153. High-Stakes Leadership with Sally Henderson

💭 How do you navigate change through high-stakes leadership?

Sally Henderson is an esteemed High Stakes Leadership Mentor known for her Real Method. 

In our conversation, we weave through the bespoke PRIME model for team development, examining how personalized programs can yield tangible results for C-suite executives. Sally underscores the value of mentorship and the "iron team" concept, emphasizing the shift from individual to collective purpose.

Download this episode to craft a kinder internal dialogue, find your supportive tribe, and take bold actions towards impactful, high-stakes leadership.

Time Codes: 

0:31: Navigating Career Changes and Leadership Mentoring
11:33: Importance of Congruence in Career Transitions
22:14: High Stakes Leadership Mentor Method
30:52: Tailoring Prime for Bespoke Team Development
37:49: Leadership Mentoring and Support Networks
49:11: Challenging Beliefs and Emotions for Growth

🌐 Connect with Sally:
• For free High-Stakes Leadership resources, visit https://www.sallyhenderson.co.uk/the-learning-hub
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallykhenderson/

Book Mentioned:
• Who Moved My Cheese Book by Spencer Johnson
• Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway Book by Susan Jeffers

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:26

Hey everyone and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honoured today to be joined by Sally Henderson. Sally goes by the name the High- Stakes Leadership Mentor and I'm really interested to unpack all of that already, but she's also the creator of something called the Real Method, and the Real Method is designed around leaders who are going through changes. They've got those different pivot points in their career and looking to adapt and thrive in a changing environment, and I want to unpack both those things. What does High- Stakes Leadership Mentoring mean and what does this Real Method mean? So, without any further ado, Sally, I would love it if you would please say hello to our audience and I'd like to know a bit about your background that led you into this kind of work in the first place.

Sally Henderson: 1:13

Oh, thank you, Mick, and really delighted to be here on your podcast.

Sally Henderson: 1:16

And yeah, my background comes from the world of recruitment and headhunting, actually Classic. Kind of fell into it post university but had a really successful, enjoyable career, built my own company called the Career Company and really got that cold face experience of what does it take for a business and people to succeed and grow simultaneously meeting both a business and a career and human need. And, interestingly, what I also used to win this over and over again, which is why I pivoted my own career, was all the things that went wrong when we handed the baby over and we're like right, we've done the most amazing recruit, loads of integrity, loads of care, loads of coaching, loads of support. And then when we walked away, especially for the senior, kind of never done before, new briefs, you know, trying to keep ahead of a changing market that's often when the wheels would come off, and so that got me thinking how? Why does that seem to happen a lot and my personal passion and real delight is at that intersection of mentoring and coaching around business and leadership change.

Mick Spiers: 2:16

Outstanding, Sally. There's three things I'm picking up there. One is about differences in needs. One is about that changing environment, particularly around that onboarding If someone's been headhunted and coming into a new environment, how they might adjust, and then that last thing you said around, you know, a combination of mentoring and coaching. I'd like to. If we have time, I might get to that as well. I want to come back to that first bit that you said around the needs. You said that there's a combination of career need, business need and human need. What do you mean by that?

Sally Henderson: 2:47

Well, I am a great believer that work can never be like a family, Mick, and I think when companies say, oh, it's like a family here, yes, you can have close connections, but I always say, look, it's a very sad day if you're just the same with your closest friends and family as you are with your work colleagues and your family all going well, should never fire you because of a spreadsheet. The rules of the game are different, and beautifully and rightly so, and I think we've lost the art of celebrating difference and we want to be you know, bring your whole self to work. And I'm don't get me wrong, I'm not saying be different people, be yourself, be true to who you are. But I think it's a healthy permission to also say, gosh, you don't have to be all things to all people at all times, because that is confusing and it's exhausting and it's not effective.

Sally Henderson: 3:30

So the human need is around you as an individual, kind of what do you personally want to get out of your career, out of your growth, out of your environment?

Sally Henderson: 3:40

You know what are your motivations? That are purely about you as an individual. The career need is, then the path you've chosen, because sometimes those two things work well, and sometimes that's when people get to talk to that and go, oh bloody hell, this was the wrong ladder all along, because my human needs actually aren't being met by this career, although it's technically successful and a business, as I said, it is people, but it's an entity in its own right and it has certain tangible hard KPIs that it needs that investment to fulfill and that won't always take into account your human needs because they might not be aligned. And when you get the win-win is when your motivation, your purpose on this planet, your fuel that you could put into your system every single day, aligns with the career path that you've chosen or has chosen you and therefore allows a business to be supremely successful, because your talent, your personality, your ambition is part of it. The challenge often goes is that one of those three things is normally missing.

Mick Spiers: 4:31

Really interesting, and three words are popping into my head as I hear you speak, Sally. The first one is authenticity, the second one is difference, and the third one is congruence, so that authenticity to show up as your authentic self is something that we do encourage people to do. But then it's okay to acknowledge that the context is different.

Sally Henderson: 4:52

Okay, Mick, I think it's imperative, to be honest. I think we, just like anything, things are cyclical, aren't they? Things are in fashion, out of fashion, and there's different themes and modes that create success at different stages of evolution, or people of business. Right now we're post COVID, which I think we've all forgotten at our peril. I have a talk idea around master, the art of trusting yourself, and in that there's a picture for a certain demographic We'll get this of Bobby Ewing from Dallas.

