James Woodman on curiosity and human behaviours

[00:00:00] Sarah: Welcome to Speak to The Human, a podcast hosted by me, Sarah Abramson. Speak to the Human is a podcast that explores how we build connections with people in their professional work. It's about the human experience at work and about how to foster that connection and belonging to support people and their organizations to flourish through conversations with leaders, creatives, and researchers.

[00:00:31] This podcast covers a wide range of topics. From psychological safety to risk, belonging, creativity, storytelling, leading change, behavioral science, and much more. I'm your host, Sarah Abramson, and I'm really looking forward to you joining me and hearing from our brilliant guests.

[00:00:51] This is the first episode of Speak to the Human, and it's great to be joined by my colleague James. And obviously we talk to each other all the time, so it's a [00:01:00] really nice, relaxed way to have a first conversation. And I guess talk through what we mean by speak to the human, which is a phrase we use regularly in various different ways at Acteon.

[00:01:13] So really good for us to be able to. Chat that through. Um, James is a director and partner at Acteon and he's a lead consultant working with a wide variety of clients from broadcasting to the charitable sector, to care homes, to pharmaceuticals and all sorts of other organizations, and across a variety of different project types, really wide ranging, fascinating stuff from a program for inductees in the film and.

[00:01:43] TV industry, which you've been working on for the last, uh, I think three years. Getting brilliant people into roles that they couldn't imagine doing and helping them to succeed in those roles. And a really interesting kind of cross industry collaboration for that project, including companies like Netflix [00:02:00] and led by an industry body called Screen Skills, uh, through to projects that include video interviews with leaders and executives.

[00:02:08] Um. All sorts of fascinating people in that, like former Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, I think was one of your recent interviewees, right through to things like a strategic consultancy project, helping care homes, a national care home provider to look at the best practices of outstanding managers and sharing those working habits across other care homes.

[00:02:29] So some really interesting stuff. I'm looking forward to chatting that through and kind of relating it to. This whole concept of speak to the human. So welcome, James. Hello.

[00:02:40] James: Good morning. Nice to be here.

[00:02:42] Sarah: How are you today?

[00:02:43] James: I'm good, thank you. Yeah, I mean it's um, it's a bit odd finding myself in the position of the interviewee because as you said, I spent a lot of time interviewing people.

[00:02:51] I spent a lot of time filming. I have done a lot of that kind of thing in my career so far, and it's a bit strange finding yourself on the other [00:03:00] side of the, the other side of the table. Um, I think I always. I'm a very curious person and I enjoy asking other people things about themselves. You mentioned the people that people are fascinating and I completely agree with that, and I think that is a, a, a thread that goes through everything we do at Acteon.

[00:03:20] Normally, the people who I'm talking about are other people rather than myself, and so I'm, it's a, this is a good opportunity for me to talk about what I do and why I do it and how I think about things and I'll be very, very interested to see what emerges.

[00:03:34] Sarah: Well, and you do so many different and fascinating jobs that you know, and projects that it is, it's great to kind of be able to share some of that.

[00:03:43] Um, so to start with, it'd be good to, I think, to tell us a bit about your background, um, and how that connects with the type of work that you do now at Ion.

[00:03:54] James: Yeah, I, um, I grew up wanting to be a TV cameraman. Um, that [00:04:00] was my kinda childhood dream. And then I, I nearly went to film school. Um, I didn't, I spent some time working for the BBC and local radio.

[00:04:08] Went from the BBC to university and then from university really through. Luck largely in being in the right place at the right time. I fell into a job as a journalist at ITN making the news for ITV, uh, and I, I, as I, I, I had wanted to go into a technical role. That was what I expected to do. I found myself sort of on the other side of the camera or, or next to the camera, at least, doing a lot of interviewing.

[00:04:36] Out filming. I became a producer, so I was out kind of gathering news for reports that were gonna go onto the bulletins. It, it it meant that I could be doing anything. Uh, the job that I did for longest was health and science producer, so effectively any science story, medical story, NHS story, those types of things, they were my responsibility [00:05:00] and coming up with ideas for what we were going to do, finding the people to do it with going out, filming, interviewing.

[00:05:07] To creating a story alongside a presenter who was going to be the one who, who appeared on tv. That was what I did, because the team wasn't that large. Actually, I probably spent as much time doing other things like politics, like foreign news, all sorts of stories really around the UK and around the world, uh, as well as health and science.

