The Seamus Fox Podcast.
This podcast has been created to share real life experiences from inspiring people in all walks of life, those who have engineered change in their own lives through a shift in thinking and beliefs. I want to share my own journey and have others share theirs so that it can help inspire others to crete the internal changes thats needed to create long lasting life changes.
The Seamus Fox Podcast.
Claire Colvin's Guide to Business Growth and Leadership
Clare Colvin shares her journey from HR to co-founding Simple Scaling, emphasizing the pivotal role of authenticity in leadership and the necessity of creating environments where individuals can thrive together. The conversation highlights how fear can hinder growth and explores practical strategies for fostering a culture that enables scaling.
• Claire’s childhood memories and inspirations
• Transitioning from hotel management to Human Resources
• Importance of mentorship in professional development
• Navigating corporate challenges and stress
• Defining scaling and its significance for businesses
• Creating a culture that attracts and retains talent
• The impact of COVID-19 on starting a business
• Highlights from the ScaleX Summit and future aspirations
• Common traits of successful leaders and their importance
• Emphasizing authenticity in leadership for optimal growth
guys, welcome back to the podcast. I am excited to speak with this morning's guest. It is claire colvin, claire.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the podcast thank you very much, seamus.
Speaker 1:It's great to be here and thanks for having me I'm looking forward to the chat clear for people that are listening in. Um, could you give us a wee bit of a description of who you are and what you're involved in?
Speaker 2:Certainly can. Yes, so, as you said, Clare Colvin, I start with the family side. First of all, I am the wife of Marty and the mum of two teenagers, two lively teenagers Max and Erin and I'm also the co-founder of Simple Scaling.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. There's loads of things that I want to dig into as we go through the podcast, but what I like to do with all guests is kind of get a wee bit of context to what has got you to this point. So where did you grow up and what was it like as a young Clare growing up? What were those early inspirations?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, you're taking me back now, seamus. Where did I grow up? Well, location wise, I actually spent my first 10 years in Glengormley and then, around about the time where most kids do what's now called AQE. It was 11 plus in my day, and around that time I then moved on to Jordanstown where I spent the next probably almost 30 years. It was actually about six or seven years ago that my parents actually moved out of the family home and downsized into an apartment, so I grew up there. I had a really happy childhood. I have one brother, scott. He lives over in South Africa, he teaches actually over at Cape Town University and he's 18 months older than me, and we were always the best of friends whenever we were growing up. So I do still miss him. I get to see him probably once every six months whenever he comes home. But yeah, that's where it all started out for me, that's where life began.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. I have a coach that's in South Africa and it's a place that I'm always saying that I'm going to go and visit, so it's definitely on the bucket list you, you would love it.
Speaker 2:It's a little bit indulgent, but we would probably try and get out there, maybe even once a year, particularly to see, see Scott, and it's costly to get there, but actually whenever you're there it's probably works out the same as a week in Europe somewhere. Yeah, so it's, but it's absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1:And every trip.
Speaker 2:Every trip's different. You've got the beauty of the wine lands and you've got the safari or the game drives, and then you've got gorgeous Camps Bay, which is the beach. It's just. There's everything you could want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, beautiful. Okay, so going through school then, Claire, like what were the things that you were inspired by? What did you really like to study and love learning at that time? What was school like for you? Did you enjoy it or was it something that was a challenge for you?
Speaker 2:friends. You know, I kind of joke a little bit and say the whole concept of learning anything at school kind of bypassed me, because I was there to have a good time and I did and I had a great time and actually it wasn't time wasted because the bulk of my circle of friends actually are friends from school. So, if I'm honest, it probably wasn't until I started working. So, uh, my, I went on, I, I went through the normal school channels, I actually went on, I did A-levels, I went on then to do a degree in hotel and business management, because the career advice I got, I kind of for many years, seamus, I probably slated my career advice. But I think I've done a full circle and come back to think actually it wasn't that bad, because I work part-time. Uh, it's actually a hotel that's not not around anymore, called the Glenavon House Hotel, uh, which was great fun, and I worked there part-time and my career advice at the time was Claire, do you like the job that you do? I said, yeah, it's great. Well, why don't you go and study it then? So off I went, I went over to Birmingham. I spent four great years, three great years in Birmingham on one year on my placement over in Fort Lauderdale in Florida, which was a fantastic experience, honest, seamus.
Speaker 2:Whenever I came back, finished up my degree and I started work, I had quite a you know a lot of people kind of say that they fell into their roles, and my story is exactly the same.
Speaker 2:I actually, after I graduated, I decided to take myself off back to the US work for three months, had two jobs, made bags of cash, of cash, came home, spent it very quickly and decided to go into the Europa Hotel one Christmas at a friend working in there and said come on and apply for a bit of part-time bar work. So I went in for to apply for some bar work and three interviews later I came out with an HR role, not really knowing, if I'm honest, what HR really did. And they obviously saw something in me that I maybe hadn't identified in myself, which I'm very grateful for. And then that's when my career in developing people began. So they also put me through what was called at the time the IPD. It. It's now chartered, so it's the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, and that is whenever I started to really that's when the penny dropped, that's whenever I realized, seamus, that actually these study that what I'm studying here is going to make me better at what I do every day.