Sally Henderson: 5:17

Now I'm 50 next year, so I know Dallas because my mom used to watch it when I was about eight. So not everyone will get this reference, but there was this iconic show in the 80s called Dallas and for about four to six months, the nation because at this point we only had three TV stations, by the way as well, so you were quite limited on what you could watch the nation was pretty invested in this storyline and then, all of a sudden, bobby woke up in the shower and it'd all been a dream, which was just horrific. I'm like, no, I've infected in this story. It can't just be a dream. But the reason I relay that in my talk is because I think we're trying to do the same thing with coming out of the COVID years Is like, oh well, sweep it under the carpet, that's that all done, bye-bye. And it's now. And that's to me a grave error because we're still coming out of that. We've gone from one horrific global crisis after another and people are stressed and people are tired and we don't know what the norm is still from a ways of working points of view. So we're talking about patterns and careers and growth and norms, and we don't know what those are, but we're forgetting that and therefore the role of being at home, the role of being at work, and also we don't have the same rituals and routines around the commute, which many of us thankful for. I think that's a great thing not to be under those burdens that weren't necessarily working, but we don't know what's replacing them. Yet we still don't know what the answer is and we may not for a while, but we're kind of just trying to get on with it as if it hasn't gone through this massive change.

Sally Henderson: 6:37

So I think, knowing there's a difference, in knowing that you have permission to switch on and off, but, most importantly, I think I'd encourage anyone listening to ask yourself A are you even aware of those transitions between your personal and your professional identity. Do they exist as separate entities and how do you transition successfully betwixt and between them? And, very importantly, how do you cherry pick the bits from your different worlds that can work simultaneously? For example, I'm a parent okay, so if I'm working with a client who's a parent, that's something for my personal world I could bring in if it's relevant. I rescued a dog in COVID hashtag cliche, but we did. We adopted a lovely rescue dog from Romania. So if someone's a dog lover or an animal lover from my private life, I can bring that into my work life. But it's through choice and therefore I'm not keeping all of this essence of me switched on at any one time and being confused.

Mick Spiers: 7:22

You're really interesting, Sally, and I agree with you that through the COVID experience and we do need to take stock and think about what we learnt as a world and as society and as people throughout that experience One thing that definitely happened was the blurring of those boundaries, and what I'm hearing from you is that happened almost accidentally, and now I'm hearing from you that we need to be more intentional with that. So, it is okay to borrow things from our identities if you like, but it's done intentionally, not no longer blurred, and it was blurred for a long time and maybe some of that blurred boundary still exists today.

Sally Henderson: 7:57

Yeah, and that's okay as well. This is not science. I mean, there'll be lots of science behind it in lots of different ways, in terms of you know what's right and what's wrong from ways of working. But you know, life is colourful, people are complex, the world is difficult not in a good way right now so I think you also give yourself permission to be learning, to be testing, you know, to do, to try something and think is that working, is it not? Not to a point of being constantly in flux.

Sally Henderson: 8:22

But I think another thing that we've forgotten since coming out of COVID is kindness. You know, when COVID happened, from our ways of working, from talent, from growth, everybody back to each other, because nobody had been in that situation before and it was global, it was entirely out of our hands. What's happening now, with cost of living and the horrific wars that are going on out there and my heart goes out to anybody affected by any of the reality of the difficult world that we are all inhabiting at the moment that's actually encouraging and promoting survivalism, because it's fear led. You know, people are going right. There's not enough to go around. I've got to beat my competitor, and that's bringing out not the best of us.

Sally Henderson: 8:59

I think where as COVID was all about, how do we help each other? Because this is new and it's very equalising and no one's gone through it before. So there was an incredible sense of community and, ironically, there was also a sense of abundance, even though everything changed and was difficult. But because it's now very much cost of living and there's a lot of uncertainty and fear in the world, and understandably, so I'm not brushing over that at all I don't think we have the same collective spirit that we had before.

Mick Spiers: 9:22

I fully agree with you. I do believe that in most cases there were exceptions to this that we were supporting each other through what was a very tumultuous part of our existence and now it's gone back to a little bit dog eat dog in some cases.

Sally Henderson: 9:37

Yeah, I mean, obviously there's always an exception to the rule in every sense. But I just think the more we are conscious about this and therefore make your point around, you know, intentionally choosing how and when we show up and just raising our consciousness and not kind of just falling back into automatic sleepwalking patterns, that can only make you stronger, I think.

Mick Spiers: 9:54

Yeah, I agree, and I think that's something for us all to stop and think about. Are we doing that? Are we being a bit more intentional and unaware of our surrounds and what we're doing? That's really interesting. I wanna come back to the third word that I use when I was listening to you to begin with, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts as to where this is where some of the disconnect comes. So, as a headhunter, you're saying that you are placing people and then sometimes you're waiting to see is this one gonna work or is it not gonna work? And the word I used was congruence, and you spoke about the career need, the business need and the human need. Is it when those worlds are not in congruence with each other and I'm not talking perfect parallel isn't this the most wonderful job in the world? But if it's incongruent, is that when it falls apart for the new executive going into a new role?

Sally Henderson: 10:42

100%. If it's not congruent from the offset, you're just going to be fighting a losing battle. But I think it's actually a lot more simplistic than that. Often it's just missing clarity.

Sally Henderson: 10:51

So what I used to see as a headhunter was that people would rush to market from a fear trigger. So normally say, some key talents left the business. It's like, oh crikey, what do we do now? We need to get that person replaced as soon as possible. And so they just rush out to market and kind of try and repeat what they had already and don't really think about the need, like the business need, that piece of the human need, the career need Is it the same, is it different?

Sally Henderson: 11:12

And people often go to market when they're making change from fear as well, or unhappiness. If you think about it, you know very rarely. When I was a headhunter and this is many, many years ago, by the way, that I was a headhunter, but I did do it for a long time people very rarely came to me clear about what they wanted and why. Yeah, they'd normally been a bit bruised or sometimes terribly broken by a business situation or relationship. They were bored, they felt they were missing out, they felt they were being overlooked.

Sally Henderson: 11:36

Yeah, it was so rare that someone said you know what? I've had an amazing career with this company. I've done as far as I can go. We're all in agreement with that. We're doing a really well thought through exit and they're really backing me to be here today and I'm helping them with the replacement. I just isn't, weirdly, isn't the norm. So if you think about the essence of the recruitment market, it is normally a fear, reaction-based purchase or sell and therefore everyone's out to look their shiny best and they also want to believe in what they're hearing because they are coming from a place of need, not want, like I need to get this talent filled, I need to get this job because I've got bills and I don't get me wrong. That's absolutely a need that must be met. But if you're making a decision around critical need or career from a place of fear and reaction, you're never going to be equal.

