Welcome to the Big Careers Small Children Podcast. My name is Verena Hefti. I believe that no one should have to choose between becoming a CEO and enjoying their young children. For much too long, amazing people like I'm sure you listening right now have found themselves stuck on the career ladder when they have children and that leads to gender inequality in senior leadership because because those people don't progress to senior leadership and the same stale, often male middle class people leading our organizations. We must change this together and I hope that many of you listening right now will progress to the most senior leadership roles that you like where you can make the decisions that make our world a better place. Outside of the podcast. I am the CEO and founder of the Social enterprise Leaders Plus. We exist to help working parents progress their careers to senior leadership in a way that works for you and for your families. We have free events and resources on leadersplus.org where you can download helpful toolkits such as on returning from maternity leave, shared parental leave, securing a promotion, dealing with workload challenges, or managing as a dual career couple. We also have an award winning fellowship community which is global for working parents who have big dreams for their careers but don't want to sacrifice their family. You'll join an absolutely wonderful group of people, a very tight knit, supportive group of parents who have your back. Together You'll explore what your career aspirations are and you'll get advice from senior leaders who are also working parents about how to achieve those aspirations. You'll get new ideas to combine your hopes for your careers with your hope for your family and you are supported by people who are experiencing what you're experiencing yourself. I'm really delighted that a larger majority of our fellows have made tangible changes following the program, be that becoming more senior in their roles, working shorter hours, having better flexible working arrangement. They always impress me so much with the courage that they instill in each other to do what is right for them without apologizing for having a family or apologizing for wanting that top job. Details are on leadersplus.org Fellowship. Today I'm Chatting to Suzy Warren Smith about guilt. About dealing with assumptions and her story of building a multi-million pound business as well as bringing up a family. Enjoy the conversation.

So my name is Susie Warren Smith. I was born in London and I've been in marketing all my life but I am quite an entrepreneur so I have started a couple of companies and the final one I started I sold in 2020 and all through that period I've worked all my Life. I've had two children, and I think I've learned a few things about how you juggle that.

I bet. So do you sell it during the pandemic or just before the pandemic?

So, Verena, if you want to look at how lucky somebody is, I sold it on the 31st of March, 2020.

Oh, really? Well, that's why I was intrigued. That was not a bad move, to be fair.

It takes a long time to sell a company. So it had been going along for nine months, but deadline was pretty fortuitous.

Well done. I'm gonna ask you a question that I ask all of our guests, which is can you share with our listeners one thing that you used to believe about combining a big career with children that you don't subscribe to anymore?

I've listened to a couple of your podcasts, Verena, and when people say you can have it all, it just can't. It's just not true. That's why.

Is it something that you always knew or you changed your mind about that?

I think that I was brought up to believe that you had to be a. This is really old fashioned, right? You had to be a good wife and a good mother, and that was probably your sort of reason for being so. Bearing in mind I was born in 1961, so this is so obviously getting on a bit. But I wanted to have a career too, and I didn't really see any role models for that in TV programs or radio or films. So I find it quite hard to understand how you would do that as well. But it did seem to me that there are three areas of my life, you know, work, mum, husband, you know, being a wife. And therefore I felt like I had to balance all those three things, be good at all those three things all the time. And if one was failing, like, then maybe all of them were failing. And I think that's what I was brought up to believe. And in those days, for example, my mum thought it was an absolutely terrible thing to go out to work if you were a mother, bearing in mind she worked her whole life as well, Verena, but for her, you know, doing like a few hours a week, that's okay. And then my. My husband's mum, who's very old fashioned, Lancashire lady, lovely lady, but she wasn't happy that I was going out to work when I had two children. So I think what people tend to do, and I do see it still happening now, is women tend to play down the fact they're at work or they don't boast about their achievements because they don't want people to think they're putting a lot of effort in, because the de facto of that is it means that you're not doing other things well. And I think the pressure of that is quite enormous.

And when you mentioned that you have to accept that you can't have it all and you have to. It sounded like you actually have to come to peace with letting go some things. If I understood that. Right, what. What did you decide to let go, if anything?

I wouldn't. Yeah, yeah.

And your children are still alive, I'm assuming.

