Cultivating Curiosity to Become the Leader You Aspire to Be - with Sue Thexton, Harris Computer

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to this episode of Leading for Business Excellence with me, Susanna Clark. I'm managing Partner of pmi, the performance improvement, consulting, training and apprenticeship firm. My guest today is Sue Thexton, who is group leader at Harris uk. Now sue started studying graphic design originally and um, claims that she didn't really have a defined career path. Having said that, she spent most of her career in software and ultimately business transformation and working through the IT tech revolution. So lots to hear about today and I'm really looking forward to um, this conversation. Sue, thank you very much for joining me. It's a pleasure to have you on the show.

Speaker B: It's my pleasure to be here Suzanne, and very much looking forward to having the conversation.

Speaker A: Um, so I wonder if you can just start off by just telling us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker B: Well you kind of said it from the beginning. I started out as a graphic designer many, many, many years ago, deciding that that wasn't really natural skill set, even though it's something I was really passionately interested in. Um, and through various circum uh, navigations I found myself in the software industry um, and was in the right place at the right time to be given the opportunity to lead Adobe, the software company which at the time was tiny. And I mean that because I was the number one employee in the UK and ran that from my living room but you know, built that up over many years and did the same with another similar kind of software company in the creative space, Macromedia, that was then subsequently bought by Adobe. Um, but after about 15 years I sort of wanted to be able to go out on my own and to apply a lot of the knowledge and experience that I'd gained through, through that growth um, period to other software companies that maybe were thinking about coming to the UK or were UK companies and were struggling with what to do next, what the route to scale was. And I loved doing that but I missed the opportunity to be with a team and to drive my own growth um, journey. And so uh, actually started applying that but in other software companies. Not just in the sort of creative space but very much across the broadest range of businesses. Which led me about five years ago now to a company in Manchester called OneFile, founded by a wonderful lady called Susannah Lawson, um, to help manage the process for apprenticeships and uh, you know it's a very uh, important sector, it's a very important role that the software has in doing this for employers, for the learners, um, and for the um, training providers. Susanna asked me to join to help drive the business to the next level, if you like, but also to potentially get incremental funding. She'd never actually taken, uh, direct investment at all. It had all been bootstrapped with her and her husband. And so that was the goal. And I was really enjoying doing that. And we decided not to go for funding eventually because she wasn't really that enamored of the whole VC PE world and the sort of expectations that, um, post investment might well happen. And she'd been in conversation with an organization called Harris for a number of years. And Harris are a Canadian company that no one's ever heard of in the UK because as a brand they don't really promote themselves, but their mission is to buy companies and then they keep those companies and they carry on investing in them. They never sell them, which again is a very unusual thing for, uh, a company like that. Um, but the view is that if you add up all of the expertise of all of the people and all of the businesses that Harris has acquired over time, then if you apply those best practices to the companies that you buy, then that route to scale becomes so much easier. And so I was uh, delighted to be given the opportunity to lead OneFile post acquisition and did that for a number of years. And most recently Harris asked me to, um, take on the group leader role, which is essentially having a group of companies that I coach, mentor, guide and help them implement those best practices and help them achieve that scale. So, um, yeah, a real potted history there. But one that I think the common thread, if you think about it, is growth, how to grow businesses. And the businesses that I've helped grow have all been in the technology, software space.

Speaker A: And growth is such a key question that many people have, particularly those entrepreneurs who often experience sort of rapid initial growth and then plateau. So, ah, it's a remarkable skill. I'm interested. I mean you said that obviously, um, you wanted to take on those skills and start applying them to other companies. Can you describe for us what you see as the key skills that you need to have and be able to apply when you're starting to think about achieving growth within an organization?

Speaker B: Well, I think the first thing is an absolute innate curiosity. Curiosity about how you're doing business today? Exactly. Not sort of if, um, you know, but really digging into the details to understand and why you do those things, and then a curiosity about the market. Who is it you're selling to? What about the customers? What do the customers think? Who are the customers? Are they your ideal customer? Should we be looking at different kinds of Customers, how do those customers then buy? And then you have to be able to almost step back. Having taken guidance and feedback from all of the different stakeholders. It's almost then about taking what Harris called t, time, energy and attention and really focusing on what all of that means and coming up with maybe two or three different approaches that might be applicable and then playing those back to all of the stakeholders to understand if there's something that's been missed, if there's a desire to go down a particular route, any challenges that there might be that we haven't thought of. Um, and then making it happen. Because one of the things that's very frustrating when you are consulting with a business is that you can advise and you can provide guidance, but you can't make it happen. And too often growth plans or strategic plans falter because no, uh, one does in fact, focus on getting the things done that are, uh, critical to, to that potential success. And you don't always get it right. And I think part of the skill set is about recognizing, okay, we've set out a plan, we're doing the plan. It's not performing in the way that perhaps we expected. Now we can keep on trying to push that plan further down the track, or we can go, no, hang on a second. For whatever reason that didn't work. Let's do something different, but do it consciously. And, um, um, having really thought about, well, what are your different options at that point, but I think hanging on to that original belief because you had that original belief isn't the right thing to do. You, you need to be able to acknowledge and go, you know, that that didn't work. Let's try something different. And what did we learn from what it, why it didn't work in the first place.

