Welcome to the IPM podcast. APM is the chartered body for the project profession. My name is Emma De Vita and I'm the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host. In this podcast, I speak to Dame Inga Beale, portfolio director and former CEO of global insurance giant Lloyds of London. He also happened to be a PM's keynote speaker at its 2023 Women in Project Management
conference. Working in the City from the 1980s, Inga became Lloyd's of London's first ever female CEO after an unconventional thoughts of her career. She left school at 16 and later dropped out of university and for the 1st 12 years of her career had little ambition apart from earning a living and having the freedom to pursue her love of rowing and rugby. Her advice to project professionals is to aim high. Wherever you started your career and give time to you, you can do it.
So how does she make it to the top of UK PLC and what advice would she give to those who are looking to get ahead in their own project careers? Welcome Inga. Thank you for your time today. Really nice to see you again. Well, thank you. It's good to be here with you. I'm just going to dive in there and ask my first question, which would be What's your advice on making the right career decisions for people who are looking to get ahead? It's all going to be about the individual.
There is no hard and fast rule, and it will depend a little bit on your personality, for a start. So I was someone who never planned out my career when I started in the world of work, I didn't think when in fact I wasn't ambitious at all at the beginning in sport was much more important to me. So I didn't sort of after my education set out in the world of work, thinking I'm going to get to be the CEO of something just sort of happened.
And I I think the most important thing for me was that I wasn't so worried about it because I I had a certain belief that opportunities would come along. And that's how I went about making my career just opportunities coming and me, I suppose saying yes to them, having the courage to say yes. But other people need that security of sort of planning
things out. And I think particularly it depends if you've got other people who depend on you, you've got dependents you might need to look after, you've got family members that influence things. I was a relatively free person you like and therefore that enabled me to be, I don't know, to go around the world and take different roles on.
Whereas if you've got certain things that are relatively fit and things that you wanted to in your life that are going to constrict you in some way, you may need to think a little bit more about your career and plan it out. And I know people who sit down with their partner, their life partner every year and review their plans for the future and that means they are into planning mode.
So some people will need that. But the for me, The thing is when you start out on your career you can do all sorts of things. It doesn't necessarily influence what you're going to end up doing at the sort of when you're more senior. So don't be too scared about the future and and sort of go with it. It'll it'll happen for you if you let it. What makes you think, Ohh? That seems like an interesting
opportunity if you reflect back. Should you take an opportunity even though it's the right thing to do, but perhaps you don't feel that excited about it? Or should you be guided by a sense of Ohh? Yeah, that sounds exciting.
To me, I'm very led by my gut. So with everything feels good and exciting, I go for it. Now the odd time where I have not done that, I bounced the role off of a mental of a mentor or someone I felt I could trust and speak to, and then they made me or gave me insights to look at things in a different way. So for instance, once I was offered a role that was very much a sideways role, I felt and I had actually wanted the job 1 notch above. But this mental said, take it.
It's in May. It's still an amazing opportunity. You're going into a new area, you're going to have lots of challenges on your hand, lots of new things to learn, and life never stays the same. Things are always changing. And sure enough, 18 months into that role, I then got offered the role of bar and and I got that. And that was a great piece of advice. And that was not my gut telling me that, But usually I go with what feels absolutely right.
And if I'm still not convinced, I write a list, pros and cons, and then I usually score them and maybe ranking them. And you know, you can have quite a complex matrix if you want. And then when the score comes out and tells you whether you should say yes or no and it doesn't feel right, the answer that is telling you doesn't feel right, then do the opposite. In other words, you kind of use some logic and some support, but it's got to come down to how does it make you feel at the end
of the day. If you're offered an opportunity unexpectedly, which can often happen and be a new role or or a much bigger project that you might be offered to work on, what if your gut instinct is saying, no, this is too big, this is too much of A leap, What should you do in that situation? Well, the scariest opportunities are usually the ones that you
should absolutely take. Again, in my experience, the scarier the role, the, the bigger it's, the bigger, it seemed to me, is sort of way too big for my experience. I went and I took it. It turned out to be the best thing ever, and that's so often the case. If you're a very risk averse person, that can be a really tough call to me. I'm going to take that role. But really, believe me, the scariest thing is usually the
best to take. Something I've been reading around a lot recently is the idea that you can be very effective in your job. You keep your head down, you put in the hours, you're very proficient, but you're still not being offered the opportunities out there and and I guess the missing piece then is that you're just not getting noticed, or you're not getting noticed by the right people. What advice have you got around actually the, I guess, networking or the way you present yourself?