[00:05:27] And it was fascinating. I mean, I really enjoyed it and I met a lot of interesting people. I did a lot of interesting things. My, my final, my final. Job before I left ITN was to create, I think, the largest bomb ever detonated on UK national television, which was so big we couldn't blow it up in the uk. Uh, we, we had to go out to the California desert where the, uh, the US Navy built a bomb for us, and we, we exploded it to show people what you could do with five, three kilos of, uh, of fertilizer.[00:06:00]

[00:06:00] If you were a terrorist. So I did a lot of quite weird things. Um, finished doing that and sort of didn't really know what to do next. Um, I wanted to do something different and I came to Acteon kind of not really knowing who I was, I think, or what I wanted to do, but being really interested in the world and the things that make people tick.

[00:06:24] And what has been brilliant about this role is that it, it has. Enabled me to be curious in those ways, but to see a tangible impact for clients. So it's, it's what we are, what what I'm interested in is how we can make a difference for clients and for the people who work in those organizations. I think this is the first time in my life that I've been able to see a, an actual link between my of interest in the world and my interest in why people do what they do and, and who they are and how they think and how they behave and stuff changing as a result of that.[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] Sarah: That's fantastic. I think it's one of the things that I particularly enjoy about working at Acteon is that there are. Particularly amongst the consultants, a real eclectic range of backgrounds and experiences, and people bring those different threads and, um, insights and personality traits together. And we kind of, yeah, sort of join them up to find really interesting and innovative ways to solve problems, which is brilliant.

[00:07:29] I think, uh, it's so interesting hearing your background in in TV and you know, honestly, I'm really jealous. It sounds amazing, uh, but I guess fundamentally TV and kind of creating the stories that, that you're creating there, um, it's about building an emotional connection with people so that they want to, you, you are thinking about the receiver, you're thinking about how do you, uh, make a story that connects with.

[00:07:58] With that person [00:08:00] on the other end with their imagination or with something that they're interested in, or a way of motivating them to carry on watching what you're doing. Which directly relates to this whole idea of speak to the human? I think so. It'd be good to hear. What does speak to the human mean to you as a phrase and the way that we think about it.

[00:08:21] James: It's one of those things that there are. I think about this in so many different ways. Um, I sort of take it as a, as a, as a kind of commandment. So whatever what, whatever you are trying to achieve. Now, I guess I'm talking kind of in the, the, the world of the companies that we work with are so in, in, in working with organizations, in working with clients, but you could, you could interpret this more broadly, but whatever you are trying to achieve in the world.

[00:08:47] Think about people speak to those people. You have to connect with people and communicate with them in order to achieve any kind of meaningful change. So it's a, you can, you can take it that way. You can sort of interpret it as a, [00:09:00] as an instruction and a, a, whatever you call it, a kind of mantra that we can have in mind when we are working with a client and thinking about how they can achieve what they want to achieve.

[00:09:09] But. The bit that really matters to me is the, the human bit. And I almost would put that first. 'cause when you think about an organization, when you think about some entity that is trying to do something, whether it's a, it's a, it could be a retailer, it could be a care home, it could be a broadcaster, it could be making a film, whatever it is, that organization, that thing.

[00:09:36] Has no existence outside the people who make it. So if you imagine, whatever, let's imagine you run a shop, like the shop doesn't have an existence of its own. The thing that makes it exist and that makes it successful and that makes it profitable or to do whatever you want it to do, are the people who are involved.

[00:09:54] If you are in a big company and whatever, let's say you've got a big, big company. You've got a thousand people in an office [00:10:00] somewhere, and you want to bring out a new compliance policy. The policy isn't actually the thing that matters. What matters is the way that people respond, the things that people do.

[00:10:14] But everything is about human beings and more than about human beings, it's about humans doing things. And so whatever we are doing, we are thinking about the humans and we are encouraging clients to think about the humans because that's actually the thing that makes the difference and the thing that will change the world in some way.

[00:10:34] It could be small, it could be big, but it's gonna do something that is, is meaningful. The, the third, I think the third level that I think about this. Whenever I hear it, it, this expression, speak to the human, it makes me think of, and people, and search for the hero inside yourself. And it, it is about thinking actually individuals matter.

[00:10:55] So we think about big organizations, but the individual [00:11:00] is the level that we need to communicate on. And for each individual. Themself. They are the hero of their life. They're the kind of the main character in their own story. And so whatever is going on in the world around them, whatever their employer is deciding to do, whatever their organization is trying to do, actually, I.

