Leading Insights: Recent Episodes
Dr Kate Arrow
Listen in to gain insights into the careers and experiences of Leaders from across Scotland's public sector. Interviewed by Dr Kate Arrow, a Specialty Registrar in Anaesthesia and Dr Thomas Lamont, Specialty Registrar in Restorative Dentistry. Hear the candid stories, experiences and reflections of some of Scotland's most successful Professionals from across Academia, Government, Health & Social Care and The Third Sector.
We have deliberately left in a few bloopers to fuel your thinking around the topics discussed.
Find out more about Lucy Aphromor at lucyaphromor.com
Thomas Lamont meets James Timpson to discuss the importance of kindness, language and autonomy in the success story of Timpsons. James shares his views on building up a diverse team of colleagues and why he believes delegating autonomy leads to innovative, successful services led by happy and motivated teams. Listen in to hear how he has achieved this in his own company over the last 20 years.
Dr Navina Evans is the former CEO of East London Foundation Trust. Under Dr Evans' leadership, ELFT developed their organisational strategy focussed on improving the lives of their patients through Quality Improvement methodology and people participation. She has recently moved to Health Education England as CEO. In this podcast we discuss her career from Psychiatry to Chief Executive, the challenges of maintaining momentum and effecting continuous improvement as well as her experience of service co-production with patients and carers
In this episode we chat to Louise Macdonald, Chief Executive of Young Scot. In this episode, Louise shares her story of shifting careers from Journalism to The Third sector. She tells us how her values are core to prioritising work and her several high profile roles and how she balances self-care and professional life.
Kate Arrow 0:02
Welcome to Leading Insights. Today we're joined by Cat MacAulay. Cat could you tell us a little bit about your role?
Cat Macaulay 0:14
Sure. So I'm the chief design officer for Scottish Government's digital Directorate. And that's a fairly new role, I think. Well, I know for Scottish Government. First time we've had the chief design officer. And really what I'm there to do is, I suppose a couple of key things. So one of them is helping to introduce the idea of user centred design, particularly around the design of services, but not exclusively, as as one of the ways of working and thinking that we need in government in the modern government, you know, until, till fairly recently, Scottish Government in particular was a fairly benign kind of government in the sense that it didn't tend to directly deliver many services to its people. It outsourced the delivery of most services and so it was really more of a policy generating organisation. And that changed a lot with the introduction of a number of the devolved powers around things like social security, tax generating powers and so on. And so suddenly, we had to learn how to design and deliver services ourselves, as well as think about, you know, the role of policy in directing the design and delivery of services elsewhere. So, I was brought in fairly early on as one of the early sort of batch of designers coming in trying to help out with this and took responsibility for growing what was a sort of community, you know, practice community, but also a professional community, but also for helping to think about what bits of design that you know, design methodology that were largely developed in the private sector and what bits of those are really relevant for government work, bits are less relevant and how do we combine the kind of Drive for participatory democracy that is quite embedded in the heart of Scottish Government with design and design thinking as a toolset and a way of approaching service delivery in particular, and bring those two things together and really drive them into the heart of government effectively. So I've been doing that for about five years now, which astonishes me but there you know, time flies.
Kate Arrow 2:22
Can you tell us a little bit about your career journey to get to there. Where did you start?
Cat Macaulay 2:25
Okay. The first thing I would say is, I've never considered myself to have a career journey. It was a decision I actually made very early on when I was a teenager, because I read in this book something about the Native Americans of Vancouver Island in Canada having a saying, which basically amounted to you better do lots of interesting things in your life otherwise you will be very boring when you're old and telling stories around the campfire. Who knows how true that is? Or if it's just apocryphal, but anyway it impacted on me and so I Sort of meandered through most of my 20s and early 30s not really thinking particularly about what I was doing, other than following my nose around things that interested me. So I started out as you often do, doing all sorts of juggling three jobs and restaurants and nightclubs and things like that. And I set up a cafe in Edinburgh, I fell into doing that it was the first LGBT owned and run cafe in Scotland, towards the end of the 80s 1980s. And I meandered out of that and into a job in news monitoring for one of the Maxwell Corporation companies, which was entertaining in the late late 80s, early 90s meandered out of that into working in international age during the Balkans war, meandered out of that into a number of other kind of roles in the community sector and then eventually ended up running a small company doing information systems development and design while studying for a master's in a PhD, and then eventually that led me into becoming an academic. And then eventually that led me into becoming a consultant in industry and then that led me into Scottish Government. So it's not really been a career path. It's been a career meander. But the common thread I think, in all of them when I look back has been designed, you know, I've had a, I've had an interest in how we solve problems well, and, and how we build the solutions to those problems. Well, from very early on, and that is, that is a threat I can see in my career, such as such as it exists in the earliest days.
Thomas Lamont 4:44
I love your job title. That's my favourite.
Cat Macaulay 4:47
Yeah, me too.
Thomas Lamont 4:51
What challenges have you experienced across those different roles?
