Links:

Book your place on my February 2023 group coaching programme Time for the things that matter.

'Reclaim Time to Read' 2022 reading challenge

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

My talks to organisations and professional networks

Geraldine on Linked In

The Executive Coaching Consultancy

Geraldine's book Coaching Women: Changing the system, not the person

McKinsey & Lean In's Women in the Workplace 2022 research

Deloitte's Women@Work research

Transcript:

Helen: I'm delighted to welcome my guest this week, Geraldine Gallacher. Geraldine is CEO of the Executive Coaching Consultancy, which is started in 1994, and now has over 60 coaches internationally serving a wide range of industries. The Executive Coaching Consultancy has a particular specialism in the female journey and has coached over 10,000 individuals through key transitions in their careers. Geraldine speaks regularly on the subject of more women at the top and the future of gender diversity, and is a great believer in the benefit of diverse teams. She's a member of the Development Committee of the City Women's Network, and is also a founding sponsor of ECC's not-for-profit, The Good Business Initiative that works with organizations to help them build their leadership capacity and unlock their potential for a positive impact. Geraldine's also the author of a of a business book called Coaching Women: Changing the System, Not the Person which has just hit the shelves. Welcome to The Business of Being Brilliant, Geraldine!

Geraldine: Thank you and hello.

Helen: Wonderful to have you with us, and this episode is airing on the 31st of October so although we're recording this in September, we're going to put our Halloween hats on a bit early, and my first question to you is about your personality type and whether you would describe yourself as a tricker or a treater?

Geraldine: Well, funnily enough, in Scotland Helen, we didn't really do trick or treat, but had I been doing it, I think I would've been a treater. Sorry, a tricker! A tricker, yes, not a treater. I think my favourite game around Halloween time was Ring Bang Skoosh, where we used to ring people's doorbells and run away. So I think that probably puts me clearly in the tricker group.

Helen: Definitely, and I would've had you down as a treater! Such an empathic person, encouraging others. It's lovely to discover the naughty side of your character!

Geraldine: Yes definitely.

Helen: And, and I've heard, I've heard of people doing that doorbell trick, but I never knew that there was a Scottish name for it. So I've learned something already (laughs). That's a great name. Great.

Well, I've given listeners a very quick overview of your career, but could you tell us about perhaps some of the significant turning points and the highs and lows, the things that as you look back over your career, you think, gosh, that was a real milestone or a transition point that stays in your mind?

Geraldine: I think probably three main transitions. One was I started as a graduate trainee at the Ford Motor Company, so a very male environment. I was there five years and then I was head hunted at quite young age to work in a consultancy for a couple of years, and then I was asked by one of my clients to join them, so I went back onto the client side. And the thing was, in Ford I was in marketing and then in the two years I transitioned, when I was in the consultancy, I transitioned more into management development.

And so I then went back into, and this time I went into fashion retail. I mean, you could not get more different from the Ford Motor Company car marketing! And then I went in as management development controller for the womenswear divisions of what was then the Burton Group. And so that obviously was two big transitions, one into consultancy, one back into fashion retail and moving from marketing to management development. But of course the biggest transition was when I was 34 and I set up Executive Coaching. And so going from kind of quite big corporate jobs to running my own business was the biggest career transition that I made.

Helen: Yeah. That's fascinating that you went from such very different industries in your early career. And how did it feel to take that decision at 34 to set up your own company? Was it something you knew you always wanted to do or had the light suddenly popped in your head that that was to be the way forward?

Geraldine: Well, I was doing the job without really realizing I was being an executive coach. I was Head of Management Development and my actual job remit was to look after the top 300 senior executives at the Burton Group. And I had been given this steer that that was to be not all lots of courses, but actual fact me sitting down with people and doing personal development planning.

So I'd done quite a lot of this. And two things made me think, Hmm, maybe I could do this as a business. One was my husband already had done the same transition. So he already ran a company, so he had the confidence of how to, and he's very practical and I'm not as practical as Mike, but Mike's very practical, so he could allay my fears on the practical side of things. I mean, I think I had an assistant from when I was about 26, so I was just not very practical! And so it was great to have someone who very practical, who is effectively saying that's really not the issue when you're running a company. It's about having the right idea and it's about having the confidence to sell, things like that. So he was a big influence.