[00:11:20] They are, they are the point. They are, they are. That's inside them, inside their brain, inside their life. That's where everything that influences them comes together and determines what the outcomes will be. So when we, when we look at the big picture of here's what an organization wants to achieve, actually the thing that matters is what an individual chooses to do.

[00:11:40] In a specific moment in their life at work.

[00:11:42] Sarah: Absolutely. I think one of the most interesting things that we tried to get hold of is that gap that can often feel wide between organizational strategy at the top level, the types of things that people talk about in the boardroom, the KPIs, the objectives, and translating that into what does it [00:12:00] mean for an action that you need a person to take in the moment, and that basically everything comes down to that.

[00:12:07] So. You can have these grand sounding, uh, strategies, but ultimately if you can't influence people to change their behavior, whatever that is, then it, it, it's really difficult to implement anything. So, as you say, organizations are these collections of humans, and we need to understand those humans. What drives them?

[00:12:30] What motivates them? What helps them? What supports them? What helps them to bring their whole self? To work, but at, um, in a, in a really inclusive way, but in a way that also enables the organization as a whole to function together, to collaborate and to, to operate. So we talk about a behavioral approach, um, and I guess sort of thinking about [00:13:00] how do we think about behaviors to.

[00:13:02] Bridge that gap between strategy and action. How do we kind of, yeah, that, it feels quite cavernous, doesn't it? It feels like this enormous space sometimes. So what does that look like?

[00:13:16] James: Yeah, it can feel cavernous and I think it, it can feel. It can feel impossible to get started as well. We work with, we've worked with several clients now on big diversity and inclusion projects, and it can feel a bit like the, the, the brief is kind of how do you change the way people think?

[00:13:35] Like how do you, if given that there is a problem with the fact that society is fundamentally unequal. People are, people are not always kind. They don't always treat each other fairly or equally. Or respectfully. So anything to do with diversity and inclusion in an organization that you want to change, really, you're saying like, how do you change human beings?

[00:13:56] And that can feel impossible to get started with, but, [00:14:00] but if you look at it and think, well, what, what is one thing I could change? And even if I couldn't change it in everybody, is there something that I could change for a large enough number of people that it would begin to make a difference to the organization and perhaps over time we would see change.

[00:14:16] You can start to kind of chip away at it and find a, find a way in, and then things can sort of grow, grow outwards from that. Um, this, this behavioral idea of thinking about what people do, so not what people know, not even really what people think perhaps, but looking at, you might almost call it a symptom.

[00:14:38] Like what do people do and what do you want people to do differently? If you want to change something, how are you going to know that this is working? You might decide to run some kind of campaign. You might decide to create some training. You might decide to make some kind of communications or whatever it might be.

[00:14:56] But there has to be, there has to be a point. You have to be [00:15:00] able to say, okay, this is what we would like to be different in the world. And so I've got an idea that if I do this thing, there will be some kind of an impact. And as a result, the world will look different and I'll be able to see that. And I think being able to articulate what it is that would be different when you get this right is really powerful.

[00:15:22] Um, thinking about that, um, that point about diversity and inclusion, that can be a really hard one to measure.

[00:15:30] Sarah: Yes. '

[00:15:31] James: cause a lot of it is about thought, but there are ways you can make it tangible, like. Understanding your organization better. It makes me think of the project that we did a few years ago with Channel four.

[00:15:45] Um, where they, they, they, they wanted to effectively to, to raise the profile of diversity and inclusion. Make it a subject people were talking about and thinking about, but they had some. [00:16:00] They wanted to understand the organization better so that they could manage diversity and inclusion more effectively.

[00:16:07] And so we. We ran a whole campaign. We designed a whole campaign for them, which was about helping people understand why that mattered. So why does it matter that Channel Four understands who works here? And the way that, the way that Channel Four understands who works here is through the, you know, the kind of, um, HR surveys that you fill in when you apply for a job?

[00:16:28] Like do you have a disability? Mm-hmm. How do you identify in terms of gender and ethnicity and those kind of things? And a lot of people don't fill those in or they tick the, I don't want to declare. Particularly people from minority groups. If you have a disability, then you are less likely to tick the box disclosing that you have a disability so you don't understand it.