Speaker 2:So, that was quite late on in terms of your question around education. What did you enjoy? I kind of wish'd tuned in a little bit more at school. I genuinely I didn't, uh, but then I started that my interest was piqued whenever I started learning something that was actually related to, uh, what I was doing every day yeah, that's funny because you mentioned, like, what you actually loved in school was the connection yeah, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right I was it was, it's always been about the people.
Speaker 2:For me, you know I, I, you know, sometimes I actually I hear people say I'm a real people person. Well, sometimes I'm not a real people person, because people can be difficult, but what I'm fascinated by it I'm actually. I tune in a lot to behavior. I tune in a lot to what drives behavior. You know, I've made countless mistakes of managing situations where I would have done some things differently, but I, I remember them, I learn from it, I implement changes and I go on and I do it differently the next time. So I think it's just a fascination in people and I haven't made that link, seamus. So thank you for pointing that out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um, because at that time I suppose Claire, similar to myself, was it very much kind of day by day, month by month, and kind of going right, I'm taking the next step, I'm moving up the ladder, but there wasn't maybe as much awareness or openness to some of the stuff that you study right now in terms of behavior and mindset and all those things. Was it just going day by day, month by month and kind of moving forward that way, or did you have a clear vision of where you wanted to go?
Speaker 2:a big grand plan?
Speaker 2:no, definitely not definitely not, I think. I think if I could probably make the split. You know, my early career was very much learning. It was very tactical, it was learning about the technical side of the role and you know, with anything with relating to people, you know there's compliance, there's risk, there's things that you need to get your head around in order for you to do it well around in order for you to do it well, and that can be quite complicated in the role, because sometimes people in the HR profession can get blinded by doing the right thing keeping a company safe as opposed to maybe doing the right thing for the person at the very end of the decision. So I would say, seamus, my early career was probably focused very much on the tactical side of things.
Speaker 2:I had tremendous opportunities early on. You know, a couple of years into my career I worked for a company where I had to set the function up from scratch and in fact I did that two or three times over the course of my career, which was great. I also had wonderful mentors who I would have described myself as a business person that specialized in people, and you know one of my incredible mentors over a decade, a wonderful man called David Mawinney. He, you know it would have been unusual. He would have encouraged me to get out there if I was in my office. Something wasn't right. You know, I had to be out there, I had to be involved in the business, in meetings, you know, and he checked in with me every week and almost educated me and we talked and it was, it was. It was terrific relationship, but wonderful in terms of my own learning. But, to answer your question, I think a lot of the things that we do now, um, you know we'll probably talk about that shortly, but a lot of the things that we do now you know we'll probably talk about that shortly but a lot of the things we do now around our psyche and our mindset, and the things that we read about, I didn't actually start to think about how I think until oh my goodness, how many years into my career. Oh my goodness, uh, how many years into my career. Uh, 15 years into my career, and I'm probably talking about, you know, 2000, maybe to 2005. And it wasn't until, uh, I had a, I had a stint during my career where I worked for a technology company for 15 years and I described that part of my career in two halves, because the first half of my career we were growing organically and the second half of my career we were acquired. We were bought over by a big company headquartered in London and that was wonderful for me because I saw what big looked like. I also learned a lot about a lot of great stuff, but I learned a lot of stuff that I would wouldn't do again. But that is whenever I got my eyes opened to um. Actually, we can consume all of this information, but how we develop the mental lens in which we see it and use it and how we see the world, you know we've.
Speaker 2:You asked me the first question about my upbringing. Um, you know what I've learned? One of my biggest learnings, seamus, is that I had a very happy, very balanced childhood. You know, I often think about my mum. One, one thing that my mum always said to me was she said, even when I had my own children, claire, people, kids respond well to discipline. What they don't respond well to is inconsistency and how you treat your, your, your, uh, your kids, and that has really stuck with me.
Speaker 2:And so I had this wonderful, happy, very balanced childhood and actually what that has resulted in is now I'm a very happy, very balanced person and what I've recognized, seamus, is people pay a lot of money to get that. And people pay a lot of money to work on their mindset and that's a good. Sorry, it's not good, they have to spend a lot of money to get that. And people pay a lot of money to work on their mindset and that's a good. Sorry, it's not good, they have to spend a lot of money to get there. But it's actually good that that that has been probably one of my greatest eye openers over the last five to ten years is actually learning about how hard people actually work on their mindset.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, and there's a lot of things there I'd love to go into, but you mentioned that company. Was that the CDE? Was that that company, Claire?
Speaker 2:No, it wasn't. It was actually the one before then.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, Going into London and working in that big company. What were some of the things that you had to shift at that time? What was the biggest belief shift that you needed to go and feel like you're progressing and feel comfortable and be able to move up the ranks doing that work at that company at that time?
Speaker 2:a great, brilliant question and you're taking me back. I'm really enjoying this, I have to say. But, um, so the first half of that 15 years I was, uh, largely on my own. I was supported by, I think, one other person in my department and very quickly, whenever we were acquired, the acquisition was announced and I became one of a team of 30 people doing what I do every day.