Mick Spiers: 12:19

So an element of confirmation bias from both. So the hiring manager is starting to see things in the candidate because they want to see those things and the candidate is seeing things in the company that they're about to join because they want to see those things. And are they really stopping and going? Hang on a second. I fell into this trap one other time, where I ended up working in a company where I wasn't happening. Shouldn't I be checking whether those things exist here and whether the things I'm looking for exist here? But they're not. They're just hearing what they want to hear. Is that what I'm hearing here?

Sally Henderson: 12:51

Yeah, understandably, because again, if it is a stress or difficult and it don't get me, again, I keep saying don't get me wrong, because I'm appreciating for people at the cold face of this. It's bloody hard and terrifying. It is understandably a stress and fear purchase because it's high stakes. Back to my positioning I'm not ignoring that or glossing over it. The more that you can be in control of your needs and wants and how to go to market and how to break unhelpful patterns and how to establish healthier patterns, both as employer and as talent, that's only going to make everything better in the long run and in the short run. But the interesting thing around why things go wrong and why they break around that congruence point is because people don't think it through. I used to recruit for the branding agency world and I used to absolutely love it. But in the industry that's quite a small industry, bigger now, but back in my day it was more niche and somebody's been your competitor, sometimes for years, and then you go ahead and hire them and they're really delighted you've got their talent on board. Then you expect by osmosis they go from being your competitor your biggest advocate and there's not anyone dedicated or focused on the onboarding piece which we mentioned earlier in our conversation, and that again is when things can go really wrong, because assumption is not challenged and that journey of being new. So I say to people look, I don't believe especially for senior people here, but it applies to anybody. I don't believe it's all about your first 90 days. I think if you focus on that, you've missed a trick.

Sally Henderson: 14:05

And I think the modern world of work really calls for a shift to the pre 30 days at least pre 30 days, because you only get one chance to be new just once. It's like a goal. I call it a golden window. You can never do it again and you have so many resources and strengths at your disposal when you don't know what you don't know. But the way that the world of work is set up is to want to get to be an expert as soon as possible. This is why we're paying you lots of money. Come and fix our problems and come and be a terrific, efficient member of the team.

Sally Henderson: 14:33

Of course we want that, but if we rush that golden window and we don't actually pause to think before we start, how do I want to land? Not about what I want to do when I'm in the job, how do I want to set up the right impression? How am I going to capture my learning when I don't know what I don't know? And I'm probably quite overwhelmed, and how do I give myself permission, especially as a senior person, to actually say I don't know the answer to that? How do I get comfortable with not knowing until I know what I need to know?

Sally Henderson: 14:55

So I think the whole way it's skewed around career transition and growth and new connections, moments of that pivotal change is really out of date because it focuses on right first, 90 days, we've made our decision, we're going to hire you, boom. And nobody actually speaks to that leader, often before they start, especially senior, senior people. So I work with high performance, senior, high profile leaders. That's my specialty and because they aren't that successful, people assume they have no nerves, they don't need to discuss if they actually understand the job. Hopefully, so, interestingly, one of the questions I asked my well, two questions I asked my client. First one is how are you? How are you feeling really?

Sally Henderson: 15:29

Because when you're senior especially and if you're somebody in middle management and you've got senior people, just ask yourself the question when's the last time you truly asked how that senior person was without an agenda and to allow them to be human, and just to know that you've got their back as much as you want them to have yours. And the second thing I asked my clients and it's extremely interesting, especially for CEOs. I'm chatting to them and I'll just say, oh, just a question, indulge me, what's your job? And I look at me as if I'm a bit strange because I'm CEO of Dali Da, famous agency or brand, global brand. I'm like, no, I get that, but what is your job? Just tell me what's your job as CEO of famous said business.

Sally Henderson: 16:05

And then they kind of can't answer that, mick, a lot of the time, not because they're not high performers, they're doing a great job. Because no one's actually asked them that simple, direct question. And so they go God, what is my job? And then try to see.

Sally Henderson: 16:16

What often happens, I think, is look up to construct, because I think how do I create an answer to that? Or they'll look down to remember what was it I took on when I took this role, and often what happens is they don't even realize this is happening is their body language changes. So they're often. Their body will drop, because often I'm doing this over Zoom, so I'm really watching them their body language will drop, their connection will mean will start whilst they go internal and their voice tone will drop. So they actually sound a little bit bored because it's simply a question that stomped them. And my challenge to people at work now, no matter what your level of seniority, if I met you in a pub or just dog walking or something in normal circumstances, and I just said to you well, there's two questions how are you feeling really and what's your job, could you answer me? Most cases, people can't, because they don't have the time or focus to think about those things and are not being given the tools to understand how to answer them successfully.

Mick Spiers: 17:04

Really interesting, Sally, and the things I'm picking up here. There's a few things. There's that pre preparation that it starts at least 30 days before you arrive. There's a little bit of mindset there around curiosity and potentially parking your identity, which I think can be a challenge for people. They could be going oh, this company has paid me a whole lot of money because I'm an expert in my field, but on day one they need to be curious, not start thinking they know everything. And then the word clarity is coming up, and that's the clarity of what is my role. No, really, what is my role, not my job title, what is my role. And if that clarity didn't exist in the first place? Or even if it did exist, has it eroded over time? Where something is drifted, how does that sit with you?

Sally Henderson: 17:47

Yeah, 100%. And here's the second mistake people make around, that is, once they get through probation, because everyone wants that to work well, hopefully. You know they kind of go oh few right, I just crack on now, and nobody takes normally that moment to go. Should we just check in on our understanding about this job then, now that you've been joined us and you're new and you've got a perspective that none of us have, because none of us normally will have been out in a different market sometimes for years? Should we just check in and make sure that what we think is this job actually is this job in this current market and not just what it is now, but is it also set up to evolve and flex in the right way as the company is evolving and flexing?

