The Red Review - Leadership, Growth & the Human Factor in B2B/B2G with Barbra Carlisle
In this episode, Jeremy is joined by the brilliant Barbra Carlisle, founder of Glee Coaching, to explore what modern leadership development really looks like—especially for those growing B2B and B2G businesses.
We dive into:
✅ Why traditional leadership routes don’t fit everyone
✅ The power of coaching, accountability, and emotional intelligence
✅ How to build a leadership culture that drives business growth
✅ The impact of AI on leadership, communication, and talent
✅ Why structured learning alone isn’t enough—and what to do instead
Whether you're a CEO, rising star, or someone navigating leadership in a complex business environment, this conversation is packed with insights, stories, and practical takeaways.
Find Barbra Carlisle on LinkedIn - Barbra Carlisle
Transcript
[00:00.4]
I'm Jeremy Brim and welcome to the Red Review Podcast brought to you today by Growth Ignition, the Transformation Consulting and Enabling Tech Business. All in the work winning space and the Bid Toolkit, our, online bid process and guide. So welcome to the Red Review Podcast with me, Jeremy Brim.
[00:20.9]
We've got some episodes coming thick and fast, actually. Some recording going on, during September and into October, but one I've been really excited about and a topic I've wanted to cover for a little while is leadership. Leadership development generally, but also particularly when it comes to growing businesses.
[00:39.0]
And so I'm joined by my friend Barbara Carlisle. Hi Barbara. Hi, Jeremy. Thanks for having me. No problem at all. It's great to have you on board. So, we have just had probably the most expansive prep chat for this podcast and we've been chatting along for half an hour just catching up and talking about this stuff.
[00:56.8]
We probably should have recorded that. We had a good chat. But if. Barbara, let's get into it. So if you wouldn't mind just giving me a bit of a introduction, bit of your background and what you get up to these days and then we'll, we'll go from there. Yeah, sure. So, yeah, Barbara, Carile and I have a business called Glee Coaching and I provide training and coaching to, people who want to be the best.
[01:21.3]
And in particular I work with new leaders who perhaps haven't gone through the traditional leadership development career path, but who really want to know more about themselves as well as supporting others to grow.
[01:36.4]
And when I look back on my career, just as a bit of context, I started out in the social policy field doing strategy and then I moved into construction and design and engineering where. I'm not sure if we're going to talk about this, but when we used to work together, I got the job originally because of the sort of strategic insight, horizon scanning, helping the business identify, new waves of potential areas of interest for clients.
[02:06.1]
But because my values and my passion lies with sort of helping people feel empowered. I had the opportunity to grow whilst I was at that organisation and ended up working on the equality, diversity and inclusion and social value.
[02:22.1]
So very much around, helping people to understand the value of inclusion and sort of cognitive diversity and the value of that and then transition now into more coaching, executive and leadership development coaching, which I absolutely love.
[02:38.9]
So I will stop, otherwise I will waffle on for the full day. That's really exciting. And I watch your LinkedIn with great, interest, really really interesting content. I did see actually you, I think you've done a LinkedIn newsletter or email today.
[02:54.9]
I was saying to my miss I needed to catch up on and so yeah just in terms of our crossover. So Barbara and I used to work together at a company called E.C. harris 15 years ago or something. Which for context we were just saying in our sort of preamble chat that it was a really high performing business and a really well structured and run organisation.
[03:19.0]
You know in hindsight I've got lots of friends who were partners at EC Harris as does Barbara and still friends today or who are still in Arcadis that the business was sold to. You know the business had something like 30 people who all could have been chief exec of a large organisation.
[03:35.6]
And lots of fantastic talent and personal brands. The mark farmers of the world who have structured, you know really influenced government on their approach to housing. Matt Bennion who now leads Reds 10, probably the most exciting construction business in the country. And so we were really lucky to kind of grow up in that, in that business at that time with some really fantastic people.
