The Company Road Podcast

E70 The Draw of Change: Balancing creativity, confidence and humility

• Chris Hudson • Episode 70

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"I would go so far as to say it went past an adaption and into a reinvention almost. New York is that city that it's a little bit of a trope, but everyone goes there to reinvent themselves in a way... That’s petrifying, but also incredibly freeing, because you can start to rebuild the person that you really want to be at that stage in your life."  – Alanna Lynch

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

  • Alanna’s journey from Sydney to New York and back to Australia
  • The challenges of adapting to a new culture and leadership style
  • Workplace relationships and how to set boundaries as a leader
  • The balance between confidence and humility in leadership
  • Why trust is the foundation of effective leadership
  • The risks and rewards of reinvention in your career
  • The importance of curiosity and stepping outside your comfort zone
  • How to test ideas and make career decisions with a "fail fast, fail often" mindset
  • Leadership lessons from creative agencies, media, and the art world
  • Practical strategies for managing workplace dynamics and career growth


Key links


About our guest 

Alanna Lynch is an executive coach and business advisor with over 15 years of experience in unlocking human potential to influence change and drive sustainable growth in creatively driven businesses.

Alanna began her career in advertising in Sydney before moving to New York City, where she held senior leadership roles at some of the world’s most influential creative agencies, media companies, and art platforms.

Before founding MELIOR FUTURI, Alanna was the COO of Artnet, a publicly traded fine art marketplace and newsroom, where she led the strategic transformation of the global operation and drove record growth in its media business. She has also served as CEO of The New York Times Experience Agency and interim CEO of their Social Storytelling Agency, overseeing a successful merger of the two. Previously, she was Managing Director of Chandelier, a renowned New York creative agency known for its work with luxury fashion and lifestyle brands.

About our host

Our host, Chris Hudson, is an Intrapreneurship Coach and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.

Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.

Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. 


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Chris Hudson:

Hello and welcome back to the company road podcast, where we delve into the stories and experiences of extraordinary leaders who can drive transformation and who have done and the growth that they facilitated in some way. And today we've got the privilege of welcoming Alana Lynch, who's an accomplished executive coach and business advisor with over 15 years of experience in shaping the future of creatively driven businesses. lot of this journey began in the world of advertising in Sydney, and it led her to the bustling streets of New york, where she took on senior roles at a top level at creative agencies, media powerhouses, and art platforms as well. And she's had a career spanning transformative leadership roles, and has influenced change across the board from leading strategic transformation at Artnet as COO to overseeing a successful merger at the New York Times and her unique ability to unlock human potential and lead with influence has positioned her as a trusted advisor to many. So join us today as we talk to Alana and Alana will share her insights around. Personal transformation, navigating leadership challenges, and the art of leading with a collaborative approach. And we're going to talk to her about her journey from Sydney to New York, lessons on leadership, perspectives, and lots, lots, lots more. So, yeah, it's going to be cool to talk about work on different sides of the hemisphere. And, really want to get under the skin of this topic of executive leadership, two words that probably mean a lot of different things, different people, on what it takes to be an executive leader. But let's say hello to Alana. Alana, welcome to the show.

Alanna Lynch:

Thank you, Chris. Thanks for having me.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, cool. what do we do? American greeting. Like how, how would we normally greet? Is it like, so we say, how are you? How you doing? What are you, what's a kind of standard meeting opening in New York?

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah. How you're doing is comforting to me. That's a nice nostalgic Australian. Yeah.

Chris Hudson:

I thought it was just in friends that they said that, but maybe it's just American thing. It's good. Let's hear a bit about your, your personal journey. You obviously started life in Sydney and then you went to New York and there's probably things in between, but what was your journey and how did it shape your career in executive leadership?

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah. So I. Started my career in Sydney in the advertising industry. So I started working, came out of university, studied business, started working in the bigger agencies, kind of your Ogilvy, MNC, Saatchi, Mad Men era. Of advertising. I did that for a little while and worked my way out a little bit there. And then in 2012, I went to New York on my own, didn't know anyone, but just chasing that kind of sex in the city meets Seinfeld meets mad men dream. And ended up landing a job at a boutique agency in downtown, Soho. And that agency focused on. Luxury fashion and lifestyle, travel, hospitality. So that ended up just being a really incredible experience. I worked there for about six years in the end, kind of in and out a couple of times, but around six years, and then ended up at the New York times and then went to art net into the art world after that, and then it's come full circle almost 13 years later back to Australia into Melbourne, where I have my executive coaching leadership consultancy.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, nice, and how were you received into the American market? What was your first impression there?

Alanna Lynch:

Oh, in 2012?

Chris Hudson:

Yeah.

Alanna Lynch:

Oh, great question. I think that was a little bit of a stark and true for me. I was really young. That was the other thing. I was really young at the time. As I said, I didn't know anyone. And so I think I had all my Australianisms, I think, about me, even just in the way that I dress, the way that I presented myself. And so I think you adjust to that New York life and style pretty quickly.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's different, different thing. And I think particularly if you're, you're fairly young, you're changing cultures and you're working in a new city. There's a lot about yourself that you almost have the courage to, to be able to do that and to kind of make it your own. Did you feel like you were bringing, yeah, you're probably bringing a lot of yourself over, from what you knew, but then you find yourself having to adapt a fair bit as well. Is that fair to assume?