And the other influence would you believe was I watched a television programme called the Executive Coach and this was back in 1992, I think it was. Yeah. And it was just a programme about the executive coach and it was a woman and she would fly in from America and she worked with I think it was Churchill Insurance, her name is Jinny Ditzler. And Jinny Ditzler - whom I never met, but I did reach out to recently - Jinny became my virtual role model because  had the first time I'd come across an executive coach been a man, I think I might have thought, Oh, that's not for me, but the fact that it was this woman and the entire board was men that she was coaching and she did one to one work with them, then she did group work with them and I just, I, I mean, it was really clear. I watched the television programme and I thought, that is what I want to. I definitely want to do that. There was no doubt in my mind to be honest, and I was 32 at the time. And then it was just really a question of building the business plan and choosing the right moment in which to set it up. But you know, having Mike knowing about the practicality side of it was really helpful.

Helen: Yeah, because there is a lot isn't there in just setting up the company, the nuts and bolts of the company and all the legalities and the accounting side of it as well. It's a big learning curve, isn't it? But lovely to hear that story about how you were inspired by the programme you saw, because I'm taking from that, that at that point was it more common to have men as executive coaches than women? Were there many women in executive coaching positions?

Geraldine: In actual fact, there weren't many executive coaches, Helen. It really was undiscovered territory, so much so that's why I called our company, The Executive Coaching Consultancy, and people would ask me What is that? Which hilarious.

Helen: Wow.

Geraldine: And I used to get quite a lot of calls from people that wanted posh buses, you know, executive coaches!

Helen: Hopefully doesn't still happen!

Geraldine: No, but that gives you an idea of how unknown the concept of executive coaching was. And I just knew, because I'd seen this television programme called the Executive Coach, I knew that was what I wanted to call it. A lot of people advised me to call it personal development planning and lots of other different names, but I just knew that Executive Coaching was what I wanted to call it. But that back in '92, '93. I set up the company in '94. So it was really unknown territory to be an executive coach in those days which for me that was good because part of, I think what definitely drives me is change and something different. And once I've cracked something, I'm onto the next thing. And so the fact that, you know, it was unexplored territory was not a problem for me. I actually liked the challenge of persuading people that executive coaching, one-to-one coaching was a good idea, which a lot of people just didn't even think about. But it was a very easy sell right product, right time.

Helen: Yeah, sounds like a perfect idea at the right time. And that's really interesting to hear your story and we'll come onto your latest new thing in a little minute, your book. But through the ECC you help thousands of women - and men - to navigate career challenges and to manage transitions successfully. Is there somebody or something that has helped you to do the same over the course of your career? Aside from your husband, obviously you've mentioned around the time of setting up your business.

Geraldine: I think what's interesting when I look at the three transitions before running Executive Coaching, all three of them were in situations where there were very, very, very few women and all three of them, I was tapped on the shoulder by a woman to come and join. And I think I was gravitating towards working with more women because I was very much .... I did an MBA 20, so I was one of very few women on the course. I then joined the Ford Motor Company, obviously the only female graduate trainee. So I very much was used to being the only female and so I hadn't consciously thought I need to work for women, but I think the fact that I gravitated to women on both occasions, both when I moved into consultancy the first time it was to work for a woman, and then when I moved back onto the client side in fashion retail, it was to work for a woman.

So I think role models are... and then Jinny Ditzler, my virtual role model, effectively helped me to change into running my own business but obviously with the support of Mike. However, I think what did get me through is the strong sense of seeing it being done by another woman in a man's world, and I hadn't even consciously realized that that was an important part of the transition.

I think in terms of personality, what's got me through is I do think I've got quite an inquiring mind, so I tend to be interested in what we could do more than what we have done. And what I think is incredibly important as an entrepreneur is you make sure you've got people around you that complement you, and I've never had a problem with that. I just don't hire in my own likeness at all. Not at all. Never have.

Helen: Yes, it sounds like it's almost a very self-aware approach as you know what makes you tick, you know which bits you're best at, and you look to others to, to compliment that, to do the practical stuff, to do the stuff that perhaps isn't new, but is equally important and needs continuity.