Sally Henderson: 18:22

So I created a tool and I know we'll talk about the real method in due course but one of the modules from the real method is called stamp, because it's all about stamping your understanding of what is your job and how do you set up to be successful in it. And it's a very simple framework. So all of my frameworks and tools and methodologies are under the philosophy of simple smart, because the world complicated enough, you know, simple, smart, having a nice agile framework that allows people to have very robust, informative and agreed conversations where if there is disagreement and confusion, it can be tackled well. And you keep referring back to stamp and the five hours to drive successful change. To make sure we're on track here. And the difference when people have the five hours under their belts and the whole company can work from the five hours, they have a shared language, they have an understanding and it's something that they can refer to in their own time as well.

Sally Henderson: 19:08

So it takes a lot of pressure off senior leaders. If all of the company have the five hours to support them in their roles. To just go right, am I on the right course? Do I need to course correct and is there agreement around that? And when that is in place, I mean just something really quite radical but profound happens. People are two things. They become more effective in their job because they have better control about how to use their time and resources wisely, and then they become happier, and one of my professional callings for my entire career, whether it was as a headhunter or now as a high state leadership mentor, is to allow people to be happy and effective at work, and that those two things can be absolute bedfellows, as opposed to one being sacrificed for the other.

Mick Spiers: 19:42

I do love this. I do believe that we can be both happy and effective, and I'm loving this frame and we're going to get into it. Now I'm hearing you driving conversations that need to be had, and they're conversations that draw clarity, that test assumptions and enable success is what I'm hearing here. So tell us about the real method. How did that come about?

Sally Henderson: 20:01

Thank you. So it came about actually within the COVID years because, like most people, especially independent, I'm a solopreneur, proud solopreneur. I work in leadership, development and growth. I'm a mental, not a coach, but we'll come on to that. My business fell off a cliff. It literally just tanked and I was like, oh gosh, that's not fun, because the world literally just pivoted, didn't it, and we all got a jolt.

Sally Henderson: 20:23

But what I was able to do in that time, with some help, I could never have done this on my own at all. Actually, with a lot of help, I actually took the opportunity to step back and reflect and it was almost actually more liberating because all bets were off. Everybody, as I said, was very much coping with something none of us knew how to do before. So I just thought right, this is my time now. I've been doing this for at least five years in the current form. I'm seeing similar patterns, similar needs, similar opportunities. I'm giving similar models and techniques over and over again. So let me make this easier for clients to navigate. And so, with help with an amazing copywriter, emma Vickers if anyone wants an amazing copywriter and an amazing growth positioning expert called Felix Velarde, who's all about agency, growth and change. They helped me to get my thoughts in line and to codify what is it that I do and what makes it different and how does it help? And the result of that was A coming out with positioning of high stakes leadership mentor, because I think that really summarizes what I do brilliantly. But then, even just naming that my program, I was like what am I going to call it? You know what's going to be effective, what do I think really fits the whole purpose of this framework and this program and for me it was about well, it's working in the real world. You know, people make assumptions. When you become a C-suite, when you become extremely successful, that's when all the assumptions kick in, and wrongly so. So my methodology is all about how to set people up, but no matter what level of seniority, and if you get the gift of this knowledge early in your career wowzers, you know you're getting something that your previous peer groups didn't get how to navigate your growth, your career and your leadership successfully while coping with high volumes of change. And the one thing that's consistent in this world is it's just changing more and more hey, and more and more pressure.

Sally Henderson: 21:58

So the real method was born because it was about saying, right, well, this is what I know from my previous experience as a headhunter, at that cold face of what really happens when people want to make successful career, leadership and business change and growth, what gets overlooked, what gets assumed. And I thought, from a methodical point of view, how can I build an experience that is cumulative? Now, the beauty about the real method is that you can experience any module by itself and it will still have a great impact on you. But when you get to go through all the modules and get the full toolkit, they all play really well together and they're all designed to give immediate results. You know I'm quite an impatient person, meg. I like to go quick. I like that on my headhunter by trade. You know that's my background. It's like make it happen. So I don't want my clients to have to invest, you know, weeks and months of learning before they see any change, because also, my clients don't have the time or bandwidth for that, nor the expectation. They are senior, successful people. They need it now.

Sally Henderson: 22:47

So the real method gives immediacy in terms of three things that clarity piece that I talked about, clarity and what is the situation? How is this working for or against me and what do I want to do to change that? What does my business need to do, whether that's yours or your employed? So the clarity has to be there in the beginning, otherwise you can never set up for successful growth and change. You then go to the second C, which is confidence. You know there's a word that I really don't like, called imposter syndrome. Well, two words, because a whole goddamn industry is born on the back of trying to keep people down and broken. And it's like why do you want to keep people strong and successful rather than checking on the imposter? Like why don't we check on trust and growth? But your confidence has got to be strong Now, not complete, not arrogant, but you have to have the confidence to back yourself in the first place, and that often is missing. People assume it's there because of it again job title or success or how people present.

Sally Henderson: 23:33

And then the third C that you need and the real method helps us at all three of these is commitment. Yeah, actually get the rubber on the road and do something different, which takes energy. You know you can't just try, you have to commit, you have to see it through. We don't have to do anything, but it's in your interest to make that mindset shift. And then how the real method, how it's normally delivered as we go, we start with reveal, and reveal is all about motivation understanding what motivates you and then we go to stamp, which is what is your job, and that uses the five Rs. Sculpt is all about your leadership style and how to tangibly create your USP as a leader and to create a personalized growth map that will accelerate your leadership and actually give you a lot greater confidence and a hell of a lot less stress to be ahead of your own change curve. And that's incredible.

Sally Henderson: 24:16

When people really create, it's a creative module and they get to make their leadership tangible, which completely transforms their ability to back themselves.

Sally Henderson: 24:24

And then we also have strip, which is going under the hood.

