E054: Increasing Diversity on Boards

This is the world of work podcast with James and James, hi. This is James. Just before we start,

Oh, what are we chatting about today? Well, it's another episode in our series on inclusion and diversity. Yes. And we are going to chat to the lovely Neil. That's right.

So Neil's from changing the chemistry. They're an organization that looked to increase diversity in board membership, and they do that in a few different ways. Yeah. And it's

important to note that Neil's the chair of that organization. He has a day job. He does another organization, but given that changing the chemistry is all about getting more people involved on the board, it is probably pertinent to be talking to their chair as a board member. Yeah, it's pretty exciting having multiple hats, multiple hats, which is everything that is sort of encompasses some of the challenges around being on a board. So, yeah, really helpful conversation, I think,

yeah, it's a mixture of some practical advice for individuals who might be looking to get onto a board, as well as a pretty good discussion about what some of the skills are needed on a board, and the journey to get to boards, and the diversity or lack of on existing boards. So

the message from the all which you can listen to is, I think if you're not sure if being on a board for you, you need to listen, because he will tell you it is, yeah, absolutely. So before we get into that, anything you want to do for

your checking in. Oh, check in. So the clocks went back. So as you guys know, we record this few weeks in advance, the clocks went back. This went back, and we gained an hour, but it got darker at night. So now I wake up in the morning and it's light, but I you know, it's we're looking at the window, and it's definitely dark right now. Yeah, a big moment. How about you? Yeah, well,

a few nice things happen. I guess one of the nicest things is at the weekend, my brother still visiting, so got in the car and went out to the beach and drove and walked up and down the beach. It was lovely. Yeah, love a winter Beach, walking up and down Portobello and out to East Lothian and eating cake and eating brunch and just eating and talking. It's amazing living in a cold climate. How you justify eating various items to keep you warm? Yeah,

when it's like a crisp day, it's just nice, isn't it absolutely leaning forward into the wind, walking up the loops. You know, it's nice. Very good. You know what?

I'm sitting here, and it's quite chilly, and I'm thinking, actually, well, I'd really like to be somewhere Sunny. So to all of our listeners, yes. So it's somewhere Sunny, just take a moment. Stop whinging about the sweatiness. Stop whingeing about the aircon. Look around and go, aren't I lucky? I'm so lucky. Yes, right. Shall we?

Yeah, enough of us. I think let's get another conversation with now. Okay, so here we are. We're going to jump into the core of this week's conversation. We're speaking to Neil Stevenson from changing the chemistry, and today we're exploring how we can increase diversity on boards, but before we do that, you know, would you be able to introduce yourself to the audience, please? Yeah. So

I'm delighted to be here. As you said, I'm chair of changing the chemistry. Before that, I'd been a trustee for around four years in my full time day job. I'm chief executive of the Scottish legal Complaints Commission, which is the gateway for complaints about all lawyers in Scotland. And I also hold the current non executive role. I sit on the council of the UK advertising regulator the ASA Great.

That's an interesting background. What was it that brought you closer to changing the chemistry and what was it that made you interested in increasing diversity on boards?

So I think probably two things professionally, I had an interest about 15 years ago, I got involved in a big research project, tracking a group of people through their careers and really seeing some of the impacts that could happen in terms of career progression and salary around diversity. So that got me interested professionally, but was also someone who's gay and came out when I was quite young. I suppose I had my own views on sort of attitudes and workplace to diversity, and wanted to do something really positive and constructive from that perspective as well. That's

good. And in terms of what changing my chemistry does, then would you be able to give the listeners, I guess, a little bit of an overview of what your purpose is and what you're trying to do as an organization. Yeah, absolutely.

So primarily, we're a peer support network, and our vision is around changing the chemistry in the boardroom so that both individuals and boards embrace the concept of diversity, and we really try and achieve that in three main ways. So we're trying to encourage people to consider non exec careers and give them support and information around that. We're then trying to work with boards so that they take diversity seriously, they see the opportunities in it and know how to attract diverse talent and. And finally, we then work with people once they've been appointed, to support them, particularly in the first couple of years of their board journey, to help them be effective board members. Yeah,

okay, that's brilliant. That sounds like a very worthwhile thing to be doing. We always try and start with the basics. When we introduce new topics to the podcast. It'd be really helpful if you could imagine you are sitting somewhere and from someone who maybe doesn't know a lot about the way organizations are structured and what a board is, and maybe just talk us through what is a board, what's their role, and what sort of organizations do they exist alongside?