Geraldine: Absolutely. Yeah. We do this in coaching; in coaching it's very much about playing to people's strengths and making sure that they compliment their strengths with other people and being able to give autonomy to those people to make sure that they can play to their strengths and I think that is intuitively easy for me. I don't think I've had to learn that. I think I genuinely can see what I do and I can see what I can't do. And I'm reasonably self-aware about what I can't do, and I genuinely appreciate people that are different from me. So it's not like I think, well, if only you could do it like me. I I really don't feel like that. My first partner was Kate, Kate Buller, who's still ... you know, the four of us run the company, four women. And Kate could not be more different really in terms of personality. And she joined me after a year and she was everything that I wasn't. I'm very much out there, quite good at talking, like selling, like meeting people. And Kate's a doer, she doesn't really like the limelight at all. But she's a really good thinker, asks me all the right questions, she's introverted, I'm extroverted. So you can see how it was a really good partnership. I'm very spontaneous and opportunistic. Kate's more organized and planned. So you could see right from the beginning that we were very complimentary. . And I find that on my board now people are really clear about what their strengths are and where they come to contribute, which is really important.

And I do think that throughout my career, the fact that I'm interested in difference, I'm genuinely curious about what makes someone different from me. I don't have a sense that they have to make them to be like me. That's been really helpful to be able to grow a team of really strong individuals around me and having that team was so critical when I was writing the book, obviously.

Helen: Yes. Well, we'll come on to what that experience was like for you and to give people a, a little flavour of the book, but I just want to pick on something you were just touching on around autonomy, giving people autonomy and that's obviously been something that's been quite hotly debated over the last couple of years with COVID and mass remote working and now hybrid working and real tensions between employers and employees around what the way forward will be and how much autonomy individuals will still get to have over their working life in terms of their hours of work, their location of work, and how much choice they have around that. And we are hearing a lot around the post pandemic Great Resignation or the Great Reset.What are you hearing now from the many people that you support through coaching about how they're feeling about their work lives? What matters most to them when they think about staying in their jobs?

Geraldine: I think for employees, for most people, it's about engagement. You stay in a job now because you feel engaged and you feel a sense of belonging with the team. I coach mainly leaders, and I think what leaders are grappling with is they understand that this engagement is important and an easy way to create engagement, of course, is in person. But they recognize that they want to give people the autonomy and the flexibility because if you don't give them the flexibility, I think people will vote with their feet. So you have to give that flexibility. But at the same time, how do you create the engagement if most of the time you're on screen?

And I think that's a real dilemma that certainly in your book that's one of the things that you talk about is how do you, in the future of work?  

I think coming into work will be more about creating anchor days where everybody does come in and where you maybe concentrate on personal development, or team dynamics. You concentrate on anything which has got a team dimension to it. Because what is really pointless is travelling in on the tube, coming to work, having just spent an hour and a half and then getting on Zoom and yet everybody scrambling for the quiet rooms to get on Zoom to do calls. I mean, that just doesn't make any sense, does it? And it's really hard to change it up, it's almost like the rhythm of work needs to change quite consider. considerably.

Helen: Yeah. And I think to make that future scenario, which I completely agree with, work well, requires a lot more transparent conversations about the different things people work on and what is the right environment for each of those things. When do we need to be in a more face-to-face collaborative environment? So therefore, you almost need to add a different level of time management and working pattern management. Definitely at the team level. And instead of just having a blanket, this is the way it's going to be, but actually much more negotiated around the team. Okay. We need to work it differently and figure out what would work best for the team, but also reflects everyone's needs and preferences as well.

Geraldine: I also think Helen I don't know how you feel about this, but I often have very, very good intentions about going in. The thing is if you get thrown a curve ball first thing in the morning because you know you can do things on Zoom, it's much easier to think, well actually I could do home.  And so I think what's quite tricky is that it's almost like short term requirements versus a longer term need. I know in the long term it's better for me even over the course of a week I know I've had a better week when I'm in, and I've been in more often. However, things come up for example, if you have a whole day of meetings and two of them are on Zoom and two are in-person, and the in-person ones are postponed. So you think, well, why would I go in? So then you change your diary accordingly. And I think it's very difficult because you almost need to have some kind of boundary set for you where you have to go in for some elements because otherwise I think we all default to the easiest and it's got to be easier to be at home. It's just got to be easier to be at home rather than Yes, I agree.

Helen: I totally agree with that short term gain versus longer term gain. I think it's a really interesting of framing it and it's always more convenient not to commute anywhere, isn't it?!

Geraldine: Absolutely.

