11. The Power of Purpose, Rethinking HR, and Making Work Better for Everyone | Gillian Brookes

Digby (: 00:15

My guest today is Gillian Brookes. Gillian started her own consultancy business back in 2019. Remember back then, just before the world changed, COVID came along and we all began to work from home. And guess what? One of Gillian's areas of expertise is in making flexible work work. Talk about perfect timing. Her business exploded during that time as she hasn't looked back. She's channeled her experience of supporting leaders and organizations into her book, FlexBirds. And she continues today to push the boundaries to create a better

future of work for everyone. Now, Gillian is also my life partner. Let's put that out there right now. So to me, what I've always admired about her and what she brings that continues to inspire me is that she dreams big. Ever since we met quite a few years ago, her mind goes well beyond the status quo. And I think that'll come through in our conversation.

today. She's also got a relentless curiosity and her questions always stop me in my tracks and get me thinking and learning. It's an awesome experience, sometimes a little uncomfortable. She's also one of the lowest ego people I know and she always lets her courage and conviction be her guide. Gillian Brookes, welcome to the show.

Gillian (: 01:36

Thanks for having me, Digby.

Digby (: 01:38

Let's put it out there. What does it feel like to be life partners and doing this podcast conversation with a whole lot of people listening?

Gillian (: 01:49

Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Because on one level, it's just me and you having a conversation, which is obviously something we do a lot. And also, we've been working together for a long time, you know, and we, you know, when some people say to us, how do you, how do you work together and, and be partners, you know, it's actually

Digby (: 01:58

you

Gillian (: 02:20

We've never not done that. So it sort of feels okay because of the nature of the work we've done together so far anyway. So yeah, it's sort of weirdly familiar territory.

Digby (: 02:24

Yeah.

Digby (: 02:33

That's a good way to put it, isn't it? It feels like, just another one of our conversations. And so we just decided to press record. So let's see where it goes. Yeah, as ever. Right. Let's see where we take things. I was really curious to hear your thoughts about now we were recording this a couple of days after the US presidential election results in 2024. And, you know, the world's in an interesting state right now.

Gillian (: 02:34

Yeah.

That's right. Let's see what happens. Yeah.

Digby (: 03:02

You know, not just because of that, but generally, right? What what's fascinating to you right now as you look around the world, the world that you're in, what's what's drawing your attention and piquing your curiosity?

Gillian (: 03:15

Yeah, it's funny, I was reflecting on that, particularly in light of the US election that you point out. And I was kind of surprised by my emotional response to that election result. I thought I would be really quite, I would have quite a high emotional response to that. And actually I didn't. And what I did notice though, was that I felt

even more committed to the things that I want to see change in the world. That there feels like there's no better time than now or yesterday to make some of the changes that I and many, many, other people care about. And the way I would sort of summarize that, if there was a way to summarize it, is changing the way that our economy works and who it serves.

Digby (: 04:14

I'll tell us more.

Gillian (: 04:14

I that's really, yeah. So I think, you know, before I became a flexible work specialist and got into HR, I trained as an economist. And as an economics graduate, I found my way into an HR career. And the way I've made sense of what I care most about is how do we restructure our economy so that

It has better outcomes for people and, and planet. and my focus because of my skills and my, area of expertise and what I care most about is the people focus that I'm really have more fluency in and want to make space and create opportunities to learn about the planet side of it too. I think one of the things I've been thinking a lot about over the last few years is.

How can I contribute to making that change? How can I contribute to being a really small part of having an economy that works really well for everybody? And my contribution to that so far has been really how do we make work high quality and really accessible to more people?

Digby (: 05:31

What's the problem with the world right now? Because your response was, this is what I want to change. What's the problem that you're trying to solve?

Gillian (: 05:39

Mmm.

Gillian (: 05:46

I think what we're seeing is a growing sense of inequality, not growing sense, but growing inequality. And with a growing inequality of wealth and income, with no developed economy more pronounced in that than the US, and then seeing what's happening in the US, it's just shining a light for me on, we really need to pay attention to the haves and the have nots. And it's the...

magnitude of that gap that's the problem. It's not necessarily that, you know, everyone needs to be a millionaire or everybody needs, you know, I'm not kind of saying we all need to earn communism. Yeah, exactly. We're not talking about like everyone needs to have the same, but what we need to pay attention to, I think, is that sense of everyone has a fair chance, a life of dignity and a life of wellbeing. You know, when I talk about wellbeing, as you know,

Digby (: 06:28

So we're not talking communism.

Gillian (: 06:46

I think about Amartya Sen and he's the founding father of wellbeing economics, a Nobel Prize winner and very smart guy. And what he talks about is that that's about living a life that you value and have reason to value. And it's really hard to live a life that you value if you can't have access to anything that you value. And so I think we need to focus our attention on creating that as a possibility for everybody. And we're not there yet. In fact, we're...

potentially moving away from it in some senses. So that's, that's what I'm doubling down on.

Digby (: 07:20

It's interesting that the word well-being and that has really come to prominence in the last few years, hasn't it? And I think originally it was sort of like the fruit bowls in the staff kitchen and the yoga at lunchtime and beanbags and all that sort of stuff. what's your sense of have we still have we matured from that, you know, as as workplaces, the sense of what well-being actually means?

Gillian (: 07:36

Yeah.

Gillian (: 07:49

Yeah, she said tentatively. I think we've moved beyond fruit bowls, which is great. I think what we've moved towards away from fruit bowls is wellbeing initiatives. And I still find that a bit, for those of you who are not watching this, who are listening, I just made a face. I think my, so.