[00:16:48] So a campaign that was targeted on that action of telling your employer who you are and to what it is about you that makes you different perhaps to other people [00:17:00] so that the employer can understand that. That's an action. Yes. So this idea of making diversity and inclusion, like changing that is really hard, but saying, let's come up with an action people can do here, and actually disclosing something personal about myself is an action.

[00:17:14] Yes. Understanding why I would want to do that. Well, that's why you have the campaign. Why does this matter? Why is this gonna help? Why is this gonna help us make more groundbreaking, cutting edge television programs that will shape the face of British society? All those things mean I'm more likely to do what's needed.

[00:17:31] When, when I'm asked to tell the, the employer who I am, so trying to find a way of making something quite intangible, concrete, and about an action. Is is fundamental

[00:17:45] Sarah: a a Absolutely. And I think, uh, so we talk quite often about, um, the, from the mammoth to the mini. And I think what's interesting is that at the action, a particular action can feel like it's a bit too small sometimes.[00:18:00]

[00:18:00] So particularly as I was saying about that gap between the kind of boardroom strategy and the everyday moment can feel big. So this mammoth to the mini. Uh, can be a, a little hard to get your head around if that action feels like it's too small. But if you think of collectively adding up everybody in an organization taking a particular action, then it becomes mammoth.

[00:18:26] It becomes something that can have that really big impact. And I think the key thing is to find the actions that have disproportionate impact. So. What, how do you know everybody's taking thousands of actions and thousands of decisions every day? So, um, what are the things that we can help to identify and, and how do we identify those things that have that disproportionate impact?

[00:18:55] Um, and I guess that then relates to how do you know it's working? How do you know [00:19:00] those are the things that are going to make the biggest difference? Um, how do you go about helping to identify what those things are?

[00:19:07] James: Um, I. Finding those disproportionate moments where if you can influence what people do, it's gonna have a bigger impact.

[00:19:17] It is going to amplify what you can achieve across a broad population, across an organization that is really powerful. We talk about moments that matter, and moments that matter are the ones where the, the choice somebody is making in that moment. Is going to have an impact from the outcome. And the outcome could be anything.

[00:19:43] I mean, this could be about how well they do their job. It could be about how profitable they are in terms of selling things to a customer. It could be about their wellbeing, it could be about the way they speak to a colleague, the way they respond to a difficult situation. It could literally be be anything.

[00:19:59] But [00:20:00] identifying those moments that matter so that you can try and shape them is. Fundamental to our, to our approach. Um, to give you an example of what we mean by moments that matter, there are loads. But imagine you, let's say, okay, you talked about the boardroom. The boardroom has set a priority that we are going to become a.

[00:20:23] More effective hybrid organization where people can work remotely and to, that's just kind of business as usual, that we are gonna work remotely and everybody is gonna feel included and the, the people will be happy working in those ways and it will be a, a nice place to work. So that's the organizational objective.

[00:20:43] Achieving that is underpinned by all these decisions people make. They're gonna be loads of them. But a, a key one that you might pick out is when you join a meeting remotely. And the first thing that pops up often, depending on which program you're using, the first thing that pops up is a question like, do you want to [00:21:00] turn your camera on or not?

[00:21:02] And often the default is, no, I don't wanna turn my camera on. So that's a choice. I mean, I've got a choice there. I can choose to leave my camera off. I can choose to turn my camera on if the default is to have my camera off, then leaving it like that is a choice. I'm choosing not to act. So that is a moment that matters.

[00:21:20] And the action that I take if I choose to turn my camera on, we know everyone knows. I think that if you, if you, if you, if you join online meetings and you, you, you use a camera. Then the meetings will be better. Yes. Like that's, we, we will engage with each other more effectively if we can see each other.

[00:21:38] Yeah. If people choose to turn their cameras off, then they are not as, they are not present in the same way as somebody who turns the camera on. And so. Individuals will have, I mean there, there will clearly, there will be people who do, who have a reason why they don't want to turn their camera on. And that's okay.

[00:21:54] And I would not say everybody mandates that you have mandatory camera usage because that won't be [00:22:00] appropriate for everyone. But the choice matters. Yes. And if we can influence people so that more people more of the time are choosing to turn on their camera in an online meeting, we will have a more effective hybrid working.

[00:22:11] Yeah. Remote working set up. So that's the moment that matter. And then you can think, well, what is it that we can do that will shape that? How can we influence that moment so that people are more likely to make the choice that we believe is associated with positive impact? And, and, and this is where understanding the people, so talking the organization, talking to the people involved, thinking why do people behave in different ways?

