speaker-0: Welcome back to the Professional Fundraiser Podcast. I'm Gillian, your host, and in this mini sode we're talking about leadership and in particular what it takes to lead a growing business, where so many businesses start out owner-managed and then reach that point where the business needs you to evolve as a leader too. Joining me is Kelvin, who's been on exactly that journey, from starting out as a one-man operation to leading a fantastic team here in our countryside offices, alongside an amazing network of fundraisers on the field. We'll be talking about why leadership is often tested most when things aren't going to plan, how easy it is to slip into panic or impatience under pressure, and why staying calm and setting the right tone matters so much. We'll also touch on leadership in fundraising, and how in our sector, quality and compliance don't just come from processes, they come from people, the behaviours they model, and the culture that's created around them. Welcome back Kelvin!

speaker-1: Hello Jillian. Thank you very much.

speaker-0: very excited to have you back again and be having another conversation with ⁓ you're a pro.

speaker-1: Like this is my fourth podcast now. ⁓ I wouldn't have I wouldn't have said that. You always sort of walk into the room. Everybody who's done the podcast, I mean admittedly it's only myself, Angela and Paul so far, but everyone comes in and feels, ⁓ I'm a little bit apprehensive about this today, actually. And we just said off camera, it's always the beginning, which is the worst. Once we get into a conversation, we're in a nice stride, but the beginning is always it's always the toughest part. We did say that.

speaker-0: It's like you you feel like when you're just having a conversation with someone, it just flows. But when you sat here with the mics with a mic. It's like, okay, what do I say? How do I start? So ⁓ well today we're gonna be talking about leadership and ⁓ you're obviously leading this this company here. I'd actually really like to know what leadership means to you.

speaker-1: So I think I think leadership as as a whole, you know, there's a definition of leadership, which is quite simply getting things done through other people. And quite often it's easy to sort of forget that because what you see in a lot of organizations, especially small, medium businesses like our own, you know, we well, you know this. We we have about a hundred people working here between our field team and our and our office team. And within businesses of our size, smaller and and larger as well, you see leaders play in a sort of a really sort of hands on Proactive role. But the definition or the very definition of leadership there is getting things done through other people. Yeah. I think in terms of how that is achieved, and actually what we expect our leaders to be thinking about on a day-to-day basis is a couple of things. So the first, we we use a phrase which is in the service of. Okay. Because what we say is first and foremost, you're always in service of your team. Yeah, that's that's the key part here. In terms of getting things done through other people, the way that you achieve that is by being in service of your team, enabling them, setting them up for success, ensuring that they have all of the tools and the development and the guidance and the clarity of direction over what needs to be achieved. ⁓ and then it doesn't just have to be in service of the team, it can be you in service of the clients are even in service of the business as well, making sure that business is, you know, financially profitable, it's sustainable, it's achieving its aims and objectives beyond the financials as well. The one thing though that as a leader, we never are, is in service of ourselves. You know, it's leaving ego at the door, parking that we're not here for ourselves. And I think when you when you think about some of the worst managers, some of the worst leaders you've had, Actually, they're sort of the arrogant ones and the ones who've carried an ego and the ones who have been all about them and they've put their team second. Whereas a good leader will always put their team first. Yeah. And and the second thing that we talk about here at Professional Fundraiser in terms of leadership is head, hearts, and hands. Because this is the expectation that we have upon all of our leaders is that you think strategically. And that's that's the head part. But there's times when ⁓ you're thinking operationally. That's that's the hands, you know, it's how do you how do you clear bottlenecks, it's making sure that the dating day gets done. And then the third bit is the heart and that's about the people and that's about the team. And as I said, that's about being in service of others.

speaker-0: Yeah, exactly. You're not leading if there's no one to lead, are you? So it's good you've got to you've got to be in in service of of of someone, definitely. Yeah. ⁓ can you tell me a bit more about how that ⁓ that plays out here in in TPF?