Speaker 2:And actually that was my first experience of going over to London, sitting in a room, kind of wondering, almost checking in, saying, ok, this is how I operate. Kind of wondering, almost checking in, saying, okay, this is how I operate. I already said to you that I was encouraged to be out within the business and really learning about what the business's challenges were and how I could support the business. And I was thinking what are all these people doing sitting in this office? You know, maybe you know working a lot, maybe on their computers that that my style was probably very different to to uh, to others. So obviously that brings questions am I doing it right? Are they doing it right? You know what, what's going on here and I I learned, I learned a lot of things, uh, about that. You know, in that, being in a bigger group of people, um, and how I operate compared to how other people did it as well that's when.
Speaker 2:I probably drew the conclusion that I'm not a real hr person you know I'm a pretend hr person. I'm probably I was always more passionate about being an enabler, developing the organization, as opposed to. I don't have a compliance head on. I've got a head full of red flags.
Speaker 2:That's how I used to explain myself and if the business walked into danger, something would go off inside my head and I'd think, hang on, let's pause, let's check this out before we go any further, but always very much focused on enabling the business to do what it needed to do, but I, uh, whenever that happened. So that was a big overnight change for me. And again, as I said, we were growing through acquisitions. So, instead of doing the day to day, recruiting people, um, you know, maybe running learning and development programs, uh, the shift was quite significant because my role very much became about integrating acquisitions, restructuring the business units. Um, you know, there was a lot, a lot of change there. So it was, it was very different.
Speaker 2:At the same time, seamus, um, it was very full-on and I probably was on a plane twice a week. My kids were toddlers at the time. Uh, I was on a plane twice a week. I could have been doing 18-hour days. You know, my flight home could have been nine, ten o'clock at night and you know that's probably when most people are going to bed. I was finding I was working, I was coming home, I was logging back on again to keep things going.
Speaker 2:It was very, very full on and, um, yeah, there was a couple of things. I, you know, I actually was reflecting on this a little while ago um, after 15 years, I walked away. I actually walked away from the the role with nothing to go to. But I knew that that role wasn't good for me. And it's not a case of? You know, I'm not shy of hard work and in fact I had an experience during that time where I came back off a late flight and I actually I came home flight and, um, I actually I came home, I think I went into the kitchen, poured a glass of wine my husband at this stage was out doing his turbo training and I and he had a few sips of wine, ended up falling asleep on the sofa, woke up and I couldn't breathe, and I've since realized it actually freaked me out a little bit, as it would.
Speaker 2:Uh, and it took me a while. I actually made my way to the sink to get a glass of water. I almost felt like my throat had closed, but I actually learned in later years that this can be a stress reaction. So there's lots of stuff going on and everything's screaming at me saying, claire, stop, slow down, slow down, and I actually persisted.
Speaker 2:But there was a number of things change, a number of things that were happening within the company that were saying to me that there's a lot of things that were wrong. So I walked away and actually for years probably thought Jesus, claire was. Was that a brave move or was it stupid? But it taught me a lot about myself and I guess the things that it taught me were the amount, you know, I prioritized my happiness and my well-being. You know. It probably also taught me that I was more confident about the future than I gave myself credit for the fact that I knew that I would be okay. You know, my husband was panicking more than I was, um, and it also taught me that, you know, there were certain things that were rubbing against my values, and it also taught me that I was more values driven than I was driven by fear.
Speaker 2:So, I actually then you know, I was probably quite happy in the fact that I did the right thing for me at the time, but it also freed me up. That was whenever I went to CDE, because it also freed me up to go and actually do wonderful work which I got the opportunity to do at CDE.
Speaker 1:Fantastic and just as you mentioned that that was something you just mentioned there I thought that that might have happened. When we get that feeling of anxiety and stress and everything's trying to guide us back a lot of the times, the authenticity which is the value that we really value, do you feel that at that time then it was just a big conflict of values for you and then it got realigned more for you then, moving into CDE, it was.
Speaker 2:There was so much going on within the company and not long after we the company that I worked for were acquired, we floated. So there was a big spotlight around the numbers. The company wasn't growing organically, um, and there was a big push on stripping out costs from the business, so we were offshoring a lot of activity and I mean, in the middle of this there was great stuff as well. The people that I was working with there was a fantastic team again, another wonderful role model for me I don't know whether he'll tune into your podcast Matt Porter was wonderful at pulling together a great team of people and I was part of that team and I really, really enjoyed that huge amount of learning for me.
Speaker 2:But because we were offshoring, you know, an example of one thing that happened was we offshored our payroll and in the first month there were 3,000 errors. So what was important to me and you know how emotive pay is, shame us what was really important to me? I supported 10 business units across the UK and what was really important to me was to be visible in those business units and they're supporting the leadership teams and every time I was going into the business units I was getting an absolute battering, but I kept turning up for for more because I I kind of felt a responsibility. So there was a lot of things that, as I said, there was a lot of things that I learned that I would Sorry, she's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, call it there, Shai.
Speaker 2:I don't know what happened there when it was my internet or your internet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there was a lot of things that you learned, claire. At that time you were, you were mentioned.