Helen: I was on a call yesterday actually giving a talk to a leadership team remotely and one of the senior executives appeared.  Everybody was dialing in from home because it was cross regional and he appeared in his very smart suit, but we were all laughing because he was at home and he said, Actually, I did intend to get to the today but trains got the better of him and there was some train problems. So he said, I don't normally suit up for home! But I quite like that idea . It probably happens quite a lot. People get into their work gear and then for whatever reason the and they end up possibly staying in their suit all day in their sitting rooms.

Anyway let's talk a bit about your new book! Now you have got it to hand, so those watching on video have a little look at the cover.

So it's called Coaching Women: Changing the System, Not The Person, and it's published by McGraw Hill, is that right?

Geraldine: It's McGraw Hill Education and in conjunction with Open University Press.

Helen: Yes. Fantastic. And that has just come out and it's £22.99 for the paperback.

Geraldine: £20.99

Helen: Oh, sorry. £20.99 Sorry. Overpricing there by mistake. there's an e-book available as well. Tell us what was it like to write it, because I think you and I both wrote our books during lockdown, didn't we? But at slightly diffferent times.

Geraldine: I started before lockdown, so, but I started with the idea and I was doing it on weekends and on holidays, and, do you know

Helen, I absolutely loved doing the book. I really enjoyed it. I loved the the purposeful nature of it? It was this big goal and I loved the fact that everything I read and the notes and the research, everything had a kind of direction of travel, which made me very purposeful and made me very planned actually. And so therefore from the perspective of enjoyment, I thought it was really excellent. I really enjoyed writing the book. I didn't have writer's block (laughs) I had the opposite!

Helen: How to decide what not to put in!

Geraldine: Which I don't think will surprise anyone that knows me. Yeah, I had so many ideas and so many things that I wanted to. I have to say, one of the descriptions of the book is that it's incredibly concise, which is an amazing feat. So it is actually quite a small book. It's only 100, it's 110 pages, which is amazing given how much I'd said. But there also is the fact that I have to say there is a global paper shortage so , the writing is very small Helen! (laughs)

Helen: That's so interesting to hear. So they were quite keen to not add to the number of pages, and I knew about the timber shortage last year. This must be obviously the knock-on effect of coming to the book industry.

Geraldine: Exactly. So this doesn't feel representative of three years of work that went into it at all. So it's 10 chapters. But , it is quite tight in the sense that one of the people that read it for me was one of my clients who's the global head of diversity of one of the big banks.

And she said that what she loved about it was it was a business book that doesn't keep repeating itself, but every sentence, she said, it's concise and every sentence has got something to say that makes it meaningful. So I was really pleased at that because I can talk on and on Helen.

Helen: Well, you talk very well and it is really difficult to trim a book down and be really concise. I know that as well. So well done for achieving that. And what I love about the size, actually, it's very portable, so those of us that that still love holding books in our hands, it looks like it's one that you can pop in in a bag easily. And so who is the book for? Is it for women or is it for a different audience?

Geraldine: Well because the subtitle of the book, which is Changing the System not the Person is really important part of the book. So this is not a book about fixing women at all. I'm really against that approach. This is a book about how to change a system. And since we're all in the system, then it's got application for a broader audience.

Now the primary initial audience are going to be people that are leading women so leaders that are leading and managing women, and of course coaches. So anyone who is a coach who may feel well, you don't coach people, you coach everyone individually and differently, so what would there be to learn about coaching women that we don't know already and don't do?

And I think, I've certainly found in my 28 years now coaching is, it is very different actually to coach women than men. And it's because of the systemic influences on women in their careers. It's not a level playing field still and so therefore it's really important to take into account a lot of that. And so in the book, what I talk about is some of the issues that women come up against that men don't come up against and how to tackle that. And also from the perspective of if you're a leader, how to be aware of that.

So it's not just for women to change the system, it's for leaders, both men and women, to acknowledge that maybe there isn't the meritocracy that we all like to believe there is.

Helen: Yeah. And it sounds like you shared that book before it was published with a few advance and people that have endorsed your book. I'm interested to hear did you get very consistent reactions from everybody to those views and those assertions, or did you get people saying No, no! Particularly I guess anyone male reading it, 'I don't recognize this' or ' it's not been something I've seen evident in the workplace'?