Yeah, yeah. They're not drug addicts or in prison, so that. That went reasonably well. So, yeah, you don't sort of look at those three things and go, right, I'm just. I'm going to be a rubbish. I'm going to be a rubbish partner to somebody, you know, my private life, you know, that's. That's awful. And they go, like, I just will. The kids will just have to fend for themselves. So it's not. You don't choose one of those things or two of those things above. Above the three of them. So I think for me, it's like, well, you have to accept you can't do them all brilliantly. You can't. So give yourself a break. Don't. Look, all the ridiculous media things that are out there at the moment, stuff online and, you know, celebrities like, I don't know, Gwyneth Paltrow or, you know, Meghan Markle doing all this sort of stuff where their house is beautiful and the sunlight streaming through the windows and they're. They're making amazing things, you know, for their children. It's like. Well, it's not just not like that. Most families are complete and nothing chaos, you know. So, you know, if you haven't. If you haven't managed to do all the washing that week and you're sort of trying to look at, can they wear that twice, you know, that sort of thing, or. I don't know, you know, just. Just give yourself a break and just think of the fact that you can do 80, 90% of it, you can't do 100% of it right all the time. But the important thing for me, I think stress comes when you feel those three things are out of balance. So if you have got a partner or, you know, your friends are very important to you and you don't feel you're giving that enough time over the other things that makes you stressed, or if you think the children are overriding something and you're perhaps not going to some of the meetings or some of the things you should do at work, that will make you stressed. And I think trying to find a balance across the three is when you're going to be happiest. You can't do it, all right? You can't. So, like, give yourself a break and accept you have. You just can do the best you can do.

That sounds great. Like, Garrett, great advice in theory. In practice, how do you. If you. And I think a lot of listeners will really resonate with this idea of it being out of kilter at different points in the day, never mind different points in the week, how do you give yourself a break or rejig things and accept that maybe you're not going to be there? The swimming, or maybe this week they miss swimming because you just need a break.

To be honest, I don't really care. It's what you think. So, you know, if I didn't turn up to my daughter's, I don't know, ballet thing, would she really notice? I mean, I don't know. You know, if you were there, not just. Not one of the weeks, I suppose so, you know, you don't have to be there all the time, really. Have a good look at yourself and think about what you can get away with. I suppose what will be an acceptable level that you'll feel okay with, but you can't do everything. And the other piece of advice, it's very hard when you've got little amount of time. The other piece of advice, I would say is you must do something for yourself during the week. You must do that. And for me, I used to play squash because it was violent. I could get rid of all this aggression, all these people that would drive me mad. But it might be you. Just like, I'm just gonna get my nails done just once a week. That is going to be my hour to myself or whatever is your thing. So try and give yourself some time. The other big lesson I learned is, is not going to happen at your whole life. They go. They grow up and they go away. So it is. Sometimes you feel like your whole life's going to be like that, but actually it is a temporary thing, you know, and your children need you for different reasons at different times. But, you know, eventually they do go away. Just wait for that day. I'm the best mother now. They're not here.

I resonate a lot of what you said. I'm curious about this point of being faced with other people's expectations and you might say yes. You know, obviously it was a few years ago where you had grandmothers having very clear expectations of a good mother, stays at home. But you'd be surprised. You still. I still hear that a lot from the fellows in our Fellowship program in that there are, you know, their parents or even their peers at the school gate look at them a bit strangely because they are maybe choosing to work full time or maybe choosing to not be there at every drop off and pick up because, oh, well, they actually have a partner, some of them, and so they are sometimes at a drop off and pick up or they choose to send them to breakfast or after school club. So. But there's still that guilt because someone else is telling you this is not how you're supposed to be a mother or a father. How did you deal with that? Was that just, are you just a really strong person and it didn't really get to you?

