Episode 365: Chess Club v. Drama Club: Where do you find your people and what does this mean for your professional style? Sally Bridgeland on culture and leadership.

Speaker A: So I've noticed as a board and committee chair, I think, uh, the way that we have meetings has got a bit more chess club, a bit more everybody put their hand up and then you speak in turn. Because that's the way we do it on teams. That isn't a good use of people's time because they're not actually listening. So my brother taught me the phrase of acute listening, which is more than active listening. Active listening is when you're empathetic. And uh, there's some great YouTube skits of, you know, girlfriend listening to boyfriend about talking about computer games or whatever and repeating the right words and she sounds like she's interested. Clearly not so. Acute listening is you don't even start thinking about what you're going to say next until the person has completely finished speaking. That is, is really difficult and it's not what we normally do in board meetings.

Speaker B: I'm Ethan Devitt. Uh, and welcome to the 50 Faces podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. This podcast series is kindly supported by Franklin Templeton and Alvine Capital. Franklin Templeton is a global investment management firm that provides a broad range of investment solutions including mutual funds, ETFs, alternative investments, wealth management and technology enabled financial services. Founded in 1947, the firm manages approximately 1.8 trillion in assets under management and serves individual and institutional investors across more than 150 countries. Alvine UH Capital was founded in 2005. It's European focused private capital advisory and placement agent that provides capital raising services to investment managers from its bases in London and Stockholm. It creates bespoke capital raising programs that blend appropriate investor targeting and sophisticated marketing to deliver a fundraise aligned with institutional expectations. I'm joined today by Sally Bridgeland who was one of the first five guests on this podcast back in 2020 and who still needs no introduction in London institutional investing circles. That was the way we introduced her back in 2020. So I put Sally's original podcast in the show notes and it's a wonderful opportunity not only to have an update on what Sally has been doing over the past six years, but the really exciting update is that she is just in the final throes of uh, finishing her first book which we talked about in 2020. We talked about a chess and drama club concept and the mindsets that go behind each and literally. I think that was one of many things that we discussed in the podcast. So we're going to get into more detail the book is entitled Chess Club and Drama Club Building Creative and Resilient Businesses Together. So after that long introduction. Sally, welcome back and thanks for joining me.

Speaker A: Oh, thank you. It's lovely to be here.

Speaker B: Well, we've been very much in touch over the last six years and there have been lots of different faces and places, I think, for both of us, but it'd be great. Before we launch into the book and get into the whole thought process behind that, could you give us an update on some of your whereabouts over the last six years? Um, places you've joined, places you've left and what those six years have held?

Speaker A: Crikey. Well, it's been busy, always. I love being busy. As you know, one of the things that I've managed to do over the last six years is diversify some of my board portfolio. So in 2021, I joined as chair of Bellevue, which was a relative startup in the care sector. So that was a new kind of business for me, although one that very much came out of the Silver Linings competition that I'd been involved in, in running during lockdown. So moving towards a business that I'm passionate about that improves quality of life in retirement for older people. The other sort of departure from the norm was chairing the Development bank of Wales, which started last year. And that is very much on the local investing agenda. It's connected to political objectives, it's connected to small businesses and the underappreciated parts of the investment market. And that has been a fantastic baptism by fire, really, into really what it's like at, uh, the grassroots and those corners. Both of those things have taught me an awful lot about what investment and what business is like at, uh, the smaller end, which we don't normally touch with institutional investment. And that has been phenomenally interesting. And I think the other thing that I've been doing more of, apart from writing the book, is more mentoring. And some of that's been formal, some of it's been informal. So the formal stuff has been with Critical eye, with City Hive. But those conversations really have been incredibly valuable in helping me decide which ideas, which concepts, almost what people are missing in the way that we go through our traditional career paths. So that's been really helpful. And just life getting older. I've reached my original state pension age of 60 and my dad died at the age of 90 last month. My mum's 88. So some of the things that I was really passionate about in 2020, around old age, but really come to light and come to life in My life and that whole work, life, balance thing, and my little one is now 21.