Digby (: 07:51

That's a very qualified yeah.

Gillian (: 08:17

Wellbeing initiatives, they're so well-intentioned. And so I want to applaud the intent behind a wellbeing initiative. And people will go and do a survey or something similar. But the problem with a survey is you end up going for the middle of the bell curve with everything. And the point about wellbeing is it's individualized. It's a life that I value and have reason to value. It's not necessarily something I'm going to willingly share in a survey with my employer.

It's not necessarily something I can even articulate very well. What I need is access to be able to explore what I value and have reason to value. And I need my employer to not get in the way of that at the very least and to enable it if and where possible. So well-being initiatives and surveys can really kind of miss the whole founding principle of what well-being is all about.

Digby (: 09:11

There's, you know, I'm listening to you now and I'm I'm feeling your conviction. And it's it's fascinating having watched your last few years as since you last launched your consultancy, your practice. And, know, at the moment, you're everywhere, media and LinkedIn and everything. And this conviction comes through in everything you share. And it's true right now. Right. Have you always been that way? Tell us.

Tell us about that, because I feel like it's stronger than ever. And I'm wondering, what's the seeds of it? Like, where is this coming from for you?

Gillian (: 09:53

Yeah, it's such a question. You should probably ask my mum. If it's always been there, I think she would say, yep, would be my guess.

Digby (: 09:58

Maybe I will.

Digby (: 10:06

huh. What do you reckon she would have seen in, you know, the five year old Gillian or the 10 year old Gillian?

Gillian (: 10:11

Yeah, yeah, I think, I think she, she experienced, I'm the youngest of three. And I think I came along a little bit after my brother and my sister, there was a bigger gap between us. And so my older brother and sister kind of, there's only a couple of years between them and they were really close. And then there's about over six years before I turned up. then, so I think I was a bit of a, you know, I wasn't a surprise baby, but I think I was a surprise.

child in the way that I was quite different. that I, mum would be like, you know, I remember we'd be in the car sometimes and I'd be like, well, what do you think about this? And, and she'd be in the end, she'd just say, why don't you become a politician or something? don't know. I don't know. don't, you know, and she'd just be tired and, you know, finish work. And it was just, I think, I think she found me a bit relentless sometimes with my

constant questions and what about this and why don't we change that? And I remember saying to her, who are they? When everyone talks about they need to do this and they need to do that. was like, who are they talking about? Who do people mean when they say they? And that was the first time I ever heard about government, actually. And she said, they normally mean government. I was like, what's government? So I was just sort of super curious kid, I think, and really wanted to understand.

Digby (: 11:27

Yep.

Gillian (: 11:34

what was driving people, what motivated people and what they were angry about and all that kind of thing. So I think that was just innate in me. And then I think, you know, the other kind of shaping forces really is my dad was an entrepreneur. He had his own business and, you know, there was a whole heap of, know, this whole heap of shaping experiences, right, as children. And I think watching him grow as I was growing up,

Digby (: 11:42

Hmm.

Gillian (: 12:03

I loved the idea of, I remember, I loved going into his office and, you know, looking at what he was doing and what would he spend his time doing and, you know, who was he meeting and what was all that about and what was it for? And he was running an electrical contractor business. And so I was like trying to make the connection between his office and what work they were doing, what projects they were on and, you know, and who was, what was an invoice? You know, I was just kind of in love to that whole world.

Digby (: 12:31

And how old were you at this stage?

Gillian (: 12:35

I would have been, probably eight, eight, nine, something like that going into the office with him and, and China, you know, just, I guess it was kind of business studies for primary school. And, yeah, yeah. So that was really fascinating, but you know, the, the, the other shaping forces of that were, I think going through the, the recession in the early nineties, that was a huge.

Digby (: 12:40

Wow.

Gillian (: 13:04

huge impact for me personally, because my dad's business didn't survive that experience of the recession. There was a massive cashflow kind of issue. really tragically, he took his own life in 1993 when I was only 11 years old. growing up, although I was fascinated with the entrepreneurialism and what that was all about, I didn't get to see much of my dad.

You know, he was always off out early in the morning. He was home late. you know, I mean, I would, I would, I would see him, but it was, it wasn't, there was definitely not a shared parenting between my, my two parents. and then conversely, mum had, you know, she, she, she worked in various different jobs, but her employer after, after dad died, they used to give everybody Friday afternoons off and that was

Brilliant, because me mum didn't, you she was working full time. We didn't get to spend that much time together. was me and the dog at home a lot of the time. So Friday afternoon, she'd be home. And when I got home from school, and that was so nice, we'd go off and do things together and stuff. So I kind of had these two very different role models in my upbringing from my two parents. And, you know, one was kind of sparked the entrepreneurial thing, but also some of the risks and dangers around that of

Digby (: 14:21

Totally.

Gillian (: 14:32

you know, quite heavy risks, obviously. And also the not seeing him, you know, kind of very often and all the hours he was working versus my mum's experience where, she was working full time and that was hard, but we had Friday afternoons, which was lovely and a weekend. So I was kind of thinking, how do you make work kind of healthy for everybody so that we can all thrive and that, you know, the economic impact.

doesn't have such a traumatic experience like it did for me and my family when unfortunately dad, you know, dad didn't survive the recession either. Yeah.