How do you get yourself known out there with the right people? Yeah. And that's when I talk about the pie model, which I learned at one of my employers many, many years ago, because I was sitting there performing well. So I thought, you know, head down doing a really good job. I was really conscientious, keen, you know, doing all that. I didn't seem to get noticed and it was always seemed to be someone else who got the opportunity.
Then I learned about the pie model, which is P i.e. for π, P for performance. That first bit that we're usually very good at, we're doing a really good job, we're working hard, we're delivering. Then you've got to think of the eye, which is your image, and that's important to understand how other people perceive you and how you come across to others. And usually we don't know how we
come across. When the older you get and the more you get honest feedback and rarely do we get honest feedback in the workplace, then you get a better understanding of how you're perceived and and how people view you. But when we're less experienced, less senior, we often actually don't know really how we're perceived and seemed. So make sure that you understand what image you're giving, what your image is from others, how they perceive you, and see if that is the one you want to portray.
Now you can't be an you can't be different to who you really are at your core, but you can get little pieces of feedback that helps shape you, particularly if you want to go up the career ladder. It could be a style of communication, a style of facial expressions that you because they've let me down in the past, you know that sort of give away your true feelings and to be warned about things like that. But this needs really honest feedback.
That means you've got to have people around you, your manager, your line manager, giving you open and honest feedback, really tough thing. And then the last letter, the E is the exposure and that's when you've got to seek out the right exposure. This could be obviously attending events where you get to network. And always if you do, make sure you meet people you don't know because so often you fall into the trap.
You go to an event, Ohh you just meet all the people you already know and it takes effort to go and say hello and introduce yourself to other people. If you do that, I don't know if you do that anymore. I mean, you must know the huge number of people, but if you go into a room and you're going to put yourself out there, you made a decision. I'm going to meet three new people at this event. What actually, what do you say when you go up to someone? What is? Have you got any tips?
I usually have a question ready or something like that, because the last thing you want to do is go up, introduce yourself and then start blabbering on about who you are because generally they're not interested. They're much more interested in themselves usually. And so it's good to have a sort of opening question if you've just, if you were at a conference and you've just seen a presentation or something, ask what they thought about the presentation or a speaker you
know. It's really a good way of starting a conversation is to ask them and not just start giving a you know your CV to them, Not the best way. And if you and you can ask the same question to all the people you plan if you're meeting, if you touch your goal to meet three, go and do it. You can ask the same question providing they're not in the group. But the other things about your network are that you should actively, you know, volunteer for things that are going
outside of your normal work day. So if you're involved in this specific project, try and get involved in your firm or somehow in some other work to extend your network a bit. Volunteer for things just so that you get known by others because you're usually being noticed even when you don't notice. So just you even though you don't notice that they're noticing you, you know it's a really and so just be aware of that.
And then other things if you've got a line manager ask them to give you opportunities to meet certain people step in for them at a meeting or you know there help them to give you introductions to others. So it it's you've got to think about it though this is, I mean it's got it's got to be you thinking and proactively doing something about it. We're APM, the only chartered membership organisation for the
project profession. When you become an APM member, you'll receive the resources and support you need to make an impact delivering better projects with better outcomes. Plus you'll access exclusive training and benefits to support your ongoing career development. Find out how we can help you reach your potential by visiting apm.org.uk, Because when projects succeed, society benefits. You've started out in a very male dominated industry and it probably is still very male dominated.
The project profession is very gender balanced early on, but like many industries that diminishes higher up the ladder you go and that will change that tree over time. But there are still pockets of plate. There are still places where women are not there in greater numbers as men. I'm thinking of construction, for example, and having spoken to quite a few of those women, there are still problems that you'd hoped would not exist anymore. What advice would you give to
women who are in that situation? I'm not talking about anything that needs to become an HR matter or anything like that. It's more the kind of prevailing culture is perhaps not the one that you feel accepted in necessarily. Well, the culture that is really clashing with you, you cannot
work in for too long. I mean you could do a few years but if it shows no signs of changing and you really feel uncomfortable in it, you really should get out and that it's not an instant thing because culture change takes years. But if you are somewhere and you just feel it's not going to move in the right direction, eventually you should get out because it eats away at you inside otherwise and it's not
healthy. So. So that's one thing but if you are in this very male dominated environment and actually for anyone who's in an environment full of people not like them, so you're the different one on the stands out, it's it's a really tough thing. Now that's that was my early days. So they were they were my early days.