Speaker B: So, yeah, many milestones all around. That's a wonderful update. And as I mentioned, so many different aspects of that which we would love to follow up on maybe at a later stage, particularly around local investing. Clearly a subject close to my heart and anybody who is embedded in the LGPS and the work that they do. But let's just go back a little bit and echo some of the comments in your podcast. So we spoke a lot about your upbringing and your early aptitude for maths and where that took you, maybe slightly. You differentiated yourself at that early age. And we talked a lot about maths and girls and encouraging STEM subjects and then chess club and drama club. I think those two concepts probably originated for you in your school years or college years. I'd love to hear about the origins of that thinking, what it means, what you mean by chess club and drama club and the people who are inclined towards both, and how you converted that into a book that is organized around management and organizations and leadership.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, the actual terminology, chess club, drama club, came from a guy called Len, who used to work for Russell, I think, but he was one of the coaches. Len Brennan used to work with the Impacts senior management team out in the US after lockdown, he was keen to meet the UK team. And after he'd met them, he had a meeting with me and Ian Sim. Um, and, uh, he said, ian, Sally, I've met members of your chess club and members of your drama club. And I started burst, uh, out laughing because I knew exactly who he was talking about and what he was talking about. And if you think of it, in our wonderful world of investment, we've got the more quantitative rules based on chess club, risk compliance, the quant geeks, all of that stuff. And then you've got the drama club, who would be the more creative narrative? The marketing people, the customer relations people. And the reality is those two don't always get on with each other and there can be misunderstandings. And I think generally our, uh, society values the chess club more than the drama club. And as a result, there's an ongoing tension. But I thought that was really fascinating. And so I started playing around with the idea and talking about in board meetings or in executive situations, I said, well, can we make this a bit more drama club? Tell me the story here. So if you think about the wonderful world of LGPs, where, uh, the political narratives and the stories, the drama club, what are we trying to get out of this, what's the positioning? What's the political angle? That's very much drama club. And the chess club is very much left to, uh, those involved in actually running the thing. So if I think of the Development bank of Wales, the conversation that I'd had with Eleanor Morgan, the First Minister, was, Sally, I don't understand how the money works, but I know what we want to do. And that is exactly the thing. It's that complementarity of this is the purpose, these are the objectives, this is what we want happily ever after to look like. That's the drama club. The chess club is how are we going to get there? And the detailed planning. Chess club also tends to be a bit more focused on avoiding bad stuff rather than the visionary, positive good stuff. So testing it out with poor, unsuspecting executives around the board tables and committees that I've been involved in. And also the mentees just saying, here's a difficult relationship situation that they were talking to me about. I'd say, well, would you describe them as being chess club or drama club? Do you think as a hobby they would rather be a member of the chess club or the drama club? That's the sort of acid test of chess club drama club. But just if you start talking about the can we make it a bit more chess club or introduce what I talk about in the book a lot club mix, making sure you're asking the expansive creative questions and then battling it down to a and so what? What's the plan? So it's not all about brainstorming and yellow stickers, which is what the drama club would like. And it's not all about detailed planning, which is what the chess club would like. It's about mixing those two things together. And what the book does is it goes through different stages of business from just having an idea and being an entrepreneur to right through to what the Harvard Business Review would call an ossified business. Something that has been part of the world as we know it forever and, um, doesn't know what it doesn't know, but is pretty stuck where it is. How do you use chess club and drama club thinking and that club mix thinking in those different types of business? And it's just right at the very end of the book, you summarize what you think the book is about. And it's about everyday inclusion and everyday creativity and making sure that that doesn't get forgotten.