I wish. I mean, yeah, of course I did suffer guilt. I think the great thing about getting older, and trust me, there are not many great things about getting older, is that you don't care anymore. And actually, as I got older and the kids go out, I really couldn't care less. And I think you have to stop worrying about what other people think of you because it gets in the way and just work out what you think is right because that's all that matters. I used to feel terribly guilty that my kids, you know, sometimes I was the last person to pick them up after school club because, you know, there was a crash on the motorway or the train was late or something. They're fine. They don't even remember. And I think the thing you must remember as a woman who's working is that you are a great role model. Whether you like it or not, those kids are watching you and your partner, I'm sure. Get up every day, get washed, get dressed, look good, have some breakfast, go out the door, get some work, you earn some money, you forge your own way in life. They're watching that all the time and they're surrounded by it. And you know, it's really interesting. One of my daughters is a stay at home mom. She absolutely loves it. The other one is a hotshot lawyer. They had exactly the same upbringing and they're both fine with what they're doing now. They're both happy with what they're doing and managing to make it work in their own way. So you're not gonna, you're not gonna destroy your kids by going out to work. It's the same..

Thank you for saying that. I was just thinking everyone needs to hear that. But it's also funny how time plays such an important role because I think a lot of the listeners who are right now, I don't know when this will be going out, but it might well be around World Book Day and, you know, last minute, oh, my goodness. My child doesn't have a costume going in. In a tea towel. My children definitely are in that category. I have three. So, you know, the detail orientation is not that tight anymore.

I hate that. When you open their school bag and you go, oh, no, I was supposed to make a cake last night. God, you know, it's all that. It's like, quick, go down Sainsbury's, get some cakes, bash it in a little bit, look like it's homemade. You. That's just what we do. It's fine. It's funny.

The expectations have risen as well. So even today I got a text. Luckily, I don't get all texts. Some. Some go to my partner. But I got a text from school saying, oh, yeah, tomorrow we have to bring in a baby photo. I have no idea where the baby photos of my children are. So we have to. I'm going to choose wisely of whether or not I'm going to spend time digging them up and so on. Yeah. So there are different expectations, I think.

I think. I think schools have got to take a look at themselves as well. I think, think more and more they're saying that parents do this, parents that, and parents do, you know, the other. And I don't think a lot of teachers understand what it is like going to work and organizing all those things. And sometimes they're making unrealistic demands. And if you think those demands are unrealistic, you say, look, you know, I mean, I used to have to travel abroad sometimes. I wasn't there. So, you know, husband has to do things like. And you just say, I'm sorry, the kid hasn't got it. So, you know, I mean, I remember one of my kids said, you have to write about your pet. We don't have any pets. So she said, what should I write about? I said, don't. Don't write about it. Just say, I don't have any pets. Write something else.

It's a great teacher. I think that's homework.

Well, it's a bit unrealistic, you know, and I think teachers sometimes should be a bit more cognizant of, you know, both partners working, which is always difficult, you know, or, you know, the dad's at Home's got a slightly different perspective on things, or, you know, whatever it might be. You've got a really mixed family. I don't seem to be taking any notice of that. And I think sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself and say, I don't think this is realistic, or, I couldn't do it. What are they going to do? You can't be perfect. You can't be a perfect mum and go to work. You just can't.

I mean, I would not be perfect mum staying at home. In fact, I probably would be the absolute opposite. Oh, yeah.

Could never stop home. Oh, could you imagine it? I don't know how my daughter does it. She does it. She's amazing. I'd be a terrible mother. I'd be awful. I'd shout at them all the time. They'd get on my nerves. I'd be terrible, awful, you know, and. And going out for work for me was important for myself. I think you need to set yourself some rules, though. And. And one of the things I used to do is, yeah, I might work late when the kids are in bed, or they might go see after school club or whatever, but I never, ever worked at the weekends. Never. It's like, no, this is family time, you know, and try and never answer emails. Never do any of those things. And when I set up my company, it was an offense. You would get disciplined if you answered your emails at the weekend or in the evening. Just not allowed. Do your work at work and then at home, you're at home, you know, so carve some time out. And I think that, you know, that was like a good rule, really. We're all here as a family together at the weekends. It's difficult if you've got a job that's, you know, I don't know, shift work or something, but. But try and carve out some days that are family days.

When I Look at your LinkedIn profile, I think it's the. It's basically that. It's the descript. It's the definition of a big career. I think you even got. I should have remembered this, but you've even got a. What is it? Commander of the British Empire or something like that. I'm sorry, I'm not. I'm Swiss, not British, so I can never remember what the different things are. But basically it's a very. For the international listeners, you've got a very famous, very serious award from the Queen for being brilliant.