[03:58.2]
But as you say their view of, or their outlook in terms of markets and sectors they were really outward facing sector and client focused which was fantastic for me. But also their approach to leadership and vision and strategy was second to none.
[04:16.3]
And to be honest with you my, some of my friends take the mickey out of me but I'm still flogging that stuff to clients today. It was a great education. Jeremy. Sorry, it reminds me of when because I joined the day E.C. harris merged with Arcadis, 2nd of November 2011.
[04:36.0]
And the first thing I was tasked to do was to work with the new organisation to assess their understanding of what a built asset consultancy was. Because the thing, one of the things, and I'm sure there are many I wasn't involved in the negotiations but one of the things that attracted arcade is to E.C.
[04:53.9]
harris was it built asset consultancy philosophy and methodology. And so my task as the soft in the strategic strategy and transformation team at that time was to go and explore what does a built asset consultancy mean.
[05:09.0]
And it was really quite it was a good introduction to me for the business I was new but also to really understand that what Easy Harris had, that knowledge of what a built asset consultancy was, wasn't existing in Arcadis at that time. So that there was a, you know, a real need for transformation of mindset of the leaders to help them buy in to what the value of E.C.
[05:32.2]
harris's offer was. Which is just an interesting observation because now I think it does see itself without even questioning that it is a built asset consultancy and has gone on from, you know, strength to strength. It's been a bit bumpy of late with market stuff but the business has obviously really surged on.
[05:54.0]
So I guess what's different? What, what's leadership, development about these days in 2025, Barbara? So we had that. Great then. But I guess what, what's the modern equivalent of what leadership development is about these days? What are you getting up to with your, your clients?
[06:12.1]
For me, the clients that I work with want bespoke leadership development. They want whoever's working with them to really understand what their values are and what their motivations are. And often they, that don't know what they really want, they just know they need to change.
[06:33.1]
Or they need the organisation to change or they need managers to change or they need certain leaders to change. So they're quite open to ideas and I think it's the skill of the learning and development partner or the coach or mentor to really help them push the thinking around.
[06:50.0]
Well, why do I need to invest in this? What is it, what is it that I'm really going to get out of it? You know it's like I might on a one to one, you know, I work with people and they go I might do an mba. So what, what, what's the value of doing an mba? Oh, because my dad said I should and you know we're talking about like people in leadership roles here and then you talking about your dad before as well.
[07:12.0]
But there's still a massive influence that, that the people outside who can help me think. So you. But then also they can help you not think. If somebody said you admire says or do an mba, you might not think of the reason why, you might just think yeah, the kudos, the value.
[07:27.1]
But if actually the work that I do, we work with leaders to say, well what is it that you're really good at, what is it you want to be good at and what are your values and what are your strengths? So I'm seeing a lot more around like let's work out what our leaders strengths are and let's play to them.
[07:44.3]
People don't mind face to face. People don't mind, online I'm not seeing a lot of people wanting to do self directed learning unless there's a real motivation and there's a brilliant cohort of people with them along on that journey. So they feel that there's a community helping them get through online learning.
[08:02.9]
Yeah, that's interesting. We see the same thing in the training, capability development stuff that we do post Pandemic. It's kind of snapped back to in person and a bit online. The video based stuff has to be part of a mixed economy of touch points.
[08:21.3]
Can't just be on its own and certainly have a community behind it. Like you say, kind of sharing and working together on things. But it is interesting that the leadership space because the default answer. So I teach at Cranfield, Cranfield bring me into the business school where they have big corporate clients like the big defence primes for instance.
[08:44.5]
One of them in particular they fly in their sort of rising stars cohorts from their commercial function from all around the people from Australia and all sorts for a whole week and they do it twice a year. And I teach half a day's worth of stuff on value propositions as part of a wider.
[09:01.1]
Like the whole week is a big scenario based exercise basically on how they're going to win a deal with a made up government for a warship or something. And it's a, it's been a really interesting experience working with Cranfield over the last four years or so because they and the others, Warwick and the rest of them tend to be the default answer in leadership.