Speaker B: I love that. And it's interesting. I definitely hearing at least the Zeitgeist is much more leaning towards the storytelling Component. The drama club, perhaps. Yes. Yeah, that seems to be the way all leaders now have to deliver a story. We've seen posts on LinkedIn for Storyteller in chief. Do you think that that has captured the imagination as to how to win customers, win clients, win loyalty, obviously the strategic piece also important, I suppose how. Have you seen the weighting of where management talent is supposed to be? Is everyone supposed to be a member of the drama club now?

Speaker A: I think it is about that mix and it is about actually. So the book refers to a number of management bibles and other books that are around. So Range, for example, is a really good book about the rising role of the generalist in a specialist world. There are books about how artists appreciate uncertainty and relish uncertainty and cope in an uncertain world. There are things about resilience, there are a variety of themes. And I'm not saying that you need to convert a, uh, grandmaster chess player into a Oscar winning member of the drama club, but I think everybody just needs to appreciate that both perspectives are valuable. So it's interesting. The way that we tend to do that is as you say, by having a storyteller in chief or let's outsource that to the marketing department and they'll come back with some nice pictures and a different logo. And then your card carrying members of the chess club will say, well, that was a waste of money. We could have told you that. Those are stupid colors. There's the kind of narrative in a world where the chess club are in charge and everything is about the budget, it devalues those skills. And um, I think our educational system. I was blessed to be good at maths. I was blessed to be good at the subjects which are academic and are valued and prized and are paid more highly for compared to my brother who was good at golf, some marketing and selling cars. So that was the luck of the draw. Whereas actually when there's uncertainty, it's really important to have that uh, imagination and that ability to vision a variety of different scenarios so that you can then mitigate the risks but also make the most of opportunities and long term issues, longer term issues like climate and sustainability, those are more important. So in terms of the rise and fall of Chess club and Drama Club, I think it's like everything, everything comes in waves. And um, the world that we're living in that is incredibly regulated is all trying to control stuff that we probably can't control. And we just need to be more creative and imaginative about finding our way forward. That's why it's Right.

Speaker B: For now, I suppose I was going to ask about the loners here who would be happier not being a member of either club, I suppose the people who operate best, perhaps as stars, but not maybe as part of a team. Do you account for that individual at all in your mapping?

Speaker A: I mean, that's interesting. One of the things that I cover in the chapter about entrepreneurs is almost people liking to be different and wanting to be special. My husband used to be an actor. He learned a lot of his technique. A school called the School of the Science of Acting, which is very drama club meets chess club, analyzing everything and trying to work out what the purposes behind individuals are. And it was something I remember from the early days of responsible investment. So 20 or so years ago. There are some people who like to be different and like to be contrarian, we would call it in investment terms. Um, and obviously that is if your timing is right or you have the right time frame. That's an advantage in the investment perspective. But sometimes things are more effective when they become mainstream. So I can remember those early stages of responsible investments. People who were mavericks, like, liked being mavericks and almost didn't want to be mainstream. And um, that's quite difficult because actually you do need the followership to come through for an idea, for a concept, for a movement to be created. It's not about the leaders, it's about the followers and the kind of middle mass market that comes behind. And we've very much seen that with the way that ESG as, uh, we saw it becoming about the data and then looking backwards. And now we're in a phase where people are saying, yeah, but it isn't just about that. We need to be putting more money and more thought behind how we take things going forward. So, you know, if people want to be loners, they can be loners, that's fine. But it depends what they want to achieve, if they want to be different or if they are extremely different. Neurodiversity, for example. That means it's that team working is uncomfortable for them. I think what this book enables them to do is to think about. So one of the chapters on teamwork looks at who are the characters on the team? Who do you need for doing different tasks? Will they work better on their own, in hybrid, in person? Which tasks suit which activities of which people? Uh, and uh, it just encourages people to be a bit more thoughtful about hiring people and then using their skills.

Speaker B: And uh, what's the response been? We're recording this the 13th of April. We're still pre Official publication. It will be published by Bristol University Press, which is fantastic. Congratulations. But in terms of sounding out and conducting these research for the case studies, how has the response been to these concepts?