For services to small business.

There you go. So, like, you don't get that Unless you have a very, very stellar career.

Or you're a politician.

Well. Oh, yeah, that's a wish, but yes, well, I think that's true.

Skate over that Verena. Yeah.

Or. Yeah, I think there are some, some people who get it, obviously, as. As favors, but I'm sure not in your case. That will be a whole different podcast about the.

I don't know any posh. I don't know anybody posh. So, yeah, it's highly unlikely.

Oh, no. Well, now, you know, doesn't that make you posh, on a side note, automatically to have this sort of.

I think what's been interesting, having cbe, because it is. It is an honour and it's very well recognized in the uk. I think what that allows me to do is I do quite a lot of charity work. It allows me to get in and do things which possibly you couldn't. People tend to answer your emails, whereas they never used to. And I just think it manages to leverage Internet Works and Things Where you want to make a difference. And that's been very helpful and I think slightly conflicted about whether you should accept it or not. But, you know, if it helps you further the, you know, the sort of. I mean, I do a lot of things about women in business and helping, you know, mentor entrepreneurs and things, particularly women, then that's good. It's a good thing. So just be pragmatic about it.

Absolutely. It's about purpose in the end. So your career is stellar, your children turn out well from.

Well, they might not say.

Please write In children if you don't agree, but I'm sure, I'm sure they did. And you seem at peace. I mean, I'm. I don't mean to be psychologists or make this sound very esoteric, but you seem like you're okay with how things went and I'm just interested now, in hindsight. Were there any moments where you almost threw in the towel and said, actually, this is too hard, I can't combine a bakery with young children. I'm just gonna give up.

Loads sometimes. Of course, yeah. So I wrote this autobiography called Swimming on My Own, which I don't want to make money out of, so it's on Kindle and if you go onto Spotify, you can listen to it for free, but you can also buy it off Amazon. And I really wanted to tell other women what it was like going through those periods when sometimes there's a crunch time and sometimes you just don't think you can put one step in front of another and carry on. Now that Sounds melodramatic, but I think sometimes we do all hit that point. And I really wanted to write that because I wanted to explain how I managed to get over those things and how I managed to just keep pushing forward. Not particularly ambitious. I know it sounds weird, but I just, for my. I think I wanted to prove things to myself because I grew up in a really poor background and, you know, my, my parents weren't educated and weren't helpful and so I just, I don't know, I just wanted to prove it to myself. I didn't have any external pressure. And so I specifically wrote it and recorded it because I was hoping it might just sometimes help other people through. Hopefully people find it funny as well because there are some incredibly funny things. Oh my God. I made dreadful mistakes in business, but it's tough. It's tough. But actually coming out the other end of it, it's just a great place to be, you know, if you've worked hard and you've managed to cough yourself out a career and you bought some lovely children, you should be really proud of yourself. Really, really, really proud of yourself. You are one of the greatest global citizens there are, you know, And I have four grandchildren now. Very interesting to see them growing up. So five year old, four year old, three year old, two year old, you think your house is a mess. If you've got two children, you see what it's like. I've got four grandchildren and it'd be very. So three of them are girls. Very interesting to see, you know, how they grew up and what they choose to do. But now I'm older, I'm retired, I don't really work, I just do voluntary things and do stuff to help women in business. And yeah, I feel, really, feel really relaxed about it. I mean, to be honest, Farina, part of that is selling my company for millions and millions of pounds. It's very easy to be happy when you never have to work again, you never have to worry about money. So I'm in an incredibly privileged position, but I do believe in public service. So payback time and pay forward time.

Well, thank you and thank you for making, sharing your story on this podcast as part of that. And we must put, if you sent me the link to the audiobook, the Spotify link, we must put it in the newsletter. It sounds.

Yeah. And then hopefully that helps people and it doesn't cost anything.

Yeah. I mean, imagine even now it's still unusual for someone who founds and grows companies really successfully to be a woman, especially the woman with Caring responsibilities at the time, did you face any stigma, especially when you went for investment, or not so much?