[00:22:34] What is it that makes us more likely to act in that moment? Then we can begin to think how do we influence that? How can we shape it? How can we, how can we shape people's behavior and. Help them make choices that are more associated with positive outcomes.

[00:22:49] Sarah: Absolutely. I love that example. It's a, it's a good one to choose because we're right now looking at each other on Zoom and, um, I, I'm sure that we are having a better conversation.

[00:22:59] 'cause I can see [00:23:00] your face and I feel like I'm having a, I dunno, meaningful chat with you like we would in the office, but um, as you say, it's. It, it gets less comfortable if you start mandating these things. But if you can think about motivating people, that's one of the sort of core elements of, um, taking a behavioral approach and helping people to do the things that, that would be helpful to them and to the organization.

[00:23:26] Um, I suppose that idea of what's in it for me is really central to that. Um, how do you, how do you think we can. Explain in different contexts that type of idea of what's in it for me, or maybe more broadly, to think about different ways to motivate people to do the thing that we need them to do, what works and, you know, what stood out for you from previous projects of, of great ways to convey that and to [00:24:00] influence the the action.

[00:24:02] James: Yes, absolutely. And of course sometimes the things are mandated. I mean, you may have a, a mandated policy that says you will always do your job in this way. This is how we, whatever, preserve health and safety at work. Yes, you can make it as mandatory as you want. You can have as many policies as you want, you can

[00:24:17] Sarah: if something's on fire, this is what you do soon, as much as you

[00:24:20] James: want.

[00:24:20] Yeah. And you can also guarantee that because people are human. Potentially large numbers of them will not do those things. Yes. Like you can, things can be mandatory. That doesn't mean people will do them. Uh, and it, it, it, it's this, this is where the tension between company objectives, boardroom discussions, policies, whatever else, and humans really becomes felt people do not do the things you tell them to do.

[00:24:47] Because, because we just don't, I mean, that's, that's who we are. Yeah. Thinking about moments that matter helps because that's how you translate this into, into stuff that people can do. Um, how do you shape a moment that [00:25:00] matters? Do we take a behavioral, behavioral approach to this? Um, and I. The way we look at it is through key, the, the three key drivers of what somebody does in a moment.

[00:25:14] So the moment the moment's gonna happen anyway, so we should say this, you don't create the, the goal of this is not to create a moment in which people can act because the moment is gonna happen. There are probably thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of these moments happening every working day in your organization and in your life.

[00:25:33] What we're trying to do is pick the ones that matter and. Pay attention to them so that we can shape them. And the, the drivers we think about are capability, motivation, and opportunity. Capability is really about skills, knowledge, information. If I'm going to, if I'm going to act, do I know what to do or not?

[00:25:58] If I know what to do, then, then I can [00:26:00] do it. Motivation is, is about, I suppose, a feeling of connection with the action. So as a human, as an individual, do I feel that this action matters? Whatever you are asking me to do? Do I care about it? Do I want to do it? Am I motivated to act? In the moment, an opportunity is about having the chance to do it.

[00:26:21] So the things around me, the the people, the processes, the environment that I'm in. Are they helping me to do this thing that you want me to do? Or are they getting in the way and perhaps becoming a barrier? So opportunity is about making it possible in the moment for it to happen that there's nothing that stops it happening.

[00:26:40] And perhaps there are things that encourage it to happen. We could look at something like, I mean, it's a very, very tiny example, but this, this, this point about turning the camera on in an online meeting. Capability is is trivial, isn't it? I mean, it's, yeah, it's a switch that you click when you go into a meeting.

[00:26:59] That's [00:27:00] not difficult. Motivation is probably about understanding why this matters and that sense that this matters to me. This is something that even if I don't really want to do it. I'm going to do it because I get why it's important to, to colleagues, to the organization, to my team, to, to what's about to happen and to our, to our culture opportunity.

[00:27:27] Some of that I think, is probably environmental in if I go into a meeting and everybody else has turned the camera on, then I'm more likely to do it too. But there are also kind of positive triggers that we can use, like perhaps making it the default that at the beginning of a meeting there will be a prompt from the person who's leading the meeting that.

