Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:00:32: Squiggly Career video book

00:03:22: What senior people have to offer

00:05:53: The standouts that senior people look for

00:11:25: Ideas for action…

00:12:32: … 1: find their filters

00:13:50: … 2: what do I think?

00:15:25: … 3: follow up with focus

00:17:31: … 4: what's most important now

00:20:07: … 5: influence the influencers

00:23:35: … 6: resist the pressure to be on present mode

00:28:02: … 7: own your identity outside of work

00:31:00: … 8: quality questions

00:33:39: … 9: make the ask

00:36:12: … 10: be consistent

00:39:05: … extra: short emails are a winner

00:40:40: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly podcast where we share ideas for actions and tools to try out that we hope will help you, and it always helps us, to navigate your Squiggly Career with more confidence, clarity and control.  And this week, we're going to be talking about how to stand out with senior people.  But before we get started, we want to let you know, if you don't already know, that we have a special offer.  

Sarah, that sounds strange, "a special offer".  We've got a good thing to tell you about, a freebie.

Sarah Ellis: So before we dive in, quick reminder, if you want a free copy of the Squiggly Career video book, we've got one available for every podcast listener.  We'll put all the details in the show notes and all of our socials, but you just need to go to litvideobooks.com/the-squiggly-career, catchy!  And when you go to buy and you create your account, the code is SQUIGGLYCAREERSPODCAST, all in capitals, that bit is quite easy, and once you've got the Squiggly Career video book, you can download it, you can watch it on websites or mobile apps, so hopefully it could be quite helpful if you're commuting.  And we would also love to know what you think of this new format of development and learning.  It's about 50 minutes long, you can watch it in short snippets, there's a workbook you can download, you can see an animated version of me and Helen, if that's something that you find interesting.

Helen Tupper: Just what you need in your life

! Sarah Ellis: But you can also hear things like Squiggly Career stories from people across the world who've had Squiggly Careers, something that we couldn't include in the book, as well as just lots of very practical hints and tips, which is probably what you'd expect from us.  Make the most of it while it's there; I think we've got one more week of being able to offer it and then I guess you have to pay for it again, so, brilliant!

Helen Tupper: And if you have read the book, I think it goes really well alongside the book because obviously it's more visual because it's a video, but it's also quite a nice reminder of some of the key points and concepts too.  So as I said, this week we're talking about how to stand out with senior people, and even though organisations are becoming less hierarchical, senior people still have a significant impact on your development, and there are often lots of issues or concerns or fears that can get in the way of people building the relationships that can really help them with their development.

Sarah Ellis: I also think you have the added complexity for most people now that we're working in a more hybrid way.  I know that won't be true for everyone listening, but it feels like we have to sort of re-learn again what it looks like to maybe engage with some of our senior stakeholders, because perhaps previously they were just sort of there and you could learn a bit more by osmosis.  I was always quite good at that actually, in big organisations, I was quite good at watching and learning and just figuring out what do they do well and what matters to them and what has impact, almost without directly necessarily always talking to them. But also, you can't have those maybe quick chats where you're grabbing a coffee or in the lift or in those in-between moments.  And I have to say, I was always absolutely rubbish at that, I would literally just be silent.  I'd be in the lift --

Helen Tupper: That's where I was good.

Sarah Ellis: I'm sure you were!  I would just be in the lift being like, "I feel really awkward, I've got nothing interesting to say".

Helen Tupper: I think I sort of over-rely on informality to build my relationships.  And so the challenge for me, like if I was still in corporate life at Microsoft, the challenge for me would be, how do I find those points of connection when I'm not meeting somebody in person and that virtual thing?  So I can understand why that would feel difficult for people.

Sarah Ellis: And so, senior people in our organisations, they do have a lot to offer, and I think it's helpful for us to think about the why, "Why does this feel useful?"  Well, we know that sponsorship makes a real difference in our Squiggly Careers, because when we have sponsors, those people spot and promote opportunities and options for us, so that's always helpful.  I always think senior people can see things that we can't see, so they help to bring you possibilities that perhaps you would find it harder to see or imagine for yourself. You do generally want support for the work you're doing, maybe for your projects, you might need some senior support, particularly for a piece of work.  Decisions, it's quite rare that we can make all of our decisions by ourselves; we want people to have high levels of accountability because we know that's really motivating, we definitely don't want to be micromanaged by our senior people. 

But often there is a point when we're working on things when we sort of need to know, "What do you want me to prioritise?" or we're trying to figure out a way forward.  You might be presenting recommendations, but you do sort of need sign-off of some description.  I mean, I've had a lot of jobs where you need sign off for things, that feels very familiar for me. Time is always a challenging one.  I was doing a workshop the other week and I was asking somebody about their very small successes.  They said to me, "I was getting time in the diary of a particular person", and that's because everybody is busy. 