Speaker 2:Yes, a lot of things I learned. Did I get to the point where I talked about the payroll?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, a lot of things I learned. So it was, it was a very high stress environment. You know, I I kind of gave it all I got. Um, did it test my purpose and my values? Yeah, it probably did. Um, you know I'm I'm very growth focused. Um, I've, I've been programmed to be an enabler of growth and actually what I was doing was firefighting the whole time. So I found after a while that I, uh, the love was, was was kind of yeah, and, and you know that that's the beauty of the world of SMEs everybody in a small to medium-sized business is programmed and getting bigger and growing, and whenever the company gets bigger, obviously growth is more challenging. It's not to say you can't grow whenever you get bigger, but because growth, the organic growth, wasn't happening. It was very much about cost control which made it really difficult.
Speaker 2:We were acquiring little businesses and all of a sudden they were coming into the to the fold and we were lumping on these, you know cost reduction practices which made it really difficult. Little businesses, you know they need fuel on their fire, you know they need to be enabled to grow and we were kind of maybe doing the opposite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so you move into CDE and you mentioned that a big part of that was for you attracting great talent. So what was it and what is it that you're looking for when you're attracting great talent?
Speaker 2:Great question. So back to CDE. So CDE was growing rapidly. It was absolutely a brilliant experience. I had the pleasure of attending a two-day what we called a two-day pit stop before I joined. I think that was the July. I didn't join until the middle of August and, um, it was wonderful learning. So this pit stop basically was where all of our regional leaders flew in from all around the world and it was a way to realign with back at HQ down in Cookstown. But it was also a way to test confidence levels for the next six months. So one thing that I learned whenever I went there was what the priorities for the the team were, the priorities for the business, uh, and where I should be focusing my time.
Speaker 2:So those three areas really shame us. One was around recruitment, which you've asked about. One was around developing the leadership team uh, because maybe six months prior to that this newly formed leadership team had come together for the first time. And then the third aspect was probably a little bit more related to my department was developing the systems of work that we're going to be able to run without me slowing them down, because I had all of this other stuff to do. So I could tell, recruitment was a pain point because it was coming up in every meeting. You know I need this, I, you know I need this, I need, I need, I need, and our recruitment processes weren't working as well as they should have been. So that was an area that we kind of dived into first, and somewhere along the line I had always learned that, um, if your equipment's not working, it's probably one of two things it's either your culture isn't great and it's not attracting the right people, or your processes are not working. I would actually now, since, due to my experience, adding a third your culture might be great, but there's another aspect of that and that's promoting your culture to the outside world so that you're actually attracting the great talent out there. So I knew we had a great culture, because the culture was the one thing that attracted me to CDE.
Speaker 2:So I knew that my role was to dive into the process, and that was a case of we were being very reactive. You know the company was reacting to the requirements that came up, and I knew that we had to take a different stand. So we started to look out into the future to say what are the roles that we need. I attempted to do three years into advance sorry, into the future and we didn't get there, failed to do that, but we got 12 months into the future. So we then were able to construct a plan. We were able to see when those roles were acquired within the business because, as as most people know, you needed a good couple of months to start working on a role before that person actually joins the business.
Speaker 2:Uh, so we started to shift it from reactive to proactive. Um, the wonderful owen macker macker lane, who's probably well known out in the community now, uh, he, he joined me. Uh, so we constructed this plan and Owen went and executed fantastically against this plan and we started to turn it around. So recruitment was stopped being a pain point and actually started to be a real enabler. We had our plan. All I really had to do was go to the board meetings once a month say we've delivered 100% against our plan because, again, from a finance point of view, people didn't have to go cap and hand every day or every week to the FD to say, can I have, can I have? It was all baked into the budget. So it was.
Speaker 2:It was seamless, but one of the biggest changes that we had to do was we had to promote the employer brand and, again, employer brands becoming a lot more known here than it would have been. Uh, but as I said, seamus, we had this fantastic culture and brilliant people. We had this wonderful story about where the business was going. It was a global business, so many exciting opportunities, but we weren't really telling anybody, or we weren't telling enough people about it. So we had developed to develop this employer brand which really started to tease out people's. What would it feel like to work there? You know what their experience would be like.
Speaker 2:And what we started to do then was in interviews. It was very simple we would construct a little brochure which described it. So if we had a great interview where we were able to tell the story of where the business was going, we quickly fired off this little brochure to help somebody then understand okay, I love where you're going and I can get a real sense of what it feels like to work there. And it just worked really well for us. We were recruiting over 100 people a year, sometimes a couple of hundred, um, depending on what was going on, but it was brilliant Hard work, but brilliant, yeah.
Speaker 1:So. So when you mentioned there just about, like, not showcasing the talent that you have within the business, what was that? Was that just like a lack of marketing? Was it just? What was it specifically? And then what did you do to change that?
