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2020 Webinar: Society Street in Conversation: Leading Through Turbulent Times
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2020 Webinar: Society Street in Conversation: Leading Through Turbulent Times
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Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
SAM BURRELL: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Society Street again. Welcome back to those few who are-- if you've been to ones before. I'm just going to wait a couple of minutes to allow everybody to come into the webinar session. It takes a couple of minutes to get people from the waiting room into the actual session, so just bear with while I give people a little bit of time to do that.
SAM BURRELL: But yes, welcome to Society Street. Thank you for joining us. And this is our fifth webinar in this series that was an unexpected surprise that happened at the beginning of the year-- well, not the beginning of the year, but in March. Today's conversation is picking up on some of the themes that we talked about last month, but with a slightly different focus.
SAM BURRELL: We're talking to Katy Amberley, who is the Chief Executive of the British Society for Haematology, and Girish Menon, who is the Chief Executive of ActionAid UK. And we're going to be talking about leading mission-based organizations through these turbulent times. I don't know if you guys saw the social media stuff around this session, but this is an entirely unscripted conversation.
SAM BURRELL: So that's quite exciting in some ways. So just to do a little bit of housekeeping, it's thanks to the continued support of our sponsors that we've been able to offer these webinars for free throughout the whole series. Elsevier and Wiley are our gold sponsors. Silverchair, Consort Strategy, ALPSP, AJE, Cadmore Media, Atypon, Cactus, and Renew Consultants have also supported us all the way through, so a shout-out to them.
SAM BURRELL: And another brief housekeeping issue, chat is open to everyone. We do invite you to chat as we go along. If your chat window hasn't opened as a default, you can find the blue chat button on the bottom right usually, which will open up the panel. Then I have to tell you that actually, the best-laid plans of mice and men sometimes go astray-- loose translation.
SAM BURRELL: And at the last minute, it proved not possible for Girish and Katy to make it this afternoon at 4 PM. But they both said that we could do a conversation with them very early this morning, so we got together this morning, and we recorded this conversation, which we really enjoyed. And we hope that you do, too. So forgive us for the last-minute change, but it's kind of a symptom of the times and the way things are going at the minute.
SAM BURRELL: So I'm just about to turn off my camera and hit Play, and we'll listen to this conversation. We're going to be on chat. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed having this conversation. Thanks, everybody Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining us this morning or this afternoon, depending on where you are.
SAM BURRELL: In the spirit of this being entirely unscripted, this actually ended up being recorded first thing this morning, because something came up that made it necessary that we did that. However, we are here, and we're delighted to be joining Katy and Girish. Tracy and I are both on the Society Street team. You probably know us from other webinars. And we are going to be joining in this conversation as well, because we thought that we couldn't bear to sit quietly behind the scenes, because there's so much to say that's interesting.
SAM BURRELL: So to introduce you to our guests, I'd like to start off with Katy, Katy Amberley, who is the Chief Executive of the British Society for Haematology. And she's also on the program committee for Society Street UK. Now, Girish was Katy's idea. And she said to us, I really think we should get Girish to come and talk to the people who come to attend Society Street conference.
SAM BURRELL: And so I just wanted to turn straight over to Katy and go, so Katy, why have we invited Girish? No offense, Girish. Please tell us, Katy.
KATY AMBERLEY: Thank you very much, Sam, for that introduction. And I'm very, very pleased to be on this call. And I'm very much grateful for the invitation to speak. So I first heard Girish-- I think it was five years ago now. And this was at an aspiring CEOs course that I was on at the Cass Business School. And Girish came along-- he'd recently been appointed as ActionAid Chief Executive.
KATY AMBERLEY: And he came along to give a speech to us aspiring CEOs as to what it was like to be a CEO. And I found him very inspiring, very intelligent, humorous, and humble, all at the same time. And I just wish I'd had a chance to speak to him afterwards, but that didn't happen at that point. Then about a year ago, I met him again at another conference in the charity sector, and he was again a few years on into his job and talking about what had been happening, what Girish did next perhaps, at ActionAid.
KATY AMBERLEY: [INAUDIBLE] by these same qualities. And I just thought that although, obviously, Girish works in a different sector to Society Street and the people who come to Society Street, that he would have a lot to offer as a speaker at one of our conferences.
SAM BURRELL: Brilliant. Thanks, Katy. So Girish, thank you for joining us, and thank you for being so flexible with all the changes, because you were originally going to come and speak at the June event. Gosh, it's been a weird old year. That's kind of topical for what we're talking about today, isn't it? So by way of introduction, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and about ActionAid, and then maybe dive straight into some of the challenges that the last few months have thrown at you, at us, at us leading organizations?
GIRISH MENON: Thank you very much, Sam and Tracy for organizing this. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much, Katy for your super generous introduction. That's indeed very kind of you to recall both our interactions over the past few years. I'm Girish Menon. I'm the Chief Executive of ActionAid UK. ActionAid UK is an international organization.
GIRISH MENON: We are part of a global federation, the ActionAid International. We focus on the rights of women and girls living in poverty in the global South. We work with 40 odd other members of the ActionAid International federation. As an organization, we were formed in 1972. And as of now, ActionAid UK continues to be the largest member of the ActionAid International federation, in terms of the income, raising anywhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the global income.
GIRISH MENON: So that itself actually sets the context of our challenges. Everybody is completely steeped in the challenges that have been created by the pandemic. It threw us completely out of gear, as everybody in the sector. And for us, the big thing was about how to continue with our focus on the rights of women and girls at a time when the pandemic is hitting us in ways that were most unparalleled.
GIRISH MENON: A lot of our challenge therefore was, while our priority as a senior leadership was to ensure that our staff are safe and ensure the well-being of our staff, it was also important for us to think about the communities we work with and what's happening out there. It's a very strange kind of a humanitarian crisis. Because in the past, for example, you would have-- there was an earthquake in Nepal, there was a hurricane in Haiti, there was a tsunami in Indonesia.
GIRISH MENON: So for us, as ActionAid UK, we used to garner a lot of humanitarian capacity and resources, be it funding, be it capacity for programs or technical capacity, and it was all about offering the capacity in the spirit of partnership to other members in other countries who were affected. Here, the crisis was even worse, because it was us who were more affected initially before our colleagues and our teams in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Central America, where we work.
GIRISH MENON: So it was very strange to get used to that sense of reality, and it was a big moment of solidarity as well for us, because we had so many people calling us from all these different countries asking us, how are you? And for me, that really resonated a lot. It brought home the importance and the real meaning of the question, how are you? And for me, that has actually chartered my complete thinking during the course of the last six months, that the fundamental purpose of our existence is absolutely delivering the mission.
GIRISH MENON: But to deliver the mission, the people who are involved in delivering the mission and at the other end with whom we partner-- they're also critical. And so it is about striking the importance of the words, how are you, and making sure that while we are here to address some of the big global challenges that we see, be it on poverty, be it on inequality, be it on injustice or climate change, at the end of the day, it's about how we continue to remain focused on our mission, and our people who are there to deliver the mission.
SAM BURRELL: I think that's really strong. Yeah.
TRACY GARDNER: I think it is. And it sounds, Girish, from what you're saying, actually what struck me about that is that it exposed the vulnerabilities of everybody. And I think that's what's turned this around. And probably working, from ActionAid, where you are already positioned to be helping constantly and looking after those that are vulnerable, to then have that flipped round and feel that you're on the other side of that, it's interesting to know how you think that affected your team and your response.
TRACY GARDNER: And Katy, presumably, I don't know whether in the field that you're in as well-- if that resonates with you, that kind of vulnerability that you've found through this.
KATY AMBERLEY: Yes. That's a very good point. I think at the start of the crisis I had an email from one of our doctors, obviously. We're a medical society, a medical professional body. The people we support are medical professionals, scientists, other lab technicians, and nurses. And so the email from this doctor said, this is really going to test us.
KATY AMBERLEY: This is not something we're used to. We're not used to getting ill. It's the patients who get ill. Now, this is something that could affect us because obviously we've seen the terrible pictures that have been coming in from Italy. And we knew that health professionals would be on the front line, and that it is highly likely that some of them would die.
KATY AMBERLEY: And of course, this did happen. You know, many health professionals and care professionals in the UK did die from COVID-19. So I thought that was a very striking comment from the doctor. But also, speaking from the organization's point of view, I think we weren't, for example-- we're a very small team, there's only 12 of us. And we were only edging towards sort of offering work from home and flexible working-- these things.
KATY AMBERLEY: And all of a sudden, within a week, we had to sort of magic up extra laptops, send everyone home, get everyone up and running. And you know, that was quite something to have to handle in the first couple of weeks, especially as, in the background, we were in the process of having to cancel our big annual scientific meeting, which would have been held at the end of April, which then led on to other things.