[09:24.2]
And for an individual that MBA kind of route is kind of a bit of a default answer like you say, when actually very often we were talking off camera about my funnel stuff and how nobody really teaches that and there aren't a single set of systems end to end through a whole funnel.
[09:42.6]
And obviously you've learned to understand funnels to scale your consulting business. And I've done loads of stuff on YouTube and things about funnels and doubling the margins of B2B B2G businesses. But I, I am feeling a real pull from my clients. I had a meeting with the board of a consulting firm this week.
[10:00.2]
Very nice breakfast they paid for where helped open their eyes to this stuff that A there isn't a single course that could teach you all of this and B it's just structured learning isn't just the right answer on its own. Anyway, you need to figure out how we're going to bake this into the DNA of your leadership and the business as part of a proper transformation.
[10:22.7]
You know, it's a bigger thing. And so it's more for me, you know, for my financial freedom stuff, Destination Freedom, our other business. We know that humans are most influenced by the five people they spend the most time with. And so for me personally in the last decade I've really reflected on that.
[10:43.3]
So I've still got all my old school friends and stuff but I've added into the mix a very successful entrepreneur who sold and exited his big management consulting firm as a mentor. Yeah, I've got a public speaking coach in Colorado that I do a monthly zoom call with who's not just expert in public speaking but also interestingly funnels for little consulting businesses.
[11:08.0]
And she's just a really perceptive person with great emotional intelligence who kind of helps keep me on, on track. And so you've got to build, I think you build a bit of a community. So having someone like you in your life, if you're a chief exec or C suite in a medium to big firm at least, having a barber on your side is a really powerful thing.
[11:31.6]
Because you might need to do some structured learning in particular subjects that you've not studied and winning work and growing businesses is definitely part of that. You can't really go on a university course or just an individual course that does that. So you know, I coach people too in this stuff but how they lead a business, their behaviours, setting a vision and strategy is, is a big deal and I do see a lot of leaders not doing a great job of that.
[11:59.4]
Yeah, yeah. It reminds me of, okay, I mentor on the Help to Grow programme which is a government, yeah 90 funded government programme and they've got the different universities do it and so I can have anybody from any university come to me.
[12:15.7]
They just select me as a mentor but find is that they enjoy the course. Some of them, some of them enjoy the content but it's overwhelming for one because they're doing it as part of their job. And some of them are md, some of them are chief operating officers, some of them are sort of the rising stars who've been given the task of popping along to this course.
[12:37.2]
But what I find, and it might just be because they've been nice to me but they're always like, this is the best part of the course that sitting with me, expressing what they're interested in and you know, some. I was having a call with another mentor this week because I was thinking, am I actually doing the right job here?
[12:53.0]
Because all my mentees talk about personal stuff. It's not a, oh, let's talk about the marketing Strategy, we might touch on it but generally it comes down to relationships, it comes down to confidence, it come down, it comes down to communication, comes down to navigating your way often in the.
[13:13.1]
The people who tend to gravitate towards me as well are those family owned businesses. So either somebody who is a family member and wanting to work effectively with the father for example or it's somebody who's not a family member and having to manage a family member who is a lower grade than them.
[13:29.4]
So there's a lot of like personal dynamics involved. So I think there's a place for all sorts of learning, isn't there? But the other point you make as well, it's got to be built into the DNA. So one of the things that frustrates me with some of the social purpose organisations I work with is they, I'm not going to be doing myself any favours here but sometimes they want the initial engagement and then they want to wait but they're not going to implement it.
[14:00.9]
They just enjoyed the learning, coming together, being able to express themselves. And I said well we need an accountability session. How are we going to, you know, you've got a go around the table. Every leadership training I've ever been on. What's the one action you're taking away? What's the one action you're taking away? So there needs to be built in like peer group learning and probably why people love the Cranfield.
[14:22.5]
Okay. You get the qualification at the end but actually it's that community that you create whilst learning. The peers that you've got. Some of the peers that I have from my early days coaching, my first course was at the University of Cambridge. 50 people from all over the world.