Cat Macaulay 5:00
I suppose I should contextualise by saying I'm getting on a bit now. So I'm in my 50s. And I left school and then University in the mid 80s, straight into the teeth of one of the big recessions back then, and came from, you know, well, I suppose most of the challenges that I've faced in my career have more to do with who I am than anything particularly to do with the jobs themselves. Because, you know, I've never really fitted in the world, you know, I was, as a kid, I was definitely odd. I was very, very tall. And I realised quite early on that I was gay. And that had a huge impact. So, you know, first of all, before I came out to live in the world, and then after I came out, you know, for quite a long time, it did impact my job choices and my job opportunities. I still lived during the era when things like section 28 were in force. And when we ran the cafe, you know, it was a time when we just weren't understood or accepted in the way they are today. I remember being involved in one of the first demos in Scotland Against section 28. And it's hard to remember, but this was before pride happened. You know, there was no parade back then. And there was about six of us standing on princess street in a Saturday, chanting about gay rights, and, you know, facing the kind of horrified looks of the passers by. I remember going for jobs and I always made a point of coming out at jobs because I just sort of thought, I don't want to have to work somewhere where I can't be out. And you know, you would see right away on their faces and that was it. You were either running or not. When we were setting up the cafe and we went for a loan and you know, we went to several banks to try and get a little startup loan, which was quite normal back then, because there was another recession happening. So there was quite a lot of support for small businesses starting up and you know, literally being told we wont fund perversion and showing us the door. You know, so it, so that impacted a lot of my early experience of, of work, you know, I always saw jobs where I could be comfortably out. And, you know, in many ways that was, that was really helpful and good, because it did allow me to, to live openly, but at same time, it did absolutely limit the things I could do. And later on, you know, that sort of started to flatten out a little bit, but not entirely, and, but then in my very late 20s, I was diagnosed with MS. And that, again, was another complete change for me, suddenly, I was, you know, looking at a life and something that I hadn't really anticipated having to deal with. And at that time, certainly, you know, the kind of the standard, kind of medical response to a diagnosis with Ms was, you know, don't don't exercise don't have any children, you know, prepare to retire, you know, when I was 29 at that point. So, there was very little support, very little advice on how to manage it in your career. So you know, Right away, I needed to jump into a career that had a pension. So I didn't have a pension. And so that's why I started the journey towards becoming an academic. And that's actually just driven me ever since is just holding on to a pension of some kind. But, as I said, most of the career choices that I've made have been driven by that desire to do something interesting and not to be constrained. So I've had this kind of weird tension between living in a world that doesn't accept me or that makes life really difficult for me, and unilaterally having something that made life difficult. And then that desire to just do something interesting. So I've never had a job where I've felt morally compromised. And if I ever do get to that point in any job, I walk away and happen and I've always believed that, you know, I should have work that is meaningful and makes an impact on the world. And that challenges me to do things that I wouldn't normally be necessarily comfortable doing as well. I've always had that drive and overall know that I'm in you know, in my 50s, I'm looking back on it and still looking ahead, but you know, largely looking back, I'm really glad that I made those choices. I'm glad I lived in a time where it was kind of acceptable to opt out of the career thing, because I've got teenage children, and I see thats not an option for them in the way that it was for us. You know, it was fairly common for people not to want to have a career when I was young, but now I can see this huge depression, it starts much earlier and you know, I went through most of my school, nobody really ever talked to you about your future in your career that was just sort of, you're either going to university or if you weren't you were going to go to the army or jump in and work at dairy or get pregnant if you're a girl. And that was about it. Whereas, you know, my kids grew up in a time when there was just a really strong focus on how important it was to have some kind of career. And I'm not necessarily sure that that's as healthy for them as I would wish. Although I'm certainly glad that they have Their ambition set a bit higher than we did when we were kids.
Kate Arrow 10:03
Cat you speak very passionately about promoting accessibility and equity, has living with MS influencedthe kind of leader you've become?
Cat Macaulay 10:14
So I mean, like everyone, your your history, your life impacts your beliefs and your values and the way you approach the world and, you know, as somebody who has never been made fully welcome in society, initially because I was gay and, and more likely, because I'm disabled. I think it has left me with a real sense of responsibility to use whatever power or opportunity I have to transfer qualities and to think about the impact of inequalities and in justices on the life opportunities of people. And so that has always drawn me to looking at you know, how are we working in ways that dont exclude people, what can we do to be effective? Improving our ability to include a much wider range of people. And it's it's given me I suppose, a sensitivity to my own biases and my own weak spots in areas where my own life experience hasn't impacted things as much. So one of the things I often say to to people about being disabled and working is that it's very easy to get lulled into the trap of thinking you speak for all disabled people, and I don't, you know, and, and so my experience of disability has a very profound effect on my life every day. Of course, it does, but, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't sort of somehow licence me to speak for everyone else who has different kinds of impairments that impact on their lives in different ways. So I think getting that balance right has been important and the older I get, the more I realise how hard that is. And so I spend quite a lot of time now working with colleagues and mentoring other people who are if you like the, in the current jargon, we talk about lived experience, but you know if you have lived experience by working in a professional capacity in a space about that lived experience and how you manage that and how you juggle that with, you know, the professional and the lived experience part of your, of your identity. It's a real challenge and it requires thought and hard work. It's not something you can just assume you have a certain moral authority because you happen to be disabled or you happen to be gay, when or whatever. You have to work at it. And so I think, I think it's not necessarily my own experiences, refining that, no, but just that sort of as I get older, that awareness of the problematic nature sometimes of some of these things, and how important it is to be reflective and thoughtful and to check yourself on a regular basis, but equally, it has meant that, you know, frankly, I just will not shut up when there's an injustice around me and, you know, I do feel a moral obligation to Do something about it and to speak up, even when it's not necessarily comfortable for other people.
Thomas Lamont 13:07
How do you think that we can help people talk more openly and candidly about improving accessibility?
Cat Macaulay 13:15
yeah, I think I think it's really hard. And I've wondered for a long time why it's so, so difficult because when I was younger, and I was hugely involved in gay activism, and it was a very difficult time, we did live in a very different world when I was coming in. And, and I've often reflected on the difference between my experience of that and my experience now as a single person where, you know, in many ways you sort of think, well, we're a much more evolved society, aren't we? So why is it still so hard? And I you know, I think there is something kind of quite elemental that we might have to be honest about, which is the fact that disabled people, make able bodied people feel really uncomfortable and you know, if you are encountering somebody, particularly when the impairments are visible, but even even when they're not, if you're talking about that somebody and you don't have that experience yourself, you're caught between the desire to be a good person, which most of us have. So very few people would ever like to consider themselves as ablest, for example. And yet, there's also a kind of elemental thing inside all of us, which is, we don't like anything that reminds us of sickness and death. And that's kind of an understandable normal human reaction in some ways. You know, I'm sure some, somewhere back then, you know, that old brain or whatever it is, there's a bit of us that is naturally inclined to turn away from sickness in there. And so, I think there's, I think there's a need to try and acknowledge that. I think secondly, there's such an anxiety nowadays about words in particular that wasn't necessarily there when I was younger, and we were, you know, getting early involvement in gay activism. I remember being quite shocked that a while ago I was talking to some younger LGBT people who were struggling a bit with the fact that I identify as queer. And, you know, for them, there was something difficult about that language. Whereas when I was, you know, a younger woman growing up as a lesbian, I liked the word queer people to me, and I used it a lot and so did many of my friends. So there's something about the way we are anxious about language nowadays. So for me, one of the most important things is just to be honest and talk and create the conditions within which you say it's okay to use wrong words or say the wrong thing. And I often do that by just acknowledging, acknowledging that I did that myself as well, you know, I'll stumble over words when I'm talking to somebody with a different kind of experience of disability. I'll stumble over words when I'm talking about issues to do with race equality. And so you know, I think that often its about the fact that these things are not necessarily easy to talk about. It's important to get it out on the table. And then after that, I think it's important to be more focused on what is it we're trying to do than the words we're using to do it. Because again, for me, you know, we can spend a lot of time talking about words and nothing changes. And actually what changed for us in the gay community was, you know, years and years of just reminding people that we had rights, and we were human. And that the way we were being treated, if it was done to anyone else would feel really unfair. And I think that's the same thing. for disabled people. You know, it's the constant, reminding people that it's just not okay. That it's 2020. And disabled people still have to wet themselves on trains because there's no accessible toilet. And that, I think, for most people, is just something we don't face up to very much and we don't think about very much and we do need to shock people out of complacency but equally we need to not be punitive about language because otherwise we will never get to the point where we can start to unpack the problem.