I didn't go for investment because I knew I wouldn't get it. So I started my company when I was 55, at which point I didn't have a mortgage and just decided to bet £300,000 on it. And I felt like I had to. I don't know why I had to prove it to myself that I could do it. Fed up with listening to other people telling me how to do things. Fed up with being ignored and patted on the head by people who thought they knew better. And I thought I'd bet it. I thought I'd bet that amount of money. And then I thought if it didn't work out, if I ran out of money, I wouldn't ever go into debt. Then I'd just have to keep working for another 10 years and keep commuting to London or something. But I didn't go for investment because, Reena, don't think I'd have got it. And actually I tried to get a bank loan. Couldn't get a bank loan. Makes you laugh when you. You've got a house and everything, but. And yet, as soon as the business started to be incredibly successful, guess what? Getting on dated with people asking if I want a loan, if I want investment. And at that point I didn't need it, so couldn't get any of that at all. Women still can't get it.

So I find it very refreshing that you did that at 55, which is fantastic, because the whole idea that you can do things for a really long time, assuming you stay healthy, it's quite empowering, I think, for people who feel right now they're finding it hard to get things going with young children.

It's a much easier thing to do when you're older if you've still got the energy because you don't have anything to lose. You don't have those parental responsibilities anymore, and it's all about you. And I just wanted to give it one last go. And I gave myself five years and managed to do it in five years, so had nobody holding me back. Not responsible for anybody anymore.

It didn't matter how people saw you, couldn't care less. Sorry.

I spent my whole life worrying about it. And that is a great thing about age, actually. But, you know, don't underestimate trying to be an entrepreneur when you've got bills to pay, you know, when the pressure's on, that's really, really hard. I'd done a Couple of businesses and it's sort of just been okay. But I was making a living. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't saving any money or anything. I was just making a living. So just flitted between that and corporate life. But I just wanted to put all the things I'd learned into practice, see if it would work. Luckily, it did. The timing was good, especially with the.

Selling a bit for the pandemic.

Yeah, thank you.

That is such a. Yeah, you must be very pleased with that. Do you have, in hindsight, anything that you would do differently? Practically, but, you know, thinking back to the time of combining your children, when they were still more in the primary school age or even younger, I think.

I put up with too much. Yeah, I put up with too much crap, I think. And I know I don't sound it now, but then I would. I wouldn't challenge somebody if I thought what they were doing was discriminatory or I wouldn't stick my head above the parapet. And I tended to get promoted because I was just. I just worked really hard and I was good at my job, and I thought that was enough. And as I got. As I got older, I just realized that wasn't enough. And people who, particularly men who were nowhere near as good, you know, would be part of this club where they managed to get promoted. And I didn't seem to be part of that club. And. And when I did get discriminated against hundreds of times, literally hundreds of times, I didn't really say anything. And I think you should now. Difficult when you're more junior. But I think there are ways of doing it which I didn't understand then. And I don't think it's about being, you know, arty about it or aggressive. I think it's, you know, my experience is that if you say to a genuinely good chap who hasn't realized what they've done, if you just say. Can I just say to you what you just said, how it makes me feel? And nobody can disagree with how you feel. And so they can't say, I didn't say that. It's not about that. It's like when you do that, this is how it makes me feel. And I'm sure you didn't mean it, but, you know, is there a different ways of putting things? And genuinely, most people, male and female, are mortified if they know that's how you feel after they've done something. And I think it's about saying it at the right time in the right place in the Right style and not embarrassing somebody, but actually being quite strong about saying the way you do that. This is how it makes me feel, and you're demotivating me, you know, or whatever. I think that's a really good tactic. You could be more aggressive and say, the last time somebody said that to me, they lost their job. But I don't generally think that's a good tactic.

It sounds like you have said that, Susie.

No, no, I haven't, because I was too. I was too meek and mild, really. And I think that. I think that I spent too much time thinking, look, I don't really like confrontation. So it's like, do you really want a massive argument? Do you really want to take this somewhere and threaten your career and be seen as a troublemaker? When you're juggling all this and your two children and this and this and this, it's like, I just can't be bothered. I'll just put up with that. And of course you shouldn't. But I think as I got older and I didn't have to worry about. And the great thing about starting your own company is you dictate the culture. You absolutely can dictate the culture. And that was a real opportunity, I thought, to be able to create a culture of what it should be like at work. And that was a big draw for starting my own company.