[14:37.7]
I keep in touch with them. We were just whatsapping the other day. They're having a meet up on Tuesday in London and I can't go because I'm busy. So it's those communities and talking about personal stuff within those communities that is part of effective leadership to build your confidence in more ways than one.
[14:54.7]
Yes. So that the help to grow things. Interesting. I'm not quite sure because obviously that was a previous government thing. I'm not sure what labour up to in terms of the next generation of that. I work with the Department for Business and Trade in the Export Academy delivering challenges and webinars and things.
[15:14.6]
And I've been talking to them about it because the bit. One of the other reasons why people on that programme would really value time with you if particularly if their business is B2B, B2G is. A lot of the stuff in the curriculum of Help to grow is very B2C. Yeah.
[15:31.0]
Which is a bit unhelpful. We're not selling iPhones and stuff. We don't have customers. We have clients in B2B. B2G world who are complex groups of people with different wants and. Yeah, dynamics and so, I, I get the same.
[15:47.9]
I get people. I did a webinar actually for the Help to Grow alumni that had a few hundred people on it about bid writing, for instance, and they hadn't had any exposure to that. And they were all just bidding everything with a fairly low win rate and costing their business a fortune and putting loads of heartache into it, when actually we just need to same in wider leadership, really.
[16:09.2]
It's all about focus. If we can get them focused on the right priorities, you know, 20% of the inputs will have 80 of the outcomes. The old Pareto principle. So stop bidding all this stuff and just focus on the ones with the clients that are the right clients that you'll make money with. Where you've got the strongest proposition, best relationships.
[16:27.5]
None of this is rocket science, but it sort of brings us on to that. Nobody teaches you how to win, work and grow a business. It's a bit like how we all learn how to use Excel. You just know, you know, the bits you know and the practise. But so very often people know a bit about bidding and they might go on a bid writing course, but actually it's the stuff way up the funnel, the strategy stuff that they could do with you and others, in where they point the business and place their efforts to put their chips on the board and that has been multiplier outcomes for their business.
[17:01.1]
And if they do some key account management stuff in the middle of the funnel, you know, focus on their top 10 clients, build a one page plan around them, drive a bit of action, accountability calls. They'll smash their numbers to bits. And, this bit at the bottom end of funnel bidding stuff becomes so, so much easier.
[17:18.0]
But almost no one knows that, which is great for me and for you. We can just wander around. People don't know it, but also people's personalities might not be aligned to, you know, sitting and working it out. I mean, I'm the type of person who, like when I first, like I just said to, to you before we started recording, when I first heard of funnels, I was thinking, oh, that's just like jobs worthy.
[17:37.8]
That's like Boring. And I think it's just. Let's just connect and something will come out of it. Because a lot of us, like the shiny and new. We like chasing things. And, you know, it's. It took me a while to realise, actually, am I setting myself up to fail because I'm not sitting with the uncomfortable.
[17:56.8]
You know, you, like, you say, just concentrate on 10 clients, over 10 potential clients, and you do a one page. Oh, that. You know, part of me, I get like, oh, you know, I don't want to do a one page of 10 times. That's, like, just dull. But so it's about understanding.
[18:12.7]
Why would anybody want to sit and actually go through the pain of really sitting and thinking about how you're going to get. Yeah, to build, you know, to build a client. I was the same, I have to say, Barbara. But I. I had a really awkward, call in December.
[18:31.1]
I had a non exec that works with me who was head of the business school at Coventry University. And she said, right, Jessa, what's the plan for 2025? What's your dream list of clients and, you know, your top targets and what's the plan for each of them?
[18:46.3]
Which is exactly what I tell my clients to do. Yeah. And guess. Guess what? I hadn't done any of it. Yeah, I've done it. And the business has grown 22%, much more profitably, through a bit of focus. How did you find that focus?