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah, definitely. I think, I would go so far as to say it went past an adaption and into a reinvention almost. I think. Oh yeah.

Chris Hudson:

Okay.

Alanna Lynch:

You know, New York is that city that, it's a little bit of a trope, but everyone goes there to reinvent themselves in a way. And I think I was really attracted to that part of it, actually, that you've grown up in Sydney and you've got all your people around you and you're able to arrive in this city and almost no one knows who you are. And that's petrifying, but also incredibly freeing because you can start to rebuild the person that you really want to be at that stage. In your life, no one knows all your embarrassing stories from high school. No one knows that I forced myself to get a senior account executive promotion. You know what I mean? It's like all the embarrassing stuff you do. No one knows that. So you can just start again. It's great.

Chris Hudson:

You forced yourself. What do you mean by that? With the promotion?

Alanna Lynch:

No, this is just a slightly funny story. But when I was at I was talking about some people that I worked with at that time recently, actually. When I was at Ogilvy. You know, we were babies, little account executives, but we were all so hungry and determined and like career focused and we're going to all the events and reading all the books and doing all the things. And I just thought I was doing a great job. I wanted to get promoted to an account manager and I had like no experience and I remember my boss. Said, she's like, no, you're not getting promoted to an account manager, you have years before. And I was like, and I kept at it and I kept at it. And so just to keep me happy and probably shut me out, they gave me a promotion to it, a senior account executive, which was like this fake made up role that no one else in the agency had. And I was like, I'm a senior account, anyway, it became this running joke still to this day that anyone who worked there at that time, it was like, she was a senior account executive.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, nice.

Alanna Lynch:

So I didn't have, even though I'm saying it's not on this podcast, no one in New York knew that embarrassing story, so I could just delete that and start again.

Chris Hudson:

Well we could take it out, we could take it out. No, it's, it's fine, I mean, reinvention's an interesting thing, I mean, what, did you feel like before you left you wanted to do that, or did you feel like the environment that you're in, in New York, made it, like, that's just, it's giving me different options, different opportunities. It's taking me down different pathways. How does reinvention start? Oh,

Alanna Lynch:

great. Another great question. I think for me, and this is, yeah, maybe more about my personal, I guess, kind of transformation than work necessarily work side. I guess they're all merged, but yeah. My parents are both Irish, so they're both kind of first generation immigrants, half my side of my family is in Ireland, and so Australia, and I have a very big family, lots of brothers and sisters, they all kind of left and lived overseas. And I think for me, Australia was, it's always home, but I also felt pulled elsewhere, as a little bit of a gypsy mindset at that time. And so I was, I always had this sense that there was this other part of me that needed to be discovered somewhere else.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. And the other external factors or other environments can bring it out in different ways that you wouldn't be able to plan for, in a sense.

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah. Absolutely. And just different experiences and different inspirations and also meeting different people. I think that's a huge part of it, the people that you meet along the way and they end up shaping who you are and, and what your interests are and what you're curious about.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. There's I can't remember. It's conjuring up sort of Disney films or something that there are films whereby I feel like a person's sense of self are examined, right? And it feels like you're able to take forward what you want to take forward, but you can also choose from other options, what your influences are going to be. So you might decide by going to New York that you want to spend your time with completely different people in an art crowd, in a film crowd, whatever it is, music, it doesn't matter. But I feel like. In some cases, we lose our sense of choice and optionality because we're consumed in the work or the job that we're in, and we're letting that define us. Whereas what I'm hearing you say and reading to analyze it a little bit with your story is that at any point we can choose where we go because we can connect with something new, we can broaden our influence we can broaden our exposure to other things that might take us down a new path. And yeah. Travel's obviously a great way of doing that. So, yeah, it sounds like it was very fruitful for you.

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah, and I think the reality is that can happen at home, right, too. I think as Australians, and there's always this yearning to leave and to explore the world, but I think that reinvention can happen at home, too, if you Pull yourself out of your comfort zone and expose yourself to different people and different experiences. It's just harder because you're in your crew and you're in your clique. And so you, if you don't really have the discipline to do it on home turf. It just drops into somewhere where you don't know anyone and you'll be forced to do it anyway.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. They're definitely, I've moved over from the UK, camps a years ago now, and I feel like there are certain things about Australia that are just amazing like the way things are, but a lot of people want to preserve that obviously for how it is. And so the kind of itch that needs to be scratched for a lot of people, maybe. Isn't there, you know, people just quite happy with life in the way that it is you seeing that now coming back,

Alanna Lynch:

I have a slightly different perspective on this and this is just reminding me so slight tangent. I just went to South by Southwest in Sydney earlier this year, and I've been to the one in Austin many times and incredible, amazing. Made friends there for life, all the things, my very high expectations. I went there and you could tell the programming was jam packed with all these international speakers. They're like, we've got to get the New York Times bestseller, and we're gonna get this person from the U. K., blah, blah, blah. Because it's Australia's obsession with the rest of the world and having to look outside and all the interesting, inspiring people don't live here. And I was in those sessions and honestly, a lot, not all of them, but they were some of the sessions that I actually walked out of because they were so disconnected to what was happening here. It was so clearly just a New York times bestseller. So let's just get this person here instead of thinking like, is this person actually relevant to the audience? And I actually walked out of that thinking, my God, there are so many interesting, inspiring people in Australia doing incredible things. And I would love to meet them and hear from them, so I know this is somewhat contradictory to me saying I had to leave to meet all these inspiring people.