Digby (: 15:11

How how has this so much? That helps me understand you in that story, how do you reckon it shapes? Not so much how you work and what your work's about, but how you live and how you parent and how you. How you get all of the bits in sync or at least try to.

Gillian (: 15:29

Hmm.

Gillian (: 15:35

Yeah, well, it's taken me a few goes to learn a few hard lessons, I would say. I've probably experienced burnout three times, you know, during my employed life. So, you know, I'm not very good at learning lessons quickly.

Digby (: 15:38

Yeah.

Digby (: 15:54

Well, it keeps coming back at you until you actually learn it, right? It's yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do that exam again. Repeat, repeat the paper.

Gillian (: 15:58

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, come on, you're not cracked it yet. Have another go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And yeah, it's a bit frustrating when you have to do it three or four times. But I think, you know, what I know about myself is that I have to work quite hard on sustaining my energy and making sure that I don't fall into the trap where perhaps my dad

did, which is that work takes over. I've been really, you know, obviously since the age of 11, that was a tough lesson for all of us in my family, that, you know, work mustn't become the sole focus of your world and that there's got to be more to life than just work.

Digby (: 16:42

Yeah.

Digby (: 16:45

I've always admired that about you and as someone who. Like many, many people listening, I suspect, you know, plays such a central part to my life. I feel like I'm really starting to change that mix only now. But for you, you know, I remember you saying one time to me a few years ago, you know, it was like two thirty in afternoon, you went.

I've done my work for the day, I'm to have a bath because I can, right? Which is one of the upsides of being self-employed, right? But there's also massive risks with self-employment around you could just work 24-7 and you've been really deliberate in going, no. your formative stories about your parents as role models clearly has influenced that,

Gillian (: 17:18

Yeah.

Yeah.

Gillian (: 17:41

massively, massively, yeah. I think, you know, I was at a conference event thing yesterday and I was talking to someone afterwards and I was saying, one of the things about becoming self-employed was that had to, just before I made the choice, was like, I remember saying to myself, like, you the buck stops with you now. I can't blame...

a toxic work culture. I can't blame my boss for being hard on me. I can't blame someone else for unreasonable demands or a lack of resourcing or whatever else it might be that I was really practiced at those excuses and those, I mean, sometimes they're excuses and sometimes they felt very real. And I'll probably never know where in that spectrum a lot of them were in reality, but probably a mix of all. But I think

Digby (: 18:10

Haha.

Gillian (: 18:37

stepping into self-employment, it was really important for me to just face up to that and be really clear with myself that I can't blame anyone else if this starts to impact my own health and wellbeing. So I've really got to make some healthy choices. Yeah.

Digby (: 18:55

And you do. Right. And there's there's costs that come with that. But a lot of people that are listening to this, I suspect, are employed. And, we've both been there. What what lessons did you learn, if any, from when you were employed about how to sustain your energy? Because you talked about the the lessons that you had to learn a few times. And I'm wondering, did it take?

Gillian (: 19:03

Mm.

Gillian (: 19:13

Mm.

Digby (: 19:22

going self-employed to finally learn that lesson or were there lessons that you learned at the time or you'd wish you'd learned when you were employed?

Gillian (: 19:29

Yeah.

I think one of the things I got, despite the slightly mild versions of burnout that I experienced on more than one occasion, think one of the things I did get quite practiced at was boundaries. And particularly once I became a working parent, I think I was a senior leader with two young children and a lot of

delivery pressure with a big team under me. And I remember one particular role as HR director, the first six weeks I had to just almost several times a day, my boundaries would get challenged where I needed to. So for example, like in that particular role, I worked compressed hours. So I could have Fridays where I took the kids to their play group and all that kind of thing. And

Digby (: 20:16

Give us an example.

Gillian (: 20:29

So I did, I worked for really long days. That's kind of how I did it. And then just kind of answered the odd email or whatever on the Friday. But I remember I was only kind of like a few days in and everyone knew what my work hours were. I've been really clear with everybody had one-to-ones with all my new team. And there was something that was meant to be on a, on a Friday. And I was like, well, I, I won't be there. I'll, I'll be at play group. And then I, can't you just bring the kids in? I was like, no, I'm at keep, I'm at play group.

I'm not going to be there, we'll have to reschedule it." And they'd be like, okay. And they could reschedule it, it was fine. It wasn't like this big external meeting that could never be shifted because it would take, you know, six months to reschedule it all or whatever with the right people. It was just easier not to from their point of view. But actually what I had to get really good at was just reminding people what I could do and what I couldn't do.

Digby (: 21:20

Right.

Gillian (: 21:28

People kind of got it, but it took about six weeks of constantly pushing back and then people got it. But it's those six weeks when you're new to a role and it's a big job and you've got a lot going on at home as well, that's exhausting. know, absolutely exhausting.

Digby (: 21:44

What helped you to say no firmly in the first place? Because I can imagine me and maybe people listening might be in the same boat. Feeling a sense of guilt or torn loyalties or I'm not being a good employee or whatever. When I'm saying no, what what helped you to stay firm?

Gillian (: 22:02

Yeah.

Gillian (: 22:07

I think it's that I wasn't fair on everything. You know, that there were places where I was really comfortable being flexible, but that wasn't one of them. And so I could explain that to people and they could see that and experience that from me. So that helped. And also I didn't really have an alternative. You know, I was like, if I bring a four year old and a one year old to this meeting, just a, no one's going to get anything out of this, you know.

Digby (: 22:25

Mmm.