Sally Henderson: 24:26

You know what emotions and beliefs have you got that are either working for or against you, because the real method works a lot with the subconscious mind as well as the conscious mind, and when we're working with teams, I do a lot of work with teams as well as one to one.

Sally Henderson: 24:38

We set up before the real method with a module called Prime, where we actually canvassed everybody about what do they believe is going to help them, because I'm not a trainer either, and every time I do this it's different, it's tailored, it's bespoke. And then we also. We conclude with a fuse and a wrap where we canvass everyone's opinions, and this also happens, if you want to one. So the beauty again it can work. One to one, it can work team, it can work across a whole company. You make sure you're benchmarking and checking and feeding back within the bounds of confidentiality, so people can really get a great sense of pride and achievement from what they've invested, and I don't just mean money money it does take a budget to do this work, but rightly so but the investment of time, energy and perseverance.

Mick Spiers: 25:20

I'm really loving what I'm hearing, so let me play back some of the things I'm hearing. So I love this concept of simple, smart, making it simple, making it smart. I'm loving the thought that it's a real method for the real world, not just academic research on psychology which is important, by the way, but this is about things that we go on practically apply. Then I'm loving this thought that you've got some low hanging fruit, some things that you can make, some immediate changes that you can start seeing the benefits of, because that itself will fuel some of the confidence that you're talking about If you start seeing results. But then you mentioned about this accumulation of growth. Not just I did a standalone module here or a standalone module there, but they're building on each other and then creating this clarity, this confidence, this commitment of the leader that I'm going to become.

Mick Spiers: 26:06

So far, I'm loving, let's say, the architecture of this. I want to now unpick this prime thing, because you said something important the seven billion or maybe it's eight billion now, I don't know the seven billion of us on this planet and we're not all the same. So it can't be cookie cutter. We can learn from models, of course, but I love the fact that you're taking the time to tailor this. Tell us what that looks like. Prime.

Sally Henderson: 26:27

Thank you. So the theory works the same, whether it's an individual or a team, obviously, just the delivery is tailored accordingly. But I think, especially when again my sweet spot, specialties C-suite senior executives they don't want to be trained as a group, they don't. They want to have a bespoke learning engagement that is relevant to their business. So I was working recently with a great company called Jardine Motor Group, which I can talk about because it's in the public domain. Obviously, all my work is confidential unless it's in the public domain. And what their CEO, neil, said when we were running the away day we started with together, he just said what is lovely about how this is working is that Sally knows us we had enough, but not too much prep work to do so that when she's in the room with us she's one of us. But she's still objective.

Sally Henderson: 27:10

And the prime is very simple. It's just about canvassing in the way that I do it, but it's a simple way of canvassing the team for what they believe they individually want to gain from. Whether it's an away day, whether it's a year long engagement, whether it's a six month engagement, whatever journey we're on, what do they personally believe that they want to take away as an individual, because there is an eye in team, and I think we're naive if we say there isn't. You know, a team is built up of a collective of eyes and that's also a good thing. So what do they need personally to make it beneficial to them? Because unless you understand the eye in the collective, you're never going to get a great collective, because you're being too cookie cutter, as you said, too vanilla, to try and meet everyone's needs but servicing none. But then you also want to ask each individual what do they believe the team needs? So you're asking them to access their eye with permission and full throttle. They're also saying but what about your team? You're part of this team. You have a unique view that nobody else has of this team. So what do you believe this team wants to benefit from this engagement? And obviously you're setting it up with a certain context. It's not just completely random. It's linked to some outcomes that I've already agreed with the key sponsors.

Sally Henderson: 28:16

So I use a lot of my training and development ideas as a headhunter. You know what is the brief and then the difference, with me being not a coach, because a coach and they get wrong there's amazing coaches out there, but a coach should not give an opinion. That's not what a coach does, whereas I like to give an opinion. My clients come to me for opinions and they come to me for directive advice and counsel, and that's again one of my differentiators is that I will bring my knowledge of leadership and growth and change and immerse your business in that so I can fast-track you. Now I haven't got all the answers and I will presume to be that in any shape or form, but I'm definitely not going to facilitate you to come up with your own thinking. I'm going to do that, but in addition, I'm going to bring my own knowledge of the market and what I'm hearing you're telling me is actually the brief, because here's that piece around clarity Mick, people can go with all the best intentions in the world into an engagement, going right, it's this and they believe that, and they're all speaking a similar but different language.

Sally Henderson: 29:09

And my job is to go. It's not that, that's not what I'm hearing, it's very close. But if we use language like that, we're not setting up for the engagement in the right way. We want to give it its own identity, its own brand, its own personality, so people can actually back something that's tangible, not a learning program or a development program, something that's unique to your team, that gives it that connection. So Prime is all about the eye in the team, having a really valid and welcome voice, getting that perspective of the collective so that I, as the outside expert looking in a wholly, wholly objective, can say right, what is going on here, what are the key themes? And then how does that play back to what my sponsors have told me that they believe is the right outcome for this event? And does that all work, or are we hearing something different, so that we can be very clear? This is the brief. This is what return on investment has to look like, because I am so passionate that any person who's going to be there I look like, because I am so passionate that any penny spent with me works bloody hard. Budget is precious, and now more than ever. So what is it we want to achieve as an outcome? And I think, rightly so.

Sally Henderson: 30:06

Sometimes L&D and coaching gets a bit of a fluffy reputation, because what actually happened? You know where was the rubber on the road, but what are the tangible outcomes we want to land from this investment over whatever way we're doing it, so that people can go yeah, that worked, or did it not work? For whatever reason, I can't miss all of my teams through reports and surveys, like Touch again. They're busy people but very focused and I'm very transparent. So I have a saying make that I've used in my whole career, which is the naked truth will always conquer, and that's the fact. So if the naked truth is that we did listen to the team in the right way, that will play out. If the naked truth is that there's a deeper level of toxicity in this team than we'd ever understood, but no matter what we do, that's until that toxicity is addressed and changed.