Chris Hudson:

Oh yeah, that was 2012, different time.

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But now I actually feel like coming back, I feel like there is so much happening here and I'm really curious about covering that on home turf too.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. We came here with a sense of. Excitement for the opportunity as well. And I think if you go into any culture fresh, you're wide eyes, wide open, curiosity without judgment. In some cases you're going to find a lot and you're probably going to break past a lot of the norms and some of the clicky stuff that happens, you can actually find more than you think you will. It's like being a tourist in another country, but you're obviously embracing it, maybe and appreciating it being present, but appreciating it for what it is a little bit.

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah, I think what you just said around curiosity is key. If you bring a curious mindset to anywhere you go, you will be able to have that feeling of feeling inspired and out of your comfort zone if you're curious about meeting different people and having different conversations.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. It's been your approach to almost taking a wrong turn if you've had any wrong turns, but you mentioned senior accounting executive, I'm not going to mention that again, but you know, it's kind of like, just stuck in my mind.

Alanna Lynch:

I

Chris Hudson:

know I was on that career path as well, like starting at an ad agency. I know exactly. Where you are from, joining as an account executive, as an account manager. And I knew that pain because I was waiting for that promotion forever and ever to, but it feels like if you are going in eyes wide open, then you're going to come across something that looks good, but isn't, and you might take a wrong turn or two. So how have you managed to cope through those sorts of situations?

Alanna Lynch:

I think, in the moment I can be pretty hard on myself actually. I'm someone that can often, I'm looking back at past decisions and like they, I'm like, Oh my God, why did I, like, I can really get into that headspace of not trusting my previous self. But I generally find that with time, when I'm looking back on them, if I give it enough space, there's always lessons there, and just trying to think about any kind of mistakes or wrong turns as what did it teach me, what lesson did I pull from that, and I think It's really easy to say that it's really hard to do in the moment. And for me personally, I need a little bit of space between the decision and getting to that reflection, but I have found if I, you know, beat myself up a little bit, I can get past it and then find the insight, find the nugget.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. We see, the benefit of hindsight. How do you, flipping it the other way, how do you plan for things? Do you find that you base that on decisions that you've made in the past? Or do you just look for ideas here and there, or is it a similar thing? You want to take your learnings forward or are you just kind of keeping your curious mind alive by doing various things?

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah, I think a little bit of both, I would say. I am someone who I'm very curious about the world and what's going on and all the different aspects of it. And I'm someone that likes to have multiple things going on at once, like multiple projects happening at once. So I can be a little bit impulsive in setting up, okay, let's run with this idea. Let's run with this idea. It can be a little bit of an impulsive at the beginning. But I also can shut things down when I know. They're not working. So it's a little bit of like fail, fast, fail, often approach I take. So I'm not someone who overthinks things and makes sure they're 100 percent perfect before I launch it. I'm like, okay, it feels like a good idea, like do it. But if it's not working in three months, I'll kill it and move on. And then some of them kind of break, break through.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Okay. What's an example of something that you dropped after three months or however long that you thought wasn't working? So many. Go

Alanna Lynch:

into my Google Drive and like, So many business plans. I've spoken to my therapist about this because I have started so many businesses with friends, but halfway through I'm like, we're not doing this anymore since they're like, Oh, okay. So, but I've also, again, with time you come to appreciate the beauty in that, which is more of an entrepreneurial mindset as a drive, as an ambition there. And it's, I think everyone has to, you know, you've got to understand where your strengths are, but also understand your weaknesses. Like, there's that great quote about confident humility and it's like, you've got to be, be confident enough in your strengths that you're able to be clear about what your weaknesses are.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. So in terms of wrong terms, I mean, we see there are a few that come up, but there must've been plenty that, if you think about the ones that didn't get born into the world, in some sort of way, um, you have any examples of that and what springs to mind in terms of what you've left behind and decisioning around the things that you have continued with.

Alanna Lynch:

Mm hmm. So, left many examples behind of different ideas that I wanted to pick up. I think for me, I can be a little impulsive in my decision making and in when I first kind of have an idea and want to get it off the ground. But I've. Come to recognize the strength in that and being around the drive and the ambition and the entrepreneurial mindset. And I think, with time, I've just also come to realize that, okay, you can overplay like any of us can overplay our hand, right? Like you can overplay. So if you know you have a strength in being more entrepreneurial, you can overplay that, which is having multiple ideas all the time and filling the space too much that you don't give the time and energy for the right ones to kind of work, work through. So for me, I think it was just time to recognize the pattern when you do it once. Okay. You do it twice. Maybe you just think you're a genius and have all these great ideas when you're doing it three, four times. Okay. It's starting to be. A pattern. And so for me, I just try to, let those ideas come out, let them be a little bit fluid, but also, pressure testing them a little bit and getting them out, even if it means putting something out there publicly to see the reaction and if it's not working bring it back in quickly.