Okay, so there are lots of different definitions of the board, but I was trying to think about, what do all boards have in common? So whilst managers run a business, the role of the board is to oversee that and to think about the strategy of the business, whether there are good governance arrangements in place, and the overall performance of the business. So boards are present in different formats, in the public, private and third sector. They're there in all types of businesses, and really it's a complimentary role, so trying to make sure that there is support and some direction being given to those responsible for the day to day running of the business,

okay? And just sort of to create the fullness of picture. There's also a little bit about responsibility in there as well, isn't there? So if you could just talk a little bit about what sort of responsibilities you take

on as a board member, yeah, it's a really good point, because we're trying to encourage people to consider boards. But you're right, there are always responsibilities that come with a non exec so in a commercial business that's probably defined by companies act in a charity, there are duties of trustees set out by a charity, the charity regulators. So there isn't a real accountability there as well. So we want to encourage people to consider the roles, but they need to know they're taking on that real responsibility as well. And one of the things we'd always get people to do is research what the specifics are in the board they're looking at.

Okay? And I guess that, just to round off that area, talk me through what the experience of being a board member might be like. What you know? What is it you get, you join a board, you've been through a process, what's your next few weeks like

so hopefully in a good board, you will get an induction so they will talk you through the structure of the business, the finances, things like the key risks for the business and the strategy for the way ahead. But that does vary a lot. A good board will do that. On other occasions, you'll really be left to research that for yourself. And it's good to think through a strategy of what you need to research as a board member. And then whatever route you come in through, you're going to hit your first meeting, you're likely to be sent pad of paper, or, increasingly, now that will be online. And you have to look through those papers and think whether they're giving a complete picture of the business, whether they're flagging the performance, and how that links to strategy, what questions you might have about the finance or the initiatives that the business is running. So you're working through the board pack, thinking of questions, and then you're turning up at the board meeting and trying to perform that critical friend role where you're probing and challenging, not in a destructive way, but to make sure that all these different facets of running a business are being considered in the boardroom and that the operational team have matters in hand to do all the things the business needs to do.

And what's the relationship like? Then, I guess, between the board member and you, yourself are a chair in one organization and an exec in another. What are the relationships between chairs, execs and non execs?

So a good relationship, I already use the term critical friend, but a good relationship should have that sort of feel to it so strong non execs, whether in the boardroom or sort of in individual meetings, will be there to try and probe and challenge and get the exact team to think of different perspectives. But you're not there to run the business. You're to try and bring an independent scrutiny to what's happening, but not run the operational detail of the business. So a really healthy relationship will have that sort of constructive challenge and probing, but ultimately be a very productive relationship. I think, you know, one of the things we talk about as well as when the relationships between a board and an exec are less good. And I think in those circumstances, often the challenge from one side of the other feels destructive. It can end up feeling focused on, you know, very individual elements of what the business does, rather than that sort of big picture overview. But it's actually that that sort of how that relationship feels is a key part of what you need to consider as a bull. Member, is it feeling constructive and helpful? Is it starting to feel something else? And do you need to take action around that? Yeah,

so for you know, boards clearly have a hugely important role to play, as he said, being that critical friend and helping organizations move towards achieving their strategy. Where do you see the benefits for organizations of having diverse boards being them, what's the benefit of having diversity on your non exec team?

Okay, so for lots of benefits. I mean, certainly if you look at financial bottom line, there's research studies and the sort of fits companies that those with more diverse boards have a better bottom line. So you can look at that sort of macro evidence base, if you want. I think there's also some very common sense ways to describe the benefit. So if you're forming a strategy for a business, you want lots of different ideas and perspectives. I think most of us know, in any setting, the danger of sort of group thing, or just coming at things from one angle. I think you know, customers of any business or public body are diverse, so you want to understand your customer base. You want to resonate with them and look credible. So, you know, there's another benefit, and the same goes for your your workforce. You know, we're all trying to recruit and retain talent. The boardroom has a role in setting the culture of the business and making sure that values are lived up to. And if you've got a diverse staff base but very homogeneous board, is that relationship going to going to work and fit and, you know, I could go on, but you know, business challenges are complex in the world we live in now, again, that idea of different ways of thinking and different perspectives are helpful. So there's a whole, whole load of reasons I can talk about at length.