Speaker 2:I think the reality is, you know, the senior team, obviously, that the company was was the MD was Brendan McGuigan, uh, who's now my business partner, and he would have been out at a lot of events and telling the CDE story, which was great.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm not convinced that there was too much else, you know, going on to promote the company from that point of view that actually the biggest enabler of the growth of the company was going to be around our ability to bring in people to the company. Um, and at the time there was a terrific girl working in hr, but she was part-time and she was also dealing with a mountain of other things. So it was, uh, it was a case of giving it the resources that it needed and given the mountain of of, uh, of work that we knew that we had to do in the background. You know the fact that you know we brought Owen in. So once we baked that plan and we knew what we needed, owen came in and he was absolutely tremendous at finding the right people for the company. So yeah um.
Speaker 2:Does that answer the question?
Speaker 1:yeah, how long did that um career last time with CDE Claire, and what was the next step? How long were you there? And then did you take a kind of break before you went into what you're doing right now?
Speaker 2:I was with CDE in total for four years and I actually joined them as a head of talent. Uh, I'm probably one of my own, uh, my own, my own achievements, or my, my, my moments of pride was, six months into the role, they invited me to join the board, uh, which was great, so became, uh, the director of talent, uh, and sat on the board for the next three and a half years. So that was. That was brilliant, um, and I probably wouldn't really be lying, seamus, if I said, you know, in terms of ambition levels, I was probably one of these people. I had my head down. I just I worked hard, I loved what I did and worked hard and, I guess, probably a little bit differently, where I was very blessed to have opportunities come to me, as opposed to actually thinking that's what I, I want. I didn't really ever have a clear plan, um, but so at the end of I think it was the end of 2019 um, this is whenever we started to think about simple scaling, because it was, it was really one of those situations where we were doing what we were doing. You know, we had eight teams located all around the world. We kind of talked about, you know, scaling those teams, you know, sorry, growing, growing multi-million pound businesses in those regions from scratch is essentially what we were doing and the fact that we were scaling.
Speaker 2:There was a couple of things that I learned at the end of 2019. Firstly was that scaling actually had a definition. So we were scaling. You know we didn't. I didn't really know what it was. You know, I've since learned. The oecd, which is the organization for economic development, defines it as 20 growth year on, either in terms of your revenue or your headcount, your employee numbers, and that's for three years, consecutive years, and it starts at 10. So that's the formal definition of scaling. So we were scaling. So I started to learn what that was and, probably more importantly, which is what fueled the drive which came next, was that what we learned was less than two percent, in fact, even less than one percent, of small to medium-sized businesses around the world ever achieve it.
Speaker 2:So I didn't realize how unique we were and actually if I look back over my career, every business that I worked in was scaling and we were always building scaling businesses. So and again the same with Brendan. You know he, for 17 years he was with CDE. He was with the technology business prior to that. You've interviewed him. You probably heard all this already, but you know so we don't know anything different. We were always steeped in scaling businesses.
Speaker 2:But we started to think about hang on a second here what are we doing differently that's enabling the scaling process and what can we do to help other companies? So if 98, 98 and 99% of businesses somewhere along the line were hitting a brick wall, what could we do to enable them to release that and actually go on to achieve scale? Seamus, that set us off in this big journey of discovery where we must have interviewed in excess of 100 business leaders around the world who'd achieved scale. And all the way along we were doing our research, we were validating it against our own experience, and that led us to the 10 principles which sit within our framework, which is scalex so sorry to interrupt there, Claire.
Speaker 1:So the 100 guests that you were interviewing was this before you actually really started ScaleX? Was this like research that you were doing, or had you already started to kind of build the foundations and implement some stuff?
Speaker 2:That was our research, seamus. All those interviews took place as part of our research. Now, the team always tell me off for forgetting to say this, but as a result of the research, we published a book. Uh, so, um, once we had the book, then we we actually in year one. I was actually thinking about this the other day. Um, we started simple scaling in January 2020 and the amount of teeth sucking I got bad time to start a business. You know, in the middle of COVID, covid COVID was just just coming. But actually it was a little blessing for us because, whilst the world went on pause, we were able to publish our book. We were able to design and structure our program and actually get our heads together and what we wanted to do, because we started Seamus by doing a bit of bespoke work for one company, and actually I'll never forget it. But Brendan and I were driving home on a foggy evening over the Glen Shane Pass and having a conversation about god. We both loved it and we thought, well, let's take this to a wider audience.
Speaker 2:So it's going from one to a group of 11 actually in our first year business leaders. Now in Northern Ireland we are working with 24 business leaders and actually next year is going to see us scale that even further. So so back to your question. What was the question again?
Speaker 1:yeah. So I was basically asking was that basic research that you were doing in order to start ScaleX? So, picking it into the start of ScaleX, and it's January 2020, covid kicks off, the world goes into meltdown and it just like listening to what you're saying Claire just gives me an insight as well, too, to the mindset that you both have. Obviously, most people are maybe crumbling or fear, and you're getting inspired. You're creating a business and you're going right. We're moving forward. What? And you're going right, we're moving forward. What were some of the early challenges that both of you faced? To try and get your vision aligned together, like partnerships and business, isn't easy. There's always a lot of conflict. So what were some of the maybe early challenges you faced and how did you just kind of transition through that?