Chris Hudson:

Hmm. Yeah. And there was a quote that you mentioned just before the recording. Did you want to mention that?

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah. Yeah. There's a really great quote. There's this idea of confident humility, and this is a concept that has been made very popular by Adam Grant, who's also a very famous organizational psychologist, one professor I'm sure you're familiar, and he talks about, Confidence without humility breeds blind arrogance and humility without confidence yields debilitating doubt. So it's this idea of just be secure enough in your strengths that you're willing to be open about your weaknesses and uncertainties.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. That's really good. That's really helpful. There's a feeling of overwhelm when there are a lot of ideas in anyone's head. But anyone on this show, if you're an inrapreneur, if you're just always full of ideas that if you don't turn them into the idea through to like the biggest, best possible thing that it could ever be, And you almost feel disappointed if the idea doesn't get to that point, but the thing with ideas is that obviously they require nurturing and they have to be right. They have to be received by the outside world in a way in which they would obviously appreciate, it has to be designed for other people rather than for you who thought of the idea in a lot of cases. So I think you're testing and even if you just put the feelers out, you kind of put a few posts in here and there, this, these days are a lot of practical ways in which you could quite quickly determine whether your idea was a stinker or whether it was something that you could take to become the next big thing. So I don't know maybe it feels easier than it once did where so much onus was placed on just one idea and landing that in one hit with a silver bullet. And now it feels like you've got all the social media channels, you can have chats with anyone you want. You can have a coffee with anyone you want. I could meet up if I had an idea about whatever it was, electric vehicles or something in banking, I could just get in touch with somebody and validate that. But just see whether it. Warrants the next step. So I think that expression, it feels like it's part of the therapy in itself because you get the idea out. You just see what comes back. Is that how you approach it?

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah. I think the point you made around the accessibility of the world that we live on, live in is. Is crucial, right? Because I guess it all comes down to your risk tolerance and also, yeah, what do you have to lose? Depending on what the idea is. If you're starting an electric car business, that might be pretty high risk investment that if it's something smaller, someone has an idea, I don't know, to start a newsletter or to start a podcast or different ideas that they have. I think we can overthink them sometimes. And I heard someone say something the other week on a podcast, which I thought was such a funny way to talk about it, but so true that, we have become knowledge obese, which I was like, yeah, I get what he's saying. That we're vultures for information. Now we're reading all the books and we're listening to all the podcasts and we're doing all the things. And we have all these ideas, but actually you just need to get out there and start by starting and you just need to, if you want to do a newsletter, you just have to do it. If you want to do the podcast, no, someone can listen to 500 of your podcasts, but until they actually do their own and test it. You know, and you don't know if it's going to work or not.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, definitely. I Knowledge, obesity, these are great concepts. Feels like there's content obesity, which is that there's too much stuff in the world, but you or I can decide what we want to consume. Right. So it doesn't really matter. The supermarket is still full of food. Doesn't mean you have to buy everything. You know, it's like you can be quite selective about it, but until you, the creator has put something out there, you don't know whether it's going to work or not, but you can try. I want to go back to maybe some of the stories of you climbing the ladder if we can. Mm hmm. And, you know, there were a couple of things. Probably came up and I just wanted to explore this a bit with you, which is around the relationship as an aspiring leader to then what happened when you became a leader, because obviously at one point, you'll learn, learn, learn, eyes wide open, as you were saying, like, you're just going straight up. The target, which is the promotion or whatever it is you're aiming for. And then all of a sudden you get there and you've arrived you've got the badge and the gun and like, how do you feel, and then things around you, this is my experience within an intrapreneur's role as well, is that things kind of change and they feel a bit different. What was your experience with that?

Alanna Lynch:

So many stories.

Chris Hudson:

I

Alanna Lynch:

I feel like my career started to feel like a Taylor Swift concert to me because it's like all these different

Chris Hudson:

eras,

Alanna Lynch:

all the different eras, and they all are very different and very unique. And obviously, you're a different talk about reinvention and adaptability. I feel like I have almost been a completely different leader in each of those. Situations too, as I evolved, but I guess one of the, yeah, we'll start kind of at the first era, which was my chandelier creative era, which is the agency I mentioned in downtown New York.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah.

Alanna Lynch:

