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How to get to the top (and be yourself): Tips from an ex-CEO · Project Podcast

0:08
Welcome to the IPM podcast. APM is the chartered body for
0:11
the project profession. My name is Emma De Vita and I'm
0:14
the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host.
0:18
In this podcast, I speak to Dame Inga Beale, portfolio director
0:23
and former CEO of global insurance giant Lloyds of
0:25
London. He also happened to be a PM's
0:28
keynote speaker at its 2023 Women in Project Management
0:31
conference. Working in the City from the
0:34
1980s, Inga became Lloyd's of London's first ever female CEO
0:38
after an unconventional thoughts of her career.
0:41
She left school at 16 and later dropped out of university and
0:44
for the 1st 12 years of her career had little ambition apart
0:47
from earning a living and having the freedom to pursue her love
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of rowing and rugby. Her advice to project
0:52
professionals is to aim high. Wherever you started your career
0:56
and give time to you, you can do it.
0:59
So how does she make it to the top of UK PLC and what advice
1:02
would she give to those who are looking to get ahead in their
1:05
own project careers? Welcome Inga.
1:11
Thank you for your time today. Really nice to see you again.
1:15
Well, thank you. It's good to be here with you.
1:18
I'm just going to dive in there and ask my first question, which
1:21
would be What's your advice on making the right career
1:25
decisions for people who are looking to get ahead?
1:29
It's all going to be about the individual.
1:31
There is no hard and fast rule, and it will depend a little bit
1:36
on your personality, for a start.
1:38
So I was someone who never planned out my career when I
1:44
started in the world of work, I didn't think when in fact I
1:47
wasn't ambitious at all at the beginning in sport was much more
1:50
important to me. So I didn't sort of after my
1:54
education set out in the world of work, thinking I'm going to
1:57
get to be the CEO of something just sort of happened.
2:00
And I I think the most important thing for me was that I wasn't
2:03
so worried about it because I I had a certain belief that
2:08
opportunities would come along. And that's how I went about
2:12
making my career just opportunities coming and me, I
2:16
suppose saying yes to them, having the courage to say yes.
2:20
But other people need that security of sort of planning
2:24
things out. And I think particularly it
2:27
depends if you've got other people who depend on you, you've
2:31
got dependents you might need to look after, you've got family
2:34
members that influence things. I was a relatively free person
2:39
you like and therefore that enabled me to be, I don't know,
2:43
to go around the world and take different roles on.
2:46
Whereas if you've got certain things that are relatively fit
2:51
and things that you wanted to in your life that are going to
2:54
constrict you in some way, you may need to think a little bit
2:57
more about your career and plan it out.
2:59
And I know people who sit down with their partner, their life
3:03
partner every year and review their plans for the future and
3:07
that means they are into planning mode.
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So some people will need that. But the for me, The thing is
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when you start out on your career you can do all sorts of
3:18
things. It doesn't necessarily influence
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what you're going to end up doing at the sort of when you're
3:23
more senior. So don't be too scared about the
3:26
future and and sort of go with it.
3:28
It'll it'll happen for you if you let it.
3:32
What makes you think, Ohh? That seems like an interesting
3:35
opportunity if you reflect back. Should you take an opportunity
3:39
even though it's the right thing to do, but perhaps you don't
3:43
feel that excited about it? Or should you be guided by a
3:47
sense of Ohh? Yeah, that sounds exciting.
3:50
To me, I'm very led by my gut. So with everything feels good
3:57
and exciting, I go for it. Now the odd time where I have
4:01
not done that, I bounced the role off of a mental of a mentor
4:08
or someone I felt I could trust and speak to, and then they made
4:12
me or gave me insights to look at things in a different way.
4:16
So for instance, once I was offered a role that was very
4:18
much a sideways role, I felt and I had actually wanted the job 1
4:24
notch above. But this mental said, take it.
4:28
It's in May. It's still an amazing
4:29
opportunity. You're going into a new area,
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you're going to have lots of challenges on your hand, lots of
4:35
new things to learn, and life never stays the same.
4:38
Things are always changing. And sure enough, 18 months into
4:41
that role, I then got offered the role of bar and and I got
4:45
that. And that was a great piece of
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advice. And that was not my gut telling
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me that, But usually I go with what feels absolutely right.
4:52
And if I'm still not convinced, I write a list, pros and cons,
4:58
and then I usually score them and maybe ranking them.
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And you know, you can have quite a complex matrix if you want.
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And then when the score comes out and tells you whether you
5:07
should say yes or no and it doesn't feel right, the answer
5:10
that is telling you doesn't feel right, then do the opposite.