[19:02.3]
This is the question, isn't it? How do you find the focus? What motivated you to do it? The sheer embarrassment of not having done it. There you go. Motivation. And also, you know, as we sort of spoke about off camera, you know, we've. We've relocated to Leamington Spa.
[19:17.6]
It's a bit of an inflection time in our life for me and my family. My daughter's just started school, so we're into a different sort of rhythm of life. And we knew that was coming. We'd already. I think we'd had our offer accepted on this house back in December. We moved four or five months ago.
[19:34.5]
And so the. The real motivator was I. I knew that we needed to optimise our work life to match and. And enable our personal life that we wanted to lead. Working a bit less, doing some other things, so. And enjoying work as much as possible, working with people that we like.
[19:51.6]
So we only work with people we like that we want to help be successful, which is a joy. But it requires real focus. And dedication to get there. So I knew I'd spent a lot of time and effort doing business development and marketing.
[20:06.7]
Last year that was fairly ineffective, because I wasn't focused. And so I guess the motivator was I knew I needed to. To change, and I'd got upset with the efforts that I'd kind of wasted. And so this year, people will have seen on LinkedIn my marketing efforts gone through the roof.
[20:22.2]
But it's very specific and very targeted to a particular audience. I'm fundamentally talking to 20 companies in everything that I say, the top 20 in that dream list that I'd market, researched and scored to really focus, and it's really driven results.
[20:39.6]
So can I ask as well, whether the personality of the person who suggested, you know, what's your plan, Jeremy? Did that have an influence on your motivation? Because that would influence me how much I liked that person, how much I knew them, how much I trusted them.
[20:55.2]
And. And it's, you know, you don't want to let yourself down. But there's almost that motivation to, you know, to meet the challenge that they've set because you like them and respect them. That. It was the respect thing. Yeah. So they've become a really good friend. They've moved on, actually.
[21:11.4]
They've got a job with one of my clients, so we actually work together a bit, now, which is lovely. So, they are. The reason why I asked for their help in the first place was that I needed. I didn't need teaching anything. I needed the accountability bit. Coming back to your key point earlier on, and so it was actually an accountability call where she raised the point again.
[21:32.9]
She'd raised it with me previously, but softer. And this time, because it was very clear that I needed to tackle that issue, she was much more robust. So I. I didn't want to let her down. I didn't want to get onto an accountability call in the January because it's a monthly thing, and so I haven't done it.
[21:49.1]
And I do get that with that Rebecca, the lady in Colorado public speaking coach, she. We're on a bit of a run of me getting told off because I just haven't had the time to do some of the stuff she's telling me to do. And it's embarrassing. So, yeah, I end up having a little. A little sprint two or three days before I know that call's coming.
[22:06.6]
Oh, bloody hell. At that time, isn't it? Because when people come to me and say, oh, I haven't Done it, I'm like, it's okay for me. It's not going to affect my life. But you decided in a coaching call that you wanted to do it. What stopped you from doing it? And we might unpack that.
[22:22.9]
And I think it's really important to say when you've got like a leadership coach or an executive coach, they don't just sit there and listen. I do a lot of listening but I'm listening to play back to you, what I'm hearing in your body, in your verbal. So it can be quite challenging.
[22:37.9]
And as your relationship matures, you can, you can actually be very direct with. Because sometimes there's a philosophy. Coaching is non directive. Executive coaching in my eyes isn't non directive because you have to have a healthy trust, respect and relationship.
[22:53.7]
And part of having a trust in a healthy relationship is healthy debate and disagreements sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm the same with clients. When I'm doing my C suite stuff on how to grow a, I'm working with a 1.2 billion pound building contractor with their board at the moment on how they grow that business.
[23:12.4]
This and likewise. Yeah, I, I had the MDs in a room a couple of months ago, session before, so four or five months ago now, where they was thinking about their messaging to the market and all this stuff. It wasn't my meeting and I just had to stop the meeting and say guys, I, I really don't care what you think.