[00:27:44] I'm gonna remind everyone to turn their camera on. So all those things come together and turning the switch on is easy. I know that it matters to turn the switch on because it's something we talk about at work and we have a culture where that's something that we emphasize as being important. [00:28:00] And then in the moment there's the opportunity because I'm reminded to do it and I can see other people modeling that behavior.

[00:28:05] Sarah: Brilliant. I wonder if as well, sort of thinking about people's context and how they relate to each other. I think one of the things that you've done brilliantly in many of the campaigns that you've built is to relate. W how we engage people with the culture that they're in, the organizational culture and, and to help them see how what they're being asked to do really relates to something that they care about in their work because they want to belong to that culture.

[00:28:36] Um, we're talking a lot about belonging at the moment, and, and that's important for this, I think, because belonging. Encompasses inclusivity for me. So I think you, you belong as who you already are and the diversity that that brings in terms of the collection of people that, that organizations are made up [00:29:00] of.

[00:29:00] Uh, we want to celebrate that diversity. We want to think about getting the best from different types of people and that. Essential need that organizations have to draw on different types of people. It's like I was talking about earlier, about the sort of eclectic mix of colleagues we've got at Actian.

[00:29:20] That's a strength. It's a huge strength. So you want a, a, a, an organization to have that kind of range of different people, different personality types, different ways of thinking, um, but. Whatever makes the culture, whatever creates that culture is kind of fundamental to how you belong and what you want to belong to.

[00:29:42] Um, and I guess engagement really relates to that. So I'm thinking of some of the projects you've worked on. You found ways to bring the, thread, the culture through the, the piece that you're creating. So say a video, um, you know, channel four is a nice example, [00:30:00] really brilliant example actually. Um. Netflix you've worked with, where it's kind of threaded that, um, culture through the, the piece that you've done.

[00:30:10] You've done some work with Welcome recently that has also captured, you know, quite, quite a different culture from Channel four that made it really fundamental and, and the care homes similarly that you've worked with, where you are picking up what it is that drives people to want to belong to that.

[00:30:27] Place. Can you talk through maybe one of those examples and how you achieve that? How you connect with the culture?

[00:30:35] James: Yeah. You mentioned, um, welcome as a example client in terms of this kind of campaign. And I think they're, they're a great example 'cause they're a really interesting organization for, for anybody who doesn't know welcome, they are a.

[00:30:48] Global health and science charity based in the uk. They have a, a large pot of money, which came from the welcome pharmaceutical company, which they [00:31:00] now invest to fund research projects that are intended to solve the urgent health challenges that face everyone around the world. So this is things like climate change, uh, anti-microbial.

[00:31:12] Resistance, antibiotic resistance, um, and particularly mental health as well. Those are their three key focus areas and we started working with them in 2019. Uh. On a campaign to build engagement with their new code of conduct. And this was, we should say, this is something they haven't had before. So you could imagine in any organization, a code of conduct could be a, a set of policies.

[00:31:39] It could be things like the, the expenses policy, the gifts and hospitality policy, conflicts of interest, uh, fairness in recruitment, uh, those types of things that any, any company, any organization could have. They'd never really had one before. Um, and so building engagement [00:32:00] with that was tough. They, they're an organization that relies very much on individual perspectives and individual points of view.

[00:32:09] They, they hate, certainly hated, and I think still hate the word corporate and would want to distance themselves from anything like that. And so saying to people, Hey, we're we are bringing in a code of conduct, it's a set of policies that we need you to read, and then we need you to, to just engage with them.

[00:32:26] Like do the things that the policies say. That's, that's a tough sell. And going back to your earlier point there, there probably isn't much in it for me as an individual. There's a lot in it for the organization. Getting everyone to work in these ways is, is necessary if we're gonna stay in business and keep doing what we do.

[00:32:41] But as an individual, it's very easy to feel like you don't care. Um, so how do you do that? Well, what we did really was started with the people. We started with the humans. And so they'd, they'd written the code, they'd written the code of conduct. [00:33:00] We began with a whole series of video interviews with people from across Welcome.

[00:33:08] We spoke to lots of people from across the organizations. This was everybody from the director who was Jeremy Farrah at that point through to the graduate trainees and all sorts of people in between from different parts of the different parts of Welcome. And we talked to 'em about it and we talked to them about.

[00:33:30] Policies. We talked to them about conduct and ethics at welcome and what that means and how it fits with the culture, and that kind of, that shaped our thinking. I think it sort of shaped their thinking a bit as well in that the interviews were, they were a visible thing that they were doing, so they were.