They were just like that. I started in the City, London, in the financial district, working in a very male dominated environment and the I was in an open plan office with 35 of us, 34 men and me. And that's how I had my almost my first ten years. And that was a really tough thing and I took up behaviours to fit in. So I adopted male behaviours and I became one of the lads. I would not recommend it, I regret that I did it but it was
my way of hoping at the time. But now I I just think the world has changed a lot and it's important to stick to who you are. So be outspoken but don't always pick battles on everything because you want to be seen as someone who can work with others who are different to you, which is what you want and you. That's a skill in itself that you've got to learn to be able to work with any anyone who's
different to you. You know you might have disagreements all the time, but it's not that you just go through your work life disagreeing all the time. You just have have to do it. But I would try and encourage you not to conform to still believe in yourself but try not to get angry. And sometimes you've just got to let things go above over your head and just and just, you know, life's too short. I'm not going to get anywhere. I'm not going to bother to challenge that.
I'm much stronger than that. I'm much better than that. It can be tough. I, I, I know I I went through it and I did actually one day not cope with it. And I decided to leave. And I I walked out of the office and I I went travelling for a year all times when it becomes much. And you, that's what I mean. You've got to go with what you know, what you feel. What about when you step up from being a manager, project manager of a team to taking your first leadership role, especially for
project work? So what are the considerations you should bear in mind, and what should you leave behind about being a manager? And what should you be focusing on developing as a leader? Well, leadership, One key thing is you'll be amazed how much time you have to spend on people. If you are someone that cannot let go the things you like doing, which were your
portrayed, right? And you love to manage spreadsheets or whatever it is, you know, you've got to start leaving that stuff behind and you've actually got to focus on the people. So as as CEO, it's basically all about people, right? You have to make decisions, you have to have the courage to make decisions. But my goodness, it's all about managing people.
It's people, people, people. So the the more senior you get as a leader, the more you spend on people, inspiring them, motivating them, understanding them, caring for them, all of these things. And that's something that people don't often understand. And if they some people I've known, I've actually sort of promoted and then they've come to me and said do you know what? I don't like this.
I actually want to be a core subject matter expert and that's what I want to do is people aspect isn't for me. So that's something that that that you really have to think about and also leaders have to be you have to have the courage. You've got to have the courage to make some calls you really do and you've got to be that's can feel uncomfortable, can't be a friend all the time. You might have to make some tough calls and then you get respected for making those tough
calls and being clear. And it's really important to be clear on communication, but also to listen to successful leaders listen a lot as well. It's not all about telling you have to listen, but it is important to be strategic. So that means going outside of your core area of responsibility though you, you know, I grew up as an underwriter, I I was, I was knowing everything there was about ensuring risks around the world. You know, earthquake risks.
Suddenly when you get to be a leader, you've got to be a bit more strategic and usually you have some joint accountability with other leaders in the organisation and suddenly you've got to have an interest in other people's areas and in key decisions that will take the whole organisation forward. And so that means a slightly different, not such operational view of things and being quite strategic and that's a real leadership skill because leaders do a lot of strategy.
Again, you it was interesting when I was the CEO of a company in Switzerland and it was subject to a hostile takeover. The deal went through and I was exiting and then the guy who was going to be taking over as managing that unit because it then became a unit of a massive company, He asked for all my files on things. I said, but I don't have any files. I've been a CEO. If it's a legal matter, the general counsel has that. If it's the people matter, the HR director has it.
If it's a commercial, so on and so on. You don't have fights, you don't do things in the same way. You're always thinking strategically where to take this and all of that and it's and that's what you learn as you go up the leadership ranks that it's very different. You doing a a job that's very very task focused. Another question I want to ask you about being a leader was around how do you stay true to yourself as a leader?
Because we have expectations of what a leader should be like, and perhaps predecessor was a certain way. So how do you establish yourself as the leader you want to be and who you are? And leadership in an organisation can vary with time because you may need at a particular time a certain type of leader and another time another type of leader, but also by organisation. And therefore the the cultural fit for you as a leader in an
organisation is important. If they want somebody who maybe operates in a certain style that isn't your style, it's the wrong place. I remember arriving at Lloyds and within a year my the first piece of serious feedback I got was that I wasn't authoritative enough around the board table because they had been used to very much what I would have said, a traditional style of leadership.