[23:31.9]
I care what clients think. It's. You're, you're in an echo chamber. Stop it. Let's go and talk to some clients. Oh bloody. No one's ever thought, you know, if, if you don't challenge people appropriately, sometimes give them a little bit of a jolt, they'll sort of just whimper off, sort of spiral off in their own little echo chamber.
[23:53.5]
I, I really value people like you that can ask the silly question or the difficult question or the appropriate question. It's really important. So for my community that listen to this podcast, the people in the bidding space or the capture space or the cam space, work winning wide, that ability to ask that question in the right way from a basis or a standpoint of homework and you know, understanding and being able to play back to the business, that's one of our superpowers, that empathy and emotional intelligence.
[24:24.2]
To be able to hold the mirror back up to people and say, look, this, is this the problem? Or yeah, yeah, yeah, that sort of thing. It reminds me of like him, you know, the Whole drive towards cognitive diversity. Cognitive diversity doesn't just come in the people who are always sitting in the room.
[24:42.3]
It's those who are invited into the room, like yourself and like me, who almost have a responsibility to challenge back to say, this is what we're seeing, because it'll stop the group thing. I tend to work one to one rather than I do team coaching a little bit, which is a different dynamic.
[25:00.5]
But, you know, the one to one is, you know, you're there as somebody with a different perspective and to help them get different perspectives themselves to help them or not their thinking. Yeah, I think that's, that's really powerful. And particularly we're kind of entering a new era of business and leadership in it.
[25:18.7]
With the onset of AI automation and change, the world's really sprinting. I mean, I had a call with a guy yesterday, a young guy who owns an AI bidding platform. They've got a bit of PE money behind them now. And, I had to sort of fess up.
[25:36.1]
He was looking for my kind of guidance on where they should go with their business in the bidding space. And I had to kind of fess up to him that I'd actually been running away from AI and stuff. I thought I could get enough investments in place that I'd be retired before AI really sort of came for my business. But the real tomorrow then, are you, Jeremy?
[25:53.6]
This is the problem. So I thought I had five years and I don't. If I'm lucky, I've got three. So we've just launched a new business. New street properties are in our property sourcing, flipping, you know, business where we're going to scale a little property empire, appropriately, ethically not going to be slum lords or anything.
[26:14.4]
But the reason why we've really focused and accelerated that is because I realised six months ago I'm not going to be able to outrun AI. So, you know, for leaders, that's quite a daunting thing, isn't it, really understanding how the world's going to change and how we lead groups of people through this, it's fascinating.
[26:32.1]
Exciting time, really. Well, from a leadership perspective, it's, it's a really exciting time. But also if you're a human centric leader, which, you know, you do need to be in 2025, there are real challenges there, because some of the things that have been studied at university, quantity surveying, accountancy, the early careers are not going to be needed because there's AI who can do that.
[26:59.3]
So as a leader who's got compassion and likes people and wants to see growth. You're making really tough decisions now around what jobs, or what job titles are needed in your business. Because there's so much that AI can do, you know, graduates now and the big organisations that I'm aware of are taking a lot lower intake of graduates year on year and they're using AI to weed them out.
[27:27.8]
I mean my son went on an in industrial placement, experience trying to get a job and you know, 250,000 people apply for an industrial placement with some of the big organisations in the construction sector. So you have to adopt AI to weed out people who are perfectly good at doing the job but will never ever get the opportunity.
[27:49.0]
And then when it comes to leadership, what I'm finding is that, with my coaching clients I offer an AI summary. I offer two types of summary. They can have a summary of the session. Speaker 1 said this and Speaker 2 said that. I'll change it to their initials or they can have a reflective session as done by the AI.
[28:05.6]
So it, what it does, it, it plays back to them not only what I've said to them but also what AI has assessed from what they've said, which is quite a, can be really eye opening. The benefits that it has for them is that it gives them a lot of time to reflect but also it helps the relationship, go deeper, faster in my experience.