Kate Arrow 16:49
So during your time as chief design officer, what have you seen,that has worked really well in Scotland to to improve equity?
Cat Macaulay 16:58
So I think theres been a sort of rapid growth really over the last few years, a recognition of how important it is to engage people in designing the services that they need and use. There's always been a bit of that. And certainly in certain areas like community empowerment, that's been a much more prominent feature of how people have worked for a long time. And there's lots we can learn by looking at that. But when it came to things like designing the Social Security system for Scotland or introducing changes to the way independent, independent living fund works, they're bringing, bringing people who live day to day with those challenges right into the heart of that design decision making from from the earliest places and trying to get better at doing that. And I think tha the crucial thing is, we're not just trying to do it and tick a box and walk away. We're trying to do it and committing to getting better at doing it. And it's not consistent. It's not everywhere, and there's still lots of pockets of bad practice. But there is a real commitment to understanding that it's important that we get better at it and for me, That's a bit that gives me the most encouragement and hope not the fact that we do x y, Z. But the fact that we do believe A, it's important and B, that we're not good enough yet to get much better. So for me, you know, that that drive, certainly within government has been really important. And I can see the ways in which that kind of thinking is really starting to come to the fore in, in all sorts of parts of the sort of public services world in Scotland. So it's not just an SG, it's, it's in local authorities, you know, look at the work of, for example, the local government digital office in really sort of pushing and promoting services, I'm getting a community of people talking about it, engaging with it, trained in it, you know, getting those ideas into the everyday culture of organisations. You know, that's been incredibly powerful, same thing's happening in the NHS as well and, you know, lots of public bodies engaging with this. So I think it's that we've moved beyond thinking it's a thing we have to do and tick a box and we're in the point of thinking. We don't question anymore whether or not we have to do it. But what we do question is, how are we doing? And are we good enough? Yeah, I think that's hugely important and encouraging.
Thomas Lamont 19:10
At an individual level. Is there any one thing that you think we could consider or actively do to promote equity?
Cat Macaulay 19:21
Well, the one thing that I've always thought works really, really well, I come from a design background and anthropology training. And so for me, opening your eyes every day, is really, really important. And we just don't do it. I mean, one of the things I quite often use when I'm talking about particularly about accessibility and inclusion is that you know, around one in eight people in this courtry is in a wheelchair at any one point in time, and we don't know that, we don't see them in the streets and in the shops. Well, at the moment, we don't see many people but you know, in normal times, it wouldn't be at all obvious to people in the UK. I spent a lot of time in Germany. And in Germany, it is obvious that lots of people are in wheelchairs, because you do see them in public much, much more than we do here. You see them working in shops, and you see them in public transport and you see them in the street in a way that I'm always struck when I come back here that I just don't see. And I think it is that just trying to open your eyes and keep your eyes open during the day and thinking about how many women are in this room? How many black or ethnic minority people are in this room? How many disabled visibly disabled people in this room? It's always difficult, of course, because there are people with invisible disabilities. But you know, how many are here? Who's making the decisions and the who's not, you know, it's that eye opening thing. I think that all of us can do and we just don't, we really don't we walk through the world almost oblivious to, to the challenges that other people face and there's probably some You know, self preservation reasons for some of that. But you know, we are modern, industrialised economies, we don't need to be too worried about being chased by a lion every day, once we go foraging for food, we can afford to spend some of our time with our eyes open and thinking about and looking at engaging with the world around us. So I think that, for me is the single most important thing anyone can do. And, you know, I know certainly, you know, obviously, as always, when I was younger, and I was coming out, I was tragically aware of challenges that women and gay people faced in society, I was much less aware of the other challenges that disabled people faced, although I do have to say, you know, it still astonishes me because I remember back in the 80s, we would be organising events and, you know, we ran a thing in Edinburgh.... It was one of the first big gay festivals and at that we had Signers. At that meeting, and you know, every meeting we ever did, there's always somebody hired to be the signer. And I was really kind of struck as we went through the 90s, in the early 2000s, as that fell off completely, you know, to the point now, where it's noteworthy if somebody puts on a signer and, and I don't know why that happens, but it did. So I think that thing of just being aware of keeping your eyes open and being thoughtful by asking those questions of yourself, you know, because if the trouble is that if you're in a room and everyone looks and thinks and speaks badly, like you do, you don't notice because that's normal to you. And then you have to consciously make yourself notice when you're in a room full of people like you and try and understand and think about it, who's not here and why. It's very easy for us all to think we're all you know, quite well evolved. No look, we've got equalities and you know, listen for that. And if you're in the kind of peripheral minority, frankly in society where you don't have to worry about these things, then it probably feels pretty good right now you probably feel like you're quite a nice person, you probably feel like you're doing okay. You know, we're being pretty nice, but all of a sudden, and it's only when you consciously engage with people who don't live in that quite narrow minority of, you know, basically straight white middle class people, that you start to see the world through someone else's eyes. And that is one of the hardest things for any of us to do. But the first thing you have to know is that the world is different for other people, and, you know, I think the biggest thing I've always really been struck by having spent my entire adult life not fitting in, not being acceptable in society for one reason or another. there's a level of kind of daily, I think we use the jargon nowadays, microaggressions. But there's this kind of like daily grinding down of you that happens when you live like that. But it's very, it's it's not easy to understand if you haven't experienced it, but people really, if you were lucky enough not to live in one of those categories not to be one of those people, then you really do have a moral obligation to keep your eyes open and think about these things. And be conscious.
Kate Arrow 24:16
Do you have an inspirational mentor.
Cat Macaulay 24:19
Yeah, I've had loads, actually. And I suppose that's one of the other useful things that I kind of stumbled on quite early on was how important it was to have people that you could seek counsel from and, and be honest with as well ask hard questions. Often they would ask hard questions of you. So yeah, I've had lots lots of different people, I suppose that would have filled that role. I think, probably the, the most influential was it was an uncle of mine, actually, who was a documentary filmmaker and travelled around the world. He was the you know, him and his film crew were the only non Polish film crew in solidarity strikes. In Poland, in yards and Poland when solidarity strike was on, he knew Steve Biko in South Africa, he was arrested in just about every country you can imagine, during all the various conflicts in Afghanistan, in Iran and Iraq during the 80s 70s and 80s. You know,he was a quite incredible character. And, you know, for somebody like me from really small town, pretty limited little worldview. He was a real eye opener, but the thing that he said to me was just always look for the questions no one's asking, and then ask them, and also ask yourself why no one's asking them. And a bit later on, I had a fantastic mentor in the US, who's very heavily involved in the development of a field called human computer interaction. And I suppose was one of the first people that really engaged the idea of studying human beings is really important if we're going to design technologies that work Which in the 80s and 70s 70s 80s, early 90s was not a given, you know, people still thought that human beings were similar to computers; information processing machines, and you can study a human in the same way that you think about a computer working and the whole idea of, you know, the richness and diversity of human experience in human culture and how challenging it is to design for that wasn't at all obvious. And she was, you know, amongst a number of other women in the States, and particularly one of the people that really brought that idea to the fore. She's always been a huge inspiration to me as well.