Speaker 2:Gosh great question. Probably a couple of things there. So, in terms of our partnership, brendan and I have always had a great working relationship and we've always had great respect for each other. I, I would almost we we kind of call each other our critical friends where, um, you know, we check on each other, we check each other, you know we maybe check each other's mood or, you know, we, we give each other, you know the tough feedback at the end of every meeting that we have together.
Speaker 2:We have a little thing where we, you know, say what would you stop, what would you start, what would you continue? So we're very honest with each other because we I guess we as business partners we care about one another and we want to enable each other to be better at doing what we're doing, because we love what we do. Our business is really important to us. We've now, we're now responsible for a group of almost 15 people and what we know is that the strength of our business depends on the partnership we have. So we invest a lot in um, in, in developing that partnership as best we can.
Speaker 2:So, and that was something that we had to learn, you know, uh, back to one of your challenges, would I say it was challenging, probably not because we, we communicate well, uh, but we had to figure out how that was going to work. You know, I actually recall, uh, you know, I I kind of almost joke a little bit Brendan's always very clear on what he wants to do, uh, me less so, but I'm very open-minded. I'm like, look, I, I make a commitment here let's do this. But if I ever walk into territory words I'm not happy or feeling fulfilled, I'll hold the flag up and say this isn't for me, um so um. We we kind of had that relationship.
Speaker 1:We're very different but we recognize that we both bring different strengths and the strengths complement each other yeah, that's such an important thing that you just said there claire, because, um, a lot of our partnerships might not realize that that their values actually complement each other and there's conflict because people are trying to get other people to be like them. Do you see that as a common thing in business partnerships?
Speaker 2:yeah, and in fact you raise a really good point there, um, because our own research flagged up that's there's something like 60 to 70 percent of partnerships fail and what typically happens is the um, the, the leaders of the business, focus very much on getting the agreement signed, getting the contractual bits, ironing out the objectives of the partnership, but what they fail to do is invest their time in developing the relationship that sits behind that.
Speaker 2:And actually, you know I'm sure Brendan would say the same thing to me you know there's there's times when it's not easy and there's times we could come in and kind of you know, you know I don't know bang the table. You know, give the right right or whatever, whatever it is, but it's important for each person within the partnership. I always have to. I come at things with a compassionate point of view and sometimes I have to stop myself and get my head in that gear, into that compassionate point of view, before I engage with a conversation to try to resolve any conflict or any issue that I have. And I would be lying if I said it was plain sailing, because it's absolutely not. But getting yourself in the right frame of mind before you go into those conversations is absolutely critical to get that working?
Speaker 2:yeah, 100%, so that that that wasn't the only challenge. The other challenge and you refer to it as well is around COVID, and we were very aware that our first wonderful group of CEOs they, didn't sign up for an online program. They wanted face-to-face and they made it very clear from the beginning. So we actually COVID made us have to reschedule our whole program schedule five times. And what was going on in the back end, getting our speakers lined up, because our whole stalex program. We have 20 contributors to our program, so aligning the 20 contributors, changing the dates, changing the venues, there was a lot of work there. So that was also a challenge.
Speaker 2:But but also even from our own mindsets, you know, um, I kind of walked in to a very different area. You know, coming from somewhere, which bottom line I I knew like the back of my hand I've been doing my role as a, an HR leader, a people leader, for such a long time to walk into to this territory and there was huge learnings for me and actually maybe one I'll I'll just touch on because it was, it was a, a real person, a real moment for me and it actually gives you a bit of insight to, you know, to our challenge, I guess, and the work that we're doing. But you know, very early on I actually found myself standing in a room wondering why I was in that room, and the reason for that was, you know, in terms of how Brendan and I operate, you know, I'm I'm. If somebody waves a white flag and says I need support, you know, I need that bit of extra confidence to do what I'm doing, or I need that steer, that guidance. I'm there and what I was finding was nobody needed that and I thought, oh, you know, I'm not fulfilling my own purpose, um. But what was also in the back of my mind, seamus, was less than two percent of companies are doing this, so something wasn't adding up. So I didn't make any rash decisions and I could have done, I could have actually said I've made a wrong decision here, um. So I went my own little journey and I went on my own journey to try to really get clear on my own purpose, um.
Speaker 2:Over six months I listened to lots of podcasts, I did a lot of reading, I did a lot of reflection and what happened over that six months was really interesting, because I started to get the calls for help and support outside of the room.
Speaker 2:So that was a real eye opener for me. So there was something going on that room, in that room where a mask was put on, where people didn't feel the ability to ask for help in amongst a group of peers, and that was a real telling moment for me because I thought I needed here in this room, more than ever and we spend a lot of time, seamus, on creating the right environment so that our business leaders can take the mask off as quickly as possible, and we tend to say it within the first couple of months but we we work really hard on creating the right environment that allows people to be their authentic selves, and that's really important to both Brendan and myself, because only whenever you're truly authentic and you'll know this with the wonderful work that you do whenever you feel confident enough to be your real self, that's when the work starts, that's whenever the greatest learning takes place and that's whenever you can be amazing 100%.