You know, the boss bumps the table says this is what we're going to do, go and do it. Whereas naturally I'm a much more inclusive, facilitative leader, whereas I always want the team to be part of the decision making. If we can't come to a consensus, then I I was always happy to make the call at the end of the day, the decision, but I always like to include others. So I was told that my style should change and I actually had to think long and hard about
what was I going to do? Was I going to? Change to meet what the chair thought was the right leadership style, or was I going to stick to my own? I decided to stick to my own style because a there was no way I could behave like that naturally and be a didn't think it was what they needed and it was sort of to me seemed a bit
outdated. And but it's important because if you only get recognised for certain behaviours and traits and they're not the ones that you have naturally probably the one place to be. But he does these days need to show vulnerability. They need to have really good listening skills, They need to be visionary, they need to be inspirational and they need to be courageous, which are fairly broad topics really. And your actual style of leadership, you can make your own.
And don't be afraid of making it your own. How did it feel when someone when they told you that you had the wrong style, that your style didn't fit in? That's quite a shocking thing to hear. I mean, how did you feel? Well, it is, particularly when you've already been working for over 30 years, successful and you've got the IT is a bit of a wake up call, but but This is why it's so important to never get so arrogant that you think you know the right way of doing things.
You have to be open to listen. And I did listen and I did consider the feedback and I thought no, for what we need to achieve here, that style is not going to work. It didn't work with my predecessor. The market rejected that style. They didn't go along with the modernization. It failed. They lost a lot of money. So I said no, I'm going to try mine and I have the confidence to to go ahead with my.
Style. I have a feeling that you're probably very good at handling difficult conversations, whether you're on the receiving end or actually having being the one that has to do the difficult talking. But project professionals often find themselves having to have needing to have difficult conversations. Perhaps people on their team, but perhaps stakeholders as well, or or might need to deliver bad news. And I wondered if you know from your expertise, is there
anything you've learned? Any good tips or advice you'd pass on that which you wish you'd know when you were having that first difficult conversation? Used to be a bit too reactive, you know, I used to really just rather than take a breath and think and listen to what I was thought I heard, you know, I would be that I would respond immediately. I learnt to change that way. I am a naturally impatient person, so I'm not always
perfect at this. I can still sort of interrupt when people are still saying something to me or asking me a question. But I really try hard not to do that because it you need to really think about what somebody said to you rather than just leaping in the defensive. But you don't want to wait too long before you respond cause otherwise you're not being responsive enough. So it's a difficult balance, but just always I suppose try and have an open mind and always think about it as a learning
opportunity, getting feedback. And if you're giving feedback I always think it's good to kind of approach it with a question, sort of ask the person how they thought something went before you dive in and give them your view of how they went. It just sort of opens up the conversation in a different way.
Advice. So my final question is, is something you touched on at the Women in project Management conference which is about looking after yourself and there came a point where you stayed with me that you were kind of sneaking back into the office after everyone else had left or coming back in the weekends. And it's if you've been given an exciting job and trusted to do something important that means a lot to you then and and perhaps you don't have great commitments
outside of work. It's natural to be drawn into it and spend an incredible amount of time that almost border borders on not workaholism. But it's very tempting to spend a lot of your time at work and being absorbed in that completely. What have you learnt about that and how do you, how do you make sure that you're looking after yourself, that you can perform your best at work? And you will go through various phases in your career. Because I did go through that phase of being an absolute
workaholic. I couldn't stop it. It was I I was just so excited and I didn't have commitments outside. And there'll be other times of your life where you do have other commitments and you have to make a call to say actually my weekends are precious and I'm not going to work at weekends. And I made that call and I stuck to it. And it's important that you communicate that to others, if particularly if you're the leader of the team, that you explain that.
But the the trick to, I suppose not not overworking is make sure you work with the best people. And if you've got, if you're hiring the best, if you're hiring people, make sure you hire the best. That's the that's the way that you it means that you're not filling the gaps of all the other people. Women fall into this a lot. They're always filling the gaps because they want the team to be successful, because we're naturally like that.
We want team success much more than usually individual success. We was filling the gaps of people who maybe aren't really pulling their weight or doing a good job. Try not to do that, try not to fall into the trap of filling the gap and make sure that you are really working with the best people and hiring the best people. Any loss? Final thoughts you want to pass on to listeners? Or do you feel like we've covered everything? I think we've covered
everything. I I would just say particularly for those who are uncertain about their future career, just don't think too much and over plan it. Life goes through all twists and turns and just make sure that you do the best thing to open up opportunities and then take the scariest one that comes along. You're telling a bunch of project professionals to take risks. That's wise advice. OK, well, thank you very much for your time. It's been a pleasure to speak.
To you thank you. Thank you for including me. Thanks again to Inga for joining us and to you for listening to the APM podcast. Don't forget to look out for more episodes or to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. We'd welcome you to get in touch with your comments, feedback and suggestions by emailing us at apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk. This podcast has been brought to you by APM, the Chartered Body for the project profession.
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