speaker-1: I think that ⁓ a culture here is is is really important. Yeah, I spoke with Angela in podcast number two. It was all about sort of organizational culture and the importance of that. And where we landed actually at the end of that podcast was how organizational culture is underpinned and the very foundation of it is trust. And I think that's the absolute same foundation here in terms of leadership as well. You know, it's always about trust between ⁓ about the leader. And the actual, you know, the team, the team member as well. And you think about all of the best relationships that people have with their line manager. ⁓ and trust is always what sort of underpins it. So you're always thinking, okay, well, how how do I build on that? And I think it's always around being honest, having transparent conversations. And that doesn't mean Shirking away or hiding away from the truth. If there's a difficult conversation to be had, that still needs to be had. But it's done in a way that is framed as being ⁓ enabling, you know, it's not ⁓ it's not a stick to be, you know. Someone's let's just use a really crude example here of somebody doing a poor quality piece of work. You don't turn around to this person and say that was a poor quality piece of work, I expected that to be much better. You know, you highlight what was really great about it. And then you sort of highlight actually where are these areas for development in there? Where did that fall short? And you're asking the questions to say, how can how can I enable you? How can I support you so that if you do this piece of work again in the future or something similar to it, how can you become better at that next time round? So as I say, it's always, I think it it's it's linked into culture and it's very much tied into actual trust.

speaker-0: You're saying it's it's leading by questions as well. You're not saying this is what is going to happen exactly. I mean, sometimes there's a ti a place for that, I'm sure, as well. But a lot of it is is when you're leading in a team, it's it's bringing it out by asking those questions. What what can they see? How can they reflect on it as well? That's

speaker-1: Yeah. Well, what you've just said there about a time and a place. And I I remember when I worked for British Home Store, so I'm going back 20 odd years here, I think, ⁓ to what was really quite a horrible time within within my life. I think I talked about that in podcast number one actually. ⁓ but I remember being on a on a training course with them and it's odd, so many so many, let's say, frameworks when it talks about leadership or anything in life, it's always split down into four quadrants. Okay. And I remember one of these sort of cuddrances about sort of friendship, because it's saying some leaders sort of lead through friendship. And it talked about how how's that sometimes proactive, how is it not proactive? Another time was sort of talent task. And again, sometimes when that's proactive, when it's not. And you don't really need to, you know, I could elaborate on on the definition there of talent task, but it's fairly, fairly, fairly evident. Yeah. ⁓ another one was stretch and involve. And I think a lot of the time as a leader you aim to be in that stretch and involve camp, you know, because hopefully things things run smoothly, you've got the time to invest and the time to spend with people. They've got the opportunity to be able to to make mistakes as long as they're not too significant on the business, but to learn from those experiences as well. And it's constantly around involving those people, whether that's in the strategy, whether that's in the role, whether that's just the explanation of the task itself. So continue to involve them and continue to stretch them. There is, however, a time for tell and task as well. And as you say, that's suddenly where you've got to match pace to the urgency of the situation there as well. ⁓ so and that but that's that's what we call situational leadership. And it's not saying that Things are always the same. There's always going to be, you know, a different style depending on the person, the forum, the urgency, the situation, the task.

speaker-0: I think those different quadrants will come into play, but if you were always in one, then that's when leadership is out of kilter, isn't it? If you you've got to be using them in the right situations, as you say.

speaker-1: Yeah, absol absolutely, absolutely. although it's it's just made me think because quite often whenever we do these podcasts, I remember I think in the it was in the first one, I think it was with us anyway, but we just said that ⁓ Kirst Starmer was likely to be handing his notice as always.

speaker-0: Actually, talk about that in in episode one actually. Yeah. Yeah.

speaker-1: Sadly, I think if we were to sort of benchmark the date when we're filming this, it was last this is this is Thursday, and it was last Friday when news about Anne Whitakom's ⁓ sort of grotesque and heinous murder ⁓ was reported in the media as well. and ⁓ I was watching the very final interview that Anne Whittacombe did. I watched that only yesterday evening, actually. And one of the questions that the host asked Anne Wittacombe in there was to sort of say around ⁓ different prime ministers and in her opinion, whether they were good prime ministers, bad prime ministers, people have to watch Anne Widdicom's own final interview to get the answers and her take on that. But one of the other questions there was ⁓ which which was related, was when she served, I I believe, as a member of the cabinet in John Major's government. And she just drew the comparison between John Major and Margaret Thatcher. And of course, if you're a conservative, and Margaret Thatcher is a huge sort of hero, really, you know, somebody that everybody says, ⁓ phenomenal Prime Minister. ⁓ Perhaps if you're not a conservative, you're going to think differently than that. Of course. And we're looking for, ⁓ fantastic. But coming to my point, ⁓ she said about.