Gillian (: 22:34

I don't have my sister around the corner or someone I can just drop the kids off with. I moved here and my children were born here. I moved here from the UK in 2011. So yeah, there was no alternative option on a Friday. I didn't have childcare arrangements. I didn't have someone in my family who I could just ask for a favor or whatever. So it was kind of like, well, this is the deal.

Digby (: 23:02

I I've just written a blog this morning. Thank you for your help on reviewing it. It called Give Less Fucks. And it's the message in that is. Don't not give a fuck about anything, but give less fucks about the things that matter less. And I often I think that sifting that passing that trying to work out what matters less. It's easier when.

Gillian (: 23:05

You

Gillian (: 23:10

Yeah.

Gillian (: 23:18

Mmm.

Gillian (: 23:23

Yeah.

Digby (: 23:32

Like you say, like you didn't have a choice. Right. Well, what am going to do? It's that's when it's easy to go, no, because this matters. It's kind of like in times of crisis, we can all rally around the most important things. Right. But when we're not in times of crisis and everything's a bit gray, it's harder to discern what matters. we heads in our our shoulds and our have to get in the way. Right. And I.

Gillian (: 23:36

Yeah. Yeah.

Gillian (: 23:43

Mmm.

Gillian (: 23:56

Yeah. Yeah.

Digby (: 24:00

I admire how you had that clarity and you have that clarity in lots of things, right? And the conviction that is there behind that.

Gillian (: 24:03

Mmm... Yeah.

Gillian (: 24:09

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, that conviction comes from a couple of places. It's that kind of that childhood story about kind of don't let work take over completely. And then there's also the idea that when you're the head of HR, if I can't make it work as a senior leader in a business, who can? And who's coming through the pipeline that I want people to look to someone like me and see that it's

Digby (: 24:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Gillian (: 24:37

It's not easy, but it's possible at the very least. you know, and I, I took that seriously as well, that, you know, as a head of HR, it's, it's almost like an extra part of your job to show people what's possible in terms of different ways of working and healthy ways of working.

Digby (: 24:58

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like, I love the way you say, show people what's possible. Right. And I think that's, yeah, live through your own values, your own choices and, you know, be the change. But if you want to see something different, well, embody it yourself.

Gillian (: 25:10

Yeah.

Gillian (: 25:13

Yeah, exactly.

Digby (: 25:15

Who who do do or did you model your own leadership style on? So suspect you've had lots of people guiding you in your own journey, right? Who's who's helped?

Gillian (: 25:28

Yeah, yeah that's a great question. think...

I think it took me a while to kind of really, really understand the idea of you've got to be yourself as a leader. And that kind of, I was lucky to have...

after my first burnout, was kind of only two years after graduation. Yeah.

Digby (: 25:58

But can I just, I just think it's hilarious. It's like after my first burnout, it's like the serial burnout person.

Gillian (: 26:02

Yes!

No, I know. it was awful. The reason I'm laughing is because the first main leader I had as a grad, she was definitely herself, but it wasn't great. was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she was incredibly controlling in every aspect of her own life. And we all experienced that.

Digby (: 26:20

So there's be yourself, but be the good version.

Gillian (: 26:33

as from her as a leader, which was, which was really intense and really quite scary at times. And she would reduce all my much older, more experienced colleagues to tears regularly. And I was thinking, my goodness, how am going to manage in this? And the short story of that is that I didn't, I didn't handle it very well at all. 22 to 24, something like 23. Yeah. Yeah. 21 to 23.

Digby (: 26:50

So how old were you at this time?

Yeah, right. So you didn't you didn't handle that.

Gillian (: 26:59

Not particularly, no. mean, I just got burnt and, you know, kind of the naivety of kind of stepping into a corporate world with someone who, you know, wasn't a very healthy role model really. And without the support that you need at that early stage in career to really succeed.

Digby (: 27:17

What did that feel like?

Gillian (: 27:22

It felt like you've been sort of, well, it started out really well, but quite quickly when the heat was on her, suddenly the heat was on me. that I'd never experienced that before. think I'd always looked at adults and I'd put trust in adults around me and that had never really been betrayed in that way before. And so it was my first experience of the adult world where that

Trust was misplaced and that was, that was really painful, especially as a 23 year old, in your first kind of corporate job post, you know, someone was on a graduate program and yeah, it was, that was really not a pleasant experience, but I'm kind of in a way grateful it happened so early on because, it, really fueled my interest and my fascination for HR. I left that job, the next

Digby (: 28:10

Yeah.

Gillian (: 28:21

boss I had was brilliant. She was hilarious. She was really herself. She was really supportive. She supported me to do my first kind of HR professional qualification because I had my economics degree, but I hadn't really kind of hit on HR quite yet. I was just kind of getting to that point. So she really supported that. And when I remember when I was doing my, I did at night school at college and

And so much of what, yeah, my HR qualification, my first HR qualification and what I was, you know, I was learning all this stuff about what good HR looks like and what good people leadership looks like. And it was the antithesis of what I'd experienced, I'd just experienced in my, in my graduate role. And that was fascinating to me because I could suddenly see the power of having really good HR. And it was, it was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant. And.

Digby (: 28:52

This is your HR qualifications, yeah. Yep, yep.

Digby (: 29:09

Yeah.

Digby (: 29:15

What a gift. Yeah, don't don't you reckon just as a sidebar, perhaps that we want to have those shitty experiences earlier in Korea and learn from them. You know, I had my midlife crisis at 30 and it was a whole I had a massive burnout as a national manager. And I'm so grateful. Obviously, I'm sorry is a good thing. It took me years to recover my mojo from that. But the

Gillian (: 29:32

Wait.