[28:28.2]
But when you're thinking about like coaching, coaching can be done by AI. So you know, if you're a leader, there are AI coaching tools out there. I would always say, always best to get a real coach because it's the interaction, it's the challenge, it's the in the moment response.
[28:43.5]
But if you want something that you can tap into on a Friday night before you close down for the week, weekend, then AI coaching is there for you. Yeah, it's an interesting time. We've got the same thing in bid writing, training, other forms of training that we do.
[29:01.5]
The inbound leads are definitely dropping for the lower hanging fruit stuff. Because people are using, I think there's an economic thing, but also people are using AI and they think that's the answer and the answers it's giving are better than they were three months ago and they get better and better.
[29:18.7]
Obviously, I would say there's the experience thing, there's the, you know, sort of human factor. There's, for me, there's directing them up the funnel to capture and that space which is where the real value is, how you'll really grow a business anyway. But ultimately, yeah, you know, AI will come for a lot of that, I think for young people and then leadership of groups of people.
[29:39.9]
There is a whole thing about personality, sort of entrepreneurial spirit. Because I coach a, MD of a quite niche project management business, although They've got about 50 people now in London, really cool business. But they put a job ad out for a junior PM and they got 200 applications and 185 had basically said the same cover letter because they'd all use chat gtp.
[30:07.8]
So you naturally then start to look at the 15 and half of those were people from abroad who wouldn't have the. A permit or whatever. But the other ones that had actually put a bit of effort in, you started to reflect on. However, There is an argument that people are having to apply for so many jobs, they're having to use AI, so it sort of swings around about.
[30:29.3]
She's got to be a bit. And then do you use the AI to analyse their CVs, Etc. So that. Yeah, it's, You're gonna end up with the robots talking to robots. So actually I said, I've. I've got a marketing apprentice who works for me who's decided at the end of her apprenticeship she wants to go and do her own thing of my entrepreneur spirit has caught on a bit.
[30:47.7]
She's going to work for me. Charge a double. Yeah. Oh, she is. She's. She's going to work for me two days a week, but she's going to go and find some other clients and she's found an opportunity with a local museum who wants some social media stuff doing two days a week and she's applied for it. I said, go in, go and find the manager and talk to them.
[31:06.6]
Yeah. Because that's what's going to cut through. So for leaders in amongst, it's going to come down to value ultimately that will always win through. What's the most valuable solution to solving this resource problem? Is it AI? Is it people of what flavour and type and a bit of spirit and experience in that.
[31:28.3]
I'm seeing a lot of. Sorry to interrupt. Jeremy again. What I'm seeing a lot of. And it's, you know, you just said it robot to robot will. I do see a lot of people and leaders struggling with communication. You know, you would think how to have a difficult conversation was first time line manager, 101 training, but actually how to communicate effectively at all levels is something that I.
[31:54.6]
I train people on. I coach People on, and I think that the more we do stuff online on our own, the more difficult it is to have to be able to take, and I think I said it before that healthy debate. You know, people take stuff the wrong way. People are much more sort of nervous about saying things that they think might not be, correct.
[32:16.4]
You know, is this an acceptable leadership language in 2025? And I think that's where people's confidence, you know, even senior leaders confidence wanes a little bit because they're not sure how to communicate effectively. Yes. And it's really challenging because, people earlier in their careers, now younger people do communicate differently, in different ways using different platforms.
[32:41.6]
Obviously since the pandemic in particular, we've had the sort of onset of teams, teams, channels, messaging, some people might use WhatsApp as well and all sorts of stuff. So, different. It's really challenging as a leader to cut through all of that and understand for your audience what's the best way to engage them.
[33:01.4]
But ultimately I would say that everyone needs to grow up a bit and put close teams and go and talk to people more. And particularly for us in the business growth space, you know, you will in, you will find yourself trying to open up clients that are cameras off teams calls kind of people at best.