Speaker 1:You drop the facade and just be you.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, took me a while to learn that my experience with MDs and CEOs was always one-on-one, so I'd never, ever been exposed to it before. All of a sudden then, I was in this room where I thought something's not, there's a fear here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a real fear and something is in the way of preventing people from being themselves.
Speaker 1:So that's what we talk about.
Speaker 2:We help leaders or people in leadership positions to find the power of their own voice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's that fear of judgment, isn't it Just really a lot of the times, especially amongst peers and business owners, when they're all in the one room, they're judging each other we all do, we're human beings and it's the fear to put themselves forward in case of what other people are going to think. And I think it's crucial what you've said there, claire, in terms of the environment that you create and how that allows people to express themselves fully, fully and and when they do that, everybody connects better and they get the better, get far better results, because you're just allowed to actually bring forward what you really want to discuss, instead of keeping it outside of the room and then waiting maybe one month, two months, three months in the line before you actually get to voice it and Seamus, the people you know.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we check ourselves because we've been running our program now for four years and we have had four years worth of the most amazing individuals that you will ever meet and we're like, how can we be this lucky? And sometimes we say are we lucky or do we create the environment where people can actually be themselves? Um, and I think it's probably.
Speaker 1:I think it's probably the latter yeah, out of all of the people, claire, that you've been surrounded with, and all the leaders that you've been surrounded with and all the different companies, what are the most common traits and things that you see within them, all that kind of make them great leaders and lead great businesses?
Speaker 2:well, that's a really interesting question and, um, there's, there's probably there's a.
Speaker 2:There's something there that I don't really buy into and I probably feel quite strongly about this, and I see a lot of people studying the likes of the Jeff Bezos's or the Elon Musk's or you know, x, y and z, and almost with a way to learn what they do, so they can do it themselves, and I kind of don't buy into that concept because we are all our own individuals and we've got to back to our previous conversation.
Speaker 2:We've got to recognize that we're all programmed differently, we do things different ways and we will, you know, we've got to embrace and celebrate the differences. Really, what I do buy into is giving people the structure and a framework so that they can learn about the tools that they need to enable them to do what they're doing, to learn about the systems that they need to develop, to learn about, to focus, how to focus on what really matters, and that's what we offer within Scalex and our Scalex program. We offer offer the framework and the almost like the roadmap, but very much with the view that don't pretend to be Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, be yourself, but be a better, more skilled version of yourself.
Speaker 1:And if you follow the framework.
Speaker 2:You know you can't fail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant, I love that. I guess. Just back to your point before authenticity, come back to yourself. Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 2:I love that. It gets you back to your point before authenticity. Come back to yourself room. I wouldn't have said Buddha Goose, and I would have sat and listened to the whole time and back to that wonderful mentor I had you know. Afterwards we would have had great conversations about what I heard and what I learned and he would have said Claire, the only person standing in your way is you, and over the years, seamus, I learned that you know I maybe would have started to be more comfortable with being me. I would have opened the door and said, goodness me, you know it's an awful day out there. And I started to recognize that people really appreciated the change in atmosphere whenever.
Speaker 2:I came into a room and was confident enough to be myself, and that that didn't come easily for me. I had to work hard at that and that's whenever I realized that. Actually, when I got to the place where I was comfortable enough to be myself, that's whenever the magic happens. A wonderful colleague of mine, sarah Cleary, often reminds me. She says whenever you allow people to be their authentic selves, that's whenever they give you their gifts.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 2:How beautiful is that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something similar. I had a conversation with a client the other day and they were talking about other people impacting their energy and they feel like other people drains energy. And I said, well, if other people can impact your energy, then your energy can impact other people. So when you show up the way you want to show up, you're influencing impact and other people around you also. So it's a shift in perspective and a shift in your perception. You don't have to allow other people to drain your energy. If that can happen, then your energy can also impact other people in a positive way. So, moving into where you are right now, then, claire, next week we've got the ScaleX Summit that I'm really looking forward to Tell us a wee bit more about that and how that kind of came to fruition and what the big plans are for the summit as well.
Speaker 2:Thanks for asking, seamus. Um, yes, so next week, next Wednesday, uh, we do our second Scalex summit, where we welcome 500 business leaders to the ICC. This is the second year that we've run it and, again, you know, our own vision is to inspire, connect and enable millions of business leaders around the world to scale with purpose, and one of the things that one of the ways that we identified early on within our own vision is that the more that we can communicate and inspire and excite business leaders to take action, um, that means, then, that we can, uh, step in and do our best work. So we always had the aspirations to run a summit. We chose last year to do our first one. Uh, brilliant experience, uh, I mean, if I think about and this is a really this is a great uh gosh. A bit of advice maybe for people out there who are thinking about scaling um, we had a lot of conversations early on in the process with people who told us give us a lot of good reasons why it wouldn't happen, why it couldn't happen. We'd never fill the room. You know people wouldn't come or various other things and we did.
Speaker 2:You know, we had 525 people in the ICC last year for an absolutely tremendous event made up of a variety of speakers, great speakers from all aspects. We had the wonderful professor Damien Hughes, performance psychologist and one half of the high performance podcast. We had Stephen Bartlett, who was a big draw, who was brilliant to listen to, uh. We had Oleg Konovalov. We had Margo Hawke and we. The impact of that was so great that we thought, right, we need to do this again.
