Links:

'Reclaim Time to Read' 2022 reading challenge:  https://www.helenbeedham.com/2022-reading-challenge

Helen's business book: The Future of Time: how 're-working' time can help you boost productivity, diversity and wellbeing

Win a free signed copy of The Future of Time

Register here for The Future of Time at Work public webinars in March and April

The Dinner by Herman Koch

Michelle on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-newton-09bb8133/

Why put a bow tie on a llama? by Celia Gaze

Transcript:

Helen: Hi this week, I'm talking to Michelle Newton. Michelle is the international benefits transition leader at GE corporate, the American multinational conglomerate employing over 90,000 employees. She's worked there for 15 years and currently heads up their pension benefits, rewards and wellbeing programmes. At the same time she is unpicking and separating out their benefits arrangements. As GE simplifies and splits into three public companies, Michelle actively promotes a balanced work life and positive mental health and is a well-being ambassador in her spare time. She is a long distance runner and chair of the popular Selby Striders running club in North Yorkshire.

Welcome to The Business of Being Brilliant Michelle!

Michelle: Thanks Helen.

Helen: It's great to have you with us. Have you been out running today already?

Michelle: I have this morning yet, so I like to get it done before the day starts. Yes, I'm ready to go now.

Helen: Yeah. Fantastic. And to get us started, how would you describe yourself? Or how would others describe you? Can you give us three words that give listeners a feel for who you are in your work life and at home?

Michelle: Yeah, so this was a good one. I actually asked colleagues and friends what they would say. And there was a really common theme across all of them, so professional and personal. So I'll use those three words. So the words that came to the table were that I was enthusiastic. So in terms of my approach and my language and body language, I'm really curious, so I'm taking that as a compliment in that I'm not nosy but I just like to ask questions about things. And that I'm inclusive, so I like to make sure that everyone is involved or those that want to be involved can be. So I thought they were really good three words and when I reflected back on them I felt they were actually true to my personality and probably my leadership styles too.

Helen: That's great to hear, thank you. And as I mentioned in the introduction, you've obviously been working at GE for a long stretch of your career and no doubt, you've had lots of different work experiences and roles within that. When you think back about your career so far, was there a time when you felt you have particularly flourished? And if so, why was that or what helps you generally to flourish at work?

Michelle: So within 15 years of GE there's probably been multiple different stages, but what really has pushed me in terms of my career and probably personal life is a project that I was asked to lead in terms of a secondment. So this was a global project and the colleague that was running it, project manager, was going on maternity leave. So this had huge exposure outside and inside GE and the lady that was leading it was hugely influential in leadership. So it felt like huge shoes to fill and quite a lot of exposure as well. So there's a lot of risk in terms of if you step up, are you able to fit those shoes? So it's a daunting concept.

I was very flattered to be asked, but also very nervous about stepping into it. So I did and I had great support and mentoring through that role, but I had the opportunity really to develop myself by learning in the job and people investing their own time in helping me do that.

So out of the 15 years of GE, I think that 18 months is probably the one that has stretched me most in terms of education and development-wise. So that was a really good reflection period for me to say, where did I flourish?

And then when the project had come to a close and the lady had come back from her maternity leave, the feedback was when I went back to my own team, how they had noticed changes within my behaviour and leadership style which were all positives.

So before it'd been, oh, well this could have been a development need, or this is maybe something you work on. Being outside of my comfort zone and having the opportunity to just go with what I felt was needed offers benefits now back in with my own teams. So that was a huge opportunity and that's where I've had really good feedback that I flourished and have been able to bring positives back into our team too.

Helen: That's really interesting to hear, and I love the way you've thought about not just what helped you to grow and stretch, but actually flourishing also meaning what you can bring and offer to others that you work with and perhaps you manage as well. That's a really thoughtful take on it. Did you have that role in mind for yourself or were you quite surprised when they asked you to take it on? Did you have that 'oh help!' moment, I don't know if I can do this?