But with senior people, they are often pulled in lots of different directions and there are loads of demands on their time.  And it's not that they're any more important than us or their time is any more important, it's just they've probably got lots and lots of requests on their time.  So you're sort of trying to go, "Well, how do I engage; how do I communicate with these people in a way that has impact?"  And they're a brilliant source of learning. When I was thinking about this, and I was like, "Why have senior people mattered to me in my career?" it's because I want to learn from them.  They've got experiences and expertise that I hadn't got that I wanted to gain, I wanted to get their perspective.  We talk a lot about borrowing brilliance; I was like, "I want to surround myself with some of these people because they've had really fascinating Squiggly Careers".  And I don't necessarily want to sort of be them when I grow up, because I think you make that mistake sometimes of thinking, "I should try and be that person".  I think we need to let go of that because we just want to be brilliant versions of ourselves, but I also don't want to be naïve enough to think, " I've got loads to learn from those people". So you start surrounding yourself, certainly with the right senior people, gives you an opportunity to get better, to continually improve, to really challenge yourself to explore your potential.

Helen Tupper: And I think it's a skill to think about how you stand out with senior people, because what you want from them will change over time.  In some roles, you might be like, "I just need someone to help me make a decision, and that's why I need you".  And then you might be at a different point in time in your Squiggly Career and you're like, "This is now all about learning for me".  And so the skill, I think, is to spot what you need and then be able to stand out with the senior people so that you get it. We thought we would ask some senior people in our community, who suddenly got a lot of WhatsApps from both of us going, "We're doing this podcast", and you can see them being like, "Oh, great"!

Sarah Ellis: "This is what we need from you, senior people, advice for our podcast!"

Helen Tupper: So we asked them, "What works for you when you've got people in your business that want your time or your decisions, all that kind of stuff; what makes you want to help them and support them and enable them?"  And there were a few themes that came through.  So this is what the senior people say.  What they want is for us all to be vulnerable, ask for help, which actually also plays to their ego, because if you ask for help in a clear and confident way, then it helps them to feel that they've got something of value to give to you, so that's quite useful; to stand for something, so if you're going to stand out, be really clear about what you stand for, and that doesn't have to be something in work either, that might be something you're really passionate about that you do outside of work, but that helps you almost to just be a bit more distinctive to them. The third was to speak with clarity and to be succinct, so these people are probably, just like you, back-to-back meetings all the time, a little bit short, lots of emails, lots of people want these senior people.  So if you are waffly and you don't get to the point, it can feel quite frustrating for them.  So if you are clear and succinct, that is useful.  And then the fourth thing that we got back was connecting with their out-of-work identity.  If you want to build that connection with somebody, it doesn't have to just be about a project, because that could feel quite transactional to that person.  But if there's something, maybe you both support the same team outside of work, or I mean I don't know anything about football, so I can't really take that much further, that would be a rubbish idea!

Sarah Ellis: I was wondering where you were going to take that.  I was like, "What is she trying to say?  Is she going to try and talk about some sports?"

Helen Tupper: "There are these football teams…!"  Honestly, I hear my husband and my little boy talking, because he's really curious about football, talking about all the different leagues.  And I'm like, "I'm lost with this.  I'm very lost".  So yeah, pick something that you know about, by the way, don't try and get into their world if you have no idea about it.  But if you can find that point of connection, it means you can have slightly different discussions that can go around the work that you're trying to do, which can be really useful to build better relationships with people.

Sarah Ellis: Well, quite a few of the people that I asked started with, "Well, remember that we're human too!"  And I was like, "Oh, no, I know that, I know that you're an individual".  Sometimes I think we do forget that they still have, just because you're really senior, you still make mistakes, things feel really hard, things can feel really overwhelming.  All of those challenges and knotty moments that you're having in your Squiggly Careers, they've had them too or might be having them too.  And sometimes I think we do forget that because perhaps we only see them in what can feel like quite shiny moments. 

We see them maybe at their very professional senior best, presenting or running something with lots of clarity and they're facilitating and they're leading really well, or not, not everyone is brilliant at it, but then that can make them quite intimidating and I think it can make them feel quite far out of reach, and then it creates some of that fear and some of the barriers that we were talking about. So loads of people just got back to me initially, then they got very practical, then they were like, "Right, I do these three things".

Helen Tupper: "It's going on the podcast; I need to do it"!

Sarah Ellis: But, "Be human first and foremost", it was quite interesting how many people said that to me.

Helen Tupper: I think if I worked in an organisation where you were a senior person, I would try to connect with you either on coffee or curiosity, which is very specific.

Sarah Ellis: How about a curiosity coffee?