5:12
In other words, you kind of use some logic and some support, but
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it's got to come down to how does it make you feel at the end
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of the day. If you're offered an opportunity
5:25
unexpectedly, which can often happen and be a new role or or a
5:30
much bigger project that you might be offered to work on,
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what if your gut instinct is saying, no, this is too big,
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this is too much of A leap, What should you do in that situation?
5:44
Well, the scariest opportunities are usually the ones that you
5:47
should absolutely take. Again, in my experience, the
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scarier the role, the, the bigger it's, the bigger, it
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seemed to me, is sort of way too big for my experience.
5:58
I went and I took it. It turned out to be the best
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thing ever, and that's so often the case.
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If you're a very risk averse person, that can be a really
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tough call to me. I'm going to take that role.
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But really, believe me, the scariest thing is usually the
6:16
best to take. Something I've been reading
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around a lot recently is the idea that you can be very
6:24
effective in your job. You keep your head down, you put
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in the hours, you're very proficient, but you're still not
6:31
being offered the opportunities out there and and I guess the
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missing piece then is that you're just not getting noticed,
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or you're not getting noticed by the right people.
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What advice have you got around actually the, I guess,
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networking or the way you present yourself?
6:47
How do you get yourself known out there with the right people?
6:51
Yeah. And that's when I talk about the
6:53
pie model, which I learned at one of my employers many, many
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years ago, because I was sitting there performing well.
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So I thought, you know, head down doing a really good job.
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I was really conscientious, keen, you know, doing all that.
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I didn't seem to get noticed and it was always seemed to be
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someone else who got the opportunity.
7:15
Then I learned about the pie model, which is P i.e. for π, P
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for performance. That first bit that we're
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usually very good at, we're doing a really good job, we're
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working hard, we're delivering. Then you've got to think of the
7:27
eye, which is your image, and that's important to understand
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how other people perceive you and how you come across to
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others. And usually we don't know how we
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come across. When the older you get and the
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more you get honest feedback and rarely do we get honest feedback
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in the workplace, then you get a better understanding of how
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you're perceived and and how people view you.
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But when we're less experienced, less senior, we often actually
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don't know really how we're perceived and seemed.
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So make sure that you understand what image you're giving, what
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your image is from others, how they perceive you, and see if
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that is the one you want to portray.
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Now you can't be an you can't be different to who you really are
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at your core, but you can get little pieces of feedback that
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helps shape you, particularly if you want to go up the career
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ladder. It could be a style of
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communication, a style of facial expressions that you because
8:25
they've let me down in the past, you know that sort of give away
8:27
your true feelings and to be warned about things like that.
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But this needs really honest feedback.
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That means you've got to have people around you, your manager,
8:36
your line manager, giving you open and honest feedback, really
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tough thing. And then the last letter, the E
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is the exposure and that's when you've got to seek out the right
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exposure. This could be obviously
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attending events where you get to network.
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And always if you do, make sure you meet people you don't know
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because so often you fall into the trap.
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You go to an event, Ohh you just meet all the people you already
8:58
know and it takes effort to go and say hello and introduce
9:02
yourself to other people. If you do that, I don't know if
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you do that anymore. I mean, you must know the huge
9:07
number of people, but if you go into a room and you're going to
9:10
put yourself out there, you made a decision.
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I'm going to meet three new people at this event.
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What actually, what do you say when you go up to someone?
9:17
What is? Have you got any tips?
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I usually have a question ready or something like that, because
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the last thing you want to do is go up, introduce yourself and
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then start blabbering on about who you are because generally
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they're not interested. They're much more interested in
9:33
themselves usually. And so it's good to have a sort
9:35
of opening question if you've just, if you were at a
9:38
conference and you've just seen a presentation or something, ask
9:42
what they thought about the presentation or a speaker you
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know. It's really a good way of
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starting a conversation is to ask them and not just start
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giving a you know your CV to them, Not the best way.
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And if you and you can ask the same question to all the people
10:00
you plan if you're meeting, if you touch your goal to meet
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three, go and do it. You can ask the same question
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providing they're not in the group.
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But the other things about your network are that you should
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actively, you know, volunteer for things that are going
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outside of your normal work day. So if you're involved in this
10:17
specific project, try and get involved in your firm or somehow
10:21
in some other work to extend your network a bit.
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Volunteer for things just so that you get known by others
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because you're usually being noticed even when you don't
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notice. So just you even though you
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don't notice that they're noticing you, you know it's a
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really and so just be aware of that.