Yeah. Yeah.

Gillian (: 29:42

Mmm.

Hmm.

Digby (: 29:45

It's I reckon we want to go and have as many learning experiences, shall we say, as we can and get exposure to a whole range of things. It's like David Ipsby wrote this book called Range, know, why generalists will try it for in a specialized world, because it gives us exposure to stuff that we can then go, huh, well, what do I take from that experience? ideally, the consequences aren't as high when we're younger, too, right?

Gillian (: 30:11

Yeah.

Gillian (: 30:15

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it's that kind of, it helped me see what wasn't in place and what good leadership could look like when it was done well. Yeah.

Digby (: 30:16

And it sounds like your story is one of those.

Digby (: 30:27

Yeah. What do they call it? Negative space in the designers call it negative space, right? It's the stuff that's not there makes what they're useful. Yeah. Yeah.

Gillian (: 30:36

Yeah, yeah.

Gillian (: 30:40

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it really motivated me, I think, to want to be a really good quality HR professional so that I could shape a culture of an organization so that people experience good leadership and the leadership was well supported to enable that for themselves and their team.

Digby (: 31:01

was well-being on the radar back then.

Gillian (: 31:05

not as a word, probably conceptually it was there. I think conceptually it had been there a long time, but the way I came to wellbeing was much later as I continued to kind of look into what was developing in the world of economic thinking. So people like Kate Raworth with Donut Economics, which is one of my favorite pieces of work out in the world.

Digby (: 31:06

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Gillian (: 31:34

and Catherine Trebek and other lots and lots of other new economic thinkers who funny enough is a high proportion of women. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is kind of, yeah, yeah, Catherine Henderson, sorry, Rebecca Henderson. Yeah, yeah, and Petty Four, yep.

Digby (: 31:45

Isn't that interesting? Yeah, Marianna Mazzucato would be another one. Yeah, Jennifer Rebecca Henderson. Yes, we've got that. Yeah. What what do you reckon that's about?

Gillian (: 32:00

I think for me it's, well it's something that Catrine Marcell talks about in her work, another kind of economic thinker who looks at economics through the lens of gender, particularly through the lens of feminism. one of the things that she talks about is traditional economic thinking has,

led to systems and structures where we value masculine more than we value feminine. And actually one of the wonderful things about her work is she talks about feminine ideas are actually universal ideas. They've just been kind of misbranded. So an example that she would give is wheels on a suitcase. Who doesn't want wheels on the bottom of their suitcase?

Digby (: 32:49

What's an example?

Gillian (: 33:00

Well, there certainly was, if you go back to the 70s. She was like, why did it take her so long to put wheels on the bottom of a suitcase? And what's this masculine identity thing? Men don't want to be hauling suitcases around any more than anyone else. But, you know, finally we've put wheels on the bottom of a suitcase, which hadn't really taken off until, know, she talks about the story of this.

Digby (: 33:01

Is there such a thing as a suitcase without wheels?

Digby (: 33:07

Yeah, I was there.

Digby (: 33:25

Can you just make the link between a masculine idea and the feminine idea there? Like, what's the distinction? What's the.

Gillian (: 33:32

So the idea, so I thought I'd take another example that she gives in one of her books, which is the electric car. So back when cars were, you know, kind of starting to be mass produced, there was an electric car and there was a petrol engine car. this is like 100 years, just over 100 years ago. So about nine, yeah, sort of early 1900s ish. And so what she was saying was that the petrol engine car was kind of, you know,

Digby (: 33:46

And this is back in what they like the late 1800s. Yeah. Right. OK.

Gillian (: 34:01

had the masculinity of all the noisy machinery and the moving parts and everything. And then the electric car was seen as quiet and feminine. it was designed for a lady, a very wealthy lady, to go in and visit her friends for tea. And it even had like a sofa in the back so that they could sit and have tea in the car. And it was all very lardy da kind of thing. Whereas the

Digby (: 34:27

Sounds cool.

Gillian (: 34:30

The idea that took off was the masculine engine, but actually when they used to crank up the engine at the front with the, what's it called? The arm thing that you used to crank it with. The cranking arm, there we go, there we go. Who knew? Some people used to get severely injured and even killed by the...

Digby (: 34:40

Yeah, that thing.

Yeah, the cranking arm. Let's call it the cranking arm. I think that's it. Yeah, there you go.

Gillian (: 34:55

these things kind of not going very well and flying off and hitting them in the side of the head and things like that. And they're actually quite dangerous. They were smelly, they were noisy. But that was what men's machines looked like and felt like and sounded like. Whereas this electric car was marketed to wealthy women only. And that was the idea. It was a feminine version of the car. So we could have had a completely different future if actually the idea of the electric ignition, the idea of

a covered car, you don't have to get wet in the rain, that it's quieter. These are actually universal ideas. They're not feminine.

Digby (: 35:36

So you said feminine ideas are universal ideas. It sounds like feminine ideas are sensible ideas.

Gillian (: 35:41

Well, I'm glad you said that, not me.

Digby (: 35:46

So guys just kind of like, they overshadow sensible with ego or something, right? Or, yeah.