Helen Tupper: I mean, bring them both together!  But because you love coffee, so I might be like, "Oh, I tried this great new coffee place", or something like that, so that would be an out-of-work way.  And then curiosity, because you are curious.  I know that, if I'd been to an event or I'd read a book or I'd seen something that you might find stimulating, me practically sharing that with you would be a way that I would build better relationship with you.

Sarah Ellis: Not sure what I'd do with you, the way you were, "I've obviously really thought about this"!  I think sometimes it can feel quite hard because as you were describing that then, I was thinking, "We're very different".  So if I was working for you, I think I might be like, "Okay, but Helen's really sociable and she's very extrovert, and she probably loves the lift chat, but I don't like any of those things".  So, I think you've got to be really careful, because if this feels either manipulative or inauthentic, it is never going to work for you. So I think I would be more in the, "Right, so what does Helen value in work?  She values making progress fast, she values pace, she wants people who she can trust to get on with stuff and make stuff happen", you're like a make-it-happen person, so I think I would want to become your go-to person who you'd be like, "Well, Sarah always makes it happen.  I know that she'll do what she says she's going to do, so no say-do gap, and she does what she does really well, and I can trust her to deliver.  And do you know what?  She always adds some extra sparkle or value beyond --"

Helen Tupper: The Sarah sparkle!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, beyond the day-to-day delivery.  Because I think day-to-day delivery would get you excited, you'd be like, "Yeah, great, that's what I want".  But I know that the thing that I can add is the thoughtfulness or the curiosity that you described.  So I would play to what I think you would value, and then I would want to show you some of my other stuff.  That's what I would do.

Helen Tupper: That's what it would be like if I were a senior!

Sarah Ellis: And I wouldn't talk to you in the lift still!

Helen Tupper: So we have got ten ideas for action so that you can go away from today, you can spot that senior person that you might want to build a better relationship with, and you can do something so that you stand out.  And we're just going to take them in turn, and we will type them all up for you and put them in the PodSheet, which you can always get from our website, amazingif.com, and we put it on social as well.  So follow us @amazingif on LinkedIn or Instagram and you'll find it.  But hopefully that will give you a good summary of what we're going to talk about now.

Sarah Ellis: And what we're not suggesting is this is a ten-part tick list, and you need to do all of these ten things to have a positive impact and to stand out with senior people.  I think as you're listening, connect the dots between what do you need at the moment from senior people, so is it really practical like decisions and sign off; or is it more about career possibilities?  And then as we go through, also think which ones feel right for me and feel relevant, so they feel like, "Okay, this is something I could go away and do".  So what do you need and what could you do; and then almost come up with your own priority list of probably two or three things that you think are going to help you to stand out even more with senior people.

Helen Tupper: So idea for action number one is to find their filters, and this is a build on really from what Sarah and I just started to talk about a little bit.  It is always worth taking the time to understand the lens that someone is looking through when they're at work.  So, as Sarah said, if it's me, I'm like, "Do it fast, get it done"; and if it's Sarah, it's more like, "Do it different", because Sarah doesn't always want to do the same thing, she values variety, "and do it right", there's an accuracy element that's really important to Sarah. But if you understand someone's filter, it's far easier to find points to connect with them on.  And the way I think you find people's filters, do a lot of listening, and actually just do a lot of observing.  In the next Zoom meeting that you're in, when that person is talking, what statements do they say; what kind of words? 

If you listen to me, I'm very like, "When do we need to get it done by?  Who's doing it?  Are we clear?  Let's move on".  You will hear my filter in the language that I use.  And I can see Sarah's, I can see her kind of considered, I can see the questions, I can see that, "It might be even better if…", would be some of the language that I would hear from Sarah, and I would just see her pausing to think how we could improve things. So just try and spot in meetings, in conversations, what people say and what you see, and that can help you to find the filters.

Sarah Ellis: So idea for action number two, ask yourself the question, "What do I think?"  So, as we move away from a world of command and control, where you just did what you were told in the way that you were told to do it, senior people are looking to you to have a point of view, to have an opinion.  I think it took me a long time to learn this.  I don't think I had an opinion for ages, but I think I was very good at doing what I was told, and I think you sort of learn that, and it took me a little while to rediscover having a perspective and that feeling okay. Then once I'd learned to do that, I then had to learn, well if a senior person then disagrees with you -- so, I was then finally putting my opinions out there, and then sometimes people would be like, "Oh, I don't agree", and I'd be like, "This is a disaster, this is going to be the end of my career". 

