From Strategy to People Embedding Human Capital in Organizational Growth

Okay, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you for having me.

Right, let's dive straight in and start with strategy. So many companies have incredible strategies on paper, but as we know, execution can fail at the people level. From your experience, what turns a growth strategy into lived behaviors inside the organization?

Organizations spend so much money on these strategy documents and they're often written for analysts or for board members or seuite and they make zero sense to the frontline managers. So if you want a document to be live or a strategy to really live, you need to have three things. You need to have cadence. You need to have consequences and you need to have clarity. And what I mean by that is when we discuss clarity, so what does your branch manager need to do on Monday to make sure that that strategy works?

Um, you know, a good organization will take that strategy and narrow it down into three to five concrete items that they need to move forward for. And the best companies take it even one step further into rop specific tasks that need to be done. In terms of cadence, you know, you often hear that strategies are not a town hall. They're a drone beat. And that's true.

So you can have the best PowerPoint presentation in the world, but if you don't have anyone monitoring it and ensuring that what they've put on paper takes place, then really it's not worth the paper that it's written on or the millions that you've spent actually for that strategy to cut from the big four. So it really is ensuring that boards seuite hold the CEO the managers accountable on a regular basis. So whether that's monthly reviews of the strategy, quarterly reviews or annual reviews and really at each monthly meeting they should be asking the question what have you done in the last 30 days that's actually pushed that strategy forward. So how have you contributed to it? And the third is consequence.

So what happens if you don't do the strategy? So making sure that people are held accountable for their role in implementing it.

Thank you so much. Now let's move from strategy to governance. Human capital is increasingly seen as both a risk and an opportunity at board level.

What do effective boards do differently when they treat talent with the same seriousness as financial oversight?

Yeah. So if we look at the role of HR over the past 10 years, HR was always the back office that did pay rises, told you how much people you needed to cut in order to do your cost optimization program or was there when you wanted to get rid of someone. So, how do we get rid of someone compliantly? In the last five years, we've seen that HR have a more solid seat at the table. TA still has the wooden fold up seat that comes to the table.

Not quite there yet. Um, so when boards want to be effective, they make sure that HR is a standing item on their agenda and not an afterthought. So they make sure that they hold their CEO and their the leaders accountable for succession planning for leaders and that they have the right people in place to ensure that the strategy that they want and the transformation that they want to go through can actually be delivered.

And what about culture? For leaders who want to begin building a culture of trust and adaptability on Monday morning, what one tangible behavior should they role model immediately? So culture is a is a big thing here. Um and you know I was always taught lead by example and you can only really influence the direct circle that you're in and hope that that continues to trickle out. I think if you wanted to be a really good leader and a really good manager, you need to be vulnerable.

Um, we're often taught that when you become a manager, you have to be the know all, that you have to be the one that knows it all. And I remember if I look back at myself in my first managerial job, I was horrible. I genuinely thought that I had to be Miss Noah all in order to be successful. And that was not the case. You have to create an environment where people can be vulnerable.

And you do that by asking your team when it comes to the strategy, this is what we have to do, but what are your thoughts? These are my thoughts, but what are yours? You have to foster an environment that allows people to fail. Um, fail fast, but learn from their failures. Um, and have open and honest conversations.

Because once you allow that environment, then if you're looking at risk situations, you have people having more robust conversations. If you have diverse groups of people talking to each other, then you have different lenses contributing to the conversation. So it really culture starts with you as a leader and being vulnerable as a leader. Making your team understand that you don't know everything and that's okay because the reason why you have a team is so that you can bounce ideas off one another.

So that's what they need to start doing. Learn from my mistakes people.

Yeah.

Do not be a know-it- all.

Quite right. So now let's talk about one of my favorite topics, innovation. How are leading financial institutions building the next wave of skills across their workforce in areas such as data analytics, AI of course and sustainability. So there's probably about three different areas when we come to um you know learning and development. Um keeping in mind that people learn things differently.

So 20 years ago we all had to learn Excel. So, you know, we had a lovehate relationship with Excel, but you had to know Excel to be successful. AI literacy now is mandatory. It's no longer optional. So, if you do not learn the basic literacy when it comes to AI data, you will be left behind.

And and that's the crux of all. And so, what we're seeing financial institutions enable their their team members to do is actually go through those learning j journeys. and and it's peace meal and it's bite-size and it's through different ways because people learn differently. Sometimes it's TED talks, sometimes it's um podcasts, it's you know classroom learning which is going you know becoming a bit archaic but some people still like to learn. You do have a workforce that has different generations inside.