No, I'm just, I'm interested in what you were saying. I suspect that we could have a whole podcast just on that, because we certainly, we've started to explore that topic in the past, and then some talking for quite a long time, because there's lots of stuff there. But I guess coming from your perspective, what I really interested to know is, what, what do you think just generally makes a person want to be on a board at the moment, and what's stopping people from doing it? And then is that seen disproportionately in some of the underrepresented

groups. Okay, so quite a complicated question there, because I think there's two things, what makes people want to be on boards. There are people, probably myself included, who really enjoy the challenges of running a business. We're quite confident. We can be confident talking in a room and asking questions, and those are the type of people who often want to get involved in boards, and they can bring huge value, definitely, but I think there's also lots of other people who can bring great experience to the boardroom, and they don't necessarily have to Be extroverts. They don't necessarily need to have been leaders and businesses themselves. And in a sense, that group can be the one that we're interested in targeting, trying to get people who have great skills and specific fields or great life experience, but wouldn't necessarily think of themselves as someone who goes into the board. That's interesting, yeah. And I think you started to touch on what you know, what can you do to encourage people? I think you know, part of roles, changing chemistry, part of why I'm so pleased to be speaking on this podcast is just information. A lot of people haven't, maybe heard about what a non exec role is, or they don't know the terminology. They don't think it's something they can contribute to. So actually, like breaking down lots of barriers. A first key step is information. Then it's around encouragement and support, and then it's maybe around specific strategies and help to assist people getting there. Yeah,

so at the minute, I mean, you talked a little bit earlier about representation, and touched on the fact that, if you've got a diverse organization, but your exec and non exec team are all fairly homogeneous. That doesn't feel, you know, representative of your of your colleague base or of your customer base. Where do you see that at the minute? What sort of levels of diversity are there on boards? I guess, UK us, you know, third sector, public sector. You know, any thoughts on the level of diversity at the moment? Yeah,

so, I mean, you you can very quickly Google to get some of the sort of shock headlines, if you like. And I think they have a value, because they make us realize the journey we have to go. So I think last year in the FTSE 100 there were more people with the name David or ethnic minorities. Yes,

you got to love the journey. Who did that? Stat, right?

Yeah. You know there was a look at digital companies. These are the future of knowledge economy of the UK. Two thirds. Don't have a single woman on their board. Or if you look at who sets our education, who is setting policy for the future generation, 94% of school governors in England and Wales were white in the last study, and that in no way 94% that's incredible. Yeah. Just, just, I'm in shock.

Well, no, and you know, it is shocking. And I think what's worse is that, you know, the footsies being commended for looking at women, it's starting to look at black and minority ethnic representation. But you know, you get into other fields of diversity that employers have been tracking for 1015, years, like disability or sexual orientation, and you just can't even get statistics. And if it's still seen as diverse, letting a woman off your board, one can only assume it is worse for some other groups, where there's no data well, and I think,

I think there's also a really interesting thing around and don't get me wrong, I am deeply happy that we have protected characteristics as a member of two of them. It makes my life a lot easier and gives me an equal chance. But there are also characteristics that aren't even protected, like class, for example, where where we can't even people aren't even asking because it's not even protected, and therefore we don't

even know exactly, and we've got intersectionality in there as well, people with multiple protected characteristics and the complexity that brings. And also, I mean, I maybe should have said this earlier on, but for for changing the chemistry, we define diversity in a very broad sense. So, yes, around identity, so those concepts of gender and race, but also around diversity of thought experience and lived experience. So this is people coming from different professions and academic backgrounds, different life experience, in terms of rural or urban growing up in the care system. So when you think about all that fantastic diversity that's out there, our boardrooms just do not look like that yet. Yeah,