KATY AMBERLEY: Other consequences followed from that. So I totally get what Girish is saying about this exposing vulnerabilities, and not just to us personally or to our organizations, but I would say, probably to Western society as a whole. And that we've seen that perhaps we weren't as well-prepared for something like this as we would've expected to be or perhaps like to have been.
KATY AMBERLEY: And so I can totally see where Girish is coming from on that.
SAM BURRELL: I think it's quite an organized bit, the whole-- I mean, that's really resonating with me, the whole kind of, how are you. In the sense that I know that I found myself writing emails to people in the early weeks, going, hi, how are you doing? And then kind of go, I used to just write that, and I didn't really mean it. Whereas right now, I really mean me as an individual, asking you as an individual, before we get down to any work, actually, how are you doing?
SAM BURRELL: Because I appreciate you might not be doing very well. You might be unwell. Your family might be unwell. And so that's more important before we get on with any chat about work, is to establish whether you're in an OK place before we then talk about work. And I think that's something that we gave lip service to before.
SAM BURRELL: I mean, you always, at work-- not always, but regularly-- open emails going, hey, how are you doing? But you didn't mean it at that level of, actually, if you're not OK, please ignore this. And I wonder, I think, as leaders of mission-based organizations, there are two things going on there. There's the one leading an organization, made up of people and individuals who are all in their own place.
SAM BURRELL: And then, there's also you're a mission-based organization that's trying to deliver your mission. I don't know where I'm going here. Somewhere like, there's kind of two sets of needing to care for a community. One's your community of staff, and one's your community of what it is your organization's doing. Do you want to unpack some of that?
GIRISH MENON: Yeah. I mean, I just wanted to go back to the point of vulnerability that Katy raised. And I think that also answers your point, Sam, about the personal space and the mission. And I think there is that spectrum of vulnerability, because as an individual you feel vulnerable for various reasons. And then, when you look at the mission of the organization, there's a certain vulnerability in the mission because everything has been blown off course by a pandemic that nobody knows what to do anything about.
GIRISH MENON: As Katy said, for Western societies that are so well-advanced in terms of science and technology and resources, we are all still struggling. I mean, look what's happening in America, for instance. There's a massive struggle that's happening. In addition to that, we're seeing a real lack of a broad global political will to tackle this crisis. And everybody's trying to find their own solutions without actually seeing how we can actually learn from each other and support each other, and actually be humble and modest and say, you know what?
GIRISH MENON: We may be very strong societies financially, we might be global leaders, but hey, we are also vulnerable. So I think there are really important lessons in leadership on this point of vulnerability. At ActionAid we often talk about our feminist principles and the feminist values, and we look at our organization culture through the lens of feminist principles. One of the principles we always talk about to start with is about self-awareness.
GIRISH MENON: And as a leader, the first thing that I became aware of at the start of the crisis is, hell, I don't know what to do about it. For God's sake, I have no clue. And I can't tell you the number of nights I have not slept in the early stages. I still remember March 17th very, very clearly in my mind, because that was the first day of the lockdown of the office, where we actually shut down the office.
GIRISH MENON: It was a Tuesday, and I just felt that I needed to go to the office at least till Friday, just because I was still in a state of denial. I mean, even till the previous Friday, I was in a state of denial saying, Oh, that's Italy. That's out there, but we have got our NHS. We are really strong. It's not possible that it's going to strike us. We were also-- for the International Women's Day on March 8, we had done this amazing exhibition called Women by Women, which was about women photographers from Nigeria, from Guatemala, from different countries that we work in, capturing images of women doing things at their own level and demonstrating the spirit of leadership and solidarity.
GIRISH MENON: So you know, and March is a very important month for anybody who was in the women's rights movement, because of the International Women's Day. So we were basking in that glory, and we were really riding the crest of something super inspirational. And even though COVID had started knocking doors, we were like, you know, it is going to be OK. It's great, you know, so we can tackle COVID.
GIRISH MENON: But no, in a matter of days, we had to put things-- and I still remember a staff briefing I had to do on the Monday, which was March 16, to tell the staff we were going to close the office. And to be honest, I found my voice very hollow, because for the first time, I just didn't know where we were getting to. I just didn't know where we were heading towards, which is why the point of vulnerability that Katy mentioned really struck a very deep chord with me.
GIRISH MENON: And I still find that. For all the number of years I've worked in the not-for-profit sector, I cannot say the number of times I have experienced moments of self-doubt. Because while the concept of leadership has changed significantly-- so the leadership is no longer the army-style leader who sort of marches and everybody follows. It's about an enabler.
GIRISH MENON: It's about a facilitator. Yet, when anybody's in the role of heading a team or department or an organization, you do feel that accountability that the buck does stop with you. And a lot of people are relying on you to kind of help navigate their way through. And here I am sitting at home saying, I just don't know. I have not been used to this at all. We don't have the answers.
GIRISH MENON: So I think in very many ways, as I say, you never lose an opportunity of a crisis to learn and reflect. And I think for me the biggest upside, if I can say so-- it seems a bit brutal to even say that now. But still, the biggest upside is, I think everybody is reflecting a lot on leadership and what it means to lead an organization through a period of prolonged crisis with continued challenges and uncertainties coming ahead, and kind of redefining the concept of leadership in very many ways.
GIRISH MENON: I don't know what the answers are, but it's really getting people to ask those big questions. I talk a lot to my peers, and I am very fortunate that I have a number of peers I could talk to via the WhatsApp group we have done, peer calls, both within the Federation and here within the UK. And we're all in the same space. So I think it's kind of telling us to redefine leadership, try to understand how you can be more collaborative, be open about our vulnerabilities, dig deep into the process of self-awareness and self-reflection, and yet in spite of all that, keep the mission cool and centered to the organization and the culture of the organization that underpins the delivery of the mission.
TRACY GARDNER: I think you made an interesting point there, Girish, about the kind of dichotomy of leadership, because as you say, it's about facilitation, it's about collaboration, it's about encouraging people to do their best and achieve their full potential. However, in the midst of a crisis, people look towards a leader to lead. And so actually, in some ways, that has to get set aside. And so you spend a long time nurturing this collaborative leadership, inspirational role, and then something like this happens, and then everybody's looking to a leader.
TRACY GARDNER: Because they want to be told what to do. And so you're finding that balance between trying to give them the confidence but also the kind of self-awareness to also say, well, I don't know where we're going with this, because this is unprecedented. So I think that probably personally is a really difficult balance to strike. I think sometimes we forget about leaders, because we expect, in times of crisis, our leaders to lead.
TRACY GARDNER: But actually, I think you've just identified and articulated very well some of the personal challenges that brings.
GIRISH MENON: Yes, indeed. And what is interesting is that when we talk about feminist culture, when we talk about sharing power, when we talk about accountable collaboration that sits with the feminist principle, the one thing that I was made aware of in my perusal of conversations with several colleagues is the desire for them to see me be more directive. And that was a really interesting journey for me, because of all the psychometric tests I have done during the course of my career, being directive is my dominant feature.
GIRISH MENON: So I have had to work hard over the last 15 years to push that down and genuinely be an enabler and facilitator for which I have had lots of coaching support over the years. Because it's very difficult to put aside what is intrinsically your dominant character. And now, just as you said, Tracy, when it is a kind of crisis, they do look at leaders to come with solutions.
GIRISH MENON: So there was really a demand knocking at my doors to say, we need more direction. And so for me, an interesting reflection was being director while also being self-aware. So every time I was being directive, I was also reminding myself that this is going to be temporary. Do not let that dominant feature or that preference become your normal style, because you are in abnormal times.
GIRISH MENON: So you're being directive because times are abnormal, but you need to remind yourself consciously that you are being directive. And you need to then remind yourself that, you know what? You need to now move back a little bit, because that's the culture of the organization. That's what you really want to be. So there are dichotomies and dichotomies, you know, that one was exploring in this process.
GIRISH MENON: I still don't know where I've got to, to be honest. But it just gave me so many different moments of self-reflection. Our only hope is that at some point in time, there will be a quiet moment where I can still possibly write down some of my reflections or some key tips that I learned for myself. Because or else you'll lose it. You'll forget it.
GIRISH MENON: You know? It's going to change. The world is going to change every few months now, with what's happening and the uncertainty. So we might actually forget to capture those lessons that we've learned in such a hard way.
SAM BURRELL: So Katy, do you feel that as well, the kind of tension between the directive and the enabler-type leadership thing?
KATY AMBERLEY: Yes. That is a very good point Girish has raised. And I think that in times of crisis, people do assume that the Chief Executive will lead and will lead from the front. That's something I like to think that I do. Like Girish, I suspect that, being directive, I tend to hold quite strong opinions. And I do tend to-- I'm also the eldest of four, so I think being directive is a role that I've been used to handling.
KATY AMBERLEY: But also, having been the eldest of four, and much the eldest, I also had quite a bit to do with helping to sort of look after my younger siblings when they were smaller and sort of over the years. And so I think there's also quite a-- I have quite a nurturing nature as well, which has come from experience. So it is very difficult in this sort of situation to strike the right balance.