Kate Arrow 26:32
It sounds like the words of your uncle sort of set the tone for your career.
Cat Macaulay 26:46
yeah, absolutely. And, you know, he said, keep your ears and eyes open, ask questions, the awkward ones, you know, it was his kind of basic mantra you know, if you see something wrong, then you know, stand up and be awkward. get in the way, push for change. And I think a lot of that has to do with asking questions of yourself and others
Thomas Lamont 27:19
A light hearted question to finish up on Cat we ask everyone this and it's, In another life, what if you hadn't taken your particular life path? What else would you have liked to have been?
Cat Macaulay 27:32
Oh, I can answer that in a heartbeat. I would have been an opera singer. I just love music or opera music anyway. And weirdly, given where and how I grew up. I was introduced to opera by a very astute teacher when I was a kid in school who realised that I liked music. I was really into punk in particular, I was you know, grew up in the early days of punk and hooked on to that favourite quickly and this means that this teacher was trying to get me interested in stuff beyond my immediate world. And he played me some Handel rock music, a couple of arias and they were very, very, they're really loud and intense. Like punk. I remember thinking God, this is like listening to punk. And I just got hooked on it really early on. And I was very lucky I was a student in Edinburgh during the 80s when the Edinburgh Festival used to sell or give giveaway tickets for performances, at the end of the day if they hadn't sold out, so you know, got to see huge amount of incredible stuff, but I never would have been able to afford to see other ones. And yeah, I've just been obsessed with, with music and particularly with opera and particularly Baroque opera. And I deeply admire anybody who can stand up there on stage and make that absolutely transcendental sound, with just their vocal cords and their throat and their hearts and their souls.
Kate Arrow 29:09
It's definitely one of the talents I think I would have most liked to have just to be able to sing not even opera just just even string two notes together.
Cat Macaulay 29:18
Yeah, absolutely and it's watching somebody perform like that being in the same room as a singer singing like them with a full orchestra is just incredible. It's something I wish, I wish it wasn't such an elite thing here in the UK, it's not in Germany, something much more normal for normal people to go to the opera cheaper. But unfortunately, here it's definitely something that's associated with being a bit rich. And it's something to be a bit embarrassed of, you know, whereas, actually, when you go from here, a great singer, performer, particularly, you know, great opera, is something to behold.
Kate Arrow 29:53
I'm going to have to go and listen to some Baroque opera because I don't really know what it is.
Cat Macaulay 30:00
Yeah, get yourself some Handel and get stuck in.
Kate Arrow 30:03
Yeah,
Cat Macaulay 30:04
yeah. And if you get a chance to go then you know definitely for sure,
Kate Arrow 30:09
Lovely talking to you and really, really inspiring and I'm sure our listeners are going to learn loads. Thanks
Cat Macaulay 30:17
you're totally welcome.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Kate Arrow
So welcome to Leading Insights. Today we are joined by the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon. I am Kate Arrow, I'm a registrar in Anaesthesia.
Thomas Lamont
And I'm Thomas Lamont, I'm a Registrar in Restorative Dentistry. First Minister, thank you for joining us.
Nicola Sturgeon
You’re welcome, lovely to talk to you.
Thomas Lamont
First Minister, you started your career as a solicitor in Glasgow before moving into politics and subsequently into leadership roles. A lot of Doctors, Dentists and Healthcare staff don't really see themselves as leaders. What was it that inspired you to move into leadership roles?
Nicola Sturgeon
I'm not sure it was ever a really conscious decision. I don't think I ever woke up one day thinking I want to be a leader. It was just where the progression of my career took me. I certainly didn't go into politics with any ambition or intention of becoming a leader. I went into politics because of what I believed in and what I wanted to campaign for and try to bring about it. But you know, as I progressed through that I got elected to Parliament and found myself being in leadership positions, and I wouldn't say I always felt or feel comfortable with that, but feeling that there was a degree of aptitude I suppose there that didn't put me off. But you know, as a leader, now, there's not a day goes by where I'm not still learning about what it means to be a leader and hopefully how to be a better leader so I'm not sure in any walk of life; I think leadership is something everybody experiences in one way or another whatever they do in life, but it's, it's not something I would necessarily recommend people should have as their primary objective in life. It's something that if you find yourself in that position, and you think you're up to doing it, then you should do but obviously to learn from others too.
Kate Arrow
Were there key lessons you learn throughout your time as Health Secretary, that have helped you to lead Scotland as First Minister during this COVID-19 pandemic?
Nicola Sturgeon
Yes, loads and loads of lessons and I sometimes can find myself wondering what it would be like to be trying to lead the country through COVID as First Minister had I not had that experience as Health Secretary. I'm sure I would be doing it and I'm trying my best to do it, but there's no doubt that being Health Secretary he has helped with that, you know, first and foremost, at a very basic level, it gave me an understanding of how the health and care system works that, you know, I would not have had as directly without the five years or so I spent as health secretary; and during my time as Health Secretary I also led the Scottish Government response to swine flu. And so it wasn't quite the same as COVID has turned out to be but in terms of that pandemic response and some of what has to be done and considered there, I had a bit of a grounding there so there's no doubt you know, not just in the COVID response and so much of what I do in my day to day work as First Minister, that grounding as Health Secretary, which has been really important to me and you know, the job I do just now is the most privileged job in the country but having been Health Secretary is always a job that will have a very special place in my heart.
Kate Arrow
I'm sure you've not had much time to reflect on the last few months yet, but sort of reflecting on it now, are there things that it's taught you about yourself and about your leadership style?
Nicola Sturgeon
Yeah, I think so. But as you say, I've not had the chance to process this sufficiently and hopefully one day I will and might be able to give you a more rounded answer than the one I'm about to give you right now. I think it showed me that possibly even more than I knew before, that I've got resilience and an ability to keep going through, you know, sort of tough times and, and focus very much on decisions that have to be taken there and then and try to do that in quite a methodical way. I suppose I've been reminded, as I so often was as Health Secretary of how the decisions I take, so often can only be taken with the input of lots of clinical and expert and scientific advice and that has been hugely important to me. So there is a need always to think about what it is that only I can do and decide, but what it is I need in order to base those decisions because I'm not a clinician, I'm not a scientist. And so, I'm very dependent on the advice that I get but recognising my responsibility to apply the judgement to that, and it's supposed to take the responsibility and the accountability for it as well.