I had this is I'm shamelessly stealing someone else's quote. I can't remember I saw it, and I'm really worried now that I might have seen it on your LinkedIn, but I saw the quote the other day from someone who was saying, if you're looking around your boardroom and everyone looks like you've got a problem, yeah. And it was really interesting because we, I was in a board meeting the other day, and that board meeting has, on paper, got a number of people. In fact, it's probably every single person is from some form of underrepresented group, but they're all the same, they're all the same group. And we had a bit of a moment where we were like, We're all the same age, we've all got the same cultural references, and that's probably not that helpful, given our beneficiaries run from 18

to 18. So that's that is so important, because if you look I mean something I would really compliment. You know, the Scottish Government had this agenda of 5050, on boards in terms of gender, by 2020, they've worked tirelessly at that. We've seen just massive progress, and that is a huge step forward in gender, and that affects a big swathe of the population. But I do slightly worry. Looking at some boards, I know there's one where there's four women appointed, but actually three of them from the same after and post code, three of them from the same university. So it's a great step forward in terms of gender, but actually, the evidence base is that higher performance comes from different ways of thinking, so still, progress to be made on that diversity of thought piece. Yeah,

when you're engaging with people through the charity and speaking into the wider population, what sort of appetite is there for board roles amongst more diverse people that you speak to. Do you get a sense as to whether or not there's a desire for these roles? What do you think stopping, I guess increased diversity? Is there a pull factor, a push factor?

So definitely, there's interest. I think you know, again, if you look at where we've got the biggest numbers for statistics in terms of gender, it is absolutely not an issue that there is a lack of interest from when they're not sitting in sitting on boards. There's something else going on. And again, we'd expect that would be replicated. But I think, you know, there are some things that are hard to change. So in certain industries or sectors, the number of women in senior roles, or the number of people from certain backgrounds, because you do have to have a certain experience before you go on a bigger company board. It's maybe different in the small charity area, but also just a lot of people talking themselves out of it, or feeling that they're not qualified when they possibly are. And you know, those are some of the myths we can bust by trying certain circulate information on people from diverse backgrounds who have got onto boards and have gone on to have an impact

and and how much do you think, and I say this as someone who's been involved in recruiting or for boards a couple of times. How much do you think that charities and small organizations, particularly sometimes it's. Sometimes the job description reads like a wish list, which is lovely, but maybe doesn't make it clear enough that they're not expecting every board member to do every one of those things. It's much more about you know, if you can fill one of these holes, that's really helpful.

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of copy and paste all sort of put in a board description from another, bigger charity they've seen, and that's a really quick way to work. But as you know, in recruitment, you need to tailor it. But also, you know, what do you do to attract talent? Can you run an open day so that people can come in and see the other how the board operates and learn something about charity? Can you offer board shadowing? So actually, you know, maybe allow four people a year to come in and view a quarter's worth of board meetings, so that they get some more context of how it operates. Because some people love diving in, don't they, and sort of activist learner, but other people like to know a little bit more and reflect on how they want to approach something. So there's so much that can be done to encourage people, but it does require just a wee bit of thought and effort. I

would say I am. I joined a board up in Scotland recently, not recently at all. It was a year ago now, But time flies quickly. But I thought one of the things that I thought was really good was they invited everyone who'd applied to get to know the board day, and we did, like mini speed dating to meet all the board members, and that was part of the recruitment process, but it was also for me, who was being really thoughtful about it, and was like, I really want to pick the right place, and I want to make sure I can make value. It was absolutely brilliant, because I could see straight away, here are the skills on the board, and I have skills, but they might be different, and that might be a useful thing,

absolutely. And what? What a fantastic thing to hear about a board doing, because with a staff team, you wouldn't just pick 12 new people at random, chuck them in a room and say, make a decision. But somehow, sometimes we do that, occasionally with boards, but getting people talking, because there has to be an element of trust and knowledge about the people you're in a board team with. So, yeah, that's great to hear about some, some good practice

if we, if we think a little bit specifically about what you do as an organization. I mean, how, how are you looking to change this? What are the main levers you're looking to pull, and how are you looking to increase the diversity?

So the first thing is lots of information events, so running sessions where people can come along and learn what it is to be a board member. The next thing then, would be trying to help them with some specific tools. So we have things like a matrix of commonly thought board skills. And again, as Jane maybe alluded to earlier, trying to scale those. So say that if you're going into a small charity, this might be the level of financial knowledge you need. You know, obviously, if you're going into a FTSE company, it's it's higher. So we've got some specific tools. A lot of it is also about hanging out with a group of people, a group of POS who are all looking at this so hearing what their thoughts are, how they've been applying, helping with that resilience piece, because everyone who applies for a board role will get knocked back at some point. But if you're in a peer network where others are going through that as well, that can help you bounce back. And also, you know, training on skills so that are specific things like applying for a job that you need to take into account if you're applying for a board role, and you need to frame your experience in a slightly different way, to show that you're applying those skills at board level rather than an operational level. So providing training and support with some of those specific skills is also, is also really valuable. You said

at the beginning when you were speaking there about, you know, the skills needed to be on a board. If we think about, you know, the people that listen to our podcast, they come from a wide range of experiences, and some of them are on boards already. But for those that aren't, what sort of skills do you think are relevant for being on a board?