Gillian (: 35:52

Well, I don't think so. think, and I talk about this frequently, don't we? But it's this whole idea that everybody, regardless of gender, is living under a patriarchal system. And actually, don't love it either. know, what man really wants to be getting wet, getting injured or killed by their car when they could have something else that's much more comfortable, quiet and safe. Like most men don't want...

toxic masculinity either. It's just, we've got so much unlearning to do. And what I think Katrine Marcel does so well is just shines a spotlight through a few important examples of how we've kind of adopted some of these ideas and we haven't fully understood the gender and the gender association with some of them. I think, you know, to bring it back to what we were talking about before is the ideas of

Digby (: 36:24

Yeah.

Digby (: 36:40

Yeah.

Gillian (: 36:50

New economic thinking are often considered, you know, well, let's bring in the idea of craft, which is more of a feminine idea, not just mechanics, which is a more masculine idea. Let's bring in the idea of work-life balance, which is a feminine idea versus working all the hours God sends, which is a masculine idea.

Digby (: 37:13

And, and, you know, I talk in my work a lot about hero versus host and as ways of leading. even if you think about the hero, it's associated with masculinity, right? Whereas host is a more of a feminine idea. And it's interesting that seems to be something that people really latch onto this, we need to shift from hero to host. And it's not we being females saying that as everyone is saying that and

Gillian (: 37:25

Hmm.

Yeah.

Gillian (: 37:40

Yeah.

Digby (: 37:40

So that's another example of this. Yeah, this is fascinating to me. do we get more of this feminine ways of thinking into society? What are you doing in an organizational sense or at a societal level to help us make some of these shifts?

Gillian (: 38:05

Well, think one example is that flexible work or part-time work, they're considered feminine, but actually it turns out they're universal. And we've learned that post pandemic because there's an absolute explosion of demand for flexibility regardless of gender. So that's...

Digby (: 38:13

Mmm.

Digby (: 38:23

Right, yeah.

Gillian (: 38:26

that in itself is a really important one. And if I kind of drill down on that a bit further, for example, in construction as an industry, which is a very masculine dominated industry, that has some really, really sobering mental health statistics. How can we create more choices and more flexibility for the workforce there so that the industry benefits through better productivity and the work gets done more, you know, kind of

to schedule and all these things are more reliably done because people have got more input and choice over their hours and days of work.

Digby (: 38:59

I've gotta say, yeah.

Digby (: 39:05

And as a dad, you know, it's to me, that's really important. And one of the reasons I work for myself is because the last time I had a salary. No, the second last time I had a salary, it was there was no way I could get the flexibility that I needed to with a young family. And it was like, well, that's not worth the cost to me because I'd already done my early midlife crisis burnout. I'd worked out what was important to me.

Gillian (: 39:34

Yeah.

Digby (: 39:35

And like you had decided that was no other choice. And and yeah, and I reckon there's more guys who want this than ever. You know, I think the values are changing.

Gillian (: 39:47

Absolutely. And I think you're right. I think, you know, when I've spoken to, I've done lots of work already in the construction industry and spoken to so many guys at all different levels, all different professions within it. And I think we're there. The tipping point is there. There are so many voices, so many people across different generations of men who want more choices about their work.

They don't feel like their marriages are going to survive it. They don't feel like their role as a dad is going to survive it otherwise. They don't feel like their participation in their community is going to survive it. These are things that really matter to people. And just because they happen to be really skilled in their professional career in construction, why should they be denied those choices too?

Digby (: 40:42

Yeah, I want to take a other rewind or a right turn or something here and come back to conviction because just, you know, if you're listening to this rewind the last 30 seconds and listen to the strength in Gillian's voice, right? There is so much conviction. Now, when I met you, which is what we met eight years ago or something at 10 years, 10 was it 10? Well, sorry. And

Gillian (: 41:05

I think it was 10, but yeah, who's counting?

Digby (: 41:11

And you you had energy and you had passion. But that clarity of conviction, I would say, wasn't as strong when you know, we then joined Changemakers, the program that I set up. What was that? Seven, eight years ago. And that was a turning point. Can you just tell us what helped you shift from?

all that restless energy as I would call it into the clarity of conviction that you've got now.

Gillian (: 41:48

Yeah, and I think this is kind of stuff that you and I have always worked on. What can you not let go of? I think that's kind of what I learned to pay attention to. Because there's, and I speak to so many people about these same ideas, know, just like I said yesterday when I was at this kind of conference event thing, was talking to someone about it there, she was like, how did you write a book? I'd love to write a book.

Digby (: 42:02

I love that question.

Gillian (: 42:17

And I was like, well, what do you want to write it for? And she was like, well, just because I want to see if I can write one. And I said, well, that's not going to be enough. You know, yeah, it was true, though, right? Because I was like, well, there's a reason you haven't done it yet. And so it's like, what do you care enough about that the motivation is innate within you? Because writing a book is a

Digby (: 42:30

harsh.

Digby (: 42:38

You

Gillian (: 42:47

really hard process and it's, it's, I mean, it's beautiful. It's wonderful. And it's really hard. And so the motivation has to be so strong, way much, way bigger than, I want, I want to just tick that off of my kind of bucket list of things I've achieved. You know, it's got, it's got to come from something bigger than yourself, I think.

Digby (: 43:09

So what was that process for you? Because, yeah, I remember there was a point and maybe you're better off telling the story than me. when you went, I've got to resign from what I'm doing the next day.

Gillian (: 43:22

Yeah, that was the end of our first, yeah, the first changemakers workout I ever went to. I resigned from my job. I think, yeah, I think the process, if I get really clear about how you work out what that innate motivation is, what are the

Digby (: 43:41

That's it. Yeah. What is the process?