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And then other things if you've got a line manager ask them to
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give you opportunities to meet certain people step in for them
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at a meeting or you know there help them to give you
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introductions to others. So it it's you've got to think
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about it though this is, I mean it's got it's got to be you
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thinking and proactively doing something about it.
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11:33
You've started out in a very male dominated industry and it
11:36
probably is still very male dominated.
11:38
The project profession is very gender balanced early on, but
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like many industries that diminishes higher up the ladder
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you go and that will change that tree over time.
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But there are still pockets of plate.
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There are still places where women are not there in greater
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numbers as men. I'm thinking of construction,
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for example, and having spoken to quite a few of those women,
12:05
there are still problems that you'd hoped would not exist
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anymore. What advice would you give to
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women who are in that situation? I'm not talking about anything
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that needs to become an HR matter or anything like that.
12:17
It's more the kind of prevailing culture is perhaps not the one
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that you feel accepted in necessarily.
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Well, the culture that is really clashing with you, you cannot
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work in for too long. I mean you could do a few years
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but if it shows no signs of changing and you really feel
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uncomfortable in it, you really should get out and that it's not
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an instant thing because culture change takes years.
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But if you are somewhere and you just feel it's not going to move
12:50
in the right direction, eventually you should get out
12:52
because it eats away at you inside otherwise and it's not
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healthy. So.
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So that's one thing but if you are in this very male dominated
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environment and actually for anyone who's in an environment
13:02
full of people not like them, so you're the different one on the
13:05
stands out, it's it's a really tough thing.
13:07
Now that's that was my early days.
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So they were they were my early days.
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They were just like that. I started in the City, London,
13:14
in the financial district, working in a very male dominated
13:18
environment and the I was in an open plan office with 35 of us,
13:24
34 men and me. And that's how I had my almost
13:27
my first ten years. And that was a really tough
13:30
thing and I took up behaviours to fit in.
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So I adopted male behaviours and I became one of the lads.
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I would not recommend it, I regret that I did it but it was
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my way of hoping at the time. But now I I just think the world
13:47
has changed a lot and it's important to stick to who you
13:51
are. So be outspoken but don't always
13:56
pick battles on everything because you want to be seen as
14:00
someone who can work with others who are different to you, which
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is what you want and you. That's a skill in itself that
14:05
you've got to learn to be able to work with any anyone who's
14:08
different to you. You know you might have
14:10
disagreements all the time, but it's not that you just go
14:12
through your work life disagreeing all the time.
14:15
You just have have to do it. But I would try and encourage
14:18
you not to conform to still believe in yourself but try not
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to get angry. And sometimes you've just got to
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let things go above over your head and just and just, you
14:30
know, life's too short. I'm not going to get anywhere.
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I'm not going to bother to challenge that.
14:34
I'm much stronger than that. I'm much better than that.
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It can be tough. I, I, I know I I went through it
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and I did actually one day not cope with it.
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And I decided to leave. And I I walked out of the office
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and I I went travelling for a year all times when it becomes
14:51
much. And you, that's what I mean.
14:54
You've got to go with what you know, what you feel.
14:57
What about when you step up from being a manager, project manager
15:02
of a team to taking your first leadership role, especially for
15:07
project work? So what are the considerations
15:09
you should bear in mind, and what should you leave behind
15:13
about being a manager? And what should you be focusing
15:16
on developing as a leader? Well, leadership, One key thing
15:21
is you'll be amazed how much time you have to spend on
15:24
people. If you are someone that cannot
15:27
let go the things you like doing, which were your
15:30
portrayed, right? And you love to manage
15:34
spreadsheets or whatever it is, you know, you've got to start
15:37
leaving that stuff behind and you've actually got to focus on
15:40
the people. So as as CEO, it's basically all
15:43
about people, right? You have to make decisions, you
15:45
have to have the courage to make decisions.
15:47
But my goodness, it's all about managing people.
15:49
It's people, people, people. So the the more senior you get
15:52
as a leader, the more you spend on people, inspiring them,
15:56
motivating them, understanding them, caring for them, all of
15:59
these things. And that's something that people
16:01
don't often understand. And if they some people I've
16:05
known, I've actually sort of promoted and then they've come
16:08
to me and said do you know what? I don't like this.
16:11
I actually want to be a core subject matter expert and that's
16:14
what I want to do is people aspect isn't for me.
16:18
So that's something that that that you really have to think
16:21
about and also leaders have to be you have to have the courage.
16:25
You've got to have the courage to make some calls you really do
16:28
and you've got to be that's can feel uncomfortable, can't be a
16:33
friend all the time. You might have to make some
16:36
tough calls and then you get respected for making those tough
16:40
calls and being clear. And it's really important to be
16:43
clear on communication, but also to listen to successful leaders
16:47
listen a lot as well. It's not all about telling you
16:51
have to listen, but it is important to be strategic.