I suppose one of the things it has taught me though, in a way that nothing else in my political career has is that sometimes, all of what goes with politics and being a politician really doesn't matter. And all that matters right now is just trying to take the right decisions, as best you can, and the need to forget about whether they're popular or not or what they're going to mean, in an electoral sense, that kind of thing is and I, you know, if I turn the clock back six months or so, I may have never believed this would be the case, but that stuff just doesn't really matter in the day to day decision making. And I suppose that's been quite eye opening for somebody who's spent so long in politics in that more traditional sense.
Thomas Lamont
A lot of people, following this, are really thinking about what's important in life aren’t they?
Our final year Medical and Nursing students graduated early to support the service. They were as usual full of enthusiasm; across the workforce it is recognised that we all need to do more to prevent burnout and low morale. What advice would you give to people who have to step up into new or unfamiliar roles during sort of uncertain times like these?
Nicola Sturgeon
I would say a few things. Firstly, I want to take the opportunity while I have it just to say such a massive heartfelt thank you to people who did step up into these roles, graduating early taking on more responsibility than they would normally have done that early on in their careers. And, you know, we all owe everybody across health and care, but I think particularly people that position an enormous debt of gratitude.
And before I go on to talk about what my advice would be to individuals I think one of the reflections I will take away from this, and as you know, as you said a moment ago, we've all been reassessing what really matters in life. And, you know, all of us, starting with politicians have to think about how we do value people working in our health service and our social care system. Do we value that enough in the support that is around them, and, frankly, that the financial rewards we give, and while there may be no overnight, immediate way of completely transforming all of that, you know, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we've all been reminded of just how dependent we all are on people in these positions.
I suppose my advice to individuals would be and you know, forgive me I'm, I've never been in that position. And you know, no matter what I have to do on a daily basis, it's not the same as stepping onto a busy hospital ward or into a care home or into an ICU Ward so I can’t put myself into those shoes and understand exactly what that is like. But I suppose what I would say is, you know, never be afraid to ask people around you for help. Never think that's a sign of weakness. It's something that I've learned throughout my career that knowing when to ask for help, knowing who to ask for help, and not being scared to say I don't know what to do here. I need somebody else to guide me through that is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength to be able to do that. And I think in any walk of life, particularly when you're in a very high pressured environment, that's a really important skill because it is a skill because I think many of us see it as something that we should not do because it's seen as a weakness, but it is an important skill to have.
Kate Arrow
In healthcare, we often work in large and complex teams in really challenging circumstances. Do you have any personal advice or strategy that you use for dealing with conflict?
Nicola Sturgeon
It is something that I still after lots and lots of years of experience, find, not the easiest thing to do. And politics is almost by its nature, very adversarial. So conflict is almost hardwired into the environment that I work in every day. But I suppose what I would say is, and this is something that I perhaps even now still don't practice as much as I should, particularly when you're in a very highly stressed and high pressured situation, it's always I think, really good to try to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, the person that you might be in that conflict or adversarial situation with, just to try to imagine the situation as they see it because we all have a tendency to, to see everything from our own perspective and our own point of view and think we are right about whatever the cause of a conflict might be. So I try, as I say, I probably don’t practice this as much as I preach it, but to just flip things around.
And, and try to see the world from the other person's point of view and then and break it down and understand what might be lying behind the conflict of the tense situation that you're in and remember, I suppose again, not having the personal experience of this, I guess in a healthcare situation is reminding yourself that ultimately I suppose you're all on the same side because you will all be working to try to achieve the same outcomes.
Thomas Lamont
Yeah, we've got lots of stories across society as well, especially at the start of the pandemic. Where, actually, people were reaching out, you know, offering to deliver groceries and things. I think that sense of community really grew during that time. Hopefully, it's something we can take forward both professionally and personally.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Nicola Sturgeon
There's lots of advice I would probably give to my younger self, although knowing my younger self she would probably tell me where to go. Because the last thing my younger self was ever overly prepared to do was listen to a 50-year-old telling her what to do. The advice I would give, I was quite, I was quite a serious young person which is not a bad thing in and of itself but I probably took myself too seriously and was a bit po-faced; I’d probably tell myself to, to lighten up a bit and not take myself so seriously. I think I'd advise myself to you know, to take advice and to always listen to points of view from other people, particularly people I instinctively disagreed with because after you listen to people you disagree with you might still disagree with them, but there's usually something you can learn to reflect on. And yeah, those are probably the main bits of advice, but as I say, I can almost picture and hear my younger self right now going “yeah, yeah, okay, whatever”.
Thomas Lamont
Do you think that there’s more that we can all do as individuals and do you think there's more that we can do to have those conversations because you hear about it a lot in society where people are becoming a bit more into their silos, and the actual conversations are sometimes just being avoided. Is there more that we can do or is there any advice that you'd give in general to try and break down those silos?
Nicola Sturgeon
So I think I mean, the World and I don't want to make myself sound like my granny here, but the world is very different today than it was when I was 16, 17, 18. You know, social media didn't exist back then. So I suppose it's even more important now, for young people to talk to others and to interact at a level that is much deeper than just, you know, Twitter or Facebook, or sending these really superficial messages to each other, because social media really does. It polarises people and it also corrals people into groups where they all agree with each other the algorithms that run Twitter and Facebook operate in a way that try to avoid you speaking to and interacting with people that have a different worldview or mindset or outlook on life.
And, and I think that's really dangerous not just to young people think it's dangerous or politics our society our democracy. And there's plenty evidence of that, all across the world, right now. So taking time to engage meaningfully on a human level with people and actually taking the time and this might sound like a bit of an ironic thing for a politician to be advising people to do, but taking time to actually understand somebody else's point of view and, and allowing your own point of view to be challenged. And I think is probably a really important thing for all of us to do and always has been, but it's more important right now, when so much of how we live our lives and so much of the way the world operates actually forces us to tribes where you know, we never interact across those boundaries. So come off social media and Twitter and Facebook and actually talk to people, I think would be some advice that all of us would do well to take up.
Kate Arrow
So thinking back to that, that younger self, we've been asking all of our guests as our final question. In another life, is there another career that you think you could have seen yourself trying out? You'd love to tried and so far we've got half a cast of Les Misérables and a few people running for the hills. So what about you?
Nicola Sturgeon
I'm pretty certain I would never have been in the cast of Les Misérables because I have no musical ability at all.