speaker-0: Opinions may vary.

speaker-1: The two of them and how actually within Parliament, when they sort of went to vote, you know, and they're walking through the lobbies ⁓ where you're either the eyes or the nose, and said, Margaret Thatcher was just storming through, I'm there to cast my vote, moving on. You know, she was very much this kind of, I think, sort of determined, let's let's just crack on with stuff. And I see that, I saw that in my mum, to be honest with you. My mum was very much like that. Whereas she said that John Major. Always he stopped, he and that was his moment where he could chat to people and he could chat to people about their holidays and you'd hear him say, ⁓ yes, you know, how how is your time away? How is your wife after her operation? ⁓ how how is this going? And he said, and and she ⁓ and we can remark to say that even in sort of the final weeks, I I I believe sort of John Major was sort of being ousted at that point, and you know, there are challenges ahead, but said You still always took the time. ⁓ so I think there's a point there to say that personalities are personalities and you're never going to change those as as well. And quite often when we talk about authentic leadership, that is about showing your personality. You know, you're not trying to put on ⁓ a disguise, you're not trying to be somebody else. The only person who you can be is yourself. And people buy into that, you know, people buy in to that authenticity. ⁓ But at the same time, there are going to be various situations where actually what you say or how you say it just needs to be framed ever so slightly differently.

speaker-0: And do you think there are unique challenges to the kind of industry that you're in, the kind of industry that TPF is?

speaker-1: Wouldn't say wholly unique to fundraising, right? ⁓ but I think there's there's two parts of of of our sector, which would be mirrored in other sectors as well. I think the first is this kind of sales elements of the fundraising role. Yeah. And certain people within the sector won't like us using that phrase of saying, look, this is this is fundraising, this isn't sales. But the fact of the matter is we're asking people to make A regular donation, there is a pitch involved, there is a close involved, it's all of the sales skills involved. So I think any organization that's involved in some form of direct selling ⁓ is going to be sort of fairly, fairly similar to us, and therefore the leadership that needs to happen within that space. ⁓ and I think the other nuance is also the size, because a lot of agencies like ours within this sector are all ⁓ roughly the same sort of size, actually. We're all in and around sort of five million pound annual turnover. ⁓ we're all in and around maybe sort of a hundred people plus ⁓ at any one given time as ⁓ as well. ⁓ and we tend to be sort of owner-managed. There's a couple of exceptions within within the sector. ⁓ but again, you'll see that pan out through so, so many organizations when you think about the the makeup of companies within the UK, actually there's only a very, very small percentage who are your Tesco's and your Sainsbury's and these really big corporates, you know, the vast majority of businesses that you see are these much, much smaller entities. ⁓ and therefore tend to be, tend to be owner, owner managed. Taking both of those in in turn, I think the first part is around these sort of sales elements of the role. I'm going back to British Home Stores again, which I detested, as you know. And one of the things that was ⁓ required, let's say, or asked at British Home Stores was selling these gold cards. And these were ⁓ store credit cards, credit facilities, effectively. And you don't you don't go to work at British Home Stores thinking, hang on a minute, I need to do direct sales, I'm gonna be selling credit cards. You know, that's not what you think. You think I'm taking a job in a department sport store. I'm going to be offering customer service. I'm going to be filling the stock. I'm going to be serving on the checkouts. And it's all around customer interaction. ⁓ and granted, selling a credit card is also around customer interaction. But nobody, nobody was trained to do it. Across the company, nobody, nobody was trained to do it. And we had to report ⁓ said in in the very first podcast, I I joined as a store manager at British Home Stores. And a regional manager asked us to report our figures at midday or one in the afternoon, whenever it was, ⁓ and the same at the end of the day. And you didn't want to get on the wrong side of him. And you know, as I said, you know, British Home Stores, Philip Green, and that same leadership and that same culture filters down throughout the whole of the organization. So it's no wonder that actually got a regional manager who was predominantly talent ask. 90% of of of of the actual time. So inevitably what happened is you'd phone up and you'd lie. And you'd just sort of say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're having a really good day on these gold card sales. We're on, we're on eight when actually you only had two or worse, or whatever, whatever the case is. Yeah. And you'd hope and pray that you could turn it around and the afternoon would be much better. Yeah. And inevitably it wasn't, it just got worse. And you've made you've dug a hole now.