[33:19.7]
Yes. And we've got to find a way through that because the human relationship, yeah, we're getting it in the bidding space now. Clients are cognizant, particularly in the lower maturity staff, quite commoditized services. They're receiving basically identical bids from suppliers, because they're all using chat gtp, which they shouldn't be using a public platform because they should be thinking things through properly for the specification, putting their IP into it, etc.
[33:47.7]
So it's quite a dangerous time in bidding in some ways. But interestingly, the clients are now asking for pre bid engagement meetings, mid bid meetings, more presentations afterwards, or even competitive dialogue so they can meet the humans.
[34:04.1]
I did an article this week or last week on the whole sort of compliance regime that's kind of come down on us in the public sector since the advent of the new Procurement act, clients are much more focused on you, demonstrating you can deliver their specification in the way they want it in great detail.
[34:21.9]
Rather than telling them wonderful things you're going to do, they just want to know you can do that. Yes, so they want a human overlay to that. They need to build the trust and so we will need to lead our people and teach our people how to talk to other humans still, to be honest, whether they like it or not.
[34:39.9]
Because you won't win work and your business will shut if you don't. Yeah, yeah. And I think teaching people that actually the way you want to be communicated with isn't the be all and end all. You have to be curious as to how the other person wants to be communicated with as well. And you know, I work with people on this all the time.
[34:57.7]
You know, people who are, what I would call connectors. People, people, people, persons who want to have to ask how your dog is, wants to want to ask how your child's first day at school's gone. And then the other person is like, not interested. You know, somebody who said to me, oh, it took me, it took me years to really value the ops manager here because I sent them an email of like about 200 words and they just sent me an email saying fine.
[35:24.9]
So I thought they didn't like me. Like, it's not that they don't like, that's just the, where they work. So it isn't just about learning how to communicate. It's being curious as to how can I get the best out of that other person and if I need to flex my communication style, don't need to change. I don't believe people need to change often, but you do need to be flexed and curious as to how you can get the best out of other people.
[35:46.0]
And I think sometimes leaders have their way. You know, I, I was going to say, long gone are the days when people say it's my way or the highway, but I'm actually not sure that's still the. I think people still do think it's my way or the highway. And they're the types of leaders who will not thrive or will not get the business to thrive because people, especially, you know, the younger generation, don't operate in that way.
[36:09.1]
No, it's all about that empathy and emotional intelligence bit. But equally, I would say it's a two way street and the, the young people need to get their head around. They also need to learn how to engage with people appropriately in a work environment. So it's, it's a bit of a two way street.
[36:24.7]
It's difficult. So we've had a good chat. Barbara, I'm conscious of your time. You've got real work and people to talk to. So, we sort of run out of time. Maybe we'll have another chat another time about AI and stuff. But I've really valued that. Thank you. So how can people find you on.
[36:41.0]
On what's the best way? LinkedIn do you think? Yeah, I'm always on LinkedIn Barbara, which is B A R B R A Carlisle rather than Barbara. Blame my mother for that one. And I'm www.gleecoaching.co.uk podcast is called the Unlikely Executive and it's focusing on leaders who've come through non traditional routes often setting up social purpose organisations.
[37:07.4]
So people who've really following the passion with a purpose or purpose with a passion even. And I'm on Instagram as well and Obviously look on my website you can contact me in the Several different ways. Very good. But you're also thinking of despite having tried to run away from construction for a while, you wouldn't mind talking to some builder types or consultant types.
[37:29.4]
Right? Yeah, yeah. I like real people like working with real people who You know have tasks to deliver on a day to day but still need to grow the business in from a people perspective. Yeah, I think that's really valuable that. That sort of next level down.
[37:46.2]
I'm doing a lot of work with consultancies that are about 250. Yeah. And the leadership capability in that they're really crying out for it and know it and positive about it. I think there's a nice period of working with businesses like that and the smaller contractors.
[38:01.5]
I like working with the Davids versus the So. Well best. Very best of luck with it. Yeah. No, really nice. Thanks for inviting me to come along and have a talk with you Jeremy. Really enjoyed it. Thank you. Good stuff. Thanks everyone. Run.