So people learn differently. So enabling organizations and your team members to have different ways to consume that information is is key. Secondly, it's investing disproportionately into those skills that are pivotal for the program success. So if you're going through a transformation and you know that you have to have data cyber security experts, sustainability finance leaders and those are the pivotal roles that you have within your organization, then organizations should be spending disproportionate amounts of money on training and upskilling those skills within the organization because that's what's needed. Um so those are some ideas that organizations are using.

Thank you. So staying with this theme, where have you seen gender diverse teams directly improve decision makings or unlocking innovation for the organization?

So where I've seen um gender diversity impact decision making, it's not only how decisions are made, but it's the way that the decisions are being made as a team. So when you have females involved in um looking at different products that are going out to market, you have a different lens. they they bring to the table um you know women entrepreneurs, mothers returning to work, you know females um with high netw worth individuals. So it's a different lens that you know with all due respect to our counterparts just don't have that knowledge and the same can be said when we talk about other diverse diversity when we're talking about decision- making when you have different generations different nationalities you know different genders in a room stress testing ideas and having um conversations then it may seem more cumbersome when it comes to making a decision but in the long term it's actually more robust because you're looking again as I said earlier at decisions and outcomes with different lenses.

Brilliant. Thank you. Okay. So, let's talk about women's leadership and inclusive governance

for organizations that want to accelerate women's leadership. What single lever tends to create outsized impacts such as sponsorship, succession visibility, board structures or something else?

Yeah. So, we heard mentoring being discussed um earlier and you know I'm a mentor, I'm a mentee and that's fantastic, but if you really want women to get ahead, you need to have a sponsor that's got strategic clout. So, what you need is someone that has that political clout within an organization that will say she is ready for promotion. Give her that extension. Put her on the board.

And someone that really just has a female's back. Um, and doesn't necessarily have to be a male. It can be another female that has political prowess that can support that woman. But it's not a capability issue. You know, in this region, you know, we've seen amazing women on the stage thus far.

There's amazing women coming on the stage thereafter. And it's definitely not a capability issue. It's a visibility issue. And so having someone there that can open the door and then stick their foot in it and make sure that the door stays open is what is needed. So it's someone that has your back.

That's the lever that I will choose.

Yeah.

All right. So to wrap up,

yes,

practical tips. We would like to leave our audience with something and we have a diverse audience which is always great. So

in the next 12 to 18 months, what are three non-negotiables for? First of all, boards.

Okay. So boards need to have HR and talent as a standing item on their agenda. Full stop. So so that should be mandatory and that should be happening today and if it's not get cracking. It it needs to happen moving forward.

Second is insist on having visibility on the succession of your leaders. So boards need to know who is coming up next. So who is going to take over the CEO's role? who is going to be the next CHRO. So they need to have visibility on that succession and they also need to have talent and culture as part of a CEO scorecard.

It is amazing how quickly the tone will change within an organization when the CEO's bonus and KPIs are tied to culture, tied to developing talent internally. So they're not just buying talent from the market. um that tone shifts from the top and then filters down. So, so those are my top three.

Very interesting. All right. And what about three tips for CEOs or expo?

Okay. So, depending on the size of your organization, you really need to outline and understand what are the top 20 30 40 50 critical roles that you have within your organization and make sure that you have the right people in those roles and a succession plan for the people after them. um you need to role model that adaptive leadership that I was talking about. You need to be vulnerable because if you're vulnerable as a leader and you allow that safe space to fall fast um and learn fast, then that kind of filters down through. And then also open up your pockets and fund some learning and development um when it comes to those critical skills um and make sure that everyone in your organization is data literate at least to the basic level.

All right. and of course the brilliant emerging leaders. Okay. So there was a question that was asked to a previous panel member about you know what should she study what should we study and you know in a previous place of employment you had to do 40 hours of learning and that was tied to your KPI. If you did not do 40 hours of learning a year you lost 10% of your bonus.

Now I'm not suggesting that we do that now but what you as an emerging leader you do have to take accountability for your own learning and development. That's on you. um build diverse networks. So come to forums such as this, meet people from different countries, different functional areas, um different nationalities because you're really strong if you have a strong network behind you. And last but not least, lead how you want to be led.

And so you know, you are your own best example. So lead how you are.

Excellent tips for all of us in the room. Thank you so much for being here today.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.