I, the kind of, I guess, big overarching question that came out of that and I guess big challenge that I navigated during that time was, this idea of can we be friends with our colleagues when we're the boss? When you're suddenly the leader. And as I said, when I got to New York, I didn't know anyone. So I made a lot of friends through work, obviously other ones too, thankfully, but a lot of my social circles were through my career and my network. And so when you arrive in New York when you're a 20 something, I don't know, what's 23, 24 or whatever, and you know, you're doing all the things, you're partying, you're hanging out, you're going on your weekends away, you're having the friendships that you're making at that time, I don't think I ever considered at that time where I was hanging out with all these people that I would ever be their boss, and maybe if I was aware of that, maybe I would have acted but I worked at this agency for about four years, I left, I went back to Australia. I thought that was an amazing experience, but I need to go back to Australia and like eat a salad. And New York was fun, but that was that chapter close, sent all my stuff back from New York. And I remember I was in Sydney, I remember so clearly sitting on the beach and the owner of the company. That I worked for called me and said, would you consider coming back and stepping in as the managing director of this agency? We'll fly you back. We'll send your stuff back was, we'll give you X, Y, Z very appealing. And obviously for me, this was, Oh my God, this was, you know, I thought New York was going to be this chapter and I would move into a leadership role when I got back to Australia, but suddenly this was, okay, this is going to be my first serious, serious job in New York, so I went back of course. Yeah, I was super excited, but I was a little bit nervous because I was like, Oh, God, hang on a second, all those people that I've been clubbing with for the last several years, okay, shit, I'm now gonna be their boss. I was like, Oh, my God. And I started to, I was excited, but I was also spiraling a little bit about that. I was like, you know what, these are my friends, this is gonna be okay. And these people have been to their weddings and they've made all the things. I arrived back to very mixed reception. There was obviously some people that were super happy to be back. Some of the people that I was closest to in that earlier chapter were probably the most icy is probably a good word, these are my friends now, so I can say that, but, yeah, it was a little icy and I get it, they were like, well, hang on a second, why is the Aussie girl, who's like younger than most of us, suddenly the vast, you know what I mean, they were a bit like, what's happening, and so, I didn't know what to do because I just didn't have the skills at that time of how to set boundaries. Like, how can you be friends with people at work with boundaries? And I just, yeah, I didn't have the skills. I didn't have the kind of self awareness. And so. I think it was the middle of the week, Wednesday night, maybe, and I'd had a few days of this just being wildly uncomfortable in the office. And so I went home, I I can laugh about it now. I know this sounds petty, but at that time, this was a big deal. I opened up my Instagram and I blocked every single person at the company, not just unfollowed, blocked them, my boss, but also down to the interns. And also these are like all my friends. And I just came back into work the next day and I just decided, like, I'm the boss now, so I'm gonna act like what I think at that time, which is crazy now to think, what I think that the boss needs to be, which is someone who you need to establish authority and there needs to be a separation of church and state and you can't be friends with them, you can't be going out with them you're the boss. And so I created this very clear separation and I don't think I need to explain to anyone that, like, that didn't go very well. Everyone was really annoyed and it just made the next few years incredibly difficult for me. And I'm someone who leads with more influence. I'm really good at building relationships. I had a lot of relationship capital that I had built off of that company. And I destroyed it overnight, instead of leaning into that, I pulled this big, separation, between us. There's people in that group that after I kind of later tried to get everyone back after I left, some people just left me on read for years. And it wasn't until you know, five years later they were like, okay, you can come back now. But there was some lessons there that I'm happy to kind of talk through that with hindsight, I started to realize, okay, there is a way to do this. Do this without deleting everyone and putting yourself in a corner.

Chris Hudson:

Wow. That whole story is incredible, but it just feels like from the moment that you were comfortable eating a salad in Sydney to reboarding the plane with all your stuff and then, and then probably a little bit like you did in the beginning in New York, that's a big step in reinvention in itself, you're thinking about who am I going to turn up to at work as today, which of the eras in Taylor Swift am I going to be choosing or is it Lady Gaga, you know, it's kind of like a different thing, but yeah, that's a hard lesson. It sounds like anyway, it must be really difficult, but along the lines of what we were saying before, which is that you put something out and you get feedback in that moment, and it's good or bad, you might expect it, it might be unexpected, but it feels like you can still do that. It sounded like you did it in a pretty extreme way, if I could say that.

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah, no, it was a terrible decision and I know I'm saying this because I hope no one will repeat it, because I just had a really big misunderstanding about relationships at work at that time. And I think you watch all the movies and you think that it's got to be the boss and everyone else. And that's obviously not how it works. And I have since looked into this quite a lot because when I've written a newsletter about it, I got really into this topic of can people be friends? And I came across this research, which was by Gallup, which was amazing that said Employees who agreed with the statement I have a best friend at work are more likely to stay in their job. And not only are they more likely to stay, if the company's more likely to be better business outcomes for the company, they're likely to be more profitable. Safety records are better. I inventory control is better. The more best friends at work, the more successful the company becomes. And I think, companies are aware of this, this is why it's The pizza parties and all the money that's brought into us trying to engage with each other. But I think all that happens at kind of the more junior mid tier level. And so it's like, the companies are encouraging us all to be friends. We know it's a good thing, but then what happens when you're suddenly. you suddenly the boss? like how did someone make that transition?

Chris Hudson:

I mean, there's a lot that's been written about leadership and the fact that nobody has really taught how to do it, and all of a sudden you are a leader. The promotions happen in a string over a few years and you'll probably get up in that position. That feels different to being a leader. You know, subject matter expert in some sort of way, but basically you're learning as much as you can, you're on a learning path basically. And then all of a sudden you become a leader and a leader it isn't really joined to the end result of learning path because being the best account manager or being the best data analyst or whatever field designer doesn't matter. But that's taking you somewhere, but at no point is that saying the end of that path is going to be leadership. So you know, when and how should people be introducing leadership into the agenda and what do you think would be a better way of doing it?