KATY AMBERLEY: And obviously, I think we were all caught off guard by this. I've already explained that we had to rush to get everyone working from home. We were sort of-- we'd just published an important workforce report, we were planning for our scientific meeting, and we'd just taken on a new member of staff, who actually joined us during lockdown. And we had to onboard her remotely, which was an interesting challenge for everyone, I think.
KATY AMBERLEY: So there were all sorts of things going on, and this was, in a way, like a juggernaut or a sort of tsunami. It sort of just kept coming at you with different challenges. One of the ways in which I've sort of settled into a rhythm is that from very early on, from the first week, I started writing team updates, which I started off initially twice a week. I also offered everyone on the team a chance to speak to me privately if they wish to, which is something you can do when you only have a team of 11 people around you, not something you can do if you've got a team of thousands or hundreds.
KATY AMBERLEY: And I've kept up those team updates. And they're a mixture of sort of items perhaps in the news, items from the sector, items that are related to us as an organization, things I want to update the team on. And I usually try and include some sort of personal stuff as well, like what I've seen on my latest walk around Islington, or sort of some funny things that happened to me, sort of taking photos in another garden that I've discovered that I never knew before lockdown.
KATY AMBERLEY: And I think I'm up to team update 42 this week, or I will be later today. And you know, that apparently has been-- staff have felt that's been a good thing. It's been a positive thing. And I felt that everyone has really come together, all our volunteers, who are very busy, clinicians, scientists, nurses. They've all sort of come together with the staff team during this time to really go that extra mile and do extra stuff.
KATY AMBERLEY: So we started putting out rapid guidance, and we started triaging guidance for other organizations and putting that up on a special part of our website. We started doing that very early. That was something we were not doing before, and obviously we had to rely on the clinicians to write those or triage those rapid guidances. And obviously, they're very busy doing other things. The staff have been fantastic.
KATY AMBERLEY: Everyone's been incredibly flexible and adaptable. People, once they realized the scientific meeting wasn't happening, started switching to do other things, whether it was helping with the rapid guidance, starting to think about moving other events online, or tidying up. We did a lot of tidying up. We did a website upgrade that perhaps would have happened later in the year.
KATY AMBERLEY: We tidied up some procedures and policies. Sort of fixing the roof while the sun wasn't shining, but it worked just as well. So I think we've managed to come through that. But it is a very difficult situation when everyone is-- or you feel that everyone might be looking to you and expecting you to know what to do. And of course, there are times when you don't, and I didn't. And I have said that sometimes in my team updates.
KATY AMBERLEY: I have said, I don't have all the answers, please give me your suggestions. And more recently, people have been sort of sending me stuff for the team update, and we've been adding those items to it. And we're going to have a well-being section on our SharePoint that people are going to start putting things up to so that everyone can benefit from them.
SAM BURRELL: So given that we've had six months of massive turbulence-- and actually, looking forwards, it doesn't look any calmer, when you look at A, what's going on with COVID, but also heaven forfend, Brexit and all kinds of elections in the US. And I mean, it just doesn't look like we're going forwards into anything calmer. So I guess my question is-- I'm going to come to positives in a minute, because I think we do need to talk about that as well, because I think there have been some.
SAM BURRELL: But my question for now is, let's get into-- I have wands and time-traveling machines and all sorts of things. We're going to get into my time-traveling machine. We're going to go back to March. And what advice would you give-- sorry, this is mean, because I haven't asked you to prepare this at all. But what advice would you give to yourself that you think would be really helpful?
SAM BURRELL: So if you were to be given a piece of advice by you, who knows you in March, that would have helped you to get through the last six months, that might help you or somebody else get through the next six months.
GIRISH MENON: Oh, that's a tough one. So let me give it a go, because this is what I have told my children, for instance, on a few occasions, which is hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I can't think of anything more than that, I'm afraid.
TRACY GARDNER: Yes, fair enough.
KATY AMBERLEY: Yeah, that's good. The thing that immediately came to mind for me was take a deep breath and be kind. And that's obviously to yourself, but to everyone as well.
SAM BURRELL: The one that I saw that really resonated with me was, it was somebody on Twitter that said something along the lines of, you're holding yourself to the emotional bar of a regular Tuesday, but it's not a regular Tuesday. And I think that kind of goes alongside yours, Katy, about being kind to yourself. It's being kind to yourself and being kind to other people and kind of going, actually, this is really hard, and it's really draining for everybody.
SAM BURRELL: And looking forward-- go ahead, Tracy.
TRACY GARDNER: I think-- well, no, I think I'm leading onto that. I mean, I have a friend who became a head teacher in September. So you know, her first year of being a head teacher in a school was dealing with this. And of course, it was an incredibly stressful situation for schools, because they were still open to some pupils. And she said that she had to keep telling herself not to panic, that this was actually going to be a long-term-- although we were in crisis, it felt like a disaster, this was in it for the long haul.
TRACY GARDNER: And actually, to take some time to plan and, yeah, not panic. Because I think there was a great sense of panic to start with. And I think she said that actually just allowing herself to take that step back-- and that although there were some pressing decisions that needed to be made, there were other decisions that could take time, that you could give yourself that time. And I thought that kind of was brilliant and I think it resonated with me as well.
TRACY GARDNER: Because I think there was that initial time of great panic, that you have to make all the decisions now because we were in crisis mode. But actually, as Cindy Sparrow talked to us about on our last chat when we had our last webinar, this is a long-term crisis. Normally, when we're in crisis, it's short-lived, and then we would be out of it by now. But actually understanding that this is long-term, Sam, as you were saying, the next six months look no less turbulent, do they, than the previous.
TRACY GARDNER: So I think I thought the don't panic, keep calm, carry on, don't panic advice has been quite good, worth sharing. Sorry, Sam. I interrupted you.
SAM BURRELL: No, that's OK. So I guess we're going to sort of-- I'd like to draw on either things that surprised you that have been good, or things that you're planning or thinking about for the next six months, looking a little bit more positively and forward of, how do we arm ourselves? What we need to think about, going forward from here? Have you got any thoughts on that?
GIRISH MENON: Absolutely. I think it's a really good question, Sam, because when it comes to crises, we always think about all the horrible things that have happened or things that have not gone well. So that's a really important point to consider. My first response would be on the theme of resilience. So if I were told in March that we would deal with a crisis like this, then I wouldn't have had the confidence to do that.
GIRISH MENON: But not being told and being thrown into the deep end, it does build your resilience, and therefore builds your confidence. And it's not just me. Across the organization, I've seen colleagues step in all kinds of ways. I mean, some in terms of delivering programs, delivering activities, some in terms of taking care of other situations, some in terms of coming up with ideas.
GIRISH MENON: So different people have responded to being resilient in a very different way. And the one thing that cuts across all of them is a sense of fun. One of the first things that struck me the moment we announced office lockdown-- a colleague said, what about virtual teas and coffees? And I'm like, what the hell does that mean? What does a virtue tea mean?
GIRISH MENON: But now, we all do virtual teas and coffees and cakes and drinks. We all do it. It's become the norm. So these are ways in which people have demonstrated that resilience. Number two is that we can work in a very different way. You know, Katy talked about recruitment, and I have a similar experience.
GIRISH MENON: We recruited four new trustees during lockdown and a new chair during lockdown. And some of us have not met some of them face-to-face, but since then we have had two very productive board meetings. And our chair has gone through a complete set of virtual inductions, and she's in a great position now to take on from here, though everything has been virtual. As an international organization, there was a lot of travel that is involved, where our teams go and provide instant support to our colleagues across the world.
GIRISH MENON: But now, it's all gone virtual, and we're saying, hey, actually, there are different ways in doing it, which can be kinder to the planet and to our budget. So you don't have to travel. We can continue to provide that support and the solidarity, even virtually, and things can move on. And the last thing I wanted to mention is-- what I was very impressed with in some members of my team is the power to innovate.
GIRISH MENON: They've come up with some really interesting stuff. So for example, London Marathon has been canceled. Now, London Marathon is one of our important fundraising moments-- [INAUDIBLE] London. And then, our teams have come up with some virtual products which continue to engage our current and potential supporters, yet raise funds for us without physically being there.
GIRISH MENON: So it's suddenly-- I think the realm of the possible now is, it's looking brighter than the realm of the impossible.
KATY AMBERLEY: I would agree that, I think, having come through a very difficult patch in many ways, we are probably stronger as an organization now, and stronger as a team in the virtual office now. And we, too, have virtual teas, coffees, and quizzes, and things like that. But I really wanted to frame my response to this by telling you what actually the charitable objects at BSH are, according to our articles.
KATY AMBERLEY: And I will have to read this. So they are to advance the practice and study of haematology, and to facilitate contact between persons interested in haematology. Now, of course, when the crisis first hit, a lot of that was put at risk. We had to cancel our big annual meeting, put on ice our 60th anniversary plans. And just when everything was going so well-- you know, we'd had record registrations, record abstracts, and good sponsorship for the meeting.