So it's a real mix, and I'm always really nervous about describing this, because you're trying not to people off, but there are some skills that are going to be really helpful for any role. So a bit of knowledge on how to read a balance sheet and a Profit Loss account. So not a huge detail. You don't have to be able to write the accounts yourself, but to be able to ask intelligent questions. But that's something you can train on or read up on. You'll see programs for finance, for non Finance Directors, that type of thing. I think there's other skills like sort of audit or some knowledge of governance, which, again, you can develop yourself through, through reading or study. But after that a lot of the skills, they will want one person on board who is thinking about people and has some knowledge of that sort of HR people culture piece in a commercial business, they might want someone with a bit of an engineering background or a marketing background that's relevant to the business. So part of this is about. Thinking about your skills, thinking about the boards you might be interested in, and trying to match those up. But I think an awful lot of people, if they come to us with a CV, we can help encourage them to think about where that CV might fit them into a board somewhere. And I think that links to the number of roles. Some people think this is a very limited tool, but I think there's something like 20,000 charities in Scotland. There are hundreds of public bodies, there's lots of companies. So actually, there are 10s of 1000s of opportunities out there, if you know where to look for them.

Yeah. And do you see people when they're making this sort of decision in their lives, if they want to be on boards. I mean, do you see people starting a little bit in advance and trying to develop skills? Is it the sort of managed process? How do people make that transition from maybe starting to thinking, starting to think about being on a board, to actually being on one?

So you can do that. You don't have to, and I'll come to that at the end, but it is a good thing if you're interested start early. And I guess I was very lucky that actually, my first experience was something I'd been involved in at university, and then on their board, they wanted someone who was still a young person in that day. So that was my first experience of being on a small charity board. I think if you're you know, if you work in a profession or an industry that has professional bodies or representative groups getting involved in those sorts of committees aren't quite the same as a board that can really help you develop those skills early on, and particularly the school skills of working in a sort of team around a table like that. And that is also a build that a lot of people will have started with a smaller organization, whether that's a charity or a smaller business, and built up. So there's definitely a sort of career escalator or ladder there, like that is in the exec world that you can think about as you want to get started early, but as I said at the start, it's not necessarily a prerequisite. So if you built a good exec CV, you're later in your career, and you're suddenly thinking about non exec there's definitely still opportunities there as well. It's just, it's how you pitch your experience.

And I sorry, I just want to add one thing to that, just to listeners who are thinking about this, if you already work in a small organization or medium sized organization, badger your CEO, if you've got a good relationship to either present to board, come to board, watch board, read Board Papers, talk to him about what happened to but whatever he or she is happy discussing with you. Because for me, I was so far ahead of the game, which I had no idea I would be because I had sat in 15 board meetings, even though I'd only been in there for like half an hour, doing my report there and in small organizations, quite often, there is an opportunity to bring lots of the staff in, like, over a period of five years at head box. I think every member of my team came in at least once. And I think that's all it that takes away a lot of the fear. Well, it's demon, yeah, yeah. Because you find out, firstly, like, run badly, they can be quite dull, and run well, they can be brilliant meetings. But also, you start to understand, you watch people, and you hear the questions they ask you, and you start to work out, who's really read the papers, who's really thought about it, and who understands what the organization does? Yeah.

I mean, I just think that's fantastic advice. And, you know, I love the podcast you did on Personal Development Planning, because there are also those projects or things that you can take on that are just going to give you some of that language and some of those skills. So what you've described is always best being there in person, you know, things like, you know, doing the risk register for the project or doing the project budget aren't always the most exciting bit, but actually really helping develop those skills that are important in the boardroom. So there's lots you can do. And we actually use a board development planner, which is like a personal development plan, to try and get people in the network to sit down and think about this as a really active task of, how are they going to approach their their their board journey? Oh, that's brilliant. I love that.