speaker-0: Exa I was just gonna say, how do you how if you've told that lie, what's your what's your plan?

speaker-1: Well, you just keep on telling more and more lies, and this is the thing. But then then you take that lie into the next day because you know, well, I've I've told the regional manager as a store we've done we've done 10 and actually we've only done two. Yeah. So you're on the back foot and you're playing catch up. Shortly after I started, my manager sent me into another store to discipline team members within that store. because of their tactics over selling the cards, because it came to like ⁓ life company wide. There was about a hundred and hundred and sixty stores that the stores themselves had taken it amongst ⁓ you know taken it upon themselves to just give out discounts or whatever the case was to try and sell these these store credit cards. It was almost like they thought, ⁓ this is great. You know, we've sold a thousand store credit cards this this this this week. Not realizing that it was because the people on the checkouts were saying, ⁓ I can give you these socks for free. I can take 10% off your shopping here if you sign up to one of these gold cards. ⁓ and they they had didn't nobody had any authority to be doing that whatsoever. And then as soon as the company realized that's what's been going on, they came down like a ton of bricks and was like, No one's had the authority to do this. If they've been doing it, they need to be given ⁓ final written warning at the very least, if not dismissed. And that was almost the kind of a narrative which which was given. So you instantly begin to see this kind of connection between culture and let's say scare tactics and pressure being put on. And actually how the behaviors that came out of that were never were never positive behaviors. You know, it it it's it was people really sort of struggling to sell Lions try get away with stuff. And that wasn't anything wrong with the individual there. You know, that was just the culture that existed and how it made them feel. Yeah.

speaker-0: You can see that's coming down from the top. There's that if the very top are like, We need this, we need this and you've got to do this and there's already lying and stuff going on. You can see how that just comes right down to the very bottom.

speaker-1: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, it's a really, really toxic culture, which is why I say I hated my time there. I really did and wasn't there for very long. whereas ultimately speaking, I think when you've got when when you've got anybody who's who's great at their role, because here's the trick with leadership, surround yourself with people who can do that job better than what you can do it. and you've got brilliant people, you just need to give them the space in the room to be able to flourish in those sort of ⁓ circumstances there. So I think with our fundraisers, we never ask them to report their figures at midday or report their figures at the end of the day. Everything's electronic now, you know, they sign up supporters on an app. We can see, you know, in in in real time who's signing up who and what the donation amounts are and everything else. So we know if someone's had a bad day, we can see there's no reason for people to be reporting the figures. We can see that, but we don't go to somebody and say, you've only done two today. That's not good enough. You know, it's the framing of the conversation to say, ⁓ I noticed you only did two today. You normally do so much better. What what what happened? ⁓ and and it's being curious, you know, that's that's the trick here. It's about being curious and it's asking the questions. And it's not saying to somebody, this isn't good enough. It's saying to somebody, what more can I do? To enable you. And I think within a sales environment, when you've got people who are very capable sales individuals, it's about how do we set them up for success. And in a role which is so much about personality, talked about authentic authenticity when it comes to leadership, but it's the same for anyone in sales. Yeah. ⁓ personality is absolutely everything. And when you're under the kosh, you'll you'll never that personality is never going to shine through at all. ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah, if you feel that there's a someone in leadership is pressuring you to be something other than you're not, or to do a ⁓ to do things this particular way, it yeah, you can see how your personality is doesn't feel free to sort of shine in that. I like how you're saying it's about ⁓ the the I can see these two different ways, there's the openness way and and the closed down way. ⁓ but what happens when we're under pressure? Because we all get under pressure at times. What would you say is the key to to staying calm in leadership at at those points.