Gillian (: 43:45

What are the seemingly disparate ideas or things that you cannot let go of that really matter to you? So there's lots and lots of things that you can do, but what do you have to do? So for me, was, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's those things that really, if they're not present in your current day job, but they're the things that you, that.

Digby (: 43:58

It's almost like what you cannot not do, right? Yeah.

Gillian (: 44:10

give you the most energy when you're not working or that you find opportunities to do anyway, even though it's not part of your job. Yeah.

Digby (: 44:16

That makes sense is another way to put it is what would your mum get you get sick of you banging on about or your best friends or whatever? Right. Like the stuff that you just keep talking about. Right.

Gillian (: 44:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And pay attention to those things. And if they're seemingly disparate, which they probably will be, that's my experience. you know, now running, you know, where we do change makers together a lot of the time, working with lots of other people through the change makers process, most people find that, hang on, I've got this. So for me, I had, you know, the HR profession.

and our potential to have a bigger impact, a better impact in organizations was one thing. Another thing that felt really disconnected was economic inequality. Like what did that have to do with HR? And, you know, like a few, you know, the plight of working parents, what was, you know, that was a really big thing for me, how to make work work for people that had kids and that, why was that so hard? So I had these sort of seemingly quite disparate things, but by,

Digby (: 45:04

Yeah, right?

Gillian (: 45:23

testing and learning and seeing if I could let them go and note, I can't let that one go, but I can let that bit go. That's kind of, I can do that, but it doesn't kind of have the same energy vibe for me. By kind of a process of elimination like that, you get hold of the threads that you will not let go of, and then you have to learn to thread them. And what are the ideas that connect them? Well, it's kind of, so for me, that's why reading about Kate Rayworth and the

Digby (: 45:33

Yeah.

Digby (: 45:41

and what helped.

Gillian (: 45:51

donut economics ideas, which is really how do you have an economy that has, that serves people and planet first, rather than people and planet serving the economy, which is kind of what the status quo, how do we shift to it for the inverse? Now that captured my imagination in a way that lots of other things just don't hold my attention. They might give me that initial spark, but that was something that just felt

Digby (: 45:59

Yeah.

Gillian (: 46:21

really important to me, particularly as a, as a kind of a graduate of economics and then all these other questions, there was something about that, that brought everything together. And that helped me see that the ideas of economic inequality and the idea of working parents and the idea of better organizations for people would all sit within this one idea that Kate Raworth was able to illustrate and bring to life for me, which

Digby (: 46:22

Yeah.

Gillian (: 46:50

articulated what I'd been intuiting and feeling, but just hadn't found the words for yet until she came up with that.

Digby (: 46:57

And then something clicked for you. What did that do when it clicked? Obviously, yeah, resign from the job. But, you know, a lot of people say, well, that's incredibly courageous, but it feels like from the outside, well, from looking at it, it was like you couldn't not do that. You had to do that. What what was the shift in you in terms of how you then thought or behaved?

Gillian (: 47:05

Hahaha.

Gillian (: 47:16

Hmm. Hmm.

Digby (: 47:25

you know, what was what happened when you kind of locked on to that conviction?

Gillian (: 47:28

I think, yeah, so when I really understood that, deeply understood it, you not just the, you know, you get that immediate insight, but then I had to kind of really sit with it. And once it really got kind of deep inside under my skin, I was then able to make some deep choices and decisions about how central do I want this to be in my working life and in my day to day?

And so because I had that entrepreneurial thing, you know, for, if I go back to my childhood and watching the good side of my dad's experiences, I wanted an expression of that in my life too. I wanted to kind of try the entrepreneurial life, but I wanted to do it in a way that contributed to something and gave me a healthy relationship with my own work. And that also helped other people have that kind of healthy relationship with their work too.

And so rather than kind of become self-employed for the sake of it, I had real purpose in what I wanted to do with my business. So rather than just become kind of an HR generalist and pick up contracts and whatever, I was like, no, I'd rather have a day job than do that. What I really want is to go and solve a couple of these big problems. Like how do we redesign flexibility in our work so that we can make more of it?

Digby (: 48:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gillian (: 48:54

And the other thing I was doing back in 2019 before the pandemic took over was also how do we restructure pay so that when as a profession, as an HR profession, we're no longer exacerbating the gap between the highest and lowest paid in our societies because that's becoming unsustainable and unaffordable.

Digby (: 49:09

Hmm.

Digby (: 49:17

It seems to me, just rewinding slightly, you've really made some meaning out of your life experiences that you're in, forming your present and your future. You've taken the time to go, what's happened to me and what meaning do I make out of that? And that's fueled your focus. And that I geek out on this stuff because I'm so much about purposeful leadership and being purposeful in the world.

Gillian (: 49:36

Yeah.

Digby (: 49:46

you know, being here to do something that's not just about writing a book, because I think I can write. It's more it's like in service or something bigger. Right. And you embody that. How is your life different since you've locked on to that conviction and really committed to it? Like how is the maybe the question is, how is the quality of your life different compared to, say, 10, 12, 15 years ago?

Gillian (: 49:55

Yeah.

Gillian (: 50:13

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think there's no longer that kind of disconnection between, you know, kind of work life being, it drives this set, you know, this kind of set of experiences that are fine, it pays the bills, it's, you know, I enjoy leading other people, blah, blah, blah. But actually, the stuff I really enjoy is like outside of work. It's much more integrated than that now, where it feels like...