Speaker 2:So we are about to walk into the ICC again with 500 business leaders and we've got a different set of speakers. We've got Daniel Priestley, who has scaled multi-million pound companies. We have the wonderful David Coulthard, who Brendan will be interviewing, obviously 13 times winner of the Grand Prix Obviously 13 times winner of the Grand Prix. I think six times. He's won the British Grand Prix, but now he actually is co-founded and is leading one of the fastest growing media companies in Europe. We've got a variety of great speakers Mithu Storoni, who is going to teach us how to manage our stress levels so that we can make the best decisions on our journey. Just a fantastic variety of speakers. We get as much out of it as everybody else sitting within the audience and we just really look forward to welcoming everybody back to the ICC, then next Wednesday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant, I'm looking forward to it. And you mentioned already like 500 plus people that are all interested in growth, that all want to do something better, that all want to inspire other people. You can't help but be influenced and take something away from that and take it into your business, and take it into your life in general and grow from it you know she must.
Speaker 2:It's interesting, it's going to be great to have you there. You'll feel that within the room, because we all felt it last year. But there was a study that took place in about 2017 and it took place by the two leading business schools within Oxford and Cambridge, and what it actually revealed was a low level of ambition for leaders within the UK to actually want to scale up their business, and I know you and I've had a recent online exchange about the reasons potentially why that is, and there's far too many reasons why business leaders wouldn't want to do it. And again, you had mentioned very rightly so, seamus the fear of loss. You know it's. It's.
Speaker 2:What that study identified was the fear of maybe upsetting a work-life balance, or a fear of stepping into the unknown or setting these exponential targets, and that fear of loss of control around smaller incremental targets that you can touch and feel and um, so this study revealed this lack of ambition which, if you dig a little deeper, it's actually boils down to fear. So we knew that we had a responsibility to actually fire up those ambition levels and to inspire people to want to do it in the first place, and the summit is a great enabler for us to do that, and you'll find in the room that there's a real buzz in the air because we all get worn down by all the bad stuff that's happening in the world, and to be in a room where there's this positivity and there's this, um, real focus, as you say, on growth. It's just, it is inspiring 100.
Speaker 1:I love using james james cla quote where he says environment is invisible hand that shapes human behavior. Get yourself under the right environment. It's going to have an impact, and that's exactly what these types of environments do for you.
Speaker 2:Very much so.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, claire, last couple of questions. I think we might've already touched on it If you were to look back through your whole career and through your whole life. What's that thread of inspiration that kind of runs the whole way through, right to this present moment?
Speaker 2:Gosh, I guess it's. It's, it's a love. It's a genuine love for people and it's a real desire to help people to have confidence in who they really are, be their authentic selves, and and only then can they do their best work. And that's something that I've always felt very passionately about. Um, it's something I see that exists less whenever, uh, you become a lot more senior within your business and and actually it's, it's wonderful for me, it's really fulfilling to know that I'm exactly the place where I need to be and I have to work harder to actually chip through that and bring that back. So that's probably the underlying theme.
Speaker 2:I actually I think back to whenever I was 18. And I can vividly recall a conversation with my dad. We were driving in the car, I think my car was in for service. He was taking me to go and pick it up and I was just buzzing and I said, dad, you know I love this. I wouldn't care if I got paid for this, I just love what I'm doing. And he kind of smirked and he says, claire, when you've got a few bills to pay, you might care.
Speaker 2:Then obviously living in the lap of luxury and at home at the time. But, um, I've just, I just love it. It's, and I think those things, it's people, it's the ups and downs of people, because it's not straightforward, it is complex, it's going into things with an open mind and not being fearful of surprises, because people always bring surprises. Everything's changing every day for people, but also it's getting back to being their authentic selves and having the confidence to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think like just to say that you can feel that from you as well, too, claire. Even talking about what you talk about and seeing your expressions and the voice and the journey along we've had, even in this short podcast, you can feel that from me, that connection and the inspiration is something that you're inspired by for sure. Okay, last question then, or insight for people that are looking to know more about ScaleX, claire, and find out more about what you do where's the best place they can find you?
Speaker 2:Well, anyone who wants to connect with me. I'm on LinkedIn pretty much every day, so I dropped my little line to connect on LinkedIn. That'd be brilliant. Also our website, which is simplescalingcom I was told off about a couple of weeks ago for adding in www dots. People don't do that anymore, apparently. So simple scalingcom. Obviously we've got our summit. Our book is a great place to start. She must, and our book is available on Amazon. It's simple scaling at 10 principles to 10 extra business and everything we do is focused on those 10 principles and really helping business leaders to truly understand why they're doing it, why they need to do it and why it really matters in the overall scaling process.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for the conversation and your time. I really, really enjoyed this chat.
Speaker 2:It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you. I look forward to meeting you in person next week as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, looking forward as well. We'll see you at ScaleX Brilliant. Thank you. I look forward to meeting you in person next week as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, looking forward to it as well. We'll see you at Scalex.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Thank you Thanks.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.