But disagreement doesn't mean you've done a bad job.  It just shows that you're prepared to give a point of view, but then you're really open to listening and learning.  And I have hardly ever seen senior people, certainly not the really brilliant ones, they don't judge you for that might not be the way you take things forward.  You might have suggested plan A and you go with plan B for some really good reasons.  Actually, what they really appreciate is, "This person has been thoughtful, this person isn't being passive and they're not expecting me to do all the hard work for them". This was a really common theme as well in lots of the WhatsApps I got back.  People were like, "I want people to have a point of view, come with a recommendation", you know, the whole "don't just come with a problem" thing.  But also, this is also a bit of standing for something, isn't it?  Knowing what you think shows that you stand for something.

Helen Tupper: Idea for action number three is to follow up with focus.  So if you've been in a meeting, I think a lot of people focus on how they can be visible in that moment and what do they say, and all that kind of stuff.  And sometimes people just say things for saying-things' sake so that they get heard, but actually that's just annoying; don't do that tactic.  I mean, speak if you've got something valuable to add, but otherwise I think it's better to follow up with focus, which is where after the meeting, you might get in touch with that manager, that senior person and say, "I've reflected on what you said and I thought this might be of interest to you" or, "I've reflected on what you said and I'm now going to take this action as a result.  I wanted to let you know", whatever it is, but it's that, "I've continued to think about this thing we were discussing" or, "The thing that you shared has had this impact on me afterwards", and that you've got a really clear follow-up.

Again, don't do this for doing-it's sake.  If every time you're in a meeting with that person, you send a really long email to them, it's going to get really irritating.  So, it's only if it is of value to contribute a follow-up to that person, but it's just really helpful for them to realise, "That person's still thinking".  If someone did that to me after a session or something that we'd done, I would think, "That was worth my time doing that in that meeting, because that particular individual has taken my words further, and it's informed their work, and that's why I do what I do".  So, that's what you're reinforcing.

Sarah Ellis: Do you know, so somebody did this for me today.  I'm not their senior person, to be clear, but let's imagine I was for a second.  They had listened to our podcast about AI and how it might affect careers and career development, then they had spotted an article about AI in particular to do with coaching, and they sent me a message saying, "Just following up from the podcast, I thought you then might be interested to read this", and then sent me the article, and it felt so specific and useful that it's really memorable in my mind.  And so that person really stands out as a result. Now, yeah, I've no impact necessarily, but I might be able to influence, and I might have some connections that could be helpful for that person, those things are probably true, and I was like, "That is following up with focus; perfect". Idea for action four, what's most important now?  So we have stolen this from Liz Wiseman, because I've just interviewed her for an Ask the Expert episode that is coming up in a couple of weeks' time, which is brilliant.

Helen Tupper: Tease!

Sarah Ellis: She was really good.  I do think her book, which is about high-impact players, is very, very good.  One of the things that she talks about is the people who have the most impact in organisations are very good at understanding and asking very explicitly senior people, what is most important now.  So they test their assumptions.  You know sometimes you think, "Well, surely this project is the most important thing now?" or, "Actually, this is the thing that we need to do first".  They don't second guess, they stress-test with senior people, "This is what I think is most important now. 

I am just going to do that sense check just to make sure we've got that shared sense of expectations in terms of what to do in what order", and it just shows that you're being proactive.  You're usually making a suggestion, but often senior people might be having conversations that you're not part of, or they might be able to anticipate things that you just don't know are happening. When I think back to my corporate days in particular, I can remember times where I got this wrong, because I sort of assumed I was on the right track but didn't stop along the way to just do that check-in of like, "Well, for everything I'm working on, this is what I think is most important in this order".  But also, you're doing that classic thing of involving, rather than feeling like you have to solve it all yourself.  I've already used "what's most important now" in about three or four different contexts, in different workshops, in different conversations.  I just feel like it's one of those easy and simple asks that can make a really big difference.  I'm very on board with this.

Helen Tupper: I really like it, I think I would have really appreciated some people doing that to me.  I would have appreciated being involved, even if it was my decision to then say, "No, I don't need to be involved", I would have appreciated that ask.  And also, I just think it's quite a confident thing.  I would respect the confidence it would take someone to say, "This is what I'm on, but I just want to check this is what's most important now".

Sarah Ellis: Also, I think some senior people won't know the answer to that question and I think that's okay, because I think you can do it in a kind way.  You're not trying to put a senior person on the spot here or to try and catch them out, but I'm thinking there are times when our team might ask me this and I might just think, "I'm not sure" or, "I've not thought about that enough, but that's a good question".  All I'm then going to think is, "That's a good question, let's try and figure it out".  I'm never then going to think, "Oh, I feel bad now as a senior person".  So you might sometimes find that happens, but I think that is okay.  I think if anything, that just gives you a bit more kudos.

Helen Tupper: Idea for action number five is to influence the influencers.

Sarah Ellis: It's very you actually.  I could tell you wrote this one, I was like, "You do that one!"