Michelle: Yeah, exactly that. So as part of the project team I actually reported in to the lady who was running the project, so I was support. So it came as one of those 'are you sure you've asked the right person?' I'm reporting into you and now you want me to lead this huge project. So it was one of those 'can I do this?' moments. And I was really fortunate, the lady, she was a good mentor. She reassured me that I wasn't going to be on my own and that there would be support and again, the development opportunities from it. So no, I was really fortunate and then I was lucky, really brave enough to take that step because I suppose everyone likes to be within their comfort zone. It would've maybe been easier to say no, I'm okay thanks, I'll stick to what I know and maybe hire in a consultant or see if somebody else could do it. I was quite pleased that I did and I was brave enough and felt comfortable to step up to that role.

Helen: That's great and great that you felt you had the support around you to have a confident go at it and to really grow into it. And has there ever been a particular piece of advice that's helped you in your career that you've hung on to and come back to?

Michelle: Yeah, so again, probably linking back to the last, probably three to four year, GE is always a moving organization. There is no day that's the same and it's being able to embrace that change, so you have to be very fluid to it and people relate to your emotional intelligence when a change comes. So I think my new approach to that is to embrace the unknown, almost 'embrace the red'. So we use ‘red’ in terms of something is scary or broken but it's not a case of that. Actually red could be the new challenge in terms of what adventure is ahead. So I think I've had good mentoring again and good learning in terms of how to deal with change management and how to allow that period of adjustment to happen, which I think is hugely valuable within GE.

Helen: It sounds like part of that's about just getting comfortable with discomfort and and uncertainty and trying to be curious about it instead of leaping to the negative thoughts or letting your fears overrule what you plan to do?

Michelle: Yeah. And it's a behavior that doesn't come easily. We're all human. At the end of the day, when change comes we all have to absorb how does this impact me personally? And how is this going to affect your own lifestyle? So it's being able to tweak your mindset . And I embrace that in GE now, I actually thrive on the change and the challenge culture, because no day is the same, but you know what we're trying to achieve is for organisational or employee gains. So it's a continuous journey, it's never one that will always be completed. But I think that is one thing that we'll continue to work on.

Helen: And I know from personal experience but also talking to lots of other people in positions of leadership and responsible for influencing change that when change is a constant, it can feel quite wearing. Obviously looking after ourselves as important, having the right support networks around us... has there ever been a time that you've looked back and thought that was a really tough time professionally for you where things felt really hard going? And if there was what helped you move forward from that positively?

Michelle: So again, it's probably linking back to the change culture and environment. So I've gone into one role and the leadership style ahead of me was completely different, it was very corporate very quiet and almost a safe environment, you don't say anything outside of the room unless it's agreed on. So I changed my behavior and leadership style to match that of the leadership that I was following. I seem to lose a little bit of my personality and productivity because I was too concerned around trying to mirror what the other leadership team were doing. So again, that had a bit of a detriment to me because I was too busy on trying to be something that I probably wasn't going to be? I lost a bit of my personality and character along the way. So again, it was having feedback from people around me to give me that insight to say you need to be you, rather than we're a GE corporate, but actually we all are unique in what we can deliver. So that was a challenging time because I wanted to demonstrate to the leadership team that I was on board, I fitted in with the organization and the role at the time, but actually I was just slightly different in the way that I would do things.

So that was a challenging time because I didn't want to demonstrate that I was almost like a trouble-causer or going off rail a little bit, but it was trying to influence them actually people can have different kind of leadership behaviours but still deliver. And actually that creativity can bring different things to the table.

Helen: Yeah, thanks for sharing that, and also what you said about wanting to fit in and fit the mould and almost trying to change your natural style of leading and working to fit in. That's something that comes up so much in conversations with people. And I know anyone that, for all sorts of different reasons, might feel that they're slightly outside of the mould or have a few different aspects to the way they work or the way they think about things, I think that comment will resonate a lot with people who feel like, well, I do things slightly differently, or I think about things slightly differently. But it's so true to be attentive to that, but not lose sight of your own way, which is really a big part of the value you bring, isn't it?