KATY AMBERLEY: Like you were saying earlier on, Girish, everything was in a really good place. We'd just published a workforce review. And then, of course, everything came to a shuddering halt. But actually, if you think about what I've just read out, we are still doing that. So if you think of the practice of haematology, we've continued to produce not only rapid guidance relating to COVID, but also continued to produce our regular clinical guidelines.
KATY AMBERLEY: The continuation of studying-- we're going to have a virtual meeting in November. It won't be a complete reproduction of our normal annual scientific meeting. Most of the program for this year has gone to next year. But we're doing other things. And in the meantime, we've managed to innovate. As also Girish was saying, people are being very innovative.
KATY AMBERLEY: And we've managed to-- by early May, we'd put on our first webinar, and we did another one in June. We've got another one coming up in a week or so's time, with I think 400 or even 500 people registered, which just blows my mind. Because a face-to-face event for that, we would get perhaps 100 or 150. And then, facilitating contact between persons interested in haematology-- well, you know, as you say, you can do that virtually.
KATY AMBERLEY: For example, we have a global haematology special interest group, and we had a meeting recently to discuss, well, you know, obviously, most of what we've been doing has involved travel. But perhaps there are ways that we can revive or reinvent these programs so that they don't involve travel but we can still have these programs. So there is always hope. And again, I would just like to express my gratitude to my team in the virtual office and to our volunteers for really continuing to do so much, and to do new things and to do old things in new ways.
KATY AMBERLEY: We, too, recruited trustees during this time. We put it on hold initially, but then we thought, no, we'll go ahead. We really want these extra lay trustees on the board. And so we did that, and that was fantastic. And yes, we had to sort of send them all this induction material, and we couldn't do an induction day face-to-face, and they've still yet to meet a lot of people.
KATY AMBERLEY: But we have managed to get them on board, and I'm sure they will be a real addition to the board. So I think there are some positives to take away from this, and things that we now know we can do because we've had to do them. And I think it's just going to be a case of balancing in the future. Which are the things that we want to keep? And where we might wish to go, if we can go back to doing things in the other way, if that was better-- whether we will be able to do that.
KATY AMBERLEY: But obviously, keep all the good stuff that we've managed to gain from this time, and all the new things we've learned.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah. I think that's a really good point both of you have brought up about innovation. Our colleague, Simon, talks about the pandemic being the mother of invention. Because organizations always need to change, right? You always need to be growing, and you always need to be engaging. But it's sometimes quite difficult to get change in place, because it's difficult, and people resist it.
SAM BURRELL: Even if they know it's a good idea, it feels too difficult. And somehow, because we're in such extraordinary times, I think that's released the gates, if you like, and perhaps the expectations of what you can deliver and lower. And therefore, it's less risky. I don't know. It's somehow less risky to invest. You kind of go, well, we've got to do something, so we may as well try this.
SAM BURRELL: And if it doesn't work, then never mind, we'll try something else.
TRACY GARDNER: Yeah, exactly.
SAM BURRELL: Do either of you want to kind of talk a bit about change and how change-- do you think your organizations have become more open to change? And do you think that's going to be a permanent thing?
KATY AMBERLEY: Well, I mean, to be honest, the BSH has been through a lot of change in the past few years anyway. So perhaps that's been a good preparation, really, for some of the things we've had to do this year, in that we were sort of in change management mode anyway. Having said that, some of the changes and consequences were less welcome than others. So one very big consequence of canceling our scientific meeting was that our new trustees couldn't then take up office as they were scheduled to do.
KATY AMBERLEY: Because it all tied in with our articles that mention them having to take up office at a scientific meeting. So this led to quite a serious governance issue that we had, which I'm very pleased to say we have now resolved by virtue of a virtual general meeting, which we held just about two weeks ago now to resolve this situation with the articles. So that was a very unwelcome consequence, but yes, I think we will continue.
KATY AMBERLEY: I'm sure the work-from-home, flexible working-- I'm sure that will remain. And obviously, some people want to go into the office more than others, but I'm sure as an organization we'll be able to accommodate as much as possible what we can do to help people's personal preferences. And I think that's a really, really positive development. And I'm sure that we will continue to do a lot more online education.
KATY AMBERLEY: And I think one thing that really stood out for me in the early part of the pandemic was when we were thinking, goodness me, can we really do this rapid guidance? Goodness heavens, this is not something we've done before. And will the clinicians have the time? And one of my colleagues said, well, this is our bit. We're not clinicians, we're not nurses, and we're not scientists.
KATY AMBERLEY: We can't do anything about the pandemic in that way, but this is what we can do to support them. I feel this is something we could do. And so we did, and it did work. So I do think that although we have been in a period of change and have done a lot of new different things over the past few years, perhaps this took it to another level. And I'm sure we will stick with some of the changes.
GIRISH MENON: Yeah, I agree with Katy as well on that. We always keep saying, don't we, that change is a constant? That's resonating even more now, because every week, every time something unfolds and every time we get some new information from the external environment, it's about, oh, we need to change, we need to change. So I think the imperative for us to change has become more pressing or more urgent than it was before. Earlier, change was related to maybe a change in leadership, and therefore the leader comes in with some new ideas and new different things, not to say that there weren't always some changes in the external environment.
GIRISH MENON: But I think now, the imperatives are so strong because of the fast-moving changes in the external environment. And we haven't even started talking about Brexit or any of the other changes in all of this [INAUDIBLE] because our whole life is determined by the pandemic. But I think it is really making people think of, where do we invest our money? How do we articulate our priority?
GIRISH MENON: How do we have more focus? Because we also need to be very realistic and pragmatic about the fact that we are coming to a world where the resources are going to be much less at our disposal. So for example, just today we heard about the aviation industry losing so many thousands of jobs. And we're going to hear much more of that. We heard about Cineworld last week, and we'll keep hearing of all these losses coming through.
GIRISH MENON: So for a sector that relies a lot on public support and public donations-- so we have a giving public of 150,000 people. We are quite mindful of the fact that when people lose jobs, when the economy is shrinking, we have to be very pragmatic and realistic and say our income is going to shrink. So it really is forcing us to make some hard choices on what we focus on, what we prioritize, and how we cut costs so that we continue to deliver on the mission that we are here to deliver.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah, I think that's very true. I mean the other thing, particularly for societies-- I mean, what you were just talking about, Girish, about being mindful of your community, your giving community in your case-- at that moment I think for learned societies, there's also-- the environment for early-career researchers is particularly unfriendly, hostile, difficult, both kind of financially but also in terms of career progression.
SAM BURRELL: And yes, so societies themselves are feeling incredible pressure from revenue challenges, frankly. But the mission becomes even more important, and the community-- you know, it's that thing of going-- there's opportunity and need to innovate, with lots of downward pressure as well. I mean, it's a big ask, right? It's big ask.
GIRISH MENON: It is.
KATY AMBERLEY: If I could just come in there very, very quickly-- we were due to launch a strategy this month, because our financial year begins on the 1st of October. We lost a lot of time in the spring and summer, and we realized that wasn't possible. And also, it allowed us to do some member research, so we did some qualitative interviews, sort of in the late summer. And we're now sending out a member survey, a lot of which were focused around COVID, but also focused around how the society can adapt, can help people and members more in the future, and can attract new members.
KATY AMBERLEY: And we're now going to launch our strategy in January, which of course will allow us time to take this research into account. So we haven't been able to launch in October, but actually it's enabled us to do a really important piece of work and to feed that into the new strategy.
SAM BURRELL: We are just about out of time. That went incredibly quickly, and it was really, really interesting. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. I could have talked to you for another two hours.
GIRISH MENON: Thank you very much.
SAM BURRELL: Thank you very much.
GIRISH MENON: Thank you for the introduction, Katy, and then to Sam and Tracy as well. These conversations really help me reflect a lot as well, so I really appreciate the opportunity. So thank you so much for having me on this conversation.
KATY AMBERLEY: Thank you. I'd like to reiterate that. Thank you very much to Sam and Tracy for organizing this, and for Girish for being so flexible in joining the call this morning.
SAM BURRELL: Hopefully, see you guys in person at some point before too long. Bye.
GIRISH MENON: Bye.
KATY AMBERLEY: Bye.
SAM BURRELL: Well, I'm sorry that we didn't manage to do that live for today's session, but I hope you enjoyed the conversation anyway. A final thank you to our sponsors, and also just to let everybody know that we are doing one last Society Street event this year, which is in November, which is an online replacement. Well, it's not a replacement. It's something different from the London event that we were going to do.
SAM BURRELL: We're doing a series of workshops on surviving in a financial downturn, and we're doing a session on conferences and meetings. Has the pandemic been the mother of invention? You can sign up for those on the SocietyStreet.org website. And thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate having you, and I hope you got something out of that conversation. All right.