Helen Tupper: I know, I was just about to say this!  I was like, "I don't think, of the ten actions, Sarah would do this, but I would definitely think about this".  So obviously, everybody has a community around them in their career, and some people's are bigger than others, and in an organisation, you have your senior person and then they will have some people that they talk to and trust and spend more time with.  And yes, you can directly influence a senior person, but if you indirectly try to connect and influence the people that they respect, it can kind of support your credibility.  It's likely you might be getting talked about positively when you're not in the room.  Even if the senior person mentions your name and says, "Did you know about Sarah Ellis doing this?" somebody else is more likely to say, "Yeah, I've seen it actually, I've been working with Sarah on the project and she's been really, really good". So I would map, if you were almost going to put a triangle around your senior person, who would the three people who have the most influence over them, that they trust and they spend time with, be; and how could you spend more time with those people?  Again, in credible ways, like on projects and contributing and helping them to solve problems and support their priorities, all that stuff, so it still needs to be very real, but that can really reinforce that relationship that you're trying to build with the senior person.

Sarah Ellis: I think I did do this sometimes by accident rather than design, particularly actually sometimes I can remember a few examples externally where I didn't know who knew who, and you know like everyone knows everyone basically?  Most industries are really quite small and I do think as people get more senior, there are obviously just fewer of those people, and it's amazing everyone just seems to know everyone.  And I started to realise that, as I became more senior, that sometimes someone would have been out the night before and they would have met somebody that I knew, they would have said, "Oh, I know Sarah in Sainsbury's who works in --", like, "We love her" or whatever they would have said, hopefully something a bit more specific than that. But then those people would sometimes come back and tell me and I would think, "Well, that's helpful".  And honestly, you could see that I went up in people's estimations because of that, because often those people don't work with you that often, but they're like, "Oh, okay, she's having an impact as well.  Her influence goes beyond --" and it gives you a bit of a starting point to build on, so I do think it works.

Helen Tupper: I basically worked out in most of the large companies that I was in, they would have at least twice a year, they would be having a discussion about people's development.  So you'd have the leadership team or the executive leadership team or whatever, and they'd be talking about you and what you're doing and where you're going and all that kind of stuff, because it's part of most big companies' performance management review processes and how they talk about promotions and progression. I just remember thinking, "Okay, well, my manager's in that room, and when my manager puts me forward for a project or a position or a promotion, or whatever it is, I need two or three people in that room to endorse that.  And so I need to think about, I can see who the leadership team is, I know who they are, who can I get close to in there?" 

And I wouldn't be able to get close to all of them because I wouldn't have a relevant point of connection with some of the people in the room, but with two or three, I could, either because of a project or a passion or something, and that could support a discussion.  So I just got very tactical about leadership teams and who was on them and where my points of connection were.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I guess you can get too focused sometimes on one senior person and this stops you from doing that.  You know, you can get a bit too fixated on maybe your director or a particular director and this is about remembering it's usually about more than one person. So idea for action number six, and I really like this one, is resist the pressure to be on present mode.  And I think I learned this the hard way, because when you are presenting to senior people, whether that's on a Zoom or in a room or a bit of both, you might end up a lot of the time now having different people in different places, I would get very focused on what I needed to say, so what are the points that I'm trying to communicate?  I'm a very planned person, I like to be organised, and I would have really thought about that. 

I would have really invested quite a lot of time into, this is what I'm trying to say. Then what I started to realise is, what senior people want is to have a conversation.  I was really on tell mode.  I was like, "Well, I've got my ten slides, I'm going to talk you through these ten slides if it kills me, because I've put a load of effort into them".  You have to let go of that as a bit of a sunk cost of often going into those meetings.  You might still have to do the ten slides, but I think you have real confidence if you go in and think, "Well, the three points that need to be on slide one are the ones that you do need everybody there to know.  But actually, what about using those three points to frame the discussion?"  And so, what do you actually need from that conversation? Are you looking for people's ideas; are you looking for general input about something to do with the process; are you presenting something so you can get a decision, a yes/no/maybe decision; so, what is it you need? 

Why are you turning up to do that presentation?  And how can you make it a conversation?  People enjoy it way more if it's a conversation.  And also, if you put yourself in their shoes, of course you enjoy it more, because you're not just sitting there being presented at, which feels quite formal, and also risks feeling like something someone could have just read.  So, "If you're literally just going to talk me through some slides, I could have read them and told you whether I agree or not". So try and think, what is the point of you being in that room; and if you can ask some smart questions and include people in those conversations, I think you have way more impact.

Helen Tupper: I definitely did that wrong earlier in my career, because I wanted I think I wanted to be shiny.  And even if I didn't think that to myself, I wanted to impress them with my hard work, and I probably just bored them!

Sarah Ellis: I think that, I think they probably just humoured me, just nodded and smiled.

