen to try and make this practical, rather than just lots of principles about leadership and followership.

As we said, there's not loads of people looking at this right now, so it took us a while to really frame our thinking, and I think we've both had to do a bit of this to get to this point.  Who knows how it sounds to our listeners?  Hopefully, someone will let us know!

Helen Tupper: I do think though, in the context of Squiggly Careers and the importance of growth mindset, whilst there might not be a raft of research on this, I really believe that what we've talked about today is really important, because I think it really matters that you can change your mode so you could be both things, and you could ultimately be better together.  And, I think it's quite fixed mindset to only do one thing, or only think that you can be one thing.  So, I hope we've convinced you all.

Sarah Ellis: I think you limit your learning, don't you?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, you do, you do limit your learning.

Sarah Ellis: The more I thought about this, I reckon if I'd have had three more weeks, this could have been about a five-hour podcast.  But the more I've thought about it, the more I'm like, "This is so important".  Then I find it really hard not to get distracted by thinking, "Maybe we should do some research on this".

Helen Tupper: You can lead on that!

Sarah Ellis: Okay, yeah, thanks!  One of the articles actually I read on this is quite old.  It's from 1988, so in some ways I was like, "Wow, he's quite revolutionary".  But they describe some things that you can try out as a team or an organisation, if you want to almost be conscious and proactive about this changing, flexing from leader to follower mode, which I thought, "That's so interesting.  That's such a good idea".

So, if you were working on a project, for example, save five of you were working on a project, you could actually try rotating leaders.  So, you could say, maybe it's quite a long project and it's going to take you five months, and you take a month at a time.  I was like, "That's a fascinating experiment.  I'd love to see how that works".  Interestingly, they've also found that leaderless groups do better than groups that have too many leaders.  So basically, if the world was all a bit like you and I some of the time, it would be a disaster.  But if you've got lots of followers, people with more of a naturally follower mindset together, actually those groups get loads done.

I was thinking, "I've seen this work in things like volunteer groups", where naturally it feels less leader-like, because you've all opted in to be there, you're perhaps all playing different roles, and it doesn't have that power structure or clearly that organisational structure that can, I think, sometimes get in the way.  So, if you are feeling particularly creative, or you're really interested in this in your organisation, you might think about this in terms of, "How could we almost create an environment where everyone gets to practise everything here, rather than relying on what our organisational chart tells us, to define the roles that we play?"  So, I think it's fascinating.

Helen Tupper: I do too.  We should probably not turn it into a five-hour podcast, because I'm sure our listeners want to listen to all the other episodes that we have put out!  Maybe not today, everybody, but they are there for you, about 230 episodes, whenever you've got a minute or two to catch up on some more career development! 

But hopefully that has been helpful for you today.  Genuinely, we would love your feedback, so do let us know if you found today helpful, and also if you've got any other topics that you'd like us to cover in the future.

Sarah Ellis: Thank you so much for listening today.  From next week, we've got our new Ask the Expert series.  I think this is the fourth Ask the Expert series that we're doing, which based on today's episode, you might be really relieved that you have a few weeks off from Helen and I!  The next series is brilliant.  The topics we're going to cover include Uncertainty, Influence, Time, Storytelling, Leadership and Success, so hopefully they all feel really relevant, regardless of what role you're doing, or what experience you've got so far in your career.

We're going to start off next week with my interview with Sam Conniff and Catherine Lewis, and that's all about uncertainty and it's fascinating.  Together, they've been running this uncertainty experiment, where they've been doing almost this live learning through documentaries, through loads of uncertainty experts, and Catherine is a scientist.  Amongst other things, she's actually incredibly Squiggly, and she's also a multi-disciplined scientist.

Helen Tupper: She's a Squiggly scientist!

Sarah Ellis: She is a Squiggly scientist.  And Sam, some of you may know Sam from, he wrote a book called, Be More Pirate; he's run lots of organisations.  They've come together to really focus on uncertainty, and they've also partnered with University College in London.  It's just a really interesting conversation all about how our brain approaches uncertainty; spoiler alert, it doesn't really like it.  But then also, why uncertainty is so useful if you can find your way of navigating through it.

So, it's a brilliant conversation.  I'm really looking forward to this Ask the Expert series, so I hope you all get a chance to listen to at least a couple of those.  But for this week, that's everything.  We hope you found it helpful and we'll speak to you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye, everyone.