SAM BURRELL: See you again, guys. Thanks for coming. Bye.
Segment:0 .
SAM BURRELL: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Society Street again. Welcome back to those few who are-- if you've been to ones before. I'm just going to wait a couple of minutes to allow everybody to come into the webinar session. It takes a couple of minutes to get people from the waiting room into the actual session, so just bear with while I give people a little bit of time to do that.
SAM BURRELL: But yes, welcome to Society Street. Thank you for joining us. And this is our fifth webinar in this series that was an unexpected surprise that happened at the beginning of the year-- well, not the beginning of the year, but in March. Today's conversation is picking up on some of the themes that we talked about last month, but with a slightly different focus.
SAM BURRELL: We're talking to Katy Amberley, who is the Chief Executive of the British Society for Haematology, and Girish Menon, who is the Chief Executive of ActionAid UK. And we're going to be talking about leading mission-based organizations through these turbulent times. I don't know if you guys saw the social media stuff around this session, but this is an entirely unscripted conversation.
SAM BURRELL: So that's quite exciting in some ways. So just to do a little bit of housekeeping, it's thanks to the continued support of our sponsors that we've been able to offer these webinars for free throughout the whole series. Elsevier and Wiley are our gold sponsors. Silverchair, Consort Strategy, ALPSP, AJE, Cadmore Media, Atypon, Cactus, and Renew Consultants have also supported us all the way through, so a shout-out to them.
SAM BURRELL: And another brief housekeeping issue, chat is open to everyone. We do invite you to chat as we go along. If your chat window hasn't opened as a default, you can find the blue chat button on the bottom right usually, which will open up the panel. Then I have to tell you that actually, the best-laid plans of mice and men sometimes go astray-- loose translation.
SAM BURRELL: And at the last minute, it proved not possible for Girish and Katy to make it this afternoon at 4 PM. But they both said that we could do a conversation with them very early this morning, so we got together this morning, and we recorded this conversation, which we really enjoyed. And we hope that you do, too. So forgive us for the last-minute change, but it's kind of a symptom of the times and the way things are going at the minute.
SAM BURRELL: So I'm just about to turn off my camera and hit Play, and we'll listen to this conversation. We're going to be on chat. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed having this conversation. Thanks, everybody Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining us this morning or this afternoon, depending on where you are.
SAM BURRELL: In the spirit of this being entirely unscripted, this actually ended up being recorded first thing this morning, because something came up that made it necessary that we did that. However, we are here, and we're delighted to be joining Katy and Girish. Tracy and I are both on the Society Street team. You probably know us from other webinars. And we are going to be joining in this conversation as well, because we thought that we couldn't bear to sit quietly behind the scenes, because there's so much to say that's interesting.
SAM BURRELL: So to introduce you to our guests, I'd like to start off with Katy, Katy Amberley, who is the Chief Executive of the British Society for Haematology. And she's also on the program committee for Society Street UK. Now, Girish was Katy's idea. And she said to us, I really think we should get Girish to come and talk to the people who come to attend Society Street conference.
SAM BURRELL: And so I just wanted to turn straight over to Katy and go, so Katy, why have we invited Girish? No offense, Girish. Please tell us, Katy.
KATY AMBERLEY: Thank you very much, Sam, for that introduction. And I'm very, very pleased to be on this call. And I'm very much grateful for the invitation to speak. So I first heard Girish-- I think it was five years ago now. And this was at an aspiring CEOs course that I was on at the Cass Business School. And Girish came along-- he'd recently been appointed as ActionAid Chief Executive.
KATY AMBERLEY: And he came along to give a speech to us aspiring CEOs as to what it was like to be a CEO. And I found him very inspiring, very intelligent, humorous, and humble, all at the same time. And I just wish I'd had a chance to speak to him afterwards, but that didn't happen at that point. Then about a year ago, I met him again at another conference in the charity sector, and he was again a few years on into his job and talking about what had been happening, what Girish did next perhaps, at ActionAid.
KATY AMBERLEY: [INAUDIBLE] by these same qualities. And I just thought that although, obviously, Girish works in a different sector to Society Street and the people who come to Society Street, that he would have a lot to offer as a speaker at one of our conferences.
SAM BURRELL: Brilliant. Thanks, Katy. So Girish, thank you for joining us, and thank you for being so flexible with all the changes, because you were originally going to come and speak at the June event. Gosh, it's been a weird old year. That's kind of topical for what we're talking about today, isn't it? So by way of introduction, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and about ActionAid, and then maybe dive straight into some of the challenges that the last few months have thrown at you, at us, at us leading organizations?
GIRISH MENON: Thank you very much, Sam and Tracy for organizing this. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much, Katy for your super generous introduction. That's indeed very kind of you to recall both our interactions over the past few years. I'm Girish Menon. I'm the Chief Executive of ActionAid UK. ActionAid UK is an international organization.
GIRISH MENON: We are part of a global federation, the ActionAid International. We focus on the rights of women and girls living in poverty in the global South. We work with 40 odd other members of the ActionAid International federation. As an organization, we were formed in 1972. And as of now, ActionAid UK continues to be the largest member of the ActionAid International federation, in terms of the income, raising anywhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the global income.
GIRISH MENON: So that itself actually sets the context of our challenges. Everybody is completely steeped in the challenges that have been created by the pandemic. It threw us completely out of gear, as everybody in the sector. And for us, the big thing was about how to continue with our focus on the rights of women and girls at a time when the pandemic is hitting us in ways that were most unparalleled.
GIRISH MENON: A lot of our challenge therefore was, while our priority as a senior leadership was to ensure that our staff are safe and ensure the well-being of our staff, it was also important for us to think about the communities we work with and what's happening out there. It's a very strange kind of a humanitarian crisis. Because in the past, for example, you would have-- there was an earthquake in Nepal, there was a hurricane in Haiti, there was a tsunami in Indonesia.
GIRISH MENON: So for us, as ActionAid UK, we used to garner a lot of humanitarian capacity and resources, be it funding, be it capacity for programs or technical capacity, and it was all about offering the capacity in the spirit of partnership to other members in other countries who were affected. Here, the crisis was even worse, because it was us who were more affected initially before our colleagues and our teams in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Central America, where we work.
GIRISH MENON: So it was very strange to get used to that sense of reality, and it was a big moment of solidarity as well for us, because we had so many people calling us from all these different countries asking us, how are you? And for me, that really resonated a lot. It brought home the importance and the real meaning of the question, how are you? And for me, that has actually chartered my complete thinking during the course of the last six months, that the fundamental purpose of our existence is absolutely delivering the mission.
GIRISH MENON: But to deliver the mission, the people who are involved in delivering the mission and at the other end with whom we partner-- they're also critical. And so it is about striking the importance of the words, how are you, and making sure that while we are here to address some of the big global challenges that we see, be it on poverty, be it on inequality, be it on injustice or climate change, at the end of the day, it's about how we continue to remain focused on our mission, and our people who are there to deliver the mission.
SAM BURRELL: I think that's really strong. Yeah.
TRACY GARDNER: I think it is. And it sounds, Girish, from what you're saying, actually what struck me about that is that it exposed the vulnerabilities of everybody. And I think that's what's turned this around. And probably working, from ActionAid, where you are already positioned to be helping constantly and looking after those that are vulnerable, to then have that flipped round and feel that you're on the other side of that, it's interesting to know how you think that affected your team and your response.
TRACY GARDNER: And Katy, presumably, I don't know whether in the field that you're in as well-- if that resonates with you, that kind of vulnerability that you've found through this.
KATY AMBERLEY: Yes. That's a very good point. I think at the start of the crisis I had an email from one of our doctors, obviously. We're a medical society, a medical professional body. The people we support are medical professionals, scientists, other lab technicians, and nurses. And so the email from this doctor said, this is really going to test us.
KATY AMBERLEY: This is not something we're used to. We're not used to getting ill. It's the patients who get ill. Now, this is something that could affect us because obviously we've seen the terrible pictures that have been coming in from Italy. And we knew that health professionals would be on the front line, and that it is highly likely that some of them would die.
KATY AMBERLEY: And of course, this did happen. You know, many health professionals and care professionals in the UK did die from COVID-19. So I thought that was a very striking comment from the doctor. But also, speaking from the organization's point of view, I think we weren't, for example-- we're a very small team, there's only 12 of us. And we were only edging towards sort of offering work from home and flexible working-- these things.
KATY AMBERLEY: And all of a sudden, within a week, we had to sort of magic up extra laptops, send everyone home, get everyone up and running. And you know, that was quite something to have to handle in the first couple of weeks, especially as, in the background, we were in the process of having to cancel our big annual scientific meeting, which would have been held at the end of April, which then led on to other things.
KATY AMBERLEY: Other consequences followed from that. So I totally get what Girish is saying about this exposing vulnerabilities, and not just to us personally or to our organizations, but I would say, probably to Western society as a whole. And that we've seen that perhaps we weren't as well-prepared for something like this as we would've expected to be or perhaps like to have been.