Sally Henderson: 30:47

Not everything else is just a plaster. Now I work with high performance teams, so that's really the case, you know. But there's always challenges. There's always what I call uncomfortable truths that sit beneath the theory, that sit beneath the surface, that are very interesting and important. We go and look for and find, but always with a view of am I giving my absolute best to my client at all times, so that we are doing our best? Because at the end of the day, that's what we can do. As long as we set up well, crime has been really effectively set up and analyzed and refined. That makes the rest of the program by nature just run better. We keep going back to that and keep checking in and we adjust accordingly.

Mick Spiers: 31:24

Really interesting selling out. I want to play back to you what I'm taking from this. First of all, I often get asked the question what is the difference between coaching and mentoring? And everything you've just described there actually Illustrates it beautifully in terms of, yes, a coaching draws out from the individual. A mentor is able to guide, based on experience and models, and be able to challenge in in a very clear way when the person maybe just completely lost and they need that challenge.

Mick Spiers: 31:51

That word challenge was jumping into my head a lot. You having that challenging conversation, the naked truth just love it. What is the real challenge here? What are people not talking about? And getting down to the root of any issues that might be holding the individual or the team back.

Mick Spiers: 32:06

And Then I'm hearing almost like a three position view of the world there is an iron team. Love that. Not to ignore personal motivations. Why me? I was hearing, why me when I heard this. There is an iron team. Then, when you brought the team into its second position, why us? Why have we been brought together and what can we collectively do that we couldn't possibly do unless we were brought together as this team of eyes? And then the third position you didn't ignore the stakeholders. You were looking from the outside and going. Well, actually, the stakeholders have got some pardon, the partner stake in this. They want to see some progress. Where is the progress, and is this collection of eyes coming together in a way that is going to achieve the goals that we set this team out to achieve? How does that reflection sit back to you in terms of then priming that up for then? How do we now challenge the individuals and challenge the situation?

Sally Henderson: 32:59

Yeah, I think you can come and do my copy for me anytime. Me. You get the brand, then you get the positioning really well. So you know, hats off to you for brilliant and very quick, accurate feedback. And, summarizing, I think there's something that I just pick up on that in that what I hope I have an am achieving with the real method and the way that I work as a high-states leadership mentor is to actually be creating and slivering a third lane. So, yes, you've got your coaching, which is absolutely valid and really amazing and does great things out there for people who want that approach and Service mentoring. You have your amazing technical kind of mentors who've done that job before, who know your industry, who are bringing that wisdom and knowledge that comes from you know walking the walk before you've walked it. They are amazing as well.

Sally Henderson: 33:40

What I'm doing with the real method of my approach is bringing the best of both of those worlds in, but leaving some of the kind of core Traditional frustrations to the side. So I do coach when I need to coach my clients, because sometimes, if it's to mentoring muscles relentlessly, people get overwhelmed and it's easy for them not to then own it as their own. And when I'm mentoring them, I'm not coming at it as a traditional expert mentor in terms of technicality or industry, or I've done that job before. My specialism of mentoring is around their leadership, growth and development as a team, as an individual, as an entity. So at any time I can do a nice dance, if you like, between is it coaching? Is it mentoring? When am I going to stick to what I know works, with the methodologies? When do I come in completely bespoke and just blow it all up? Because it needs a very bespoke in the moment mentoring, intuitive Connection, because for me, what's so important in all of this work is that I see and I connect with the person or the team or the business I'm working with in that moment, because people are not machines, people are not beautifully redesigned technical entities that will behave in predictable and logical ways. People are beautifully and Rively, so wonderfully complex. And also let's not forget something really important we don't know what's going on for someone outside of work in that personal identity I talk about.

Sally Henderson: 34:59

And at the moment the world is tough. Tough for many, many, many of us on the backdrop of a few Absolutely tough years, and there's incredible fear and uncertainty in the world right now and that's having an impact as it should, not to forget climate change. You know all this uncertainty and tension and Fear that's in the world and that's taking a toll on people because we have not had any breathing gaps like historically. I took my recruitment company through three recessions, you know so when it came out another one okay, right, let's deal with that but we had gaps, we had time to reconvene, we had time to lick our wounds, we had time to kind of go oh, thank God. No, we just been normal in inverted commas for a while, and we have not had that time for at least five years, I would say, you know, and we've just gone bang from one horrific, you know Global disruption to another. It might be more localized, but it's still impacting globally around war and uncertainty and everything that's happening in Europe, a wider field, and also the things that don't even make the press. Okay, that's a lot for us all to be carrying.

Sally Henderson: 35:57

And so I think it's also important to say, not just when you're in work, as a leader, as a talent, as a really ambitious Person, or even just someone who's happy doing what they're doing, what support and help are you getting outside of work? Because that is just as important. And I talk a lot about finding your tribe and I'm certainly flourishing growing in my life at this stage because I've definitely found my tribes, both personally and professionally, and sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't at all. But, goodness me, I would not have got through the years that have been the recent ones and also, you know, grown and had the success I've had in recent years if I didn't have the tribes behind me. So I think that's a really important question for your listeners.

Sally Henderson: 36:33

In your personal world, in your professional world, who's got your back? Who are you talking to? Who are you getting trusted of support and advice? And I use that word on purpose, because there's a lot of vampires out there. There's a lot of energy vampires and people who love a drama and love to challenge and to hold others down if they're not moving forward. But I have a saying I would rather take bold action any day than stay in stale safety. A lot of people out there actually find themselves staying in stale safety and becoming experts at it, and so you want to be very careful who you do turn to for advice, support, insight, energy, who you let into your inner circles because they have to be the right people for the right motivation.

Sally Henderson: 37:10

Remember my point on the naked truth will always conquer. So who's got your best interests at heart? Who's your champions? Who's your mentor? Who's your support network? But inside and outside of work and they should be different people as well as it's like creating your board you know you can go out and who's on your board who's your personal board?