The other thing I'd say that really links to some of the stuff you guys talk about is non exec, and exec can be really complimentary. So if you're in a business that you love and you're getting lots of exciting projects, but you're not quite able to get into that boardroom tier. A non exec can really help you build those skills and then almost help you skip a step when you're looking for your next promotion and another business. And I think again, you know, I feel very lucky, but I don't think I would have made chief exec if it hadn't been for having non exec experience alongside my day job, because although that business was very keen on development, they just couldn't give all the opportunities I needed. So if you're thinking about it early career, is it something you're going to do separately to your career, or is that that sort of virtuous circle there in terms of building experience? Okay, great. That's

a really. Great chat, and I've got a slightly different question. Obviously, some of the people that we listen to are also chief execs, chairs, trustees, and maybe, although they mean to prioritize diversity, maybe aren't doing quite as good a job as they could be to actively promote the need for diversity. And I say this carefully, because I know people are well meaning, but you also get a little bit of people going well, we that worked for us before. So let's just go with that route again. What are the things that you think small and medium sized organizations can do themselves in their boardroom to encourage other board members to go out and find more diverse people, or to be more focused on really getting a good, diverse set of candidates for board positions.

So great question. I think the first thing is, you do need a bit of time, and you need a conversation about this. And that sounds really simple, but even getting time in a busy board agenda can be difficult. But I think you want to chat through things like, what are the skills you have on the board and what the gaps? Then you want to talk about things like your customers and your staff, and think about the diversity that is present there, and then talk about how that is represented on your board. So I spoke to a charity not that long ago delivering services to young people every board member over the age of 70. So a chair came in with a deliberate plan to try and tackle that diversity and get some younger people in. So use different lenses to examine your current composition and think about what you need, and some of that will be diversity of person or experience, but also have a have a think about that diversity of thought. So whether you're using something like Belbin or the insights model or Cantor or one of these tools that helps you think about how people approach a project, and think that's also important, because if you want a live discussion and interaction in the boardroom, you need those different types of contribution as well. So have a really good conversation about all these different types of things, and then, you know, it's back to basics. You need to set an action plan. It won't happen itself. So what is one or two places where you could advertise that you might attract a different audience? You know what one of the two things you could do to invite people into the business and be more open is that shadow aboard? Or can you at least record a talking ahead video to chat about what you do? But you need an action plan if anything's gonna gonna happen. And I think the diversity space is often full of great intent, but not full enough of action plans. Interesting. So,

so let's take it back again a little bit to changing the chemistry. I mean, you're, you're a charitable organization. You do a range of different things. How? How can people get more involved with you? What types of people are you looking for? What support do you need? How can people learn more?

So in terms of type of person, anyone who's interested. So if you think this might be for you now or in the future, then it's worth finding out more, and that might be something you then park for a while, but at least you've got that information and you can grab opportunities that might help you when they're they're relevant. So what? What do people do to get involved in the organization? You can send in your details through the website, and the first thing we do is set up a one to one meeting with an existing member just to chat through where you are in your thinking about board appointments and what it is you're looking to get out of the organization. And hopefully that leads to you getting more involved. And I think what we can offer is some of those tools I mentioned, some of the training, some of that peer support, the information on how to frame a search strategy or do due diligence before joining a board. But it's also just the motivation of being a part of the membership network, getting those reminders that you need to be actively looking if you're if you're wanting to take up a board role, and just getting to chat to other people who have their own exact and non exec experience. And we've ranked 400 members at the moment, around 160 of those have been kind enough to feedback that they think we have helped them. I'm sure lots of them would have done very well anyways. I'm always nervous about, I think just that little bit of you know, that little bit of focus and support. So for all of us, I know that absolutely, absolutely. So that's really how to get involved. What I'd also say is, you know, obviously I'm passionate about changing the chemistry, but but rather great networks out there as well. And I think with pure networks, it's always great to find one that you feel as a great. Cultural fit for yourself, because you want to be enthused about this, it shouldn't be a chore. People give a lot of time to board roles. So, you know, find, find a good fit for yourself, and

in terms of how people can find you, what actually is your website? Could you let the audience know how to thank you? Yeah.