[00:33:50] You might say the campaign hadn't launched by that point, but actually they were part of the campaign. We were beginning the dialogue about conduct and ethics welcome and what that means. People were aware that it was [00:34:00] happening, I think, and so that really shaped the, the thinking there, and we were constantly reevaluating ideas in the light of what people said and what came out of what came outta this was.

[00:34:17] A sense that people do care about this, that people care about, care about welcome. They care about doing what welcome does, and they care about being part of that. There's a reason why they chose to go and work there. I think people tend to choose to go and work there because they, because they are motivated to work out welcome.

[00:34:34] They want to work in that organization and they want to be supporting this work that is supporting urgent health challenges around the world. And. They could make the connections. They were the ones who made the connections between having these policies and achieving the, the outcomes that they want the to do the things that made them come to work.

[00:34:56] And because we were filming these, [00:35:00] because we were doing these interviews on the video, it meant that we had content. So we were able to build a campaign out of the things that people, the things that people said. And they, they said to us, this is more than just a collection of policies. This is really useful to toolkit that helps you do your job better.

[00:35:16] That helps us all do what we do better, that helps us support each other. And that fundamentally the, the, the number one action. This gets us back to behavior change and the moments that matter. The number one action, the moment that matters is when you are about to do something, a work, whatever, literally, whatever it is.

[00:35:35] Just pausing for a moment and thinking about what you're about to do and checking. I. Do I feel like this is okay? This is something that I'm comfortable doing, or do I need to get some guidance? Perhaps it's that there's something that is not right here and I need to take action. I need to act to stop this, or I need to report this.

[00:35:53] I need to speak to my manager. I need to contact the speak up anonymous reporting line. But the, [00:36:00] the specific moment is the moment when you pause and think before you act, and just check your behavior before you go ahead. We were able to talk about that, and I think he came back to the idea that what we do at Welcome is really important, but it's more than that.

[00:36:18] It's not just about what we do. It's about how, how we do what we do and the ways in which we work and that we really care about that. And so that sense of belonging, really, this is about saying these policies, they're not a kind of, they're not a sort of external thing that's being imposed on me by my employer.

[00:36:36] A collective understanding. It's a shared understanding of what's important in the ways that we work and the. Broadly speaking, we all agree that this is right, that we want to work in these ways and we want to know that we can rely on our colleagues to work in these ways too.

[00:36:49] Sarah: I, I think, um, one of the things that really stood out for me about that project as well is the line trust your judgment, which was the kind of strap line, if you like, for the whole campaign, [00:37:00] which absolutely speaks to that culture that you are talking about where.

[00:37:04] People wanted to feel like, you know, they're the experts. They're, you know, often very highly educated. They're people that have maybe come from academia and they, they don't want to feel patronized by somebody saying, you need to do X, Y, and Z in order to work here. It's more exactly as you're talking about that sort of shared ownership, but that trust.

[00:37:26] And we trust you is implied through it. I feel trusted. I understand, but I also need to step up and take responsibility for this. Nobody's gonna do it for me. I am part of the collective that makes this work. And that for me really stood out Yes. Of, of the project

[00:37:45] James: and, and, and the by doing that we are.

[00:37:49] Protecting something special. Yes. That we all believe that what we have here is something that is important and that should be protected and preserved and should be allowed to continue to flourish. Yeah. [00:38:00] And so by doing those things together. That's what keeps welcome operating. That's what makes sure that this is a, continues to be a great place to work and to do the things that matter to me and to all of us.

[00:38:10] Sarah: We should give a big shout out to Fraser Simpson, who led on that project. He's the, um, head of, uh, ethics and Compliance, global Ethics and Compliance. Sorry, Fraser, if I'm getting your title wrong.

[00:38:20] James: He is, he is Associate General Counsel, ethics, governance and Compliance, which is a, you see,

[00:38:26] Sarah: that's why I can't remember his job title, but FRAs was an absolute joy to work with and completely.

[00:38:32] Gets and buys in and embodies this idea of speak to the human, you know, how he kind of, uh, plans the work that he's doing. How to make change happen at Wellcome is just, is really forward thinking. And, uh, he's connected with other networks beyond welcome as well. So, big shout out to Fraser, um,

[00:38:51] James: and Fraser.

