Episode #33 Sarah Gillard
Transforming Capitalism: Sarah Gillard on Finding Meaning in Work
In this episode of The Excitable Soul Podcast, I am delighted to be in conversation with Sarah Gillard, the visionary CEO of Blueprint for Better Business.
Sarah shares her extraordinary journey from being a philosophy, politics, and economics graduate uncertain about her future, to becoming a passionate advocate for purposeful business.
With over 25 years of leadership experience in major UK retail companies like the John Lewis Partnership, Sarah delves into how her mission evolved from a quest for personal meaning to a broader ambition of transforming the role of business in society.
Expect deep insights into the balancing act between logic and love in the corporate world, reflections on workplace culture, and compelling thoughts on how businesses can and should drive positive societal impact.
Tune in to explore Sarah's remarkable story of personal and professional evolution, and what it means for the future of purpose-driven leadership.
Links in the episode:
Read the transcript here
James Glover [00:00:09]:
Alrighty. Welcome to the excitable soul podcast. Here, we are interested in all things purpose. We want to know where and how people find meaning and connection in their lives. In every episode, we're gonna be hearing the real life stories of how people have uncovered, understood, and unleashed their own unique sense of purpose. Our hope is that we can all learn from the stories and the journeys of our guests so that we can better find the sense of purpose in our own lives. I'm host James Glover, performance coach and purpose nerd. I'm incredibly excited to be exploring these stories with you.
James Glover [00:00:44]:
So let's get going, shall we? Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the excitable soul podcast. We've got Sarah Gillard with us. Sarah is the CEO of Blueprint for Better Business, a charity inspiring businesses to embrace a purpose that benefits society and respects people and the planet. A passionate advocate for making business more human, Sarah champions workplaces where people flourish, communities thrive, and sustainability drives decision making. With over 25 years leadership experience at major UK retail companies, including the John Lewis partnership, Sarah redefined an embedded organizational purpose to fuel innovation and differentiation. She holds a degree in politics, philosophy, and economics from Oxford, is a fellow of the RSA, a trustee of the BGF Foundation, as well as a member of the British Standards Institute advisory panel for purpose driven organizations. Sarah brings a huge amount of expertise in purposeful leadership and cultural transformation. This conversation is a wonderful blend of personal journey and organizational possibility.
James Glover [00:01:53]:
Enjoy. Okay, Sarah. Welcome to the Excitable Soul podcast. Thank you very much, Sarah. To to have you, to have you with us. How are you feeling today?
Sarah Gillard [00:02:02]:
A bit cold, actually. I it's minus 6 outside my window at the moment, but it is blue sky, and, there is still frost on every single leaf and twig, so it's gorgeous.
James Glover [00:02:12]:
Yeah. It's really, really beautiful, isn't it? And, I was there this morning scrabbling around for gloves for my children to to kinda get them into school because we're we're we're at now the end of the week, which means we've been through 4 or 5 pairs of gloves this week because we never come back with a pair. So, yeah, it's beautiful and creates a wonderful morning morning team team challenge.
Sarah Gillard [00:02:33]:
Great parenting.
James Glover [00:02:34]:
Yeah. Well done.
Sarah Gillard [00:02:36]:
That's okay. Take it.
James Glover [00:02:37]:
My wife will be proud. My wife will be proud. Thank you so much for for being with us today. I think it's a it's a kind of a real tweet for, for for those for those listeners out there in that you are somebody that basically holds a kind of a really deep personal connection to purpose and kinda lives it in the role that you play, in the world professionally too. And so, like, I'm gonna massively geek out in this conversation, I think.
Sarah Gillard [00:03:04]:
Yes. Hear me again. Yeah. I feel very, very, very lucky to have, scrabbled my way to to be able to do what I'm interested in as a job. So
James Glover [00:03:12]:
Yeah. I'm I'm super keen to kind of explore that journey to to where you are today, but also, you know, kind of how it's how it's gonna shape you going forwards in terms of the the kind of the leaps of faith and the the kind of the ambitions that excite you, in the work that you're doing. But if we can start, like, if we can go if we can kind of go back and kind of start the meaning journey of where where, I guess, a sense of purpose almost started to show up for you, where you became consciously aware of it. What were some of the kind of the moments that have really shaped who you are in the world?
Sarah Gillard [00:03:42]:
Gosh. Well, well, I'll just wang on, James, and then you can tell me to speed up.
James Glover [00:03:46]:
Oh, yeah. Brilliant. Wanging on is massively appreciated on this podcast.
Sarah Gillard [00:03:52]:
Well, I so if I go back to what I studied at university, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And I was really jealous of people who had a sense of purpose. You know, they wanted to be a doctor or a vet or a lawyer or something. I didn't know. So, I chose degree that had the sort of broadest spread of things that I could amble about in, which was, politics, philosophy, and economics. And I didn't think that any of that was gonna be vocational because I didn't wanna be a politician or an economist or I'm not sure there are that many paid philosopher jobs. But I just thought it would be interesting. And so, that's where I began to to sort of think about stuff, think about big concepts.