Interesting. Do you mind sharing just one or two things that you practically did to shape that culture? It sounds like it's something you were really passionate about. And you said already how you punished people in the, you know, in a kind way. But you. You were very strict if they were emailing on the weekend.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the first thing to do is. Yeah, so it's create your brand. So, you know, we created this brand. It was a bit disruptive, which is great. And then what I did was write two pages of what this brand was, what it meant. So, you know, most people say we are customer facing. Yeah, but what does that mean? So basically, we wrote these things that said customer facing means if somebody's rude on the phone, you're not rude back. You just say, how can I help you? What can I do? You know? So we gave people these things. If somebody's abusive, you refer them to me and I'll deal with them. Because you're not supposed to part with that work. If the phone's ringing, you have to pick it up after three rings. Doesn't matter if it's for you or not. We need to be responsible, you know, so it's all these things about we want to be the best customer facing company. And this is what it means if you do that, right? So you set all that out and then we do what you call tone of voice. So our tone of voice is informal, but it's friendly, we don't use jargon, etc. Etc. And then that critical thing is who you recruit. So we used to do adverts that never asked for qualifications ever. Never, never. Because we didn't need, we didn't need them. We just trained people in how we did things. And then at interview we get hundreds of people applying and then at interview we go, what's your favorite film? What do you do with this? Have you got a dog? You got any kids? Have you got this? Really trying to understand people's behaviors and attitudes because if they, if they go, can't stand people, Can I be in a room where I don't really interact with anybody? Somewhere you're not, it's not going to work for you here. So we're trying to tease out what sort of people, you know, behaviors were, didn't care where they'd come from, didn't care about their experience. And I think too much recruitment is done on, you know, what job you had last and what qualifications you've got. Was actually recruitment needs to be about somebody's attitude, behaviors, you know, what, what drives them. And that's what made us super, super profitable. People just love being at work, honestly. That's genuinely true. They just loved it. But they had to stop once they left work. They stop and then it come back to it the next day. So it's creating those, you know, how we do things around here. And that's led, always led from the top, always, always led from the top. So you can imagine Trump, right, interesting, some of the things he's doing, but actually I know I can feel what his style is like and I can feel you can see the people who he's recruited around him and how that brand and how that style is going to be. Now, I'm not suggesting it's wrong, I'm not suggesting it's right, it's not my style at all. But you can feel it's got a very strong brand and it's going to drive that through. If you look at the UK at the moment, hard to see, hard to see what that brand is. Nobody quite knows what that's about or how they expect it to behave or. And you can't drive forward things unless people are in on the game plan with you. And they're prepared to hold your hand and drop off the cliff if you have to, because they trust you know what you're doing and they believe in where you're going. You know, Trump's really good at that. No matter what you think about him, he's, you know, he creates this vision of where he's going to go, and people either join him or they don't. That's what you have to do with your own brand. People will want to know what the plan is, how's it going to work, where do I fit? And then they'll come with you.

Absolutely.

I'll probably get assassinated now.

I don't think so. I can't guarantee, but, you know, it's fine. Sadly, I don't think you're the only one who is sharing thoughts like this.

No, no, I'm not. I'm not criticizing it. What I'm saying is it's, you know, it's a strong brand that people can get behind and, you know, you need to do that. Mine was, you know, very particular about how he did things. And you would draw great people to you, people who think like you and people who want to behave like you if you do that.

Absolutely. Do you think your caring experience, bringing up family shaped the type of leader you became in any way?

Yeah, I do, actually, because I think that it's an awful thing to say what you learn when you're bringing up children, it's the hardest job in the world. Of course, there are lots of parallels that you can use in your work about how you get people to do things, you know, how you get people on side, you know, the sort of behaviors and things and how you overcome those. So I think you can learn a lot out of being a parent, you know, male or female, that you can use in your business life.

Looking back, just, I want to pick up on this. The way that you set boundaries with emails and being very strict, that must have been a really tough thing to do because obviously you were Versando. He had a big vision for your company. You were ambitious. How did you practically give yourself permission to just be strict with emails and not check if that big partner of yours had replied over the weekend? Or was it something that you just easily did? It wasn't a problem.