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah, because it's a completely different set of skills too, right? Like all the things that you learn along the way, it's yeah, they're more of the technical. And then actually the skills that you really need from a leadership perspective is a lot of it is, does come down to kind of relationship building and trust building and, and consensus building and things like that. And they don't necessarily require, that level of expertise that you, as you say, that you've learned along that kind of very linear path. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Not everyone's suited to leadership. I don't think that's the other thing and people might not think it's okay to say that in a work environment, but if you're expected to be a manager of 10 people all of a sudden, then maybe I don't want to do that. Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. I think there's. There's obviously a lot from your own personal story that you've learned from, and that's presumably led you to now, the point now where you're able to empower people within organizations, almost take a step back and look back in at the situation, tell them what's going on because you've had this experience in leadership. You can see what the dynamics are and so on. What are some of the questions you find most impactful to ask When you're working with your clients and you're trying to find out, what their potential is or how to unlock their potential, what are some of the questions that you think you would typically ask?

Alanna Lynch:

I like to always start from 40, 000 feet and get an understanding of what their vision is. For the future and what their goals are for the future. And I think, that becomes incredibly important, right? So like, where's this person walking towards in the next kind of two, five years, and obviously that kind of influences, the type of questions that I ask, I think in terms of specific question. I actually have a little question trick for people that I've learned through this process that actually could be helpful for people to just apply in their own work too, in terms of trying to be more coach like in their leadership style, which might seem very simple, but I found it incredibly helpful. I focus on the kind of what, where, how questions. Because those questions are, get people to be more action orientated and more forward thinking about where they're going. I avoid yes or no questions, like always ask an open ended question, right? Never really ask someone if you're trying to get them to work through some sort of, if you're trying to get them to uncover insights or have some sort of revelation, the worst thing you can do is ask them a yes or no question because they're just, can avoid it or it just stops the conversation. So always open ended, and the what, where, how question. It's funny, there's this technique, I can't remember the exact name of it, but it's about the five whys. Yeah. Have you heard of that? Yeah. Like, ask them a why, and then ask them another why, and ask them a why, and then you ask them five whys, you get to the core of like, what's really going on with someone. I find that, I really don't subscribe to that approach. I find the why questions way too overwhelming for people. And borderline accusatory sometimes. Now, it depends on your tone, of course. But if someone is coming to you and saying, this is going on, and you're like, well, why did you do that? Why did you approach it like that? It feels like a little bit of an interrogation. And then the person gets stuck in potentially kind of philosophical reasons or the emotional reasons as to why it happened and a lot of the time it doesn't matter anymore and you just need to focus on kind of moving forward. Obviously they need to have self aware awareness about it and learn from it, but you want them to kind of move forward.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah.

Alanna Lynch:

And so if you can just kind of through what were questions they. Like, okay, well, what happened and how would you do that differently next time? And like, where should we take it from here? Those ones like move forward.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Which can be really constructive. I'm just thinking about several conflict management type situations as well, where you're having to take the heat off the boil. Partly.

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah.

Chris Hudson:

You know, why did you do that? Even what were you thinking? That's a different, that's a different one. That's going to be inflammatory as well. But I like that because the why, you know, everyone still talks about Simon Sinek, why I find you why and everything else, but starting with the big question, obviously is it's like rabbit in the headlights type moment for a lot of people because you can't just jump to that in one baby step. Yeah, it's too much.

Alanna Lynch:

The sign and sending work is amazing, obviously. And great, great for brands and positioning work. I think there is, yes, to find your personal why for sure is helpful when you do that. Vision mapping and goal setting, it's kind of what I was talking about at the beginning, find out where they want to go is important. But I think your everyday conversations with someone in the workplace, if it's too much. It's too overwhelming for people. And that discovery of finding your why I think is, can be quite a personal discovery.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, definitely. And so you start with some open, but easy questions. It sounds like if I can call them that, but something that essentially unblocks, it's a little bit like getting the conversation, you're easing the wheels into motion, because you can get people to open up through that. And I think that even in a workshop scenario, or if you're running a meeting, some of that basic signposting around, why are we all here? And this is what we're going to cover today. And this is what we want to get out of the meeting. Like it's a bit like that sort of thing. It makes people feel comfortable that they know that they're in the right place before you then go deeper into what it is you're going to get out of the exercise. And that may be, there are different ways to bring out. Yeah, probably points of view or thoughts around that could, could contribute to a why type question, but what happens after the opening for you? Do you work with people over weeks, months, years? How does that sort of understanding evolve over time?