Helen Tupper: "We've seen this before".

Sarah Ellis: And like, "Oh, she's trying hard".

Helen Tupper: "She's trying really hard!  We need to give Helen ten minutes".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, "It's obviously very important to her!"

Helen Tupper: "It's very important to her!" and everyone's like, "Right, should we get on with what we actually need to talk about now?" after you've left the room; oh my gosh!

Sarah Ellis: Well, I think I then started to be in rooms where, particularly in retail, where retail is pretty direct and to the point, there's no time wasting, where I would go in and senior people would have read the presentation beforehand, because maybe you have to submit it.  And so I would sometimes walk into those rooms and people would say to me, "Right, Sarah, we've read it and we agree, so talk to us about what we need to do to make it happen" or, "Okay, Sarah, we've read it, we're not sure about…", and it was straight into the conversation, and so it stopped being about presenting and it started being much more about discussion.  And also, I'd have people stop me.  As I got a bit more senior, I had people go, "Yes, Sarah, we get it, let's talk about..." and I was like, "Okay, I've gone on too long".

Helen Tupper: I always think as well, you know if you're invited to present in like a senior meeting, that's a massive deal, your 10-15 minutes or however long you've got is a massive deal to you.  However, they've probably had a day of this, so I often used to think about like, what energy am I bringing to this meeting?  And it can depend on what time.  Like if it's a 9:00am to 4:00pm meeting and you're on first thing --

Sarah Ellis: And you're the 3:00pm slot!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, you've got to work out where you are.  At 3:00pm, they are a bit bored, they're a bit tired, they're worried about what all the stuff they've got to do.  So you want to almost think about, "What energy am I contributing to the room; what do these people need from me?" not just in terms of knowledge, but in terms of energy.  So, you can think about that as a factor of it, too.

Sarah Ellis: I do remember once interviewing for a non-exec role that I didn't get, and I knew I was the last interview of the day, and they honestly, at the end, it was that point I thought, "Maybe they're not going to offer it to me", but they said, "We've really enjoyed that.  You brought us so much energy, Sarah.  It's been a brilliant end to the day".  And I thought, well, do you know what?  I think they genuinely enjoyed the experience of interviewing me because I remember thinking, "I've got to bring some extra energy and some enthusiasm here.  They've been sitting in this room all day", and I did do a good job of that.

Helen Tupper: I think if you can be the fresh air in a long meeting, you've done a good job.  People will really want you to come back, and they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, bring the fresh air back!" So idea for action number seven is to own your identity outside of work.  So, this can be really interesting.  What is it?  If you are interesting, people will be more interested in you, it's that point.

Sarah Ellis: And we're all interesting, right?

Helen Tupper: We're all interesting, and that might be because you've got, I don't know, you've got a new baby, or it might be because you play golf or something, or there's something you're passionate about that you spend time doing.  Sarah's laughing at me, what, because I'm clutching at golf straws?!  I don't play golf.

Sarah Ellis: I was like, "Just talk about something you actually know about!"  I feel like you're trying to make up a sport then.

Helen Tupper: I'm just trying to be like, "I just talk about work all the time".  The most interesting thing I do outside of work is talk about work!

Sarah Ellis: You talked to me a bit about your cat today, which I'm also not very interested in.  I'm allergic to cats.

Helen Tupper: I'm not trying to influence you, I wouldn't talk to you about Coco!  Maybe I'd talk about, I mean I probably wouldn't talk to a senior person about shoes, but whatever it is you're passionate about outside of work, think about how you can bring that identity into your work.  So, it might be communities you're part of.  Genuinely, I would talk about some of the communities I'm part of and how much I enjoy spending time with them.  Or it might have been, "Oh, I do a podcast outside of work". Definitely at Microsoft, the fact that I had a side project made me much more interesting.  It definitely raised an eyebrow, and then it would be like, "What do you actually do?" and that would start a conversation that I wouldn't have had, and then create a connection that went beyond of it because they would say, "Oh, Helen, how's that podcast going?" and it's not just about a project, it's something that's slightly more slightly more personal.

Sarah Ellis: At Amazing If, on a Friday, we always do Win of the Week.  So, we use Microsoft Teams and someone just goes in and starts the trail of everybody just sharing their wins, and that's actually a really good way of people owning their identity outside of work because not always, but sometimes, people's wins come from their personal life.  And so when I'm thinking about a couple of people in our team, I definitely know more about their personal life because they share their wins that they choose to share.  And also, that creates a different sense of connection between me and that person. We've got someone in our team who has helped loads of kids to learn some circus skills for charity, and that is as random and leftfield as it sounds but also as brilliant as it sounds, and you sort of go, "I wasn't expecting or anticipating that", and it's amazing, it's really interesting.  