Speaker A: For a start, I don't think I'd have been brave enough to try writing a book if I didn't think it was useful. When I sent the 40,000 words to the publisher, uh, last August, I had a chess club and a drama club kind of response to that one was, yay, met the deadline, did the word count, um, and got all my Z's in the right places. And then the drama club response was, wow, it's out there. And the people that I've spoken to about this, who will. Who will parrot it back at me and will be using it in front of me. Well, I suppose Sally will say this. You kind of think, yeah, okay, I would. About the drama club and Jess Club, and the more that I talk to people that, you know, the case studies, I was trying to ask people about, were they members of the drama club and chess club, and what about the people around them and how did that work? They were the thing that held me together when I had my writer's block, that I thought, yeah, this is worth it. This is going to be useful to people. And I, uh, just need to write it in a way that people can pick and choose and, um, can just to help it become part of their habits.

Speaker B: I love that. And obviously we are still, when we spoke, we were in the middle of COVID I believe, 20, 26 years ago. And now we're still going through reasonable organization change, whether it be wondering about the impact of AI. Certainly we're still coping with hybrid working. It's moved back to whatever it will evolve into. How would you say at this point, what your book addresses is top of mind for leadership managers everywhere.

Speaker A: So my sense, and one of the reasons for it feeling like it's a good time to be writing this book is the sound bite that I had in the past would have been diversity is a statistic, and inclusion is a way of life. Finding that way of life, helping teams and team leaders, particularly in hybrid working, work out how to make sure that they create a safe space for everybody to voice their ideas. That's really what's deep down in this book. It's structured in terms of different businesses and different situations. But fundamentally, it's about habits that encourage people to ask questions and to invite those thoughts. And that I think is really vital after Covid because of the difficulties of hybrid working. So I've noticed as a board and committee chair, I think, uh, the way that we have meetings has got a bit more chess club, a bit more everybody put their hand up and then you speak in turn because that's the way we do it on teams. That isn't a good use of people's time because they're not actually listening. So my brother taught me the phrase of acute listening, which is more than active listening. Active listening is when you're empathetic. And, uh, there's some great YouTube skits of, you know, girlfriend listening to boyfriend about talking about computer games or whatever and repeating the right words and she sounds like she's interested. Clearly not so. Acute listening is you don't even start thinking about what you're going to say next until the person has completely finished speaking. That is really difficult. And it's not what we normally do in board meetings because you've read your papers and you want to get your questions in. So part of my mission in chairing boards and committees is creating the space so that actually this will be almost a drama club bit where everybody's in improv mode and everybody's listening to what everybody else is doing so that you can create something together. So that's on the fun bits right now. And helping people reinvent how we interact and how we make the most of real life meetings.