Sally Henderson: 37:27

And also that's something that flexes and changes. So certain people come into your life. That thing isn't a season of reason or a lifetime, but people come into your life and sometimes who's your most amazing mentor at a certain point of your life? Or your coach or your champion? That will change because you have changed and sometimes you outgrow your mentors. So I only ever work with my clients, whether it be one to one or with teams, on set programs of time and set programs of intervention, and then, when we get to the end of that program, we check in are we cooked, as I call it? Are you cooked? You know, do you actually need me any longer? Because if you need and want me for an absolute, ongoing Into never, never land basis, I have failed at my job. Yeah, because you don't need me, high stakes should not be something that's at the level intensity that I work out. That's always happening, relentlessly all the time.

Mick Spiers: 38:15

I think that would be a problem in itself if that was where you got to. There's a lot of interesting things there. The world is changing all the time. It's thrown us so many curveballs in the last five years. We don't always know what's happening in someone's personal life. There's the very public stuff that we know. We don't know what's happening for them individually and, by the way, those public events affect us all individually anyway. Right? So, understanding that, understanding your support network, both business and private, and are they the right people in the right time, the right season, the right reason? For some it may be a lifetime, but is it the right support at the right time, in a timely way, the right people that are going to help you get to where you want to go? That's really interesting, Sally.

Mick Spiers: 38:57

We could talk about the entire model and we'd be going for many hours. So I want to pick one right? So we could talk about reveal or your sculpt, or your stamp, or your fuse. I love it all. The one I want to pick on just as a sample, can we talk about strip? What does strip look like?

Sally Henderson: 39:12

Yeah. So I'm glad you went with strip, because strip is kind of almost my favourite child. But I say don't tell the others, because strip is what it says on the tin, and I purposely wanted a provocative title because it's about stripping naked in a metaphorical sense of the word. What's going on for a team or an individual under the hood? Because we are all emotional creatures and sometimes in the world of work, to its detriment. We're asked two things actually. We're asked to either overshare about our emotions, which I think can be helpful, but there's also a line and we can ask to hide our emotions and go. Yeah, I'm so sorry I happened to do it in your personal world, but can you just crack on with this? I need you to get this done. So it's a fine and difficult tightrope, if you like to walk along between are your emotions working for or against you in life in general, but also from my lens as a leader in work and normally there's always stuff going on under the hood.

Sally Henderson: 40:04

People are brought up with different belief systems. People have different parenting styles that are either really great or really not great for them. Interesting a lot of the CEOs and seed-speed leaders I work with, their childhood will come into our conversations because the imprinting they had from their parents around success and approaches and behavior and value and how you show up in the world, that plays out as an adult, as a leader. We all carry the child we were within us and sometimes that's healthy and sometimes that poor child is really unhappy and is still making his presence felt. So strip is a way of, in a practical and structured way, safely navigating your emotions and your beliefs and what's happening in your subconscious world as a leader not your conscious world, because the thing that I found fascinating when I first, over 20 years ago, got interested in coaching, development and growth and neuro-linguistic programming, which some people like and some people don't, and that's fine. But when I learned these interesting facts that your brain does not know the difference between these five things, and when I learned this make it literally made my brain fry a little bit.

Sally Henderson: 41:04

But the first piece is that your brain literally does not know the difference between past, present and future. They are constructs of time and how often do we lament about the past and it feels as real but we can't change it. It's happened. How often do we worry about the future? Oh, what if that happened, especially at the moment. What if this happens? But it hasn't happened, but we feel it as real as if it has, and very rarely in the current world of work and the pace that we all work at and the overwhelm of communications and influence on us, very rarely are we in the present effectively and very rarely do we use the past effectively and very rarely actually are we looking at the future effectively. But none of those things are actually real. It's all construct.

Sally Henderson: 41:45

And then even more mind blowing is that your brain does not know the difference between fact and fantasy, because everyone is subjective, everyone, you know. There's people that will argue to this day that the earth is flat, because in their mind that's absolutely real, whereas other people are like well, that's complete fantasy, it's obviously round. Look at the science. But science can be a great educator and teacher. But for people who don't believe in science, for them their fact of fantasy is down to their own beliefs, their own religions, their own upbringing, their tribes, their families.

Sally Henderson: 42:17

So strip helps you understand what really powerfully, helps you understand what is going on for you in your own mind. How well is your subconscious working for or against you? Because, interestingly, your brain's primary purpose and focus in life is to keep you alive. That's it. That's what your brain is there to do, and also what it's there to do from a primeval point of view is at the minimum use of energy possible. So if you're stuck in that stale safety I reckon I referenced earlier, your brain's going stay there. It's brilliant. You know how to cope with being unhappy. You're an expert in decision. Well done, okay. And now, consciously you're thinking why would anyone choose that? But subconsciously they're choosing it over and over again. They just don't realise it.

Mick Spiers: 43:01

It's really interesting, Sally. I want to unpack some of that. First of all, when you're talking about emotion, and are our emotions holding us back, or can we use our emotions, tap into our emotions to motivate us into action, into doing something? So, are our emotions working for us or are they emotions working against us? I thought that was wonderful.

Mick Spiers: 43:19

When I hear you, I just think of there's almost nothing more powerful than the stories we tell ourselves in our own head, almost nothing more powerful. And are our beliefs limiting beliefs or are they empowering beliefs? And what can we do to reframe them so that they are empowering instead of limiting? And then this shortcut that the brain takes. It does happen, by the way, it's been proven. Our brain takes shortcuts, it looks for the easy way out all the time. So how do we then intentionally get our self-awareness of the story that we're telling ourselves? I'm going to say, be our own coach inside our own head or our own mentor. And you know, Sally Henderson challenges you to go, get to the naked truth, do it yourself, challenge that story that you're telling yourself in the head. Is it true or did you just convince yourself it was true?