Sarah Gillard [00:04:36]:
But like I said, I did not think it was gonna end up in a job. And, I went traveling naturally after university and, you know, sat on beaches and
James Glover [00:04:46]:
sat on beaches. We don't want the real world just yet. Thank you
Sarah Gillard [00:04:47]:
very much. Exactly. I came back from the traveling of 6 months and decided that I was never not only was I never gonna work in an office, I'd probably never wear shoes again. That didn't last very long. So all of my friends were, living in London and becoming, you know, consultants and accountants and things, and I wanted to hang out with them. So I needed a job, so I got a temp job. Because I knew I didn't really want a proper job yet. I I didn't want to commit myself to something that I wasn't super passionate about, but I didn't know what I was interested in.
Sarah Gillard [00:05:23]:
So I got a temp job, and it happened to be in retail. And, after about so I was it was a a luxury jewelers, and it was fine, but, you know, paid the rent. And after about a year, I thought, well, if I wanna stay in this kind of area, I probably ought to get trained in a bigger organization. So I moved to the Arcadia Group. So this is the big retail group that owned Topshop and Doris Perkins and Topman and Burton. And at the time, it was seen as the place to go for the training because it invested a lot in people, invested in systems, and it, you know, was a sort of queen of the high street. And so I was, like, 22, and, you know, it was fun. I was shopping for a living, basically, and and coming back and doing some stuff on a computer.
Sarah Gillard [00:06:09]:
Well, one one of the computers because they weren't that early then. And all my friends were working 18 hour days, slogging their guts out, doing a cancer season, and I think and grunt work consultancy and stuff. And I was thinking, oh, I'm totally winning. Tiny amusing thing. I worked at Dorothy Perkins in the head office. And, I I worked on the department that sold leggings and tracksuit trousers. And in order to differentiate it from the jeans side, they were called woven bottoms. And unfortunately, my department was called soft bottoms.
Sarah Gillard [00:06:46]:
So My friends would take great delight in phoning me up at work because I had to say hello, soft bottoms, when I answered the phone. Let me
James Glover [00:07:00]:
just point you there because that is absolutely amazing, right? So, right now in this story we've gone, it was loads of fun. I was winning at life. And then we get into the detail of what winning looks like when I answered the phone. Hello, soft bottoms. Amazing.
Sarah Gillard [00:07:16]:
Yeah. It caused a lot of clarity amongst my friends. But, you know, what was not to like? I was, like, 20, 22, 23 living with my friends in London, shopping and, you know, thinking about leggings. It wasn't it was fun and not particularly, difficult or stressful. And then about about a year and a half, 2 years into working there, Philip Green bought the company. And for those younger listeners, perhaps you don't know him, he is a famous, now infamous businessman who was is was the sort of epitome of, shareholder primacy in its rule form. So he bought the Arcadia Group, took it private, and was very clear, internally and externally, that the reason he bought it was to maximize his own personal wealth and that of his family. And that he would do that by basically squeezing every last bit of value out of the organization and, take as much in dividend each year as he possibly could.
Sarah Gillard [00:08:17]:
So the goal was short term profit maximization, and that was, like, super clear. Now on long hand, it made decisions very easy. It made it, you know, efficient as an organization because you knew what success looked like, and you knew how you'd be measured. And, yeah, decisions didn't take very long because you just worked out what made the most money in the short term and did that. But I I began to observe how it was changing the nature of the organization. So investment was cut in systems and people. So, you know, the training kind of went by the wayside, and anything that didn't get an immediate return was sort of cut. And I also was seeing that the culture internally was moving from one of a sort of collegiate, fun, enjoyable place to one that was mostly run by fear.
Sarah Gillard [00:09:08]:
And, you know, people are beginning to kind of cry in the toilets at lunchtime or get very stressed on a Sunday night before they came into work and or throw up, you know, through anxiety. And I was thinking, god, we're selling leggings and t shirts. This is is this normal? Is this just what business is? Because here am I in a broad lit philosophy graduate. I dabbled my feet in business early on and thought it was mostly about selling leggings and going to the pub. And and maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was about profit maximization and and squeezing every last bit of value out. And then but I also saw that it was I didn't think it was gonna have a long term good effect on the company. Things like, our supplier relationships, which have been built up over decades and were based on trust and mutual respect.
Sarah Gillard [00:09:54]:
You know, the suppliers were getting squeezed in ways that that were, to be honest, I thought quite unethical, in order to extract value and then threatened, if they didn't comply. And so trust externally was being eroded. And so there I was, you know, 23 or 24 or whatever philosophy graduate going, was this just how you run a business? And I'd just been naive. You you had to kind of see people as resources or assets or, in most cases, liabilities that you needed to instrumentalize in service of maximizing a financial goal. And I thought maybe this is just how it is. And there was a there was a, here's my epiphany moment. I remember, in fact, I'd I'd graduated from soft bottoms, and I was working on blouses. So I was, working on blouses, and we sold a lot of well, indeed, we sold a lot of poly cotton blouses in Dorothy Perkins.