Michelle: Yeah, Yeah of course, I would agree.

Helen: So moving on to get a little bit into the topic of the business book of mine that's coming out, The Future of Time, which is all about how we think about time and how we collectively manage our time at work to help us be more productive and healthier and to help people from all sorts of different backgrounds and life situations to flourish in their careers. Time at work can be a real challenge. I mean, we live in an age of 24/7 business, email overload, short term deadlines, etcetera and very long working hours. Can I ask, how do you organize your time at work? You have a big global role, no doubt team members scattered around the globe. You find time for your running and for chairing the Selby Striders, which I'm sure is quite a commitment in itself. What are the time habits that work for you and where do things fall over time-wise as well?

Michelle: Yeah. So again, because in my personal and my professional life, I tend to be everywhere, at the same times, so a running joke within GE and also my personal life is that on Harry Potter Hermione has a little watch, that makes her go in two places. And everyone's like, do you have one of those watches? Because you seem to be everywhere at the same time. I was like 'No!'. So in terms of how I structure and again, this would apply to GE and also my personal life, I'm hugely organized, probably bordering on the line of too obsessive with it, but I diari se everything. So everyone knows within GE and also my family, what I'm doing. So I'll block out time. I tend to do it on a Sunday for the following week, I will tend to structure, okay, what's going on in my working to how that's gonna happen in my family life.

I'm hugely fortunate that GE is a massive fan of flexible working. So I do have that added advantage that I can balance both of those styles together but I'm quite selfish with my time. So if I have a meeting invite through work, I will ask what the agenda is, what the objective is from me. I'm not a fan of calls if they are like one hour I'll challenge: 'can we make that 45 minutes?' Because everybody's diary seems to be back to back calls and you cannot go from one call to the other and have that focus on your next calls. I always challenge: 'can we cut this down to 45 minutes?' So I have 15 minutes to digest maybe before my next call or just have a bit of a break.

I also try and avoid calls on a Friday. And again, a GE policy well, kind of guidance to suggest if you can avoid calls on Friday, then do, because every call has an action. And what we don't want is to go into the weekend thinking, all right, I've got to deliver this for Monday or next week. So Friday is my opportunity to kind of prepare for the following week to say, okay, what admin or projects, or what have I got to get ready for the week? So I can focus purely on planning ahead and how I'm going to use my time. And then I know again with my personality, I'm a morning person.

That's when you're going to get the best out of me, you know, probably from the hours of 6 till 12, that's my flourish time. So I plan my calls that I know I'm going to have to really be on the money for and focus then. If I have to do speaking or you know, presenting that's ideally when I would like to do it subject to time zones. And then towards the afternoon if there are other calls, I tend to try and make them where I'm listening only, or seminars where I'm dialing in. So again, paying attention, but not too much. I know that my sluggish zones are between probably two and four. So I'm fully aware of how I work like that, so I think it's helpful if everybody else could have that concept to say, actually I'm a morning or an afternoon or an evening person. And I think that definitely helps you managing your day and how you can deliver things more efficiently.

Helen: Yeah, definitely. Those are such interesting things to hear you talk about. And I completely agree about reserving the important work or the difficult work for your peak energy hours, whenever that is. And it, and it, doesn't always perfectly coincide with other people that you might need to be collaborating with. But as a general rule, it's a great way of thinking ahead and planning your day. And when you talk about scheduling your time in advance, both your work time and your home time, do you schedule in downtime and rest time as well? I'm always curious about that.