[00:38:52] And, and, and the thing that he's brilliant about Fraser is he, he. Totally gets the fact that [00:39:00] you can't just tell somebody something and expect them to do it. So his role, he's a lawyer and so his role en en encompasses lots of things like writing policies, but. He totally gets the fact that you can't write a policy and post it on an intranet and then say, well we've told you that now, so therefore we can rely on you to do it.

[00:39:21] Sarah: Absolutely. He

[00:39:21] James: gets that. People don't behave in those ways.

[00:39:24] Sarah: Yeah. I think that's really interesting strand of thought that we heard at last year's speak to the human event in Cambridge from Christian Hunt who works on um, who has a podcast called He Risk. Hello. Christian talks a lot about this kind of, you, you might need people to follow particular rules, but you can't just tell them to do it.

[00:39:43] You have to understand what is underneath, um, the sort of human behavior and, and how to connect with that. I. James, I'm conscious that we've been talking. It's so easy to carry on this conversation 'cause it is an, it's brilliant and I, I love talking to you about this stuff. It's [00:40:00] so interesting. Um, but we need to wrap up, I think, um, I guess I've got one last question that I'm gonna spring on you, which is about you as a human, uh, speaking to you as a human.

[00:40:12] Uh, so it'd be good to. Just ask what you, what you are enjoying most about your own work, what you're looking forward to, uh, what really motivates you to do what you do.

[00:40:25] James: The, that brings me back to the idea of curiosity, which is something I, I mean, I, I dunno if you can be interested in curiosity. I guess maybe I'm curious about my own curiosity.

[00:40:38] I think I've arrived at a point in my life where I feel like I. I have, I have the ability to go and be curious about organizations and people in those organizations and to use that curiosity to help them bring about change. So [00:41:00] for a long time, I think I could say I was curious about the world in those ways, but perhaps hadn't figured out how to make it into something that was useful to other people.

[00:41:10] And now. Through, through the work that I do and actually, and through the brilliant team of people that I work with and the the clients that we work with and all the things that I've learned through doing those things, I. I've, I've got the confidence to go into an organization and be interested in things without necessarily understanding at the beginning where that interest and curiosity is going to take me, but with a belief that we could do something that will be beneficial and the whatever the, whatever those boardroom targets are, whatever the, whatever the meaningful change that the organization wants to bring about that.

[00:41:48] I can bring something useful that is gonna help 'em think about that perhaps in a different way to what they were expecting to, and perhaps also bringing something that they may not have been expecting as a solution. [00:42:00] So helping them understand that they have choices. They don't necessarily have to do what they've always done before, that there may be something else they could.

[00:42:08] Uh, that they, that they could try and that we believe will make more of a difference because it will perhaps target engagement more effectively. It will build, build motivation, perhaps create new opportunities. Perhaps in terms of capability. It will help people connect with subject matter in ways that they never have before.

[00:42:24] I. I don't, I, I hate things that are boring and so I always try and bring a fresh way of looking at a challenge and try and come up with a way of doing things that perhaps people haven't done them before. We don't always end up with whatever the first idea was. Often there's lots of iteration and you try different things and see which ones work before you actually commit.

[00:42:49] But just bringing the approach that says, let's look at all the things you've done before. Let's look at the things that have worked. Let's think how we can build on that. How can I help? [00:43:00] Starting the engagement without knowing what the answer is gonna be, I think is fundamental. For me. Whatever I'm gonna do with the client, I don't necessarily go in with a solution.

[00:43:07] I really enjoy that and I enjoy, I enjoy working with people where they're prepared to have the, the faith. I suppose that working with an organization like is going to give them something better and more impactful than they would've had if they did. What they've done before.

[00:43:21] Sarah: Yeah. Be willing to be a little bit brave.

[00:43:24] Oh, a fabulous answer. Thank you. I, I threw that question at you with no warning. And, uh, I, I love that you've answered that, centered on curiosity, because that is such a human trait. You know, it's what drives us. Of humanity to have, um, evolved and to kind of pursue all sorts of interesting, amazing adventures in our own lives and, and collectively.

[00:43:49] So thank you. What, what a brilliant answer to end on. Um, and thanks that this has been a great conversation. I've really enjoyed it. I hope other people have too. And, um, hopefully this is a great way [00:44:00] for us to kick off a lot more interesting conversations and speak to the human. So thank you, James.

[00:44:05] James: Thank you Sarah,

[00:44:07] Sarah: and uh, bye.