16:55
So that means going outside of your core area of responsibility
17:00
though you, you know, I grew up as an underwriter, I I was, I
17:04
was knowing everything there was about ensuring risks around the
17:08
world. You know, earthquake risks.
17:10
Suddenly when you get to be a leader, you've got to be a bit
17:12
more strategic and usually you have some joint accountability
17:16
with other leaders in the organisation and suddenly you've
17:19
got to have an interest in other people's areas and in key
17:22
decisions that will take the whole organisation forward.
17:26
And so that means a slightly different, not such operational
17:30
view of things and being quite strategic and that's a real
17:34
leadership skill because leaders do a lot of strategy.
17:37
Again, you it was interesting when I was the CEO of a company
17:41
in Switzerland and it was subject to a hostile takeover.
17:45
The deal went through and I was exiting and then the guy who was
17:48
going to be taking over as managing that unit because it
17:52
then became a unit of a massive company, He asked for all my
17:56
files on things. I said, but I don't have any
17:59
files. I've been a CEO.
18:01
If it's a legal matter, the general counsel has that.
18:04
If it's the people matter, the HR director has it.
18:06
If it's a commercial, so on and so on.
18:10
You don't have fights, you don't do things in the same way.
18:13
You're always thinking strategically where to take this
18:16
and all of that and it's and that's what you learn as you go
18:20
up the leadership ranks that it's very different.
18:23
You doing a a job that's very very task focused.
18:29
Another question I want to ask you about being a leader was
18:32
around how do you stay true to yourself as a leader?
18:36
Because we have expectations of what a leader should be like,
18:39
and perhaps predecessor was a certain way.
18:41
So how do you establish yourself as the leader you want to be and
18:46
who you are? And leadership in an
18:50
organisation can vary with time because you may need at a
18:55
particular time a certain type of leader and another time
18:58
another type of leader, but also by organisation.
19:03
And therefore the the cultural fit for you as a leader in an
19:07
organisation is important. If they want somebody who maybe
19:12
operates in a certain style that isn't your style, it's the wrong
19:15
place. I remember arriving at Lloyds
19:18
and within a year my the first piece of serious feedback I got
19:22
was that I wasn't authoritative enough around the board table
19:27
because they had been used to very much what I would have
19:30
said, a traditional style of leadership.
19:31
You know, the boss bumps the table says this is what we're
19:35
going to do, go and do it. Whereas naturally I'm a much
19:38
more inclusive, facilitative leader, whereas I always want
19:42
the team to be part of the decision making.
19:45
If we can't come to a consensus, then I I was always happy to
19:48
make the call at the end of the day, the decision, but I always
19:52
like to include others. So I was told that my style
19:56
should change and I actually had to think long and hard about
19:59
what was I going to do? Was I going to?
20:01
Change to meet what the chair thought was the right leadership
20:05
style, or was I going to stick to my own?
20:07
I decided to stick to my own style because a there was no way
20:10
I could behave like that naturally and be a didn't think
20:14
it was what they needed and it was sort of to me seemed a bit
20:16
outdated. And but it's important because
20:20
if you only get recognised for certain behaviours and traits
20:24
and they're not the ones that you have naturally probably the
20:27
one place to be. But he does these days need to
20:30
show vulnerability. They need to have really good
20:33
listening skills, They need to be visionary, they need to be
20:35
inspirational and they need to be courageous, which are fairly
20:39
broad topics really. And your actual style of
20:43
leadership, you can make your own.
20:45
And don't be afraid of making it your own.
20:48
How did it feel when someone when they told you that you had
20:51
the wrong style, that your style didn't fit in?
20:53
That's quite a shocking thing to hear.
20:56
I mean, how did you feel? Well, it is, particularly when
20:59
you've already been working for over 30 years, successful and
21:03
you've got the IT is a bit of a wake up call, but but This is
21:07
why it's so important to never get so arrogant that you think
21:10
you know the right way of doing things.
21:12
You have to be open to listen. And I did listen and I did
21:15
consider the feedback and I thought no, for what we need to
21:20
achieve here, that style is not going to work.
21:24
It didn't work with my predecessor.
21:26
The market rejected that style. They didn't go along with the
21:30
modernization. It failed.
21:32
They lost a lot of money. So I said no, I'm going to try
21:35
mine and I have the confidence to to go ahead with my.