Michelle: Yeah, so again, I block my diary out every day, usually from around 12 till 1.30, and the opportunity is to walk my dogs selfishly and I'm very transparent around it. That's when I'll have my lunch and walk my dogs. So again, if there's a major call or meeting, then obviously that will get prioritized. But I block my calendar out every day and encourage other GE colleagues to do the same.  And my people leader is also an advocate doing that. She was one that encouraged us to do that, to make sure that we step away. Cause as you said at the moment, everyone is 24/7, especially with home working, it's finding that balance that you could find you're logging on at seven in the morning before school run or work starts, and then it's nine o'clock at night before you've actually stepped away. So I absolutely block that time out; okay, let's just down tools and have an hour out.

Helen: Yeah, that's great. I know some people say, oh, it's easy to do that when you're in a more senior position, because you have more control over your time and to a certain degree that might be true, but it's really encouraging to hear you say you recommend that to others that you work with and that your boss is recommending that to you because that's how we can collectively encourage ourselves to adopt healthier time habits is by setting really positive examples and actively encouraging people to do some of these things, to step away from the computer at times that work for them. So it sounds like you have quite a lot of conversations about that at GE, which is great.

Michelle: Yeah and I think it links back to probably the wellbeing side that I'm hugely passionate about, is that I think people do need to have that balance. And I completely understand that those are either customer facing or manufacturing and don't have that luxury have to be within a face-to-face role. I think there are still opportunities for them to be able to have that downtime. So it's how they use their breaks or my lunch breaks. You know, sometimes people will just continue or they'll sit on their phone or something. It's like, how could you use that time a bit more rather than being stuck in the same office or factory and there are ways that you could break it up

Helen: Yeah. Sure. Is there a particular change that you're working on in your organization that really helps people to manage all of that? To keep manageable, sustainable, productive, working time?

Michelle: Yeah, so COVID forced everyone's hand to effectively work from home, which for GE was a huge learning because as you say senior leaders would work from home, but call centers, manufacturing would be office-based, you'd have to be seen to be working. So that really changed our culture. Some people had never worked from home before, so it was a complete transformation for them too and as you say, there were those that felt that they needed to be on all day every day to demonstrate productivity. So it was a case of educating to say actually you don't have to be online 24/7 to demonstrate that you're working. Actually if anything it's going to be burned out and you're going to be making mistakes and tiredness.

So we had a top-down approach. We had a campaign, well, it's 'Health for Heads' so effectively it's a wellbeing programme and what we did is we asked our leadership - so this is hugely up the GE chain - to demonstrate how they were working with their days. And it's almost giving people blessing that they could go ahead and work within their normal times while they were in the home environment, or they were doing a change of working patterns because we had to demonstrate if the leadership team was on board, then actually it must be ok.. I think it was more a cultural change, especially for some of our employee profiling We're predominantly male, a 50 year old average. So again, the work ethic of our employees were that you have to work regardless of how, when. So it was a cultural change in how to manage time and how to work efficiently. So it's still going to be an ongoing campaign, but we do stuff every month now to give hints and tips to say, have you had your lunch break? And then we'll do little challenges, like who can walk around the office the most in terms of step challenges. And then we have the other side signposting for those that feel that they need support, because maybe unfortunately they've gone over that threshold and that they are at burnout.

And then going forward it's looking at this new world. So like all organizations GE's looking at our real estate. People are working from home, is there now an opportunity for us to say, do people need to be in an office? Is that essential? And the feedback we're hearing is actually, yes, some employees like to step out of the home to go to an office because it separates that for them. And that's perfect and wonderful.  So we're looking at different policies to say if you want an office, there's an office for you. But if you're still slightly nervous or you've actually got used to this home working, there's also that possibility for you to work hybrid. So it's a learning curve for us in GE we have different cultures and we, I suppose, promote the positives of how to work and work efficiently using the time that they have.

Helen: That's all really good to hear. And interesting that you're approaching it with quite an experimental mindset as an organisation and having the dialogue with people about what some of the possibilities are like the direction you're moving in, but also not saying it's going to be one size fits all, and this is going to be the pilot policy everywhere.It sounds like it's going to be a lot more tailored than that.