Sally Henderson: 44:04

Button. Just very quickly on that, because it's something very passionate, I believe, as you're talking, there's another saying I've got which is who's in your ear the devil or the angel? Because I don't want people to misconstrue. Challenge yourself, get in your own head, you know, because normally when you start to do strip and you peel back the layers, and especially senior, successful people, the way they speak to themselves is horrific. I don't even mean unkind, I mean bloody horrific. You know their own worst critic, their own worst enemy, and they are brutal, they sometimes even cruel to themselves. And so that challenge of that voice, that internal coach that you may or may not have in your own dialogue, your own mind, are you training it? Is it the right one? And just ask yourself if anyone else could hear me right now how I'm speaking to myself, would I be proud? Would I talk to anybody else, anybody else in my other personal professional worlds, across the whole piece, would I talk to them the way that I am talking to myself and am I even conscious of that's how I talk to myself, because that is part of the battle.

Sally Henderson: 45:06

A huge part of the battle is it's the internal chatter that there's been a whole industry, as I said, built up on imposter syndrome, stuff around that, which I am passionately thinking. Enough of that. Come on. Focus on strengths, focus on growth. Don't focus on what's wrong with you and do I doubt myself? How interesting would it be to go rather than, hey, do you have an imposter syndrome? Have you given it a cute name? Are you chatting with it every day? How about you go? How do I trust myself more? How do I build my strengths? How do I make sure the angels in my ear, not for Disney kind of everything's amazing point of view, but just from a healthy, like your own PT and your own mind, but not kind of some army sergeant about to break you kind of brutal training regime?

Sally Henderson: 45:48

Because I think everyone's can do with some more kindness right now and anyone showing up in the world of work is under a lot of pressure. So how do you make your own psyche, your energy, your emotions healthy and supported? Whilst, don't get me wrong still being challenging and accurate, but just also being kind to you, being your best cheerleader, because if you're not doing it for yourself, you're not doing it for anyone else.

Mick Spiers: 46:11

Yeah, I love this positive reframing and it is the challenge, but it's challenging in a positive way. Is the challenge serving me well or is it actually going to do the other? Is it going to not serve me well?

Sally Henderson: 46:23

Actually, Mick, is my reaction and understanding of the challenge serving me well? That's can be completely different to the challenge. So the challenge could be the best action in the world for you, but your reaction to it is not.

Mick Spiers: 46:34

Is it a healthy response to a healthy challenge? Yeah, I like this. Yeah, very good. I've absolutely adored this conversation, Sally, and I personally feel richer for this conversation. Oh, thank you. I've been absorbing everything that you've said. It's been absolutely wonderful. We'll have to bring it to a close now. It will take us to our rapid round. So these are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. Sally, the first one what's the one thing you know now that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Sally Henderson: 47:01

I think it's the bold action over stale safety. I know that I stayed in organizations. I used to just give myself such a bloody hard time when I could have just relaxed and enjoyed the moment. So I think, yeah, rather than the stale safety piece. Actually, yeah, enjoy the bloody moment, because that's all you've got, and the more you can connect with the moment and experience it, then the richer you'll be throughout.

Mick Spiers: 47:26

This. Enjoy the moment. It just made me think of something I was going to play back to you before and I didn't do it because I wanted to bring this to a close, but I have to do it now when you were talking about the past, the present and the future, and a statement that's always stuck with me and it's not perfectly true, but it's good enough, right and that is that no amount of regret will change the past, no amount of anxiety will change the future.

Sally Henderson: 47:49

Very, very true, very true, even now, yeah, 100%.

Mick Spiers: 47:53

All right, so what's your favorite book?

Sally Henderson: 47:55

Oh, it's a really good old classic. It's called who's Moved my Cheese? Did you know it?

Mick Spiers: 48:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I haven't heard of it for a long time, but yeah, good one.

Sally Henderson: 48:04

Yeah, I know, I mean it's an oldie. I mean, does that with Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway? I think those were two books when I was first investigating my own change and getting interested in the world of growth and development and coaching. I read those two books and they helped me to be braver. They helped me to think I can change my own reality and I can do stuff that's different and even though that's as scary as hell, you know, Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. And who's Moved my Cheese is all about. Don't settle for staleness. Basically, keep moving, keep going forward.

Mick Spiers: 48:35

Yeah, beautiful, oh, thank you. What's your favorite quote?

Sally Henderson: 48:38

You know what? I'm going to take one of my own here, which is the naked truth will always conquer.

Mick Spiers: 48:44

That resonated strongly with me when you said it in the interview as well. Yeah, really good, thank you. And finally, there's going to be people that are listening to this, just like me, and going, wow, this is really quite different. The real method. How do people find you, Sally, if they'd like to take advantage of your services?

Sally Henderson: 49:00

Oh, thank you, Mick. So my website, sallyhenderson. co. uk. You can find a wealth of information on there. You can send it to my newsletter Mentor in your Pocket. That goes about once a month. But I also invested heavily this year in the Learning Hub, which is free resources to help support as many people as I can with the growth and development piece that I so passionately believe in, and I respect that. Not everyone's got the budget right now potentially to invest in themselves or their companies aren't ready to do that. So I've put as much as I can at the moment into the Learning Hub. There's podcasts, there's interviews with leaders. There's over two years of walk and talks that I used to do every day, just little snippets of mentoring advice and then you can join my community and have that monthly advice into your inbox. And also there's lots of ways to get in touch with me, sallyhenderson. co. uk. Join me on LinkedIn, Sally K. Henderson. And, yeah, there's all those ways.

Mick Spiers: 49:49

I want to say congratulations and thank you in both ways. So congratulations on your body of work and your ability to codified it in a way that is so helpful, a real method for the real world. I just absolutely love it. So thank you for doing that. Then, for all of the individuals that you're helping, whether it's on Learning Hub or the ones that you've helped to get through those high stakes moments in their life Absolutely amazing. So congrats on your success and thank you on behalf of all the people that you've helped, and thank you for sharing your wisdom and insights with our audience today. It's just been amazing, thank you.

Sally Henderson: 50:24

Oh well, you've been a brilliant podcast host, so you've made it very easy and very pleasurable for me to be here, so I thank you.