It's my company, I can do what I like. You set the rules, you set the boundaries, you know, and if somebody replies to me at holiday, we just go, why are you looking at emails on holiday? Don't do that. Don't you do that again. It's just not supposed to. I think it was really interesting because when. So Ernst and Young bought my company, it's multi, multi billion pound company and one of the things they said is, right, we're doing inventory. Typical thing of buyout, do an inventory of all your kit that you've got, blah, blah, blah. So what about laptops? You know, how many laptops have you got on? What security have you got for people working at home? I've got any laptops. What do you mean? I'm going laptops. So people aren't allowed to work at home now. That was not the time when you're not allowed to work from home. This is. People aren't allowed to finish their day and take their laptop and do more work. So we don't have any. And they thought I was joking. So it's just, you know, and if you've got great people, I want them to be full of energy. We had such a low level of sickness because people weren't tired. You know, work is a small part of your life and actually you get amazing productivity out of people doing that. And the other thing we did is we did a four and a half day week. Everybody finished at one o'clock on a Friday. And it meant that some of the dads who didn't pick their kids up from school meant they could pick their kids up from school one day a week. The younger ones could go off drinking straight away at Friday lunchtime, that's what they wanted to. Or you could pick up, you know, your little ones and all go off for the weekend and beat the traffic. But it meant you had to squeeze those hours into four and a half days a week. We ran a trial because it's not easy if you're doing childcare to make that work. And then it was up to everybody to decide how that would work across the teams, what you would do, blah, blah. And then after three months, everybody voted to carry on doing it because they loved it, but it didn't affect anything, didn't affect anything at all. Didn't affect client satisfaction. People still got all their work done. It was fine.

Fantastic. And that was still before the big wave of everyone advertising the four day week as a really powerful thing. So, yeah, well done for people.

And obviously before, obviously before COVID when people are forced to work at home, everybody came into the office. We didn't have anybody working at home. And of course during COVID that would have had to have changed, but I didn't have to deal with that particular issue. Thank the Lord.

I'm sure that was. You were glad about that. I find that really curious and I, to be honest, I can't understand it to an extent. Maybe that's the life experience. What I find really curious is how you manage to say now is enough. And especially as someone who is responsible for all the salaries of all these people working for you, the income generation, how you. I can get. I get the practicalities and I think I'm quite similar in finishing emails. And again, it's a luxury of running your own organization. But I've talked to a lot of CEOs who said it's really tough to know because nobody's giving you a job description. It's tough to know when you've done enough, when it's okay to take an afternoon off and go to the hairdressers.

But you see, so we had fixed holidays, you know, people have got. I don't know what it was, 25 days a year, great, go and take your holiday. But you're not allowed to carry them over, you need to take them. So if that's what you want to do, fine. The fact is you get four and a half days a week means that, you know, do your deliveries that arrive on Friday afternoon or whatever it is. I think what's really interesting, Verena, is a lot of people will say that people like faff about a lot, you know, or have a chat at work or whatever was really interesting with us, the office was not without laughter, but what's really interesting for us, it's like I have to crack on because at 5 o'clock I've got to go and I'm not allowed to do any more. And that's why people were so productive, because they're going, they had to have lunch. That's half an hour for lunch, minimum an hour at lunch. Nobody was allowed to sit at their desk for lunch to go somewhere else. And people were really concentrating on what they're doing. And actually it was surprising how much work people got through. I reckon if we didn't have those things in place and people working at home and answering emails, I don't think they do any more work than they were doing because you just think, oh, I'll have another cup of tea. Oh, I'll have a chat with Brenda next to photocopier because I'm a bit bored. Was that they just. They were really cracking on, which creates a great energy and buzz, actually.

Absolutely.

It's really not that hard. Why is it hard? I don't understand why it's hard it just comes from the top.

It's great to hear that in a week where it's all over social media. The whole idea that you, you know, some big tech company saying everyone needs to stop working from home. Obviously now working from home is, is standard. People saying you should stay in the office. All our sock got sent. Especially in some big famous American companies that I'm not gonna name. Well, exactly. So that's great to have your story.