Michelle: It's fluid as I say within GE because we have our five key businesses and globally and culturally across the world, everyone within each region is different in terms of their behaviours. So it'd be hugely difficult for us to say one size fits all. We just can't do that in GE. So we have to tweak what's right for our businesses and our leaders and again, productivity. So I think it will always be a moving policy or guidance. And I mean, the key thing is, is that we just have our leadership demonstrating how they use it, so the employees can see actually, okay, that's how it's working for them. So it is a change completely, then they feel that they've got that kind of good faith, that they can use that as well.

Helen: Yeah. And I guess there's probably a big piece of work in there about, educating and supporting line managers, people who manage teams, so that they know what the options are and how much flexibility they have to decide different arrangements, what they can say yes to, what they need to bear in mind. Is that a big piece of the change that you're working on?

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. As I say, because again, at the end of the day productivity and GE has to deliver on what we're doing, if we're building airplane engines or hospital equipment, we still have to deliver. So as you say, our people leaders, who have teams of 30, 40 people, if they all have them saying, oh, I want to work from home.

It clearly isn't going to work. So there is a huge, I suppose, delegation and responsibility that will fall to our people leaders. So with our HR colleagues, we'll start offering them that support. But again, in the interests of transparency we say to them, we don't have all the rules at the moment. We're just offering almost like pilots, let's see what works for our employees and our businesses and see what actually the employees want, because we may find that we're creating something that actually none of the employees want. They're happy just to continue as they were before COVID. So it's actually, let's not build something that might not necessarily be needed. So it's kind of done on a business-to- business level, but absolutely we'll continue to support the people leaders because it's a huge change. As you say, Helen, in terms of saying, I now I've got 30 people that want to all work independently, how do I do that? And actually I'm just employed to make airplane engines. I was never designed or recruited to do this. So again it is a change in leadership style for them too.

Helen: Yeah. That's fascinating to hear about. And is there a particular resource, a book or a video or a podcast or publication that you would recommend to listeners or viewers if they're watching the video, that, you find satisfies your curiosity and teaches you stuff?

Michelle: Yeah. So I was looking all the ones I've read, and they were all kind of traditional ones that probably everybody has read, so change management and all that. But there's one that I got recommended recently, probably about six weeks ago. And it's called 'Why put a bow tie on a llama? So it's a book and it was by, I think it's Celia Gaze and effectively it's about an NHS senior leader. She was a director and she just had a complete career change. So she had a farm that was broken down, but she was very passionate about wellbeing. So she was thinking, how could she put these two together? So her book kind of demonstrates how any crazy idea could be put together to make a sustainable business. So I think because of my personality of being slightly curious and the title alone, it was really interesting and quite fun, but her book was really insightful. So if anyone is looking at a career change or actually they have a crazy idea, they think, oh, this will never take off. She goes through an informal business plan within the book, but she makes it fun. And she also relates it back to how she puts it in with her personal family life. So she gets the family involved and things so that was a really refreshing read rather than some of the old school books where they go through different processes and hierarchy of needs and all that good stuff.

Helen: Oh, that's a great recommendation. Thank you. I had heard the title. I haven't read it, so you've reminded me to look it up and I've just embarked on a challenge of reading 50 books this year, so roughly a book a week, a mix of business and some contemporary fiction. So I'm hoovering up recommendations for filling my, my next 48 weeks of reading. So thank you, I'd be interested in that And how can listeners connect with you after the podcast? If they're keen to get in touch professionally?

Michelle: You can find me on Linked In. That's probably the best route.

Helen: Okay. Great. Thank you. Well, it's been such a pleasure talking with you today about your career and about all the wonderful work you're doing at GE. And so interesting to hear how as an organization and a team, you're rising to the challenges that today's world of work present and good luck with it all. And thanks so much for sharing your advice and reflections with everybody today.

Michelle: Thank you Helen, it's been great. Thank you.