We've got someone else in our team who started a food larder, like a food bank, before COVID, and has just done a celebration for all of her volunteers three years on.  And so again I go, "Well, that's so interesting", you know, back to the being human, I suppose, and people getting the opportunity to see all of who you are. It's not about forcing a connection when a connection's not there.  Like, I know nothing about circus skills; I know a bit more about food banks, actually, from where Sainsbury's days, but it's amazing how by finding those things, you think, "Oh, I do know a bit about food banks", and it just means that you don't have to keep things like that separate, because also, senior people will also have other things that they want to talk about too.  Often, if there's any opportunities, I think, to create moments where we can share those things, then it doesn't feel as forced because we're sort of all doing it.

Helen Tupper: No one ever shares anything about golf funnily enough, I might need to leave that one!

Sarah Ellis: Idea for action number eight is about quality questions.  I think it can be really helpful to have some go-to open questions that are designed to make sure that when you are talking to senior stakeholders, when you're working with senior stakeholders on projects, you're managing expectations, you're maybe matching expectations, but also I think with quality questions for senior people, make sure you know what you think the answer is too, if that makes sense.  So, we go a bit further here than just asking a quality question. So they could sound like, if Helen was my senior person right now, I might say to Helen, "So, it'd be useful to understand what does success look and feel like for you at the end of this project, or over the next few months? 

What are the challenges that you could anticipate might get in our way during this project?"  And maybe a really practical one, "How would you like me to keep you updated, as we work together on this outcome [or] on this project?"  Some of those are more about bigger principles, some of those are about the practicalities, but this was one of the things I was quite good at. What was always quite interesting here is, you're giving senior people some sort of choices and control.  So that's when Helen says to me, "Well actually, initially, I'd really like a weekly update with three bullet points you think I need to know", and I think, "Great, well I can do that, I can do a really good job of that".  But maybe I have thought what she wanted was a weekly phone call or a bit more of an essay or, "Oh, we should meet every week".  And you're just almost together coming up with, "What is it that we're trying to achieve here?"  You're essentially doing a bit of senior level project planning, but I think sometimes we forget to ask these questions, and then actually it can create misunderstandings, or people might think that you're not as good as you actually are, just because you thought that success was A, and actually for them, success was C, and you've just not had those open conversations.

So I think any chance you have to ask these quality questions, but have your own point of view ready to go too, because that just makes you look even better, because some senior people who I know, if I said to them, "Well, what do you think success would look like this project?" they'd be like, "What do you think success would be, Sarah?"  And I'm like, "I've worked for those people".  And to be fair, they're probably only trying to do that thing of going, "Well, this is you and we want to develop you and your project".  So great, if they ask it back, have a really good answer, just make yourself look really good.  But you know, they might have a point of view that is different to yours, and then that's really kind of helpful to know. Think about, as long as they're open questions, so who, what, why, where, when, how, it invites discussion, and it's a sort of invitation to together start to solve and come up with solutions.

Helen Tupper: Idea for action number nine is to make the ask.  So, what we mean here is, let's say there's something you want for you and your development.  So if I give a situation for me in the past, I've asked for funding before for my learning; I've asked for an organisation to support my MBA, for example.  There is something in approaching a senior person, and both of my situations were in meetings, and making the ask, so you're kind of pitching for something. 

And I prepared for it, and so I positioned it, "This is what I'm asking for, and this is why I'm asking for it, and this is what value I think I'll bring to the business because of it", so I'd definitely got a strong pitch to support my ask. But then what happens is you may get that thing, okay?  That person may be like, "Really great, yes, we'll sort that out".  I have been in scenarios when I haven't got what I've asked for, but I've built a better relationship with that senior person because of it.  Because what they've seen is that I was ambitious in making that ask; what they've seen is that I was considered because I was looking at it not just from my perspective but also from the company's perspective; they've also seen that I was quite mature, that I was able to accept a decision and not then become really defeatist or emotional about it, but actually appreciate a different person's perspective. So making the ask, sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you don't, but actually the benefit is in that person seeing your ambition in that moment.

Sarah Ellis: Well, it shows you're being really proactive about progression, and progression in all of its forms.  So you're really trying to take ownership and then making those asks where you sort of go, "Well, I know I can't make all of this happen for myself".  And also I think how you then manage, if you want to call it the rejection, but like basically someone saying no or not now or not yet, if you actually manage that really well, that really sticks.