KATY AMBERLEY: And so I can totally see where Girish is coming from on that.
SAM BURRELL: I think it's quite an organized bit, the whole-- I mean, that's really resonating with me, the whole kind of, how are you. In the sense that I know that I found myself writing emails to people in the early weeks, going, hi, how are you doing? And then kind of go, I used to just write that, and I didn't really mean it. Whereas right now, I really mean me as an individual, asking you as an individual, before we get down to any work, actually, how are you doing?
SAM BURRELL: Because I appreciate you might not be doing very well. You might be unwell. Your family might be unwell. And so that's more important before we get on with any chat about work, is to establish whether you're in an OK place before we then talk about work. And I think that's something that we gave lip service to before.
SAM BURRELL: I mean, you always, at work-- not always, but regularly-- open emails going, hey, how are you doing? But you didn't mean it at that level of, actually, if you're not OK, please ignore this. And I wonder, I think, as leaders of mission-based organizations, there are two things going on there. There's the one leading an organization, made up of people and individuals who are all in their own place.
SAM BURRELL: And then, there's also you're a mission-based organization that's trying to deliver your mission. I don't know where I'm going here. Somewhere like, there's kind of two sets of needing to care for a community. One's your community of staff, and one's your community of what it is your organization's doing. Do you want to unpack some of that?
GIRISH MENON: Yeah. I mean, I just wanted to go back to the point of vulnerability that Katy raised. And I think that also answers your point, Sam, about the personal space and the mission. And I think there is that spectrum of vulnerability, because as an individual you feel vulnerable for various reasons. And then, when you look at the mission of the organization, there's a certain vulnerability in the mission because everything has been blown off course by a pandemic that nobody knows what to do anything about.
GIRISH MENON: As Katy said, for Western societies that are so well-advanced in terms of science and technology and resources, we are all still struggling. I mean, look what's happening in America, for instance. There's a massive struggle that's happening. In addition to that, we're seeing a real lack of a broad global political will to tackle this crisis. And everybody's trying to find their own solutions without actually seeing how we can actually learn from each other and support each other, and actually be humble and modest and say, you know what?
GIRISH MENON: We may be very strong societies financially, we might be global leaders, but hey, we are also vulnerable. So I think there are really important lessons in leadership on this point of vulnerability. At ActionAid we often talk about our feminist principles and the feminist values, and we look at our organization culture through the lens of feminist principles. One of the principles we always talk about to start with is about self-awareness.
GIRISH MENON: And as a leader, the first thing that I became aware of at the start of the crisis is, hell, I don't know what to do about it. For God's sake, I have no clue. And I can't tell you the number of nights I have not slept in the early stages. I still remember March 17th very, very clearly in my mind, because that was the first day of the lockdown of the office, where we actually shut down the office.
GIRISH MENON: It was a Tuesday, and I just felt that I needed to go to the office at least till Friday, just because I was still in a state of denial. I mean, even till the previous Friday, I was in a state of denial saying, Oh, that's Italy. That's out there, but we have got our NHS. We are really strong. It's not possible that it's going to strike us. We were also-- for the International Women's Day on March 8, we had done this amazing exhibition called Women by Women, which was about women photographers from Nigeria, from Guatemala, from different countries that we work in, capturing images of women doing things at their own level and demonstrating the spirit of leadership and solidarity.
GIRISH MENON: So you know, and March is a very important month for anybody who was in the women's rights movement, because of the International Women's Day. So we were basking in that glory, and we were really riding the crest of something super inspirational. And even though COVID had started knocking doors, we were like, you know, it is going to be OK. It's great, you know, so we can tackle COVID.
GIRISH MENON: But no, in a matter of days, we had to put things-- and I still remember a staff briefing I had to do on the Monday, which was March 16, to tell the staff we were going to close the office. And to be honest, I found my voice very hollow, because for the first time, I just didn't know where we were getting to. I just didn't know where we were heading towards, which is why the point of vulnerability that Katy mentioned really struck a very deep chord with me.
GIRISH MENON: And I still find that. For all the number of years I've worked in the not-for-profit sector, I cannot say the number of times I have experienced moments of self-doubt. Because while the concept of leadership has changed significantly-- so the leadership is no longer the army-style leader who sort of marches and everybody follows. It's about an enabler.
GIRISH MENON: It's about a facilitator. Yet, when anybody's in the role of heading a team or department or an organization, you do feel that accountability that the buck does stop with you. And a lot of people are relying on you to kind of help navigate their way through. And here I am sitting at home saying, I just don't know. I have not been used to this at all. We don't have the answers.
GIRISH MENON: So I think in very many ways, as I say, you never lose an opportunity of a crisis to learn and reflect. And I think for me the biggest upside, if I can say so-- it seems a bit brutal to even say that now. But still, the biggest upside is, I think everybody is reflecting a lot on leadership and what it means to lead an organization through a period of prolonged crisis with continued challenges and uncertainties coming ahead, and kind of redefining the concept of leadership in very many ways.
GIRISH MENON: I don't know what the answers are, but it's really getting people to ask those big questions. I talk a lot to my peers, and I am very fortunate that I have a number of peers I could talk to via the WhatsApp group we have done, peer calls, both within the Federation and here within the UK. And we're all in the same space. So I think it's kind of telling us to redefine leadership, try to understand how you can be more collaborative, be open about our vulnerabilities, dig deep into the process of self-awareness and self-reflection, and yet in spite of all that, keep the mission cool and centered to the organization and the culture of the organization that underpins the delivery of the mission.
TRACY GARDNER: I think you made an interesting point there, Girish, about the kind of dichotomy of leadership, because as you say, it's about facilitation, it's about collaboration, it's about encouraging people to do their best and achieve their full potential. However, in the midst of a crisis, people look towards a leader to lead. And so actually, in some ways, that has to get set aside. And so you spend a long time nurturing this collaborative leadership, inspirational role, and then something like this happens, and then everybody's looking to a leader.
TRACY GARDNER: Because they want to be told what to do. And so you're finding that balance between trying to give them the confidence but also the kind of self-awareness to also say, well, I don't know where we're going with this, because this is unprecedented. So I think that probably personally is a really difficult balance to strike. I think sometimes we forget about leaders, because we expect, in times of crisis, our leaders to lead.
TRACY GARDNER: But actually, I think you've just identified and articulated very well some of the personal challenges that brings.
GIRISH MENON: Yes, indeed. And what is interesting is that when we talk about feminist culture, when we talk about sharing power, when we talk about accountable collaboration that sits with the feminist principle, the one thing that I was made aware of in my perusal of conversations with several colleagues is the desire for them to see me be more directive. And that was a really interesting journey for me, because of all the psychometric tests I have done during the course of my career, being directive is my dominant feature.
GIRISH MENON: So I have had to work hard over the last 15 years to push that down and genuinely be an enabler and facilitator for which I have had lots of coaching support over the years. Because it's very difficult to put aside what is intrinsically your dominant character. And now, just as you said, Tracy, when it is a kind of crisis, they do look at leaders to come with solutions.
GIRISH MENON: So there was really a demand knocking at my doors to say, we need more direction. And so for me, an interesting reflection was being director while also being self-aware. So every time I was being directive, I was also reminding myself that this is going to be temporary. Do not let that dominant feature or that preference become your normal style, because you are in abnormal times.
GIRISH MENON: So you're being directive because times are abnormal, but you need to remind yourself consciously that you are being directive. And you need to then remind yourself that, you know what? You need to now move back a little bit, because that's the culture of the organization. That's what you really want to be. So there are dichotomies and dichotomies, you know, that one was exploring in this process.
GIRISH MENON: I still don't know where I've got to, to be honest. But it just gave me so many different moments of self-reflection. Our only hope is that at some point in time, there will be a quiet moment where I can still possibly write down some of my reflections or some key tips that I learned for myself. Because or else you'll lose it. You'll forget it.
GIRISH MENON: You know? It's going to change. The world is going to change every few months now, with what's happening and the uncertainty. So we might actually forget to capture those lessons that we've learned in such a hard way.
SAM BURRELL: So Katy, do you feel that as well, the kind of tension between the directive and the enabler-type leadership thing?
KATY AMBERLEY: Yes. That is a very good point Girish has raised. And I think that in times of crisis, people do assume that the Chief Executive will lead and will lead from the front. That's something I like to think that I do. Like Girish, I suspect that, being directive, I tend to hold quite strong opinions. And I do tend to-- I'm also the eldest of four, so I think being directive is a role that I've been used to handling.
KATY AMBERLEY: But also, having been the eldest of four, and much the eldest, I also had quite a bit to do with helping to sort of look after my younger siblings when they were smaller and sort of over the years. And so I think there's also quite a-- I have quite a nurturing nature as well, which has come from experience. So it is very difficult in this sort of situation to strike the right balance.