speaker-1: Well, I think that's that's when leadership gets tested because suddenly there's a danger that panic sets in. ⁓ and sometimes it's not just it's not just panic, it can be fear as well. And I think this comes to the other point about owner managed businesses because you know, we all have cash flow, we all have profit and loss, and I think every single sector industry, you know, they're always gonna have bad weeks, you know, and you could imagine a

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: Restaurant as well. I'll use that as an easy example to say they've got to do so many covers, take so much money per week to be able to break even, to be able to make a profit. And maybe when it's sunny weather, nobody wants to go to that restaurant. They all want to be outside. Maybe when the football's on as it is at the moment, maybe that's keeping people away and they're flocking to the pubs instead. You know, there's all of these nuances, and then suddenly you know, the owner of this restaurant is there thinking, Blimey, this has been a bad week. I've made a loss this week, and now suddenly panic sets in as to what are we going to do because we can't continue like this. We can't have another bad week or another bad week or another bad week. and and our sector is is fairly similar in terms of this direct sales. You know, the weather plays a part. There's so many different things that can play a part, and you see it in our results. We have great weeks, yeah, we have a few. slightly, let's say disappointing weeks, not bad weeks, but they're just disappointing against perhaps what we'd hoped for or thought that we was going to get. and sometimes things just go wrong. You you know, forget the financial. Sometimes things just go wrong and that's when panic sets in. But the team will respond to the leader's behavior. So if the leader is suddenly in panic, ⁓ then everybody else moves into panic as well. So the role here is actually how do you maintain this calm energy? How do you match pace to the urgency of the situation to be able to demonstrate this needs to happen and this needs to happen now, but to do it in a calm way, in a measured way, and in a really focused way as well.

speaker-0: How do you do that?

speaker-1: ⁓ I don't think I don't think I've always done it. Let's let's be let's be brutally honest. You know, the business is in a in in a different place now than what it was five years ago, ten years ago. And I remember in our in our old office actually, ⁓ we had this this grotti office on an industrial estate, not like the very nice countryside offices which we have now. ⁓ but it served its purpose. It was cost effective and it served its purpose. But anyway.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: We had this sort of small warehouse down below and our office was up above. And you know, you you could hear if somebody whispered in the warehouse below, you could probably the person up above would be able to hear the conversation, you know. But ⁓ I I was just stressed. I was just worked up and stressed. And I I can't remember what the situation was, but I just let out this almighty, I'm gonna say roar. It was like a scream or a roar, it's like kind of a thing. And at the time my my mum was in the business. And also ⁓ my wife was in the business, although I ⁓ we certainly weren't married, then maybe we were engaged. and I I can't remember, there's probably three or four people who came running down the stairs because I was in the warehouse. They thought that I don't know, I'd been climbing on the racking or something had fallen on me or I'd I'd I'd really injured myself. And they came running down. Is everything is okay? Is everything okay? They're kind of expecting to see blood everywhere. And it's like, yes, yes, thank you. Everything's absolutely fine. Everything's good. ⁓ I don't know, I can't remember what it was. But as I say, just little things had really set me off. But you know, you're so into the kind of a detail. The business is very different now. ⁓ because because we're bigger and because I've got a team around me who, as we said, can do all of their roles far better than what I can do them. So it's much easier to stay calm now, actually. Yeah, do, you do. You just disperse it and you realise I'm not here to solve the problem. I've got a team and it's the team collectively who can solve the problem as well. They can all bring ideas to the table and it doesn't matter if it's a good idea or a bad idea and nobody decides whether something's a good idea or a bad idea. You just want people to bring ideas, to bring solutions, to have those conversations and things will evolve. And if nothing else, you realise, okay, where's this problem? But there's a team of people here who get it, who understand it. And it's like, you know, it's like the phrase, you know, a problem shared is a problem halved. And when you've got a team of 10 people around you, then it's divided by 10 as well. So I think, I think, you know, the key to leadership here and the key to staying calm is to make sure that you are surrounding yourself with really capable people to begin with, and and involved. And that doesn't just mean involve them in the good, it means involve them in the tough times as a as well and the tough decisions. Because they also want that. You know, they want to feel like yes, I've played a part. They want to be challenged in those kind of ways and to be bringing a solution and think, ⁓ wow, we had we had that challenge and I was a real part of part of ⁓ part of solving that.