  I've had that feedback before where people have said, you know, like going through restructures and maybe I didn't get a job that I wanted, "I was so impressed with how you managed that", and I'm like, "Yeah, well I was absolutely gutted", because obviously you are gutted, but you're trying to be pragmatic and grown-up and think, "Well, what can I learn; and what else; and what are my other options?"  But I think those things really stay with people and they can feel hard at the time. But you've made an ask, it's not worked out, it's not the end of the world, essentially.  And if you can have that ability to just to zoom out, to your point about maturity, I think it just makes people feel reassured that you're like, "Okay, well they're not going to get really defensive.  Oh, they've got probably more capability than maybe I even gave them credit for".  And then I think sometimes, like you say, even better stuff comes along

. Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: So, idea for action number ten is to be consistent.  Consistency is a shortcut to trust.  And this is that point where with senior people, they want to have that sense of, they do what they say they're going to do.  And also being consistent doesn't always mean about the quality of your work, because what we don't want this to feel like is, you can never fail or you can never make mistakes, because none of us are that good.  But I think ask yourself the question, "What do I consistently show up with?" I was thinking, "Well, I consistently show up with optimism and enthusiasm", they're sort of personality traits, but yeah, that is how people would see me.  And with Helen it'd be like, "Well, she consistently shows up with energy and the ability to make things happen.  That person consistently always contributes really positively to team meetings".  Like, I think, what are you going to do consistently?  That doesn't need to be --

Helen Tupper: Do something well.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, don't be consistently bad at something!

Helen Tupper: Just to be clear!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  And I think that doesn't have to be a really long list.  I actually think we probably only do a couple of things very consistently, but that's how you start to build your reputation ripples, which we've talked about before, and that's also how you start to become the go-to person.  And also it's when, even just stuff like when people see your name on an agenda for a meeting, how does it make them feel?  I always think with me, at least they always knew, I was like, "I'm going to turn it with optimism and enthusiasm, I'm going to smile.  So they can choose not to smile, but they are going to get a smiling, caring, committed Sarah who clearly wants things to work well".  I always really cared.  Never the smartest person in the room, but I care and I commit to things, and I do say what I'm going to do and go away and do it. I sort of go, if it's just that, but you do that a lot, that just starts to, you know, like that repetitive behaviour that might only be a chink initially, and then it goes into a bit of a bigger whole, and then actually that just becomes what people think about you and what they say about you when you're not in the room.

Helen Tupper: I think when I always think about Microsoft, I think I was consistently pretty polished.  So if I was in a meeting, I don't mean in terms of how I presented and communicated rather than how I looked, but I think that would give them confidence.  If they were having some people over from the US, for example, and they were thinking, "Who could we trust to present to them?" I think they would be like, "Well, let's use Helen Tupper because she's going to make us look good, basically.  She's always polished, she's always kind of prepared, and therefore we'll put her in front of them". So I think your question, "What do people think about when they see your name on an agenda?" is actually a really nice way of thinking about that consistency and what you could do more of it.

Sarah Ellis: And then, we know we've done ten --

Helen Tupper: Sarah couldn't let this one go, it's really important.

Sarah Ellis: I can't let this go, and it's a really small thing.  So it's not an idea for action, but I'm just going to say it anyway.  Short emails are a winner.  Nobody wants to read an essay for an email.  And I think sometimes people fall into the trap with senior people of thinking, "I need to show all of my workings, I need to explain everything, I perhaps need to show how smart I am".  You are doing your best to have a really positive impact, so I do think long emails often come from positive intent but I think the impact gets lost along the way.  Imagine how many emails they have to read and think about what the purpose of an email is. If something is genuinely longer and more complicated, really try to think about an alternative to an email.  Could you summarise it in one page on a PowerPoint? 

Could you do a project on a page in Word?  I don't know, could you talk about it in a team meeting?  Whenever I have worked very closely with CEOs, like very, very senior people, they're incredible in terms of their capacity and keeping on top of things; but being short and succinct and simple in what you're writing, people really, really appreciate it.  So, if you need them to make a decision, if you can say it in one sentence, say it in one sentence; none of them are going to be going, "I wish Sarah just described it a little bit more to me".  Make their life easy, because then everyone's life is a bit easier. So I couldn't not include it, partly because a couple people said it to me, and also I think I have made this mistake before of being too descriptive and not being concise and of not having that clarity.  And then, as I got a bit more sophisticated and a bit smarter, I got a lot better at this and a lot better at writing.  So, don't be afraid to edit your own work.

Helen Tupper: So that is an exclusive idea for action that I'm not going to put on the PodSheet, because I'm only going to have room to put ten ideas for action.

Sarah Ellis: You really, really didn't want me to talk about it but I decided it was too important!

Helen Tupper: It is very important, but it won't make the PodSheet.  But if you do want the other ten summarised for you in a succinct way, then you'll get it from the PodSheet as we said at the start.  You can get that from our website, amazingif.com, or if you ever can't find any of our resources, just email us; we're helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.

Sarah Ellis: So, thank you so much for listening, and we'll be back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.