Speaker A: Yes, you're, you're. I know that, um, when we were, uh, talking before, you know, you said you haven't had any of that formal training along the way. But the, but the, the language is absolutely the language that we use to make those decisions, and particularly about that reviewing and understanding, um, studying what has happened and what is working and what is not working. Letting go of what seems like good ideas is tough for people though, isn't is?

Speaker B: Particularly if it was your idea in the first place, because you're very proud of the fact that you made that decision and determined that that was the strategic approach. And so it can be a bit humbling, work out the way you expect them to. But I think that if you as an individual, in whatever role you play in a business can remember that humility is actually a strength, then it's okay. And one of the things that Harris has actually taught me, and they have taught me a huge number of things, despite me thinking I knew it all before they acquired one file, um, is that it's okay to make mistakes.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, the world is not going to end. It's better to acknowledge that you've made a mistake. And it's not. It's not the end of the world. But if you've learned from that, then it's been a good lesson. And in fact, uh, I think I had my biggest lessons when things were going terribly wrong because it forces you to have to think in a different way. And what you want to be able to get to is that you're helping companies grow before they get into difficulties so they can sort of head it off at the pass rather than waiting for it to get into difficulties and then going, oh, my goodness, what are we going to do now? And you see that all the time. It's not like that's a bad thing. It happens. But it obviously would be much better if you can kind of think, well, now the time is good. Let's now think about what the next stage should be rather than that waiting.

Speaker A: I. I often think about, um, and we often talk about, you know, children who inherently play fail, you know, try and build a tower. It falls over. Uh, they don't give up. They look at the blocks, they try them in a different order. Um, and eventually they sit back and they've got a beautiful tower in front of them. And. But as we move into adulthood, somehow that ability to trial an error gets wrapped up in failure. We're afraid of failing. We're afraid of, you know, I'm m a skier. We're afraid of falling over, um, not just from hurting ourselves, but from looking silly. And those things get in the way, don't they, of sort of pushing yourself?

Speaker B: Really, they do. And I think those are skills and traits that are difficult to teach. Um, you know, a lot of people have that more, as you say, ambitious, kind of, let's give it a go. Let's try. And that's, you know, typically the sign of a true entrepreneur is someone that, okay, that business failed, let's try a different one. There's that constant desire to kind of build something that will be successful. From my perspective, I've not been that person. I've always worked in companies that someone else has been the entrepreneur in. Um, and I think that's. It's quite a nice balance Actually, because then I can help with more of those other skills, if you like, that. Often when you are being the entrepreneur and building your business, you don't know what you don't know. And so to have someone like me as your counterpart can be very effective, actually.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a nice mirror to be able to check and confirm. Uh, are we sure that's really the right way forward?

Speaker B: Have an open and transparent conversation, which, uh, again, I think is something that isn't done often enough. Again, people feel uncomfortable to have a difficult conversation. And actually if you can harness that uncomfortable feeling, yes, being transparent, fair, reasonable, but effective in your communication, where there are some challenges, then naturally you get stuff done. And as opposed to people kind of resenting it or feeling in some way criticized again. One of the things that Harris has also taught me is that feedback is a gift. And you can choose to just ignore the gift, or you can choose to unwrap it and reflect on it and use that to be better. You know, feedback, when well delivered, is meant to help you be better, which is an amazing thing. And so, uh, I do believe a lot of business owners, a lot of business leaders should embrace that feeling of uncomfortableness. Whereas what often happens is that rather than embracing it, they will use very aggressive language, perhaps because that's the simplest, easiest way of getting a message across. You just deliver the bad news like it is. Actually, if you're able to give that feedback with real genuine care about the recipient of the feedback and wanting to help them be better, then you often get far, far better results. Now that's not to say that poor performance should be, uh, condoned. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about where someone has made a mistake. That's okay. What have you learned from it? Will you do it again? No. If you do it again, why do you know? So, as I say, we're not conflating the two. Bad performance is bad performance. But here I think if you can help people be more successful, make them feel comfortable in being able to make a mistake, but they at least tried something?