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah. So in my executive coaching work, I work with people one on one and also with groups. And when I work with the individuals, I do try and work with people for about three months. In the beginning, and then they can kind of click into every now and then sessions, and I do go through at the beginning, I actually go through some assessments with them around defining personality style, leadership style. And I also do, I'm a big believer in stakeholder interviews. As well, so if I work with someone, I interview as many people as possible, kind of up, down across their org, their cheerleaders, and also the people that can't stand them. And that's really important because it helps to bring a level of self awareness to people to help them uncover some of their strengths and we're talking about confident humility, like you need to have self awareness of what those weaknesses are to be humble about them in the first place. So I do all of that even before I get into kind of the coaching and the questioning with people, that work is really important at the beginning to get into uncovering some of the insights and the self awareness. So by the time I'm working with them, I have a level of understanding as well around where the potential opportunity is. Yeah, because with coaching, it's tricky, right? You're only really responding to what people bring into the room. And so you have to get really good at noticing when people are avoiding lines of questioning. And I have those clients for sure. And like fireworks are going off here and they're trying to distract with funny stories or whatever. And if you have to try and bring them back and if you've done all that pre work, even if you're someone that just works internally and you're coaching someone that reports into you, just having an understanding of what's happening around them and speaking to other people consistently, that kind of 360 approach I think is helpful.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, for sure. For sure. There are different ways to find out. I think I run a lot of design research and you going into a lot of interviews. Not just stakeholder interviews, but where you're talking to end customers or consumers in some sort of way, and you're almost looking for nonverbal cues as much as you are about what is the best way to do this? Because the way in which they would surface the answers to that would be through expressing a point of view about something completely different, but you're the one that's researching and you can pull those insights together to then, build your understanding of what it is they would benefit from in the end. Sure. Yeah. Because you can see that perspective but not everyone has that perspective, obviously. I covered this in a previous podcast you the question as well, which is around how much sort of self evaluation, self awareness, personal critique do you think is healthy?

Alanna Lynch:

Oh, good question. So you think that there could be a tendency to be too self aware.

Chris Hudson:

Well, I'm just wondering if you're always in doubt of yourself it's a bit like, when I think about organizations that I've been in that have been changing all the time, you're like, sometimes I've been in organizations where you turn up for work every day and you don't know what's going to greet you, right? So it might be, it might be what some of what you expect, but it might be completely different. I think it's exciting, but at the same time, it's a bit unnerving. So it's a little bit like that when it comes to self critique and that if you're always questioning yourself and maybe there's a seed of self doubt that would come in quite regularly. Is that healthy or do you think it needs to be tempered in some sort of way?

Alanna Lynch:

It's so interesting because when you say, self awareness to me builds confidence. So I don't see self awareness as something that would increase the inner critic. I actually think it builds confidence because I think. The best way you can show confidence is to be clear about and honest and aware of the things that, what you don't know and where your blind spots are. So I think having that kind of self awareness, as long as you, yeah, don't get stuck in the kind of inner critic of beating yourself up about, here's all the things I don't know. But for me, I've always been very curious about that because. Then I'm going to find those people that compliment me, right? Like I know what my strengths are. I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at. And so when I've been building teams, I'm always making sure that I'm finding those people. To be around me. So then you're in little super squad and there is obviously, yes, you're blind spots and you want to develop them and get good at them. But I do think we can place a little bit too much emphasis on that. I think we can place too much emphasis in it's like the performance review and they're like, here's all the things that you need to work on and we're going to. You know, you need to improve on all of these before you get promoted. It's like, okay, but maybe a more effective approach is actually leaning into telling that person, you're also really amazing at these five things. And if you actually lent into all of those and maybe just developed one of these other things, we would be more successful. Hmm.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, I think that's right and fair, self awareness is it's almost like from what you're saying, it's a foundation for them being able to bring in that other expertise and knowing our weaknesses and strengths, because entrepreneurs kind of landscape If you're right, if you're flying up through the ranks, you almost don't want to admit that there's weakness in some cases. So you've got to find a delicate way of handling that that says, I, I'm personally aware of it, but I'm not going to sing from the rooftops about it. I want to appear to be, still one of the team, In the way that I work, you know, I want to have the support of other team members. I want to be still positioned as the leader, but I don't want to admit too much weakness. So is there a way to balance all of that, do you think?

Alanna Lynch:

So I'm only smiling now because I think this is I mean, we're kind of back to the conference humility piece, right, which is interesting because I do think even hearing you talk about it and even me talk about this, you know, I think there's a lot of cultural differences that I have experienced about this idea, whereas I find you and I probably we're taking more of the humble route, you're like, okay, there's a lot of things that you're going into an organization and there's a lot of things that you need to work on. I think, in my experience, and this is maybe a generalization, but just in my experience, I have found that the American leaders, so that kind of American organizational culture, if we're looking at that confident humility, like two sides of a coin, they lean more into the overconfidence space. Right. So like, it's all about, individual. Success there, your kind of career success is all built around your individual resume, your success, your results, your personal brand. And so they lean really into like the confidence piece and maybe lack a bit of the humility. Whereas I find Australians and maybe probably the English a little bit too. I think have a tendency. You know, it's a more egalitarian society. It's more about collective success. And they're leaning more into the humility piece. And they could actually each take a little bit, I think the Australians could be a little bit more like the Americans in that sense when they are a little bit more confident about what they're doing. Because I think if you're too humble, people just won't trust you. It just seems like you don't know what you're doing. And the Americans. Sometimes could use some humility, obviously, like it goes both ways but I've really noticed that coming back because I feel like that's something I really had to develop in myself over there, a confidence about talking about, I would always be like, that's the team and dah, dah, dah. It's like, okay, yes, but it's also you and you need to be able to talk about that and then coming back, even just, I don't know, being on social media and now seeing all these different coaches and professionals selling their services here and it's very much through the lens of I made this mistake and it's all like I've learned from my mistakes, which is good.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, sit with the problem for a while and just reflect. It's a bit of navel gazing, but it's a humble,

Alanna Lynch:

Humble brag a little bit.