Thomas Lamont
Neither have the people who said that I hasten to add they’ve not been singers either!
Nicola Sturgeon
Maybe I've got, you know, again, politicians are not usually known for their abundance of self-awareness. I think I've got enough self-awareness to know that that was never going to be a possibility for me. When I was wee and growing up, when people used to ask me what I wanted to do. I would say two things interchangeably. One was I wanted to be a lawyer, which I did go on and study lawyer and practice law for a short period of time and had not gone into politics would undoubtedly I think, have continued to practice law and who knows what direction that would have gone in; but the other thing I used to say that I really wanted to do was write children's books. And so who knows, maybe although JK Rowling has probably captured a bit of that market in the years since but writing is something that I would love to think I could do and writing fiction in particular, I'm not convinced I do have it with me to do that, but it's maybe something I'd like to try my hand out at some stage in the future.
Thomas Lamont
Thank you for your time today, we realise how busy you are, we really appreciate you coming on to the show, thank you.
Nicola Sturgeon
Thank you both it was good to talk to you.
Thomas Lamont
Thank you, First Minister.
Kate Arrow
Lovely to meet you.
Nicola Sturgeon
Lovely to meet you both too.
Show notes
Kate Arrow 0:02
Welcome to episode eight of Leading Insights. Today we're joined by Melis Senova. I'll let her introduce herself.
MS 0:15
Hi, thanks for having me. So my current, I don't know if it's a job, my current, let's call it a portfolio of projects. So things that I'm all across, really involves working with people in all sectors, trying to help them think about how they can improve the systems that they're working within from a human-centred perspective and bringing, kind of bringing the heart back to business and to government at all levels. That's kind of what I'm doing and I'm doing that through my firm Huddle which is a human centred design agency, which we started in 2009 and also through my coaching and This Human site, which is the platform that surrounds my book.
Kate Arrow 1:16
And tell us a little bit about the journey you've been on to get that kind of portfolio.
MS 1:22
So I started as a Biomedical Engineer. I studied biomedical engineering and I was really interested in neuroscience and the brain and how the brain works. I majored in neurosciences, and then I had an opportunity to go away and work in a Research Hospital in Japan for a year in between my undergrad and my PhD and that was a Research Hospital for brain and blood vessels. They basically specialised in stroke and they were also an experimental hospital, where they got all of the latest technology so I got to play with some pretty amazing equipment for that time. So this was mid 90s and I was doing functional MRI testing and PET imaging and all of this stuff, just literally looking at the brain. Then I had this weird dream that was an eyeball trying to see itself in space, like blackness, and then kept thinking "We're using the thing in our heads to try and work out how the thing in our heads works" and I just felt this was like a big, futilely, like we're never ever going to get out of this loop of doing brain research, and that whole thing and set me on a bit of a different discovery....What I was actually interested in was, how do I improve the conditions for people? Like how do I design better services and design better policy to be able to just improve the conditions within which people exist. And that's when I decided to do my PhD in human centred design. So that's how that happened. It was that weird dream that set me off on this other trajectory around design and designing with them for people. And I've basically been doing that ever since I did my PhD in the Defence Department. There I was working with military aircraft pilots around workload and situational awareness and designing for improved performance. And then I did very similar work in the automotive industry at Ford and Sumitomo, and then I spent some time At Telstra, in the emerging technology space and always working from the persepctive of 'How do we design for the human experience?'. Then I set up Huddle as an agency to be able to help other organisations do that for themselves, essentially. So that looked like service design and strategic design and we've sort of moved on from there. We started a school called Huddle Academy, we started teaching it, I wrote a book, so it's just kind of it's sort of evolved.
Kate Arrow 4:36
How did it feel at that point, when you had that dream for changing, changing your direction?
MS 4:45
Well, there's a whole bunch of funny stories actually that led to me, finding myself at the Defence Department doing a PhD in human centred design. I'm not afraid to explore new pathways. So no matter how quirky and weird they are, in terms of their source, you know, whether it's a dream or odd conversation or...but one of the reasons why I ended up in the Defence Department was that one of the Professors of the University that I was at, was talking to me about doing a PhD. I wasn't actually on board with the idea, I had this sort of, 'I need to get out there and start doing stuff' feeling and 'I don't want to spend more time at university knowing this much about something that's going to be that, you know, a tiny bit relevant'. He asked me; "If you could be anyone who do you want to be?" and I said that I wanted to be Charlie out of Top Gun. I wanted to be in that scene where she was walking down the tarmac, and they introduce her and they say, you know, she has a PhD in AstroPhysics. She works in the Pentagon, you know, the Pentagon, trust her. So usually when I was young, I was probably still in primary school and I just remember going, I want to be her, I want to be her, I want to be that woman. So I shared with him that story. He picked up the phone and called The head of the Air Operations Division, this defence science and technology organisation at the time, and just started a conversation around a potential PhD candidate with a scholarship, would they take her on? Then that's what I did for the next four years. I was a civilian contractor in the defence department working with F18 & F11 pilots, looking at situational awareness. So I was just kind of, you know, following my nose in a way and it felt, gosh, sounds really exciting.
Kate Arrow 6:56
It just shows you that it's worth being honest about your childhood dreams and being really transparent about what you think no matter if it's not what you think somebody wants to hear.
MS 7:19
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And also, I think that I was in a pretty unique situation in that I, you know the Ph.D wasn't something that I was attached to so it could have happened or it couldn't have happened. There was nothing at risk for me in that conversation. I think often people resist having those really honest and open conversations because they feel like something is at risk for them. And, and that's one of the lessons that I've actually learned throughout my career, which is to say that I have learned that you never really lose out When you show up 100% authentically and say the thing that everyone perhaps wants to say, but isn't saying, In the short term, it might feel like you take the heat, but in the long term, always, always, always, it's the best policy. That's what I have personally learned. So I was acting that way, you know, when I was younger, without that much to lose, really. I'm grateful that that has kind of carried on in my career.
Kate Arrow 8:34
And and was it like Top Gun? Was it as male dominant as Top Gun when you were there?
MS 8:41
Yeah. In fact, I haven't reflected on this. I've always worked in male dominated industries. Until I started Huddle, and when I started Huddle it was mostly women all the time, and we had like the whole reverse scenario which I loved. But it was also quite confusing for me because I had learnt how to work in groups of men. And I hadn't worked in groups of women before in my professional career. So that was actually quite an adjustment in terms of how, you know, work gets organised and problems get solved. And yeah, that was a really massive part of my transition into leadership.
Kate Arrow 9:32
You've got a fascinating combination of experience, how did that all come together for you & influence the kind of leader that you are?