Speaker A: Yes. Uh, I mean, what you describe is, is the ideal scenario for most leaders to be able to create that environment, isn't it that people around them, um, be they their peers or be they even people who are perhaps, um, you know, their direct reports, are willing to share with care feedback and have a constructive conversation. Um, if you can achieve that, as you say, you're going to learn a lot more. Sometimes leaders, I think, can feel quite lonely in their position because Actually, they don't get a lot of feedback. And whether that's because they've created that environment where they're not asking for it, I think the more you can ask others, whoever they may be. How do you feel about this? What's your view on that?

Speaker B: It's interesting because I think you're right. I think the position of a company leader, uh, is inherently lonely because it's difficult to confide in your team. It's a different between asking for their, um, thoughts on various topics versus actually confiding and saying, I'm struggling with this or I need your help on this. Equally, they typically don't have anyone who's a peer, you know, or there's no one above them, or if you have had investment from, uh, a PE firm or whatever, then you're not really going to be confiding in them, particularly because you do answer to them. And those relationships aren't always as supportive as they might be. So I know it is generally something that is a problem for a lot of leaders and it's always helpful if you can get other peers in the industry, uh, advisors at local networking groups or whatever, to help, um, to be able to confide in whatever your challenges might be, um, without worrying about what you would worry about if you were working and talking to people internally. But at the same time, if you can build an organization where people feel comfortable to give feedback, um, that's all to the better. You know, one of the things that, again, keep bringing Harris into this, but I'm quite, uh, passionate about it, is that each of the MDs that comes into the business, when they are, um, acquired, they have their colleagues. All of the MDs of all of the other businesses can talk to one another, can share experiences. And that's the same is true for the heads of R and D or the heads of marketing or the heads of sales. All of a sudden you've got a peer who isn't your boss, who isn't part of your team, but is going through similar kinds of experiences and can really help guide people and be sort of mentors to them.

Speaker A: I was interested you, um, were talking about, uh, Tea. I really like that. Time, energy and attention. And then after the stakeholders, the key thing, make it happen.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So often, uh, as you say, that doesn't happen in your experience. What do you think is getting in the way of. When organizations have got to that point, actually making it happen. What gets in the way of that?

Speaker B: Um, comfort in the old way of doing things, allowing things like emails and inconsequential meetings to clutter up your diary and oh, I'm too busy, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it next week. No, you've got to do it now and you need to do it every day. Um, and you have to force yourself, which means self discipline. And that's a really difficult thing to manage. You know, we've all got our weak spots, we've all got our tendencies to go towards the comforting areas of things that we like to do. Um, and so doing something that's unnatural and anything that's change is going to be unnatural to begin with because it only becomes natural over time. And so there has to be a degree of rigor around someone saying, have you done this? You know, it should be self accountable that, you know, this is what you need to do in order to affect this. Uh, but that's a very important point actually. Whoever's driving the strategy needs to be very clear with everyone about what that strategy is, why that is the strategy and what their particular role is in making it happen. And when a specific action needs to be done, it needs to be very clear as to why that action will lead to that strategic plan. Otherwise people are just doing tasks that have no idea why it's even important. So that communication piece, ah, aligned with unfortunately a degree of rigor, uh, given that people's self discipline isn't always there. And that's tough for a manager. Also, if you've kind of, you know, who let people go along and do their job because they know what they're doing, to actually have to remember to chase people for things, give them a clear deadline. But you need to be on that deadline and questioning if it hasn't been delivered in that time.

Speaker A: M When you were talking at the beginning around the work of how people do the work. Can you talk to me a bit more about that? What are you looking for? What are you paying attention to in how people are doing the work?