And so we're laughing because we talk about this quite a lot, don't we? The whole kind of integrated life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, so, you know, you're I think you're the you're my model integrator for sure. There's no one more integrated than you in the world, I would say. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So an integrator.

Digby (: 50:43

Well, let's explain it. You better explain it now. We don't want this to be an inside joke, right? Let's make it an outside joke. Yeah.

Digby (: 51:00

I'm assuming that's a compliment, but yeah, I'll take it.

Well, so what is an integrator? For those of you that obviously don't know, yeah.

Gillian (: 51:09

is someone who permeates the boundaries between work and home. And they'll also move those boundaries around to suit them. You know, and the point there is to suit them. you know, like they'll make.

Digby (: 51:21

That sounds like me.

Gillian (: 51:28

they make their choices themselves, not by obligation, but by kind positive decision making around that stuff. Yeah.

Digby (: 51:34

And what's the alternative if you're not an integrator? You are a.

Gillian (: 51:38

Is a segmenter. Yeah, a segmenter who is more likely to have behavioral and physical boundaries between work and home.

Digby (: 51:46

Right. And neither are better, one's not better than the other or anything like that.

Gillian (: 51:50

no, no, no, no, definitely not. And I'm definitely more segmented than you are, but I don't think that's very hard.

Digby (: 51:58

I'm at the end of a bell curve. And you were saying that you do feel more integrated though, right? And that's when we started laughing.

Gillian (: 52:01

Yeah, you really are.

Gillian (: 52:05

yeah, exactly. And I think that's because naturally I'm more of an integrator in my hard wiring. It's just life circumstances, having two children who are still at school and all that kind of thing means that I need to keep some life things separate from work because that's just healthy and the right thing to do when you've got caring responsibilities.

Digby (: 52:24

Yeah.

Digby (: 52:29

If I'm a hypothetically, so I'm a segment, can I still find conviction and purpose and meaning in my work? Yeah.

Gillian (: 52:35

absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. It's just that the way that will play out for you might look and feel different and that you might be more deliberate about, this is how it expresses itself in my work life and this is how it expresses itself in my community. This is how it expresses itself at home and that's completely legitimate. Yeah. Yeah.

Digby (: 52:43

Okay.

Digby (: 52:56

So overall, life feels what I'm hearing is life feels richer now that you've locked onto this meaningful conviction for what you're to do. If if you were to give advice to someone who's going. But I think I've locked onto whatever that conviction is for me, but I want to. What would you say? Here's here's one thing you can start to do.

Gillian (: 53:05

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

Gillian (: 53:25

Sorry, I'm smiling because I hate giving unsolicited advice, but I'll take this as, as solicited advice, right? Yeah. the hard way. Okay. All right. Okay. I'll get over it. Yeah. I think, sorry, repeat the question again. I got really hung up on the word advice.

Digby (: 53:30

Well, I'm on behalf of a listener that may be dying to ask this question, right? So I'm in here in service of you, listener.

Digby (: 53:43

If you were to give one piece of advice. Solicited to someone who's like, hey, Gillian, I love how you've got this conviction. I really want to get that for me. How what would be one thing I can do start to do now to move in that direction?

Gillian (: 54:04

I would say pay attention to the things you can't let go of. You know, the ideas, the things that energize you, the things that when you can't, know, like if there's a headline and news about it, you're like, I want to read more about that. Or if there's conversation happening, you find yourself drawn to it and participating. Like what are those things that really energize you that you care deeply about and that are consistently showing up for you?

Digby (: 54:33

One of the previous guests, Katie Hare, talks about what makes you angry and listen to that because there's an energy there that you care about something. That's awesome. All right. So this has been a rich conversation. One of many. And I hope, well, I suspect there's a lot of gold in here for people listening. It's definitely for me. One of the things I'm taking is.

Gillian (: 54:38

Mm.

Gillian (: 54:49

Yeah.

Digby (: 55:03

that the conviction takes work, right? You've got to earn it. If you care about something, then you've got to have that wrestle. And I've observed you wrestling over the years. you continue to ask big questions about, how else could I serve? It's very inspiring.

Gillian (: 55:28

think one of the things you do that supports that massively is whether it's in Changemakers or just the way we are together is that you create space and you help people create space to kind of keep asking those questions, whether it's through Changemakers or through just one-on-one conversations is that you create space for

people to do that sense making and you value it so deeply that it gives other people permission to do that work. And I think it's really important to kind of acknowledge that and, and, and honor it. Yeah.

Digby (: 56:10

Thank you. I always love to ask this question in service of that actually at the end of a conversation. And what have you learned or maybe been reminded of during this conversation?

Gillian (: 56:26

so many things. I think one of the things that unexpectedly came out for me in this conversation was where my passion for HR began. It began in a really rough experience or the aftermath of a rough experience and then studying HR, it gave me the antidote to what I had experienced that was so hard, you know?

And I think that really drove my passion for my profession in a way that I've locked onto and never let go of. So thank you for that. That was really nice to reconnect with that part of the story. I hope other HR people listening to this can relate to that too.

Digby (: 57:07

That really...

I suspect they will and that really warms my heart to hear that insight. And for people interested to connect with you, to get your book, Flexperts, just to have a conversation with you, how can people find you?

Gillian (: 57:24

couple of ways. They can go to my website, is GillianBrookes.co.nz and check out my book and my online course there if you're interested in managing a flexible team with bit more ease. Or check me out on LinkedIn. I'm quite easy to find there too. So I look forward to connecting with you if you want to do that.