MS 9:42
You know, in my book, I talk about one of my beliefs, which is that I believe that everything that you're doing is an apprenticeship for the next thing. I think that's true. I think that a caveat to that is that you should approach your life like it's a masterclass. I think Oprah actually has a podcast something like that Life as a Masterclass. What I mean by that is that you look at all of the things that happened to you as an opportunity for learning as an opportunity for growth. And I think what that then does is it helps you better connect and combine those learnings in new ways that suit where you're at in your development as a person or as a leader, designer. You know, a lot of the things that I learned in the automotive sector for example, I was working on new vehicle programmes I learned all about the design process on the coal face, you know, where you're actually building something that's going to come off the line, and people are going to sit in and drive around as opposed to the more abstract design which we might do in the industry of design thinking. So I've just always been leveraging different aspects of the neuroscience, for example, is all throughout my book, I explain how people can save up ideas and think through problems and stuff, leveraging a little bit of my history in neuroscience to be able to talk a little bit about how we are wired as humans and where do these thought processes actually reside within the brain and why is it difficult to put words around emotions, you know, and I just thought It's all feels like, maybe when I'm 100. I'm gonna look back and go, Wow, that was a really well curated journey you've had but there is no deliberate or specific design that sits behind my career, it really has been an organic evolution and revolution sometimes.
Kate Arrow 12:29
Yeah. I think that's a common theme with the people that we've spoken to that it's been much more of a kind of happenstance and meander rather than a real career trajectory that people have gone o and they really valued that and learned so much from it.
MS 12:50
Yeah, and I think perhaps one of the reasons why that might be a common thing is that, and I know I can only speak from my own experience, but when I become attached to something happening, I find that it's more difficult to, to make it so, you know, like when and when I say attachment, I mean, it needs to look a certain way and be a certain thing by a certain time and with a certain person and, you know, all of those things that we can kind of get a little bit fixated on. What I've learned is a little bit of, you know, my perspective is so limited in terms of what's actually possible. So all I can really do is continue to be open minded, to be exploratory, to be always always learning to never ever, ever assume that I'm done. You know, that's it. I'm at the pinnacle of whatever, I think that's where things start closing down and shutting down.
Kate Arrow 13:53
Particularly at the moment with this unprecedented COVID pandemic, I think a lot of people who felt they'd really made it, you know, with their business or their career have really been turned upside down and there's so much uncertainty. Have you got any advice for those people?
MS 14:17
Ah, look, first of all, the first thing that I have is just a huge sense of compassion and shared effort to work through this chaos, right? Like, I just feel everyone needs in. Everyone is in exactly the same position within the context that they're in right some people's businesses are actually booming. But with that comes a whole other different set of challenges, right, they may not be ready for that growth. And then there are some people who were on the other end of the spectrum who lost their businesses and lost their jobs and and have a whole other set of challenges that they're facing into, but everybody is affected. And everybody is working through how to muddle their way through uncertainty. And the one thing that I think this is going to teach us and this would be, you know, I don't really like giving advice, but this would be the thoughts that I would share with people is that I think one of the greatest gifts that we can give ourselves is to, is to be more comfortable with not knowing the answers, and to be more comfortable with not putting so much pressure on ourselves to be able to work out what to do, because sometimes situations are so complex and so ambiguous, that you actually can't think through it all. The only thing you can do is take the next best action and the next best action might be to brush your teeth, and to, you know, put food on the table and to give yourself 15 minutes break, or an hour or have a bath, or whatever it is, sometimes that's the next best action. And I feel like we put so much pressure on ourselves to, you know, reconfigure and conceive about businesses straightaway and have the next five year strategy sorted out in the context of the impacts of COVID. And, and to those that can do that brilliant and, and to those that can't, I think it's okay, because there's so much unknown. And action brings clarity. So the next step that you take, you're going to learn something else and that's going to give you clarity for the next step to take and then that's going to give you clarity, the next step to take and that is the essential premise of design really to any emergent practice, the more you respect The more you find out and the more clarity you have around the actual, you know, inside of the problem that you're there to solve. So that would be that would be my, the thoughts that I would share today
Kate Arrow 17:14
In your book, which I absolutely loved and loved, particularly, I think, because I'm a scientist at heart. So I love the amalgamation of design and neuroscience and engineering and, and it really spoke to me, really new and exciting for me. You talk in your book about returning to your beginner's mind. Can you explain that a little bit for our listeners and why it's so important.
MS 17:45
So it sort of relates back to what I was saying a little bit earlier in our conversation about having this mindset that you're actually never ever done learning and even though there's a lot of, especially with people like yourself in the line of work that you do, for example, when you are in that position to do your job, obviously people would love for you to be an expert and you're not in your beginner's mind going, "I might try something new today". Probably not, not appropriate. So your expertise is always with you. But what a beginner's mind is about is to always be ready to see the world around you, to always be ready to have a look at the thing that you know, really, really well, from a slightly different perspective to see what that then creates the opportunity for in terms of what you might be able to explore. Oh, yeah. I refer to that little parable that little story, Between the professor and the Zen master, about the cup, and you know, the professor has gone to the Zen master to say, teach me everything that you know about Zen. And the Zen Master starts pouring a cup of tea and then keeps pouring it and keeps pouring it. And then the professor is like, but well, the tea is coming out of the cup. And, the zen master says "You know, I can only teach you when your cup is empty". "If your cup is full, and you think you already know everything. then it's really difficult to to learn new things". And the reason why I talk about a beginner's mind, especially in the context of human centred design, and designing with people and for people, is that whenever we show up, we show up with our worldviews and our belief systems and our life experiences. And they colour the way that we make meaning of other people's experiences and feel there to connect with their reality. To understand their worldview, and to be able to inform a solution or a design that is going to be native to their reality, it's essential that you're able to take that beginner's mind, which is this, I'm going to assume that I don't know anything about this person's experience, I'm going to assume that I know nothing about the context within which we're here to explore. And it just sets up that space for new insight, and to get close as we possibly can to another person's experienced reality. One of the mistakes I think that we often make unconsciously is that we think people experience the world the same way we do. And it's not true from a five senses reality perspective, it's certainly not true from a psychological meaning making perspective. It's definitely not true from a worldview belief system perspective. So it's really really crucial to be able to do that.
Kate Arrow 21:10
Yeah, absolutely. And in the world of health and social care, it can be a bit slow and bureaucratic and there's a lot of experts and doctors, that doctor knows best kind of ethos, around and it can be hard to get people to get on board with new methods such as design tools, people can be sceptical, and there's a lot of fear as well about actually asking our clients or our patients, what they think and getting them to fully inform how the services are designed. How would you help someone like me who is relatively early in their career, have you got any thoughts on how you can really engage with these people who maybe are a bit more sceptical, and and push forward with your enthusiasm for new methods.