speaker-0: So there's been a time when you obviously have have been in crisis and and you've had to stay calm and you know, you're the owner manager, you're you're still responsible. ⁓ tell me a bit more about that.

speaker-1: Well, I think I think owner managed businesses they can be great. They can be a disaster as well. And I th I think the challenge is is that when when somebody decides, okay, I'm gonna start a I'm gonna start a business, quite often it's because they they know the operational part of what happens there within that space. And certainly, you know, if we look at the fundraising sector, ⁓ it's a complex business actually within Fundraising. It is a complex business. And you just think about the different hubs that we have here as well. And one of the things that I said actually in the very first podcast that we did was how, you know, when when I said about the the difficulties in starting and some of the challenges and the patience that Cats Protection had with us, because it's a volume business ⁓ as well, you know, you've got to do volume within within this kind of sector. But you can't go ahead and suddenly put this infrastructure into place and everything else. So I think this is why within the sector we see so many subcontracting relationships start up. Because somebody will start an agency and say, ⁓ well, I can I can offer my fundraising services to this other agency. and I'll have my own little fundraising team with me as well. So suddenly what that owner of this subcontracting business is doing is They're going out and they're fundraising. Okay. And maybe they're happy with that. Maybe they're happy for that to sort of be their actual business. But maybe then they start to grow and they have more and more fundraisers come over to them and they go from having five people to suddenly having 20 people or 30 people. Maybe now they need to put another manager in place just to be able to manage these fundraisers. Maybe they start to think, well, hang on a minute. I'm the subcontractor. But I'm going to this other agency and they've got the contract with the clients. So why don't I cut out the middleman and go to the clients myself? Right. But then suddenly we start to go into account management and client relationships and how to tender. And then you get these massive long tenders and they're asking for stuff around data security and environmental sustainability. ⁓ and financial governance. And straight away now this person who was running this sort of five man band or five person band is suddenly like, Ooh, blimey, what on earth?

speaker-0: I need this and I need this and I need this and I and and you know, you're you need you need the skills or you need the people.

speaker-1: A hundred a hundred percent, a hundred percent. And I think the key here is sort of knowing actually what what size are you sort of comfortable with and and where where do you want to be able to take the business ⁓ as well as an as an owner managed business? And for me, I'd come from senior managerial roles with other with other companies. I'd never been a fundraiser. And I've done fundraising. I wasn't very good at it. I certainly couldn't do it on a permanent basis, like what our fundraisers do. So for me, starting a fundraising business was actually probably really, really tough. And I say probably because it's probably one of the one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life. Yeah. Because I had to be hands on in that moment. I had to go out there and fundraise, and that's not what I'm good at. When the business became bigger, And we started to have different hubs, and we'd have people in HR, in finance, in IT, and I was now separated from the day-to-day realities of fundraising. It's like, lovely. Thank you very much. I'm I'm much more comfortable now. I know what I'm doing because this is playing to my skill set that I've done all before. With other owner-managed businesses, if we just keep with our own sector, it can often be the opposite. You take a fundraiser who, as I say, starts with this subcontracting relationship. Maybe they stay like that because they know their own limitations. Maybe, however, they've got a much, much wider portfolio of skills and actually they're growing and they're learning and they're developing because that's what we do as humans. And they do cut out the middleman with this other agency and they do they do run an agency and they they get everything else together and that's that's absolutely fantastic. But I think the key as a as an owner is to know what your limitations are. ⁓ And and I think a good example is it's that clothing brand, very, very young ⁓ clothing brand, sports clothing brand. I want to s I can't I don't know if it's under armour or not. It's a real fashionable one with the person up in Birmingham. I'm gonna look at Kayla, who's on the opposite side of the table to us here. Young guy, ⁓ you're not into your sports clothing brands. ⁓ my word. I just I is it's it's gone. ⁓ it's quite a good sh ⁓ Gymshark. Gymshark. It took a long time. It took a long time to get there. So Gymshark. And Gymshark exploded. You know, that exploded very, very early days.