Chris Hudson:

Humble brag, yeah, but it's more of a moan than a brag. I don't know.

Alanna Lynch:

But I think it could be too much sometimes, right, where it's like it's almost too humble, like, you know, oh God, you know, yeah, I made this huge mistake or everything fell apart and it's like, I get what they're doing. And I just, you're trying to come from a place of humility and show how you rose out of that. But I think sometimes it can just seem like you don't know what you're doing.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. It's interesting. And you need a little bit of,

Alanna Lynch:

a little bit of both.

Chris Hudson:

You do. And, and I think in most, like even in Australia or in the UK, you'll find that there is a mixture of both in most organizations and you've got this notion of conventional traditional leadership where it is portrayed as confident people doing what they feel confident about, there's a bit of swagger about it. They're just swanning up and down the corridors, cup of coffee, whatever it is, there's a way of doing that. And I suppose, because I'm probably like you're quite right in pointing out more from a humble leadership point of view. Growing up, I always found that incredibly intimidating and I think the question around male leadership in particular and alpha leadership is interesting we need a bit of that confidence for people to feel confident in that leader, but how much is too much and how humble should those people be at the same time? And I think finding your right footing in either of those camps is really hard and it's probably down to a particular situation. You can't just be all or nothing.

Alanna Lynch:

Yeah, those really confident kind of alpha male type leaders that you're talking about. And obviously that can be women as well. But anyone who leads into that dominant leadership style, you need those in organizations. And there's a reason that CEOs skew into a dominant leadership style, because you need someone who does drive forward, who's obsessed about the outcomes, obsessed about the results, who overthink things. You need that person but also it needs to be balanced with all the other different styles that are more around influence and consensus building and other people that are thinking about being more steady and cautious and looking through scenario planning and making sure that this is all going to work. And any of those people can be really incredible leaders but all of those people need a little bit of all the different styles. It's like not one single style, leaning into just one single style does not make you a great leader. I actually think it's your ability to adapt across the styles that ends up, being more effective.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. So running through that feels like self awareness first, and then empathy, it sounds like would be the killer weapon there because you're able to understand what other people are motivated by and you can place yourself within that mix. Maybe we'll just end with a, like a final biggest question points into the future, but a lot of an entrepreneur is going to be listening to the show wondering where to go and what advice would you give to aspiring leaders or entrepreneurs that are looking to facilitate change in some sort of way or drive growth for themselves or for their organizations, it can be in looking to more confidence or more humility or any other things. What advice would you give?

Alanna Lynch:

I think from a leadership perspective. The most important thing for any leader at any stage is to build trust, build trust within your organization, in you as a person and your leadership and I think if I can just talk very quickly about how I look at that, cause I think it will be helpful. There is a great book called the speed of trust. It's very, I've read that, it's very, it's really old school. It hasn't aged well. I don't recommend reading it, but I just want to say that this is, this concept is from that book. And so like, I didn't acknowledge the author, Steven McCoy, he talks about trust being two sides of a coin and it is competence and character and that you need to have both of those things for people to trust you. So the competence piece is people need to trust that you know what you're doing, right? So you need to be able to identify what your strengths are and find moments to lean into those strengths as regularly as possible and as publicly as possible. I think that's important, so, if you're really good at the communication piece, then find moments to be able to writing some of the company communications, or put your hand up to kind of speak at an all company meeting, like find moments to lean into those strengths, because if people see you as more competent than they're going to trust you more. However, the other side of that is the character piece. So you can be the most incredible person at your craft, but if you don't follow through on what you say you're going to do, if you're not consistent, if you're talking shit about people, all the things, it's going to reflect poorly on your character and people aren't going to trust you. And I think obviously leadership is a huge topic, but in many ways, all roads lead back to trust because what you're doing is trying to guide people through the unknown and get them, convince them to follow you into the unknown and convince them to drive change with you. And no one's going to follow you into the unknown if they don't trust you. So I think working on those two things would be the most important advice I would give anyone.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. That's really helpful advice. But you say, don't read the book. Just take that advice.

Alanna Lynch:

It's so old school at this point. I just, it's like Hewlett Packard. And I'm like, Oh my God. Yeah. It's about Hewlett Packard and it's like, who? So yeah, I think there's more modern voices on leadership at this point. Oh, awesome. Thanks. Thanks

Chris Hudson:

for unearthing it and bringing it, bringing it to the podcast and, you know, giving it new lease of life. Anyway. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, really, really cool and I love the chat today. And how can people get in touch with you if they wanna say hi or, or ask you a question? Yeah. Or get executive leadership coaching in some sort of way.

Alanna Lynch:

Love it. I do have a website, that is. Melior-futuri.Com, so M E L I O R dash F U T U R I com I also have a sub stack where I have a bunch of newsletters that I put out and that's about to be kind of ever expanding. So that's Melior Musings on sub stacks. You can find me there and my Melior Futuri Instagram.

Chris Hudson:

Awesome. All right. Thanks. We'll leave it there. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'll put it in the show notes and yeah, we'll say goodbye there. Thank you.

Alanna Lynch:

Thank you so much.