MS 22:06
There's so much I want to share. I'll just talk about two things. So the first one is when we find a way of working in a methodology that really resonates with us, like human centred design did and does continue to do so with me. We want the whole world to know what we found. And so what we tend to do is we learn all the language and we fill ourselves up with all of the knowledge and the tools and the methods and all that and we become really eager to, to bring that into the world and to implement everything that way. What we forget, and this is why I wrote the book this human is that we forget that the people that we're collaborating with, that we need to sort of get on board to be able to help the person that we're also ultimately, there to help which might be you know, patients or clients or whatever you call them. We forget that they too are people, and we also need to design for them. So what I tend to do is say instead of going in with the intention to use human centred design, the very first thing that I would do is understand the needs and fears and wants of the person that you need to be communicating with, and communicate to those things. And whether you use design thinking or human centred design, or we're going to do a patient journey or we need to extract the insights or whatever. Whether you use that language or not, is almost irrelevant, because what you're trying to do is you're trying to use that methodology to achieve an outcome which is an improved patient experience. For example. The language that you use needs to be native to the organisation that you're trying to affect change in and needs to be impactful to the people who are also on this journey, some people are going to be right on board with you. They're going to be running faster than you and you're going to need to actually go "Whoa, oh, hang on, you're running with the samurai sword, we can actually do a lot of damage if we don't do this properly", you're going to have those conversations. And then at the same time, there's going to be other people where they're not actually ready to explore human centred design as an alternative. But what you'll be doing is having a different conversation, which is what can this outcome help you with? What challenges are you facing and to be helping them address their needs and using language that they're familiar with? So that would be the first thing that I would say that it's, it's okay to not be able to do the whole spiel and kitten caboodle with everybody and that as a human centred designer, you also need to design your approach to the people that you're talking with. So always starting with an exploratory conversation before you start exploring how you might do something differently, like what are the challenges that you're facing at the moment? What's keeping you awake at night? What if you could solve one thing? What would that be? And you know, doing some design research doing some ethnographic research first before having the let's do human centred design conversation. So that would be the first thing. Human centred design is, it's so controversial that I'm saying this, but human centred design, or design thinking, as an approach isn't appropriate for every situation. And sometimes what I find is that people become quite enamoured with the power that resides within that methodology to be able to improve conditions for people and when to apply it to every single situation. And that can do more damage than good sometimes because then what you're seen as is an Evangalist for the methodology as opposed to a person who has access to all of this knowledge, human centred design being one of those things, to be able to collaborate together to achieve this shared outcome. And that would be the other piece of advice that I would give is to not be too evangelistic about using human centred design as a methodology to go to solve problems. Because people are resistant to that sort of energy, I think. And then there's also one of the biggest superpowers than a human centred design sort of oriented practitioner must have. I think one of the biggest superpowers is patience. Because a lot of patience and empathy and I don't mean empathy for the patients, I mean, empathy for the people who do the thing, the ones that are the most resistant, because for them, there's something at risk for them. And that's why they're resisting the change. And it could be reputation, it could be a sense of identity, it could be a sense of authority or power or control or influence this something at risk. And if we lose our ability to have compassion for those people, and every time I say this, I remember I can see in the room, people just kind of rolling their eyes because they're up against someone who's making their life really difficult, right? There's like, I don't have compassion for that person. They're just standing in my way, and I can't get the thing that I need to get done. But if we lose our ability to have compassion for that person who's on their own journey, through some form of change, because you're showing up as the agitator in that moment, then the ability for us to be able to continue the long process of change that comes with systemic change will diminish. So it's this, that's why I think the self practice and reflective practice and all of that is really important for people in these positions. Because not every day is a great day. And sometimes you're the person, you're the only person in the room who can see an alternate future and the status quo is, it's like molasses. It can be very hard to move. And that should be a motivating thing. You know, it shouldn't be something that that slows you down or whatever. But the thing that will get you through is patience and compassion for those people who are being a pain in your rear. If you can find a way to still have compassion for them.
Kate Arrow 28:56
Yeah. That's what's been fascinating about COVID from the healthcare perspective anyway is how agile it's been, and how quickly people have responded and the people who've been like, "Oh, no, let's think about it. Let's involve all these other people before we can make any decisions" have just been "Yes. Do it." You know, and it's been exciting that part of it, but you know, obviously bureaucracy has its place, and you can see things going backwards, but I do hope that we can learn something from that period of agility and change.
MS 29:34
Yeah, yeah. And you know, there is a saying that says, you know, Necessity is the mother of all innovation. So, when, and, and I know, in my personal experience with my career so far that, whenever there's been a crisis, no matter which organisation I've been in, people, just go and Just get in line and get stuff done, nothing comes up but the challenge that we have is that we don't want to innovate only when our backs against the wall, we have no other option. And that's the challenge. So when in times of comfort and safety, you know, humans are wired to maintain that, for the sake of the species physiologically, we like to maintain safety, a sense of safety. It's very few of us that kind of deliberately going out into the unknown. And going, I'm interested, I'm just gonna have a poke around over here and see what happens. There's not there's not a massive part of the population that's comfortable with that type of work. So I think it's just knowing that you know, knowing that the tendency is going to be for people to want to do things the way that they feel, they are safe in doing. So what you represent is a little bit of chaos to their world. And if you know that that's what you're doing, it's very easy to have empathy and compassion for them and find the language that's going to create more safety for them to make those changes. Whereas in crisis, no one is feeling safe. Everyone is trying to do anything that they can to bring as much certainty and safety back into the system. So they're willing to try anything to do that. So I really see it as a tussle between sort of chaos and order all the time. You know, the system always wants to come back to order doesn't like being in chaos,
Kate Arrow 31:47
Well, I feel like we could have a whole series because I had so many more questions for you. Our final question for everyone has been, in another life is there another career that you would have liked to have embarked on?
MS 32:09
Yeah, so you know, it's really interesting, I think I would have loved to live as a, as an artist as a fine artist. I go to, you know, school of fine arts and I have this dream, which is so romantic and not at all based in any reality I'm completely acutely aware that I would have this life of just doing what I wanted when I wanted to and not having a care in the world and just being able to creatively express myself through my art all the time and not feel this, which is what I feel in this life is constant, What can I be doing more what can I be doing more? How can I, you know, this whole sort of Am I doing Enough feeling in this other world to just be a little bit more sort of hedonistic maybe and just do whatever I wanted at the whim of my soul.
Kate Arrow 33:11
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I think that maybe after lockdown is lifted a little weeks retreat is on the cards.
Thanks so much. This has been fascinating.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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