Speaker B: Well, obviously that varies enormously because we're talking about covering all aspects of a business and sometimes it's just a particular part of the business that you're wanting to scrutinize. I think one of the hardest areas of the business for me personally is R and D, because I'm not a coder. I don't have a technology background despite having worked in software all my career. How do you measure R and D productivity and how do you measure the quality of R and D? And those are particularly challenging areas because again, in a way, developers are almost like Artists, they're crafting software using their coding skills, and everyone has a different way of doing it. Okay, the languages have certain, um, you know, descriptions and methods of working, but actually, how do you determine a good or a bad developer? And those are definitely more challenging. And I will work with the heads of R and D to kind of help look at that. But it's across the board, really. It's just trying to get under the skin, under the bonnet of whatever part of the business it is that you're looking at. Um, you know, one of the companies that I've been working with had a new MD come in, and they went methodically from department to department to really understand what they were doing, why they were doing it. And then having done that, made some changes, and then moved on to the next department. And I think that's a really good thing to do. If you've got a business that's essentially doing well, you know, it's a good business, there's not a major crisis. And you can then look at each thing one at a time equally. If you've got a particular problem, then you should focus on that one area. But often where I look at things is from a holistic view across the whole business. And I'm sure to a certain degree, I can only get to a certain level of knowledge because I don't work there day in, day out in that department. And again, you've got to be very careful because people will often feel very defensive when you're asking questions about why do you do this? Because then it's. It makes them think, well, actually, I don't know why we do it this way. And that can feel uncomfortable. And there's also a view that if you're asking all these questions that you must be trying to throw things up in the air and reorganize. Um, and that might have negative connotations for the person. And it doesn't always mean that at all. But it can do. It just depends. So I think it's trying to get that balance of, of knowing sufficient to help you with your own thinking about what might happen. But frankly, the people doing the jobs are the people who should know the most about that job, um, and probably will have some very good ideas again if anyone's asked them to articulate what those ideas might be. Because, you know, good ideas don't spring from just my mind, they spring from wherever. What you often find in organizations is you talk to people and ask them for their suggestions and you don't get anything. And it's about trying to understand is that because they don't have any ideas or that no one's ever asked them, have you looked at what we do and how we do it and how we could improve? Um, or it could be that the environment overall in the business perhaps isn't as open and comfortable for people to be open in what they genuinely think. It's interesting when I do workshops occasionally with businesses and ask people, can you come up with one thing, just one thing that would make a difference to your day to day role, the degree to which people seem to struggle with actually narrowing it down to that question. And you end up with people coming back and saying well if I had an extra person to help me I, or if I had more money each month or if we had a completely different um, CRM system. Those are probably likely points but the reality is if you're looking at a business that you know, has limited resources and you need to be able to manage what you've got just more efficiently, just a tweak in a working uh, process could make a world of difference. Having just more pay for doing the same job doesn't gives you what you need, if you like.

Speaker A: Yes. And I mean interesting. You're talking about tweaking. You know, we've been talking a lot about the, the, the, well I mentioned in the intro, you know, the, the technology revolution and in particular um, you know, AI and, and, and the impact that that has the potential uh, for achieving efficiencies. What are you seeing some of the, you know, trends applications for AI at the moment? I' um, because you're working across a lot of organizations.

Speaker B: It's a really exciting area and I have to call it an area because it isn't a thing. It's so many. Part of the challenge I think is that there are so many different tools that people can use and it's trying to work out what are the right tools for the right job. And because it's so new and has typically been in the main responsibility or is being looked at by the RD teams, the tech teams, it's difficult for non tech people to necessarily understand apart from ChatGPT, um, and Microsoft Copilot, how could I actually use it? And so one of the things that we're doing at Harris is that each business has its own AI champion and in some companies that champion then has departmental champions that can then uh, experiment and try things and see what everyone's doing. And if there's anything interesting then they can share that not only in their company but to all the other businesses as well. You know, you've got the usual things like meeting transcriptions, meeting recordings, um, but things like webinars that you might do for a customer, obviously being able to have that then transcripted, um, as well. And so you can then share that more easily with people who perhaps don't have the time to look at the recording of the sessions. But you know, there are many different ways in which it's making a big difference already across all of these different businesses. Um, you know, it ranges from, I've got one business who are, ah, spending a lot of time educating their customers. So as well as developing their product to include AI functionality, it's important that the customers understand some of the ranges of things that they could be doing themselves in a space that's relevant to the software that this company is providing. So you've got the building in of AI within the actual application itself. You've also got developers using AI to then develop the software more efficiently or if nothing else, just doing simple things like code reviews that can take seconds instead of people, you know, spending a day or two on it, um, and then coming up with suggestions as to how to address some of the issues that the code review highlights. Um, so really I would say logical, sensible, simple things that people are doing. Also on support desks where, you know, for most call centers of any size, you will have your um, first level of support which is really just responding to the inbound request from a customer, um, for support. And they usually go through some form of triage to determine is this something that can be handled very quickly, is this something that needs to go for further escalation? But by using um, an AI structured bot with information that's available about the product and how to use it, then that whole first layer can be streamlined so that the customer gets a quicker response, gets a more relevant response and then most of the focus of the team can be spent on that second or third level of support. So really very, very powerful. And in fact one of the chaps that used to work, uh, for me, he's just been promoted and working on another thing now. But um, he one weekend uh, had been talking to one of the businesses and they were struggling because they were a small business. They didn't have a CRM technology that really gave them what they needed from a forecasting perspective, couldn't afford Salesforce. And so this gentleman just tried to build something using Claude. And later on that weekend he'd finished the core of the product. Now it still took a couple of weeks to refine. But functionally it was very specific to what that, uh, business wanted. It wasn't all bells and whistles, which something like Salesforce would provide that, but it was exactly what that business unit needed. So real sort of mixture, uh, of benefits. But I think there's no doubt that it's here and any company that isn't using it to be as efficient as possible is missing a trick and will probably be left behind because every other company will be doing this and it can help in every part of our businesses. It really can.