21:37
Style. I have a feeling that you're
21:39
probably very good at handling difficult conversations, whether
21:42
you're on the receiving end or actually having being the one
21:44
that has to do the difficult talking.
21:46
But project professionals often find themselves having to have
21:51
needing to have difficult conversations.
21:53
Perhaps people on their team, but perhaps stakeholders as
21:56
well, or or might need to deliver bad news.
21:59
And I wondered if you know from your expertise, is there
22:04
anything you've learned? Any good tips or advice you'd
22:06
pass on that which you wish you'd know when you were having
22:09
that first difficult conversation?
22:12
Used to be a bit too reactive, you know, I used to really just
22:18
rather than take a breath and think and listen to what I was
22:23
thought I heard, you know, I would be that I would respond
22:26
immediately. I learnt to change that way.
22:29
I am a naturally impatient person, so I'm not always
22:32
perfect at this. I can still sort of interrupt
22:35
when people are still saying something to me or asking me a
22:38
question. But I really try hard not to do
22:40
that because it you need to really think about what somebody
22:44
said to you rather than just leaping in the defensive.
22:48
But you don't want to wait too long before you respond cause
22:51
otherwise you're not being responsive enough.
22:55
So it's a difficult balance, but just always I suppose try and
22:59
have an open mind and always think about it as a learning
23:02
opportunity, getting feedback. And if you're giving feedback I
23:06
always think it's good to kind of approach it with a question,
23:10
sort of ask the person how they thought something went before
23:13
you dive in and give them your view of how they went.
23:16
It just sort of opens up the conversation in a different way.
23:20
Advice. So my final question is, is
23:22
something you touched on at the Women in project Management
23:26
conference which is about looking after yourself and there
23:30
came a point where you stayed with me that you were kind of
23:33
sneaking back into the office after everyone else had left or
23:36
coming back in the weekends. And it's if you've been given an
23:39
exciting job and trusted to do something important that means a
23:43
lot to you then and and perhaps you don't have great commitments
23:47
outside of work. It's natural to be drawn into it
23:51
and spend an incredible amount of time that almost border
23:54
borders on not workaholism. But it's very tempting to spend
23:58
a lot of your time at work and being absorbed in that
24:01
completely. What have you learnt about that
24:04
and how do you, how do you make sure that you're looking after
24:09
yourself, that you can perform your best at work?
24:12
And you will go through various phases in your career.
24:14
Because I did go through that phase of being an absolute
24:16
workaholic. I couldn't stop it.
24:18
It was I I was just so excited and I didn't have commitments
24:21
outside. And there'll be other times of
24:23
your life where you do have other commitments and you have
24:25
to make a call to say actually my weekends are precious and I'm
24:28
not going to work at weekends. And I made that call and I stuck
24:32
to it. And it's important that you
24:34
communicate that to others, if particularly if you're the
24:36
leader of the team, that you explain that.
24:39
But the the trick to, I suppose not not overworking is make sure
24:44
you work with the best people. And if you've got, if you're
24:46
hiring the best, if you're hiring people, make sure you
24:49
hire the best. That's the that's the way that
24:51
you it means that you're not filling the gaps of all the
24:55
other people. Women fall into this a lot.
24:58
They're always filling the gaps because they want the team to be
25:01
successful, because we're naturally like that.
25:04
We want team success much more than usually individual success.
25:08
We was filling the gaps of people who maybe aren't really
25:11
pulling their weight or doing a good job.
25:14
Try not to do that, try not to fall into the trap of filling
25:17
the gap and make sure that you are really working with the best
25:21
people and hiring the best people.
25:23
Any loss? Final thoughts you want to pass
25:25
on to listeners? Or do you feel like we've
25:28
covered everything? I think we've covered
25:30
everything. I I would just say particularly
25:33
for those who are uncertain about their future career, just
25:37
don't think too much and over plan it.
25:41
Life goes through all twists and turns and just make sure that
25:45
you do the best thing to open up opportunities and then take the
25:49
scariest one that comes along. You're telling a bunch of
25:53
project professionals to take risks.
25:58
That's wise advice. OK, well, thank you very much
26:00
for your time. It's been a pleasure to speak.
26:02
To you thank you. Thank you for including me.
26:10
Thanks again to Inga for joining us and to you for listening to
26:13
the APM podcast. Don't forget to look out for
26:16
more episodes or to rate and review us wherever you get your
26:19
podcasts. We'd welcome you to get in touch
26:21
with your comments, feedback and suggestions by emailing us at
26:25
apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk. This podcast has been brought to
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you by APM, the Chartered Body for the project profession.
26:35
For more information on APM, visit to apm.org.uk.