We were doing, you know, with 25 people, we were doing a million net profit. A million net profit. So we're doing like 40% net profit. None of those companies are making that type of profit. So you tell me who's wrong then or who's right? It's just rubbish. And you know, I just don't, I just don't think that sort of thing's helpful. I wouldn't want my staff working from home all the time. Because you need to create, you know, how do you dictate culture, how do you dictate team? How do you dictate people working together, innovation, whatever, if they're not seeing each other? And I think, you know, to say you need to work three days a week from the office I think is perfectly reasonable. Perfectly reasonable.

I'm sure different organizations have different approaches.

It depends on the job, if that's what works for them. Of course it depends.

You've got your culture.

Yeah, depends on the job. I mean, my daughter is a, a lawyer for a big tech company and she has. Her job was advertised as completely remote and she works remotely because she works. It's a global position, so there isn't anywhere to sit, if you know what I mean. And so that's a work from home job. But, you know, for me it'd be very hard to dictate culture and get a great team going. And also making sure you're looking after your staff and that you can see if somebody's got too much work or it's not working. How do you see that if somebody's in a home, in their bedroom. And I think the other thing they forget is a lot of younger people may have moved to a city for a new job. Don't really know anybody sitting on Some makeshift desk, even sitting on their bed because they don't have any room and not coming into contact with anybody, you know, I don't think that's helpful when it's your first role or, you know, you want to understand what the business is doing. So perfectly reasonable to say you need to be in work a certain Number of days working all the hours God sends. No, no, no, no.

Abolutely, And I find going into the office or in my case into central London very practical benefit is that it's easy to get the step count up just by going on the public transport. But I have to be very organized and go out in the rain when I'm home. So I want to ask you one last question which is is there any advice that has really influenced you in terms of combining an ambitious career with young children?

Oh, good question. No, I don't think there has been. I think the thing that you should do is find yourself a really great mentor. Find yourself somebody, not somebody, you know, famous or thrusting or whatever, but somebody you admire and somebody who's, who's got the right sort of culture and is a little bit further ahead than you and just ask if you could, you know, spend an hour with them every month or two months and just get some feedback and just do some confidential stuff about how did you manage to do this and what do you think I should do that? And I think that is the most helpful thing because you will choose somebody that fits your style and you know, maybe is in your sector and most women are very happy to do that if it's not very onerous and you know, I would do that. I'd want to help somebody and I think that's the best advice you can get and that's, that's just be true to yourself, give yourself a break.

That's excellent advice. I'm going to have a conversation with you after we've gone off-air to see if I can recruit you as a mentor for the leaders plus community. But I won't make you say yes or no while it's all recorded.

Do you know the great thing about getting older? You know, the answer is no. There you go.

Well, but I love the freeing. I love the way that, or even before we came on recording I just, I said it's to all my guests, I say, you know, we can cut things out if you don't like it. It's not going to go out just to make you comfortable. And you were like, I don't care. You can, it's really lovely. And that's what, where I want to get. I still care a bit too much. So my aim is to be, to be like you. When I, when I finish my ..

Verena, I don't have a career so it can't get ruined because I don't have one.

Well, you have a change maker career now, so that can still go badly wrong if you do it badly wrong. Well, not to scare you, but I'm going to finish with a question that we ask of all our guests, which is can you share three practical things which take less than five minutes that someone who hears this and wants to combine a big career with young children should consider trying out this week and if nothing comes, try out this week.

Put something in your diary for an hour so people think you're going for a meeting and go and do something for you. That's my advice.

That's excellent advice. Thank you so much.

Anything, even if it's lying in a dark room or having a sleep, go and do something for you. Look after you.

That's excellent and very important advice. Thank you so much. Susie, it's been absolutely inspiring to chat to you. I appreciate you taking the time.

It's no problem at all.

I really appreciate you listening. Thank you so much and I always love to hear from our listeners. If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, just go to Ferina Hefty and I'll be delighted to hear your feedback and your suggestions or just have you say hi. Likewise, if you do feel passionately about gender equality and you want to support a female led podcast, then please do leave a review and share it with a friend. Just because at the moment podcasting is still a very, very male dominated environment. Most of the top charging podcasts are led by men. I really love all the people who've joined from the podcast our fellowship program and if you want to do the same then please head over to leadersplus.org/Fellowship in order to get access to a community of support to help you combine ambitious career with young children together with people who have your back. See you next week.