Speaker B: That's fascinating and it's a great segue to my final point, which was around governance because obviously you've had a portfolio career for some time as long as we've known each other. And um, you mentioned that's evolved and it has taken different shapes, but still. I asked a lot in a previous podcast about what makes a good effective board member or director or chair. And I'd, uh, just love to ask how your thoughts on this have evolved and building on what you've just mentioned about space and leaving space to reflect, to let ideas sink in. And perhaps that obviously also means having space for silence because of the person is, is then thinking of what to say. There will be more pauses in the meeting. We're all dealing with overwhelming agendas, long packs to get through. How do you square this approach of, um, creativity, improvisation with just the burden on boards today?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think. And uh, I think the main role of a chair and chairs of committees. So making the committee work hard, make sure the committee does what the committee does and the board doesn't, redo what the committee does is really important. So chairing the risk committee at pick quite a heavy burden. And uh, a lot of stuff to get through, but you're doing a really important job for the board. So getting that almost the chess club bits that you need to do from the regulatory perspective, doing that thoroughly and diligently as part of committee meetings is really important. And that can mean that, ah, although the board packs might be big, that actually a lot of the staff and the work has been done by committees. So that division of responsibilities, the other. And I end up. It's not because I'm a group captain in the Air Force, but I talk about altitude a lot, making sure boards are working at the right altitude and particularly in growing companies. And Pitt would have been one of those in changing companies intact Insurance, which was RSA having a different parent. You know, I love the stuff where things are changing. So Nest Invest being New Development bank of Wales, moving on from an older style of governance, which was more of, uh, the executive presenting to the board and then a few questions, and that was what challenge looked like. Rather than really being a supportive board in terms of the agendas and the strategy and working its way through, the political opportunities are out there. If you can't get that altitude, if you can't create that space for the strategic conversation, you'll get stuck at this lower altitude. So you do, as a chair, have to say, no, no, no, I don't want two presentations, I want one. It's 20 minutes and we need 40 minutes for discussion. And, um, it doesn't always work and that's fine. So no board meeting has to be perfect. But if you don't try, if you keep doing what you're doing, you keep getting what you're getting. And I think the biggest sin of, um, the chess club executive is wanting to have an answer for everything and wanting to put everything in the papers when the story, the narrative, is way more important. How the governance journey, the process is actually what board directors should be interested in. Have the right people touch this, have the right responsibilities and the right roles been assigned, have the right characters in the play been involved in the rehearsals here.

Speaker B: That is so interesting and it actually reminds me of a lot of the findings I've been reading about the difference between AI and actually doing your own research or writing in that. If you were to ask for a student for recall on an essay they've written themselves or an essay that they have used AI to generate, there is far higher recall on the essay they wrote themselves because there will have been that process. The muscle memory from going through the process will have embedded in them their mind what has happened and uh, it's just what you're saying on governance is sort of echoing that, I think a little, that if the process is an efficient one and is well thought through, that then there will be more ownership of the outcome because the outcome will have been arrived at, uh, step by step, as opposed to rushed to judgment or not really and not owned by the board.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think we could spend a whole other podcast on AI, So, I mean, it's interesting to see Lloyds bank have started using AI, trying to draw on the information that's within the organization to make sure things aren't biased that are being presented to the board. I would hate to reach a world where the things that actually fundamentally human beings are good at doing, which is smelling when there's something isn't right. Um, and what you get out of eye contact and body language, and, um, the value is less in the correctness of the papers and more about the. Well, why was it such a rush to get these? And what was the rhythm that took us here and the story along the way? You read an awful lot more into that and what might have been rocks and bumps in the journey than actually the final product. And I don't think AI will get that. You know, AI is just maths, Very good maths, very interesting maths. And, you know, I wrote a paper on neural Networks back in 1990, so I know how it works and it is sums, but if it hasn't got the right data, and some of that data is expressions or dynamics, that is very much the territory of the drama club, then no amount of modeling and whatever will help. But it's interesting how it might be able to help us get through the volume of stuff. Uh, there's certainly a document that's coming to a board meeting on Thursday where I said, well, have we tried getting AI to rewrite this in half the number of words or a third? Because this reads like a nice marketing document rather than a policy. Let's try and get it crispier and see, almost there's things that you can learn from what the AI thinks you're trying to say. And then you think, oh, crikey, that's not what I meant at all. It's a bit like when you say to somebody, you know, can you just say in three sentences what this is all about is suddenly you sort of think, ah, right, okay, got it. And it's not about what's in the papers at all.

Speaker B: Well, thank you so much, Sally. This has been a wonderful trip, not only down memory lane in terms of our previous discussion, but also into the world of executive function, team function, management leadership and ultimately storytelling. Your own story is a captivating one and I am so glad to see it now move into this current chapter. We will look forward to seeing the official publication, the book tour and the critical response to these thoughts. And um, thank you for giving us a sneak preview here and um, for really getting some great food for thought for ourselves. So thank you for coming here and sharing your insights with us.

Speaker A: Absolute pleasure as always. Thank you.

Speaker B: I'm Ethan Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors on their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.