speaker-0: influencers and stuff for sporting it for a while, yeah.

speaker-1: And you say that about the influencers, but that was what, and I apologize, I don't know the name of of of of the owner there. ⁓ but that's that's what he was great at. He was great at the marketing and the branding and the influencing side and everything else. But he knew nothing around ⁓ the logistics and how to scale a business and gaining the additional finance to be able to do this and supply chains. ⁓ so He decided to say, I need to employ somebody else to run my business. So he employed a chief exec and he became their head of brand. So it was his business, but he was reporting into a chief exec. Now that's changed because as the years have gone on, ⁓ he's learned more and more about the business and about all of these other things that he just never had the exposure to beforehand. Because that's the thing with an owner-managed business is sometimes if you're starting it at such a young age. ⁓ you haven't got the breadth of experience or the depth of experience rather. and and this sort of wider portfolio of skills. So he's sort of built that up. So I think the big thing here for an owner manager is to know the limitations, to know almost actually maybe I do need to take a step away and put a different chief exec in. Maybe I'm fine in this position, but I need to bring in other expertise in whatever ⁓ guys that kind of looks like. To be able to grow the business and support the business moving forwards. Because for certain, there are businesses out there where the owner is staying in post and actually they're doing a lot more harm than good. Hopefully, I'm not one of those individuals. Hopefully, not yet. But I'm very at home in a business of this size. I'm very at home in a business of a hundred people where I can have personal relationships, where I can see what's going on without. needing to do it and be overly involved in the detail. Could I run a larger corporate organization like Tesco's? No way. Haven't got a clue. That that scale, that size. But equally, could I run an organization with three, four people where I've got to be hands-on? Probably not either, because as I say, I I know I know where my strengths are. And I think the key to leadership as well is playing to your own strengths, doing what gives you energy. And knowing when to delegate some of those other tasks to people who can always do it better.

speaker-0: So knowing what you're what you're good at, knowing your skills. But I like we say as well about like knowing what gives you energy, because there are a lot of things that we can do, but to actually, you know, sometimes they're not the things that we're the best at, that we're not the most passionate about. And that can be a good time to bring someone else in as well, can't it?

speaker-1: It's we was on a ⁓ we was on a call with one of our clients ⁓ a few a few weeks back and there was probably about eight of us on there. ⁓ and we was discussing the contract and there was a point in there, I can't remember what it's about, and we just needed some new wording. And I sort of said, ⁓ well we could phrase it, we could phrase it like this. And it was a brilliant phrase that I came up with. ⁓ there's a scene in Only Fools and Horses where Dell's trying to sort of pretend to do a contract and he says, There we go, it's full of forthwift Some very masters. And and it's that kind of you know quite

speaker-0: A spur a certain sort of language that you want to put in, yeah.

speaker-1: Absolutely. And I came out with some sort of gobbledygook like that on on this call and I thought to myself, this is excellent wording, isn't it? I could be I could be a contract lawyer. And I can, you know, all joking aside, I can actually come up with with decent wording. and but I I hate dealing with contracts. I I I really, I really don't like it at all. It bores me rigid, you know, these sort of big, long, elongated documents. I I really can't stand them.

speaker-0: Ha ha.

speaker-1: I'll give them somebody else all day long because it'll always go to the bottom of my pile and it takes me probably ten times longer to be able to do what needs to be done with it than what it should actually take. Just because as I say, I just don't I just don't enjoy it. It doesn't give me energy. You know, it's it's it it's it's a drain basically. It takes it takes all of the energy away from me. Yeah.