KATY AMBERLEY: And obviously, I think we were all caught off guard by this. I've already explained that we had to rush to get everyone working from home. We were sort of-- we'd just published an important workforce report, we were planning for our scientific meeting, and we'd just taken on a new member of staff, who actually joined us during lockdown. And we had to onboard her remotely, which was an interesting challenge for everyone, I think.
KATY AMBERLEY: So there were all sorts of things going on, and this was, in a way, like a juggernaut or a sort of tsunami. It sort of just kept coming at you with different challenges. One of the ways in which I've sort of settled into a rhythm is that from very early on, from the first week, I started writing team updates, which I started off initially twice a week. I also offered everyone on the team a chance to speak to me privately if they wish to, which is something you can do when you only have a team of 11 people around you, not something you can do if you've got a team of thousands or hundreds.
KATY AMBERLEY: And I've kept up those team updates. And they're a mixture of sort of items perhaps in the news, items from the sector, items that are related to us as an organization, things I want to update the team on. And I usually try and include some sort of personal stuff as well, like what I've seen on my latest walk around Islington, or sort of some funny things that happened to me, sort of taking photos in another garden that I've discovered that I never knew before lockdown.
KATY AMBERLEY: And I think I'm up to team update 42 this week, or I will be later today. And you know, that apparently has been-- staff have felt that's been a good thing. It's been a positive thing. And I felt that everyone has really come together, all our volunteers, who are very busy, clinicians, scientists, nurses. They've all sort of come together with the staff team during this time to really go that extra mile and do extra stuff.
KATY AMBERLEY: So we started putting out rapid guidance, and we started triaging guidance for other organizations and putting that up on a special part of our website. We started doing that very early. That was something we were not doing before, and obviously we had to rely on the clinicians to write those or triage those rapid guidances. And obviously, they're very busy doing other things. The staff have been fantastic.
KATY AMBERLEY: Everyone's been incredibly flexible and adaptable. People, once they realized the scientific meeting wasn't happening, started switching to do other things, whether it was helping with the rapid guidance, starting to think about moving other events online, or tidying up. We did a lot of tidying up. We did a website upgrade that perhaps would have happened later in the year.
KATY AMBERLEY: We tidied up some procedures and policies. Sort of fixing the roof while the sun wasn't shining, but it worked just as well. So I think we've managed to come through that. But it is a very difficult situation when everyone is-- or you feel that everyone might be looking to you and expecting you to know what to do. And of course, there are times when you don't, and I didn't. And I have said that sometimes in my team updates.
KATY AMBERLEY: I have said, I don't have all the answers, please give me your suggestions. And more recently, people have been sort of sending me stuff for the team update, and we've been adding those items to it. And we're going to have a well-being section on our SharePoint that people are going to start putting things up to so that everyone can benefit from them.
SAM BURRELL: So given that we've had six months of massive turbulence-- and actually, looking forwards, it doesn't look any calmer, when you look at A, what's going on with COVID, but also heaven forfend, Brexit and all kinds of elections in the US. And I mean, it just doesn't look like we're going forwards into anything calmer. So I guess my question is-- I'm going to come to positives in a minute, because I think we do need to talk about that as well, because I think there have been some.
SAM BURRELL: But my question for now is, let's get into-- I have wands and time-traveling machines and all sorts of things. We're going to get into my time-traveling machine. We're going to go back to March. And what advice would you give-- sorry, this is mean, because I haven't asked you to prepare this at all. But what advice would you give to yourself that you think would be really helpful?
SAM BURRELL: So if you were to be given a piece of advice by you, who knows you in March, that would have helped you to get through the last six months, that might help you or somebody else get through the next six months.
GIRISH MENON: Oh, that's a tough one. So let me give it a go, because this is what I have told my children, for instance, on a few occasions, which is hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I can't think of anything more than that, I'm afraid.
TRACY GARDNER: Yes, fair enough.
KATY AMBERLEY: Yeah, that's good. The thing that immediately came to mind for me was take a deep breath and be kind. And that's obviously to yourself, but to everyone as well.
SAM BURRELL: The one that I saw that really resonated with me was, it was somebody on Twitter that said something along the lines of, you're holding yourself to the emotional bar of a regular Tuesday, but it's not a regular Tuesday. And I think that kind of goes alongside yours, Katy, about being kind to yourself. It's being kind to yourself and being kind to other people and kind of going, actually, this is really hard, and it's really draining for everybody.
SAM BURRELL: And looking forward-- go ahead, Tracy.
TRACY GARDNER: I think-- well, no, I think I'm leading onto that. I mean, I have a friend who became a head teacher in September. So you know, her first year of being a head teacher in a school was dealing with this. And of course, it was an incredibly stressful situation for schools, because they were still open to some pupils. And she said that she had to keep telling herself not to panic, that this was actually going to be a long-term-- although we were in crisis, it felt like a disaster, this was in it for the long haul.
TRACY GARDNER: And actually, to take some time to plan and, yeah, not panic. Because I think there was a great sense of panic to start with. And I think she said that actually just allowing herself to take that step back-- and that although there were some pressing decisions that needed to be made, there were other decisions that could take time, that you could give yourself that time. And I thought that kind of was brilliant and I think it resonated with me as well.
TRACY GARDNER: Because I think there was that initial time of great panic, that you have to make all the decisions now because we were in crisis mode. But actually, as Cindy Sparrow talked to us about on our last chat when we had our last webinar, this is a long-term crisis. Normally, when we're in crisis, it's short-lived, and then we would be out of it by now. But actually understanding that this is long-term, Sam, as you were saying, the next six months look no less turbulent, do they, than the previous.
TRACY GARDNER: So I think I thought the don't panic, keep calm, carry on, don't panic advice has been quite good, worth sharing. Sorry, Sam. I interrupted you.
SAM BURRELL: No, that's OK. So I guess we're going to sort of-- I'd like to draw on either things that surprised you that have been good, or things that you're planning or thinking about for the next six months, looking a little bit more positively and forward of, how do we arm ourselves? What we need to think about, going forward from here? Have you got any thoughts on that?
GIRISH MENON: Absolutely. I think it's a really good question, Sam, because when it comes to crises, we always think about all the horrible things that have happened or things that have not gone well. So that's a really important point to consider. My first response would be on the theme of resilience. So if I were told in March that we would deal with a crisis like this, then I wouldn't have had the confidence to do that.
GIRISH MENON: But not being told and being thrown into the deep end, it does build your resilience, and therefore builds your confidence. And it's not just me. Across the organization, I've seen colleagues step in all kinds of ways. I mean, some in terms of delivering programs, delivering activities, some in terms of taking care of other situations, some in terms of coming up with ideas.
GIRISH MENON: So different people have responded to being resilient in a very different way. And the one thing that cuts across all of them is a sense of fun. One of the first things that struck me the moment we announced office lockdown-- a colleague said, what about virtual teas and coffees? And I'm like, what the hell does that mean? What does a virtue tea mean?
GIRISH MENON: But now, we all do virtual teas and coffees and cakes and drinks. We all do it. It's become the norm. So these are ways in which people have demonstrated that resilience. Number two is that we can work in a very different way. You know, Katy talked about recruitment, and I have a similar experience.
GIRISH MENON: We recruited four new trustees during lockdown and a new chair during lockdown. And some of us have not met some of them face-to-face, but since then we have had two very productive board meetings. And our chair has gone through a complete set of virtual inductions, and she's in a great position now to take on from here, though everything has been virtual. As an international organization, there was a lot of travel that is involved, where our teams go and provide instant support to our colleagues across the world.
GIRISH MENON: But now, it's all gone virtual, and we're saying, hey, actually, there are different ways in doing it, which can be kinder to the planet and to our budget. So you don't have to travel. We can continue to provide that support and the solidarity, even virtually, and things can move on. And the last thing I wanted to mention is-- what I was very impressed with in some members of my team is the power to innovate.
GIRISH MENON: They've come up with some really interesting stuff. So for example, London Marathon has been canceled. Now, London Marathon is one of our important fundraising moments-- [INAUDIBLE] London. And then, our teams have come up with some virtual products which continue to engage our current and potential supporters, yet raise funds for us without physically being there.
GIRISH MENON: So it's suddenly-- I think the realm of the possible now is, it's looking brighter than the realm of the impossible.
KATY AMBERLEY: I would agree that, I think, having come through a very difficult patch in many ways, we are probably stronger as an organization now, and stronger as a team in the virtual office now. And we, too, have virtual teas, coffees, and quizzes, and things like that. But I really wanted to frame my response to this by telling you what actually the charitable objects at BSH are, according to our articles.
KATY AMBERLEY: And I will have to read this. So they are to advance the practice and study of haematology, and to facilitate contact between persons interested in haematology. Now, of course, when the crisis first hit, a lot of that was put at risk. We had to cancel our big annual meeting, put on ice our 60th anniversary plans. And just when everything was going so well-- you know, we'd had record registrations, record abstracts, and good sponsorship for the meeting.