Geraldine: Not so far Helen... not to say that there might not be! I've probably had more women reviewers than men actually, which is interesting in its own right. The kind of stuff that I'm talking about isn't ... This is not about a man bashing book at all. This is actually about talking about a system that would change for the benefit of men and women, because I feel that at the moment, the system that we are in, what it really does is it focuses on asking for too much personal sacrifice when it comes to working life. And what I mean by that is, there's still out there the mantra of ' you can't get anything done unless you're in the office for long periods of time'. So there still is quite a strong ethos of presenteeism.

And I was speaking just last night actually to one of or coaches that went back onto the client side and she's gone back into a financial services environment and she was talking about how all of the policy isis there and all of the facilities are there so that a lot of organizations can say, We've got this, we've got this, we've got that, she says. But the culture hasn't changed sufficiently to allow you to feel free to use those facilities or to take advantage of that hybrid working policy. And so pretty quickly she said - and this is in the research as well - I found pretty quickly you recognize if you're the one that's calling in and your boss is the one that's always physically in the office, well no one's saying to you you can't come in but all the cultural signs there are it's probably better And so that's, that's tricky.

Helen: I totally get your point that actually this isn't just about advancing women at the expense of men or...

Geraldine: No..

Helen: ... About how men need to change. It's actually how the system needs to change to benefit everybody who, regardless of their gender or their home life setup or commitments outside the home, maybe find it harder to advance because they can't commit to or be available when is needed in the status quo in terms of our old ways of working.

Geraldine: I also think that, I talk about this in the chapter on inclusive leadership that we need to rethink what we think good leadership looks like. I think although Learning and Development departments know that hero leadership is a thing of the past you can just see how with politics you can just see how we constantly talk about the personality of the leader rather than the policies. Hero leadership is still live and well, even though in leadership development circles, it's archaic the idea that you place all your responsibility in one individual because distributed leadership in the world that we live in now, when everything's moving so quickly and it's much flatter structures and people that are dealing with the customer need to have their autonomy to make those decisions.

So the concept of distributed leadership is already happening, it's just that we still have this old-fashioned paradigm where we see leaders as being people that take charge and be the first to do it and don't ask people to do things that they wouldn't do. That's where understanding that inclusive leadership is about me recognizing that you do need to have people that are allowed to play to their strengths.

Helen: Yeah, that's a great way of framing it. Really helpful to understand how your book can apply very broadly in any organisations at the leadership level. And it's not just about here are the nuts and bolts that you need to put in place, gender networks, flexible working programmes, but it's actually much more of an attitudinal and a behavioural shift around how people are managed and inspired and encouraged and given opportunities. And as you've talked about all throughout, being very open to trying things a different way. Not always falling back on old tried and tested habits.

Geraldine: And in fact, the second half of the book is all about changing the system. The first half of the book, I use all the case studies of women I've coached and men I've interviewed about this. And I use those to exemplify some of the hidden barriers that are still there for women and how to deal with that. And then the second half of the book is all about, in fact, the last three chapters are called Engaging Men. The penultimate chapter is Inclusive Leadership and the final chapter is the real culprit, is a Culture of Overwork. So you can see that it's not all about fixing women at all, it's about fixing the system.

Helen: Fantastic. Well congratulations on getting the book out there. I'm really looking forward to reading it. And I guess my final question, I can't resist this is, so what is it that you haven't done yet? What is the next new thing that you want to go out and accomplish?

Geraldine: One thing is on a personal front, I'm going to become a step-grandmother in December, so that's a big life change that's coming up which I'm looking forward to. And the other thing in terms of what I'm learning at the moment is I'm retraining to do more systemic team coaching. So it is actually a bit like I saw Jinny Ditzler do in the early days. I've done a lot of one to one coaching and I've done some team coaching, but I'm now qualifying with the Global Team Coaching Institute to do team coaching because I do think there's a need to work more quickly with leaders and being able to work with the team and the leader I think is quite important as well as I do think group coaching is something for the future as well, and I'm keen to develop my skills in both those fronts. So I'm always learning!

Helen: I'm sure you are and that sounds a fantastic new direction to be turning your learning into. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. It's been brilliant talking to you about your career, about how you set up the ECC, about how you have built a complementary team around you and your new book, Coaching Women and all the wisdom and practical advice drawn from your career that is available to help people help women in their organization flourish as well. It's been great fun and I've really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much for being a brilliant guest!

Geraldine: Thank you Helen.