speaker-0: So that's another part of leadership, isn't it? Knowing what things to let go, isn't it? And even when you can do them, just knowing what what to let go. And ⁓ yeah, how d how is that though, when when when it is your company and you've built it and you've you've brought it up, how how does that start to feel like, ⁓ yeah, I can let that go or I can

speaker-1: ⁓ I think quite often that that can be the challenge. sometimes, sometimes I think leaders like that can be maybe a little bit misunderstood because it's always sort of like, you know, if I use myself as an example here, they'll say, yeah, Kelvin, he just won't let this go. He won't give me the autonomy on it or whatever else. And sometimes it's not because of a lack of trust, because that's what people perceive. They always think, ⁓ you know, he doesn't trust me to do this this job. ⁓ sometimes it's just the fact that actually people enjoy work. A lot of people enjoy work, you know, it's that sense of achievement, it's that sense of fulfillment. when I think you're in that sort of that we'll call it a top, a top role. Now I don't mean to be hierarchical there, but when you're in that role, ⁓ and you've surrounded yourself by really fabulous people and everything's running smoothly. Can be a really boring job, to be perfectly honest with you. Somebody said to me, ⁓ this was only last week, it was a member of our team and they were saying, ⁓ this person's fantastic, aren't they, in the company? ⁓ we've got so many great people here and it's a really difficult job. And then says, ⁓ but of course you have the most difficult job of everybody, Kelvin. And I said, No, no, no. I have the easiest job. I have the easiest job because theoretically I don't have to do anything. ⁓ because everybody else is doing that. But then it's sort of like, hmm. I'm bored, what am I going to do today? So that's when you start meddling and you start interfering a little bit. ⁓ it's not out of and Kayla, as we just said, is sat on the other side of the table and she probably gets at ⁓ a lot more than what other people feel it as well. Because I I really love the marketing and the branding side, which is what Kayla does. ⁓ I can't do it anywhere near as near as good as ⁓ as her by by any mean shape or form and wouldn't wouldn't even pretend to. ⁓ But I I do enjoy it. So I am always sort of coming over and saying, what are we doing here? Let's have a let's have a look at this. What are you working on? I've seen this on on your screen. And she's probably there thinking. See, look, she's smiling away now. She's probably there thinking, why don't you just leave me alone? Let me let me finish this. Let me crack on and I'll get this done and I'll show it to you when it's all finished. But I'm just so keen and so eager. But I think the other side of your question, it is that trust. And when it is your baby, how do you trust others? Part of that it comes it comes with time. But again, it's that same old surround yourself with great people because when they come in and ⁓ I think provided that y you're honest with yourself and you think, Well, they're really good and yeah, I can't do that, then you haven't got you haven't got any worries.

speaker-0: comes us right back to the beginning. We're talking about that culture and building that culture of trust again, doesn't it? Really? ⁓ and knowing that you can trust the other people ⁓ in your organization, which then comes to finding the right people in the first place. And yeah, yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. And and that's where, you know, culture plays such a big part. And I think that's one of the the main roles as as a leader of the organization. I saw I think it was on maybe the front of a book, you know, on a book cover and it said CEO and then underneath said chief engagement officer. and, you know, it took me It took me a few seconds because my mind instantly went to you've made a spelling mistake. Who are these? Who are these idiots who are doing the covers on these books? You know, chief executive officer. And then, you know, a split second later my mind went to ⁓ Yes, that is exactly that's exactly the role. And comes back to what we said earlier on about being in service of people and being in service of the team.

speaker-0: I think that's a really good place to end it, Calvin, because we're back at that culture again. And I think that's a theme that is gonna keep coming through. And ⁓ thank you again for joining me today. Again, another fascinating conversation. And ⁓ yeah, thank you very much.

speaker-1: No, always always a pleasure. I'm getting used to these podcasts now. And hopefully if we do another twenty or thirty more, I'll actually relax within this space and it'll be a lot more natural. So fingers crossed.

speaker-0: Both of us, both of us, thank you again. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the TPF Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a colleague on LinkedIn or let your fundraising friends know about us. We're back here twice a month with a main episode and a mini sode featuring fundraising insights. So be sure to subscribe to our channel so you're notified whenever we have new episodes out. We're streaming on Spotify and Apple Podcasts with video versions available on YouTube. You can also find us on Instagram. via at ProFundraiser UK for more on all things TPF. We'll see you back here very soon.