Speaker A: I, um, was, um, we were on a huddle this morning and you know, to your point about people saying what I could do with is an extra pair of hands, an extra person. Yes. And one of our team described how they've just started to um, they thought they'd write, you know, I've learned about AI, so let me have a go at something. They asked it to research across a whole series of contracts, come back with all the information about when those contracts, you know, started, when they're due to expire, what the frameworks are, um, which, uh, different parts of the business they apply to, and so on and so forth. And she said it came back in minutes and she said if she had had to do that herself, that would have been a day lost.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So there's an interesting change obviously in being able to think about it, but also almost in being able to think about it as a co worker.

Speaker B: That's a very good point. It's not about replacing, it's about supplementing. Uh, and where someone is busy, genuinely busy, and not just busy because they like to keep busy, this is a fantastic way to get something done that you hate doing, that actually doesn't take this digital assistant very long. And as long as the quality is what you expect, which is again where the prompt, uh, quality comes in and you learn that over time, then I think the opportunities for those benefits will really start to kick in very quickly.

Speaker A: Mhm. Yes. I think use cases is one of the challenges as well, isn't it? Is that example. Absolutely. How can it do it more efficiently? Great. But sometimes looking at the work that we do and simply thinking, can I replace it? We are at risk if we don't. If the work isn't already efficient and hasn't been tuned for fine performance, then the risk is that we're not really going to get the advantage. So I think there's a lot of work to be done. I don't know if you see this yourself around making sure that We've optimized the way we're working before we start introducing some of these other tools.

Speaker B: Yes, and it's back to that old adage that you used to hear, you know, garbage in, garbage out. And I'm not suggesting that bad workflows will automatically not have a benefit, but you're right. If you're trying to replicate something that was not great in the first place, then you're not really going to get any efficiencies from that. So it is important to understand its limitations. You know, I had an interesting experience last week where I was trying to, uh, overcome a very repetitive spreadsheet, um, requirement that I have each month. And I spent a whole afternoon trying to achieve what I was hoping I would be able to achieve. And I had to give it up eventually. Um, but that doesn't mean to say I've given up. It just means I will now go to other AI champions and go, hang on, I didn't do this very well. Clearly. What did I do wrong? How can you help me kind of improve that? So again, we have to understand what, what it isn't designed for.

Speaker A: M. Yes, indeed. Um, you talked about customers at the beginning, about understanding your customer, particularly in the, in the context of trying to achieve growth. I wondered what advice you have around that in particular, where you've seen real successes in doing that work and then being able to make a shift change as a result of what you've learned from it.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a very interesting one because I think oftentimes people feel they've got great relationships with their customers. But quite often those relationships are what I m would call single threaded. You've got a person who knows a person, but what if that person goes off on extended leave or leaves or retires or whatever, and customers typically aren't a person, they are a range of people. And to really, again, understand what the customer's goals and, uh, needs are, you need to expand your reach to others that have a stake in the technology or the market or, um, the sector that you're working with. And that means going up the organization and down. It doesn't mean that you own all of those different relationships. But I think it's important that you understand from the customer's perspective what their goals are, what their challenges are. And they may be diametrically opposite to what yours are. You know, I remember at the um, at one file with the apprenticeship technology, you know, quite often we'd be talking about various things to do with apprenticeships, but actually the bigger issue for the business was actually going off into the world of corporate training. And so, uh, everything we were talking about, they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine, but we haven't got time for that right now. Whereas actually, by having a more strategic conversation and understanding that they were focused on a different area. Is that an area that we could also help with, given the knowledge of working with training providers? So I think it kind of changes the conversational, um, approach, if you like, from being transactional to being much more strategic. And obviously, we all talk about, you know, the desire to be a trusted advisor to our clients, but you can't do that through transactional kind of conversations. So it's something, uh, I'm quite passionate about because I do think that the customer experience needs to be excellent. And it can't always be. You know, sometimes there'll be challenges, there'll be a bug or something. But how you handle that, how you engage with the customer. Again, are you prepared to have an uncomfortable conversation with the customer? And, uh, too often, from what I've found, difficult conversations happen when they have to. When something's gone terribly wrong and you have to kind of deal with a crisis, rather than perhaps if you'd had a difficult conversation up front and said, look, this might happen, I need you to be aware about it. We will do everything we can to manage that for you, but I want to give you a heads up. Is often much more gratefully received, um, than the crisis type of conversation. So wherever possible, I try to preempt those things. And as I say, difficult conversations, it's okay. And the customer might actually shout at you. That's okay, too. They're just venting. That's their prerogative. But then you'll get back and have a more sort of less emotional conversation.