So it's changing the chemistry.org so as simple as that, changing the chemistry.org. Great. And are you guys on social media or anything like that as

well? Yeah. So on on Twitter and LinkedIn, again, just as changing the chemistry. Or, you know, feel free to contact myself direct. But the nature of people to get involved in peer networks. We love meeting you people. So if you can't get, you can't find us on the internet, then you can always look for my own profile and happy to refer it on

and in terms of like, geography. Obviously, we're all based in Scotland. On this call we live up here. Does changing the chemistry support people across the UK, or is it What's your sort of reach? Yeah. So

it's really interesting. Until very recently, we were Scottish focused, so a lot of our events are central belt, although we offer dial in options, but we do run events in other parts of Scotland as well, and we've got members, I think, in all but one of the council areas. But recently, we've had a fringe group start forming in London, and that wasn't something we had as a business strategy for the charity, but just people seeming to want that real peer support. So rather than network that's selling product and sort of running training sessions, more a community of practice and sharing of information. So we've been really excited to have a London group of members for the last year, and you know, maybe that will reach out into our English trustees as well. Yeah, that's exciting.

Okay, and okay, I just want to ask you, and I say this, James has been a board member. I'm a current board member, but I want to know from you people are listening. They're sitting on the fence, but thinking all this sounds like a good plan. What's the best thing about becoming a board member or a trustee

making an impact to the way a whole organization works. So you know that that is the big thing about sitting on a board, that if you can achieve one thing that you think makes that a better business for the staff or for customers or for the bottom line, that is a fantastic feeling, and actually it's really possible, because a simple observation or a comment from a different perspective can sometimes lead to great change. So you will have good and bad days as a board member, but the ability to influence the whole business is such a privilege, it can be so rewarding, and we desperately need people from different backgrounds to be influencing our organizations to think differently. Yeah, that'll do it. That's a pitch, brilliant. Thank you.

Yeah, I think that's kind of heading to the end of the time, so it's just time for us to say a big thank you. I think that was really interesting. I'm sure a lot of our listeners will have a look at the website, learn more about what you're doing, hopefully reach out and engage and and hopefully, through the course of this conversation, we've convinced a few people that they should make the leap and start to pursue this. Well, it's made me think I need to start looking for my second Yeah, find another one. Great. Join the network. I've got my phone up as we speak. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for your time. Great. Thank you good speaking to you. Okay. So welcome back. You're with us again. Now.

That was our conversation with Neil. From changing my chemistry, I thought it was really interesting. I thought there and even though I've been on a board before, I found it a helpful way to learn. Yeah,

me too, sorry. The reason that James is that the microphone stand that has been an erst friend of ours is got a bit loose, and as we're talking it's just leaning forward anyway, yeah, I really enjoyed it really interesting. Really loved the idea of having a plan. That's Surprise, surprise with me. But the idea of working towards when in your career and starting early and thinking about what that might be is a lovely concept, yeah.

And the fact that there are different scales of, you know, boards that you can be on for different stages in your career, I think that's really important. And one of the big takeaways for me was Neil's reflection on the fact that, you know, merging, to some extent, the non exec and the exec has helped him progress. So, you know, you can learn a lot, but definitely help me. Yeah, it's really useful, isn't it? You can have sort of parallel careers in your own time. You can be supporting a board and growing and developing through that while at the same time using those skills in your data. Yeah. And I think,

I think a lot of the time, people think that if to be on the board, you have to be more experienced than the chief exec and the other executive staff that are going to be in that room. And that's not the case. You just need different experience. The point is that you bring a different voice, not a superior voice. Yeah, yeah. And it's that critical friend piece. I

think that's an important message. And some other things that struck me in there were some of the stats. I mean, I love the one about, you know, more. Was it David's on the FTSE leadership team? Then women? Was it David? Was that the

name? Yeah, the one he was talking about as well. Really, it is Dave. The one that I really sticks with me, because it is so striking around children, is that 94% of school governors in the UK were white. Recently, it's a huge number, given that, realistically, that is not represented, yeah,

the diversity of our population. Yeah, that's quite frustrating. Yeah. So he's working on a great cause. It's, it's an organization that's trying to do some good stuff and help people along the way. So I think it's Yeah. And

I guess the reason I wanted to talk to him, and I know you, you were talking about this too, is I sit in a boardroom, and I cannot tell you how important having diversity in many ways in that room? Yeah. And I have worked 423, boards, and the same has been true. So if you think you can be a different voice in a boardroom, then you should definitely find out. You know, it might be talking to change in chemistry. It might be talking to someone you know on a board, but whatever you can do, I would, I would strongly encourage you, yeah, well, let's leave

it with those words of wisdom. Let's broaden the diversity on boards. Words of wisdom from Jane, thanks. Okay. Bye, bye. Hi.