KATY AMBERLEY: Like you were saying earlier on, Girish, everything was in a really good place. We'd just published a workforce review. And then, of course, everything came to a shuddering halt. But actually, if you think about what I've just read out, we are still doing that. So if you think of the practice of haematology, we've continued to produce not only rapid guidance relating to COVID, but also continued to produce our regular clinical guidelines.
KATY AMBERLEY: The continuation of studying-- we're going to have a virtual meeting in November. It won't be a complete reproduction of our normal annual scientific meeting. Most of the program for this year has gone to next year. But we're doing other things. And in the meantime, we've managed to innovate. As also Girish was saying, people are being very innovative.
KATY AMBERLEY: And we've managed to-- by early May, we'd put on our first webinar, and we did another one in June. We've got another one coming up in a week or so's time, with I think 400 or even 500 people registered, which just blows my mind. Because a face-to-face event for that, we would get perhaps 100 or 150. And then, facilitating contact between persons interested in haematology-- well, you know, as you say, you can do that virtually.
KATY AMBERLEY: For example, we have a global haematology special interest group, and we had a meeting recently to discuss, well, you know, obviously, most of what we've been doing has involved travel. But perhaps there are ways that we can revive or reinvent these programs so that they don't involve travel but we can still have these programs. So there is always hope. And again, I would just like to express my gratitude to my team in the virtual office and to our volunteers for really continuing to do so much, and to do new things and to do old things in new ways.
KATY AMBERLEY: We, too, recruited trustees during this time. We put it on hold initially, but then we thought, no, we'll go ahead. We really want these extra lay trustees on the board. And so we did that, and that was fantastic. And yes, we had to sort of send them all this induction material, and we couldn't do an induction day face-to-face, and they've still yet to meet a lot of people.
KATY AMBERLEY: But we have managed to get them on board, and I'm sure they will be a real addition to the board. So I think there are some positives to take away from this, and things that we now know we can do because we've had to do them. And I think it's just going to be a case of balancing in the future. Which are the things that we want to keep? And where we might wish to go, if we can go back to doing things in the other way, if that was better-- whether we will be able to do that.
KATY AMBERLEY: But obviously, keep all the good stuff that we've managed to gain from this time, and all the new things we've learned.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah. I think that's a really good point both of you have brought up about innovation. Our colleague, Simon, talks about the pandemic being the mother of invention. Because organizations always need to change, right? You always need to be growing, and you always need to be engaging. But it's sometimes quite difficult to get change in place, because it's difficult, and people resist it.
SAM BURRELL: Even if they know it's a good idea, it feels too difficult. And somehow, because we're in such extraordinary times, I think that's released the gates, if you like, and perhaps the expectations of what you can deliver and lower. And therefore, it's less risky. I don't know. It's somehow less risky to invest. You kind of go, well, we've got to do something, so we may as well try this.
SAM BURRELL: And if it doesn't work, then never mind, we'll try something else.
TRACY GARDNER: Yeah, exactly.
SAM BURRELL: Do either of you want to kind of talk a bit about change and how change-- do you think your organizations have become more open to change? And do you think that's going to be a permanent thing?
KATY AMBERLEY: Well, I mean, to be honest, the BSH has been through a lot of change in the past few years anyway. So perhaps that's been a good preparation, really, for some of the things we've had to do this year, in that we were sort of in change management mode anyway. Having said that, some of the changes and consequences were less welcome than others. So one very big consequence of canceling our scientific meeting was that our new trustees couldn't then take up office as they were scheduled to do.
KATY AMBERLEY: Because it all tied in with our articles that mention them having to take up office at a scientific meeting. So this led to quite a serious governance issue that we had, which I'm very pleased to say we have now resolved by virtue of a virtual general meeting, which we held just about two weeks ago now to resolve this situation with the articles. So that was a very unwelcome consequence, but yes, I think we will continue.
KATY AMBERLEY: I'm sure the work-from-home, flexible working-- I'm sure that will remain. And obviously, some people want to go into the office more than others, but I'm sure as an organization we'll be able to accommodate as much as possible what we can do to help people's personal preferences. And I think that's a really, really positive development. And I'm sure that we will continue to do a lot more online education.
KATY AMBERLEY: And I think one thing that really stood out for me in the early part of the pandemic was when we were thinking, goodness me, can we really do this rapid guidance? Goodness heavens, this is not something we've done before. And will the clinicians have the time? And one of my colleagues said, well, this is our bit. We're not clinicians, we're not nurses, and we're not scientists.
KATY AMBERLEY: We can't do anything about the pandemic in that way, but this is what we can do to support them. I feel this is something we could do. And so we did, and it did work. So I do think that although we have been in a period of change and have done a lot of new different things over the past few years, perhaps this took it to another level. And I'm sure we will stick with some of the changes.
GIRISH MENON: Yeah, I agree with Katy as well on that. We always keep saying, don't we, that change is a constant? That's resonating even more now, because every week, every time something unfolds and every time we get some new information from the external environment, it's about, oh, we need to change, we need to change. So I think the imperative for us to change has become more pressing or more urgent than it was before. Earlier, change was related to maybe a change in leadership, and therefore the leader comes in with some new ideas and new different things, not to say that there weren't always some changes in the external environment.
GIRISH MENON: But I think now, the imperatives are so strong because of the fast-moving changes in the external environment. And we haven't even started talking about Brexit or any of the other changes in all of this [INAUDIBLE] because our whole life is determined by the pandemic. But I think it is really making people think of, where do we invest our money? How do we articulate our priority?
GIRISH MENON: How do we have more focus? Because we also need to be very realistic and pragmatic about the fact that we are coming to a world where the resources are going to be much less at our disposal. So for example, just today we heard about the aviation industry losing so many thousands of jobs. And we're going to hear much more of that. We heard about Cineworld last week, and we'll keep hearing of all these losses coming through.
GIRISH MENON: So for a sector that relies a lot on public support and public donations-- so we have a giving public of 150,000 people. We are quite mindful of the fact that when people lose jobs, when the economy is shrinking, we have to be very pragmatic and realistic and say our income is going to shrink. So it really is forcing us to make some hard choices on what we focus on, what we prioritize, and how we cut costs so that we continue to deliver on the mission that we are here to deliver.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah, I think that's very true. I mean the other thing, particularly for societies-- I mean, what you were just talking about, Girish, about being mindful of your community, your giving community in your case-- at that moment I think for learned societies, there's also-- the environment for early-career researchers is particularly unfriendly, hostile, difficult, both kind of financially but also in terms of career progression.
SAM BURRELL: And yes, so societies themselves are feeling incredible pressure from revenue challenges, frankly. But the mission becomes even more important, and the community-- you know, it's that thing of going-- there's opportunity and need to innovate, with lots of downward pressure as well. I mean, it's a big ask, right? It's big ask.
GIRISH MENON: It is.
KATY AMBERLEY: If I could just come in there very, very quickly-- we were due to launch a strategy this month, because our financial year begins on the 1st of October. We lost a lot of time in the spring and summer, and we realized that wasn't possible. And also, it allowed us to do some member research, so we did some qualitative interviews, sort of in the late summer. And we're now sending out a member survey, a lot of which were focused around COVID, but also focused around how the society can adapt, can help people and members more in the future, and can attract new members.
KATY AMBERLEY: And we're now going to launch our strategy in January, which of course will allow us time to take this research into account. So we haven't been able to launch in October, but actually it's enabled us to do a really important piece of work and to feed that into the new strategy.
SAM BURRELL: We are just about out of time. That went incredibly quickly, and it was really, really interesting. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. I could have talked to you for another two hours.
GIRISH MENON: Thank you very much.
SAM BURRELL: Thank you very much.
GIRISH MENON: Thank you for the introduction, Katy, and then to Sam and Tracy as well. These conversations really help me reflect a lot as well, so I really appreciate the opportunity. So thank you so much for having me on this conversation.
KATY AMBERLEY: Thank you. I'd like to reiterate that. Thank you very much to Sam and Tracy for organizing this, and for Girish for being so flexible in joining the call this morning.
SAM BURRELL: Hopefully, see you guys in person at some point before too long. Bye.
GIRISH MENON: Bye.
KATY AMBERLEY: Bye.
SAM BURRELL: Well, I'm sorry that we didn't manage to do that live for today's session, but I hope you enjoyed the conversation anyway. A final thank you to our sponsors, and also just to let everybody know that we are doing one last Society Street event this year, which is in November, which is an online replacement. Well, it's not a replacement. It's something different from the London event that we were going to do.
SAM BURRELL: We're doing a series of workshops on surviving in a financial downturn, and we're doing a session on conferences and meetings. Has the pandemic been the mother of invention? You can sign up for those on the SocietyStreet.org website. And thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate having you, and I hope you got something out of that conversation. All right.
SAM BURRELL: See you again, guys. Thanks for coming. Bye.
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