Speaker A: It's also back to that. Also, what did we learn from this? You know, what do we learn from this in terms of working with that customer? And then how could we apply that to our other. Yes, yes, absolutely.

Speaker B: Exactly. And, you know, sometimes it's okay for a customer to leave, you know, if their situation has not been great, if they perhaps have not been as open to the conversations, have been quite negative, um, in many respects. And it ends up costing you as a business far more than you're actually receiving from m the customer, then actually we'd both be better off if we went our separate ways. And that, again, is something that often, uh, companies are very uncomfortable even thinking about. And that's not to suggest that I would encourage that at all. But, you know, sometimes it's okay. It is okay. And by, again, by being open and honest about that, quite often they'll come back. Um, because that openness and transparency isn't always there at the other side either,

Speaker A: uh, through the different organizations that you've worked with and the different regions. Because I know that you've, you've done a lot across, um, EU and so on, um, as well as, uh, the uk. What do you think's been the biggest influence on you in how you are a leader?

Speaker B: That's a really interesting question. Um, I don't think there's been one thing. I think what I try to do is to take and learn from every situation that I'm in. And therefore I've been influenced by a number of different leaders, uh, throughout my time around the world. As you, as you've said, I've had great managers in Canada, in North America. Um, Susannah was, uh, a great leader as well. I've been very lucky, I think, over the years to have had managers, leaders who have a, been prepared to take a punt on me because as I said in the beginning, I haven't had that official kind of business route. I don't have an mba, um, I didn't study business studies at university. But they've recognized something and have given me that opportunity. But then I've responded well to that and then we've ended up working well together. So I think it's been a combination of the great leaders that I have worked with, with and the circumstances that I've been exposed to the different types of business through distribution partners, through, uh, value added partners, going direct enterprise sales, doing business in Australia, Singapore, China, um, South America, you know, is a whole extraordinary place with just as many complexities as Europe. And yes, Europe, despite Brexit, it's still fairly simple to do business. But the reality is that in Europe, as you know, there are all those different countries, all of those different languages, different ways of doing business. And then you take that into the broader global, uh, arena. And although there are lots of similarities across the board, there are also swathes of differences that you have to be culturally nuanced. And you can only get to do that through doing it really. Although having said that, we've recently had an interesting training course on how to do business in India, which is the one area I haven't done business in. Um, and I found it absolutely fascinating, um, the degree to which the cultural nuances exist there as they do in every other country. And so that I think one I mentioned curiosity before. I think one of the things that's been my guiding light, if you like, has been curiosity. If I can be wanting to know more, wanting to understand, wanting to experience, uh, whatever those differences are, then that's a good result for me.

Speaker A: Yeah, brilliant. Sue, it's been really fascinating talking to you. Um, I've really enjoyed, um, our conversation and I think that shining a light on the way that the organization is working their customers and then using that as a platform for growth is a fascinating topic. And I'd really thank you for your time today.

Speaker B: No, my, my absolute pleasure and lovely to talk to you. Thank you.

Speaker A: Uh, so I really hope, everyone, that you've enjoyed this episode of Leading for Business Excellence with Sue Thexton. Um, if it's inspired you to think about the challenges that you face, then please do get in touch with. You can reach us@teammi.co.uk um, and also you can see our, uh, website. I'd love to hear from you. I'm sure sue would love to hear from you. Um, so please do reach out and get in touch. Thank you very much.