Sarah Gillard [00:10:54]:
And I had worked with my team to prepare a presentation. I'd not met Philip Green. I was too early, but I I had a meeting with him, in the diary. And we'd worked really hard on this presentation. We'd stayed late a lot and, you know, worked a lot. And we were very proud that we were going to we were predicting something. I can't remember. A 100 k increase in profit or something that year.
Sarah Gillard [00:11:18]:
I can't remember what it was. But we I think we had a meeting with him that was scheduled for something like 3 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon. And, at 7:30 on Thursday evening, we were called in. No apology or anything else. We just been sort of pacing the floor waiting. And so I did my spiel. I was super pumped. I did my spiel about how we were gonna make a 100 k more money this year.
Sarah Gillard [00:11:45]:
And, in my memory, who knows? This is actually true, but in my memory, his feet were on the desk because they often were, and he was smoking because he often was even though it was already illegal in offices. He sort of sniffed and said, well, that will power my yacht for about 2 hours. Leaving that evening, his shoulder's a bit slumped, gonna be honest with you, James, thinking, is this a good use of my life? I hope I hope I'm really gonna work this hard. I mean, even though it was fun and well, it was less fun than it used to be, and it was now pretty stressful, and people were crying and blah blah blah. And, really, all it was gonna do was power this very rich man's yacht for a few hours. It did make me think, I'm not sure that this is actually how I wanna spend the my career. It's all very well just working to pay the rent and things, but, and I totally respect that that's most you know, many people's only choice. Gotta pay the rent, and that's that's what a job is.
Sarah Gillard [00:12:45]:
But I knew that I had choices, and I was being a bit, lazy, I guess, in not, thinking harder about how I was spending 9 to 5 and what it was in service of. But I knew that it probably the ultimate goal was probably not powering Philip Green's yacht for a few more hours. So it made
James Glover [00:13:07]:
me Of of of all the things you could be in service of, that that didn't didn't feel like a worthwhile and I've lost well, really interesting. Yeah. Big time. I could imagine. Especially after you've worked so hard and prepared so much in the kind of the that was the reaction to that hard work and effort. I think there's, there's something in listening to you tell this story where in the first part of this story, it feels like the experience of others were were was kind of prompting observation. So you talked about, you know, people throwing up at work and kind of an increased level of anxiety and kind of fear shift. But I I didn't hear I didn't hear that have an impact on you or how and and so I'm interested, like, were you feeling a shift and change inside you when you were watching that? Or was it kind of a curiosity of naivety as you say, like, kind of almost to some degree don't know any different, but this doesn't feel right at some at some level.
James Glover [00:14:03]:
Yeah. I'm wondering, was there something that was happening internally for you at that point before Philip Green's, you know, just total disregard of hard work and effort?
Sarah Gillard [00:14:14]:
Well, I definitely I I I mean, for a start, I was curious. I I wasn't stressed. You know, I was I mean, I didn't really care that much, to be honest. I was clocking in and clocking out at 9 to 5, pay the bills. So I didn't throw up in the toilets or cry before work or anything because I genuinely was not engaged, which is another interesting point about why, you know, eventually, I think purpose really does matter a lot. I was an unengaged, but very diligent employee. You know, I did the job alright. But I was looking around and I didn't have any kids or my husband or anything.
Sarah Gillard [00:14:50]:
So I didn't have, you know, if I was a bit upset about work, it didn't impact on other people when I went home. But I could see people in more senior positions to me who were super stressed and who were late in the office at night, who did have kids and who did have partners and who did have, you know, impacted on other people's lives apart from theirs. And I do remember thinking, well, that feels like it's a net negative, right, for society. Even if some people get richer as a result of all of this hard work, I'm not sure if you and, you know, having done philosophy, I just started utilitarianism. Right? The net isn't it? Net happiness of great status to the greatest number of people. And I was thinking, this is net negative. You know, there are there are more people impacted by this than just employed here. But if you look at supply chain, if you look at the communities in which we operate, if you look at the families of the employees, you know, this the level of trust in society, there are a whole load of ripple effects here that will not be observed in any balance sheet or profit loss account that doesn't feel like it's contributing positive impact to the world.
Sarah Gillard [00:15:57]:
That is net negative. So I was sort of curious about that again. You know, the politics philosophy economics degree began to kick in in a way that I have not anticipated. I'm questioning
James Glover [00:16:09]:
some stuff here. Yeah.
Sarah Gillard [00:16:10]:
Well, questioning it totally from a philosophical, what's the point of all this, but also from a sort of political and economic, Is this how you have to behave to be competitive in what was the mid nineties? So it was sort of a, you know, high growth, highly competitive, quite disrupted, economy. I was in retail for 25 years in the first spot, still now, but the first ten of that was really about how the hell do we think about the Internet. You know, so so retailers were really under pressure. Their business model was under pressure. So the commercial threat was real, and and big commercial organizations were going under, you know, Woolworths. But again, I don't know what the average age of your listeners is, James, but I don't know Woolworths.
James Glover [00:17:03]:
Really, really, really, really wide, actually. And yeah. So many would be going, yeah. Remember Woolworths? Remember Pick n' Mix?
Sarah Gillard [00:17:11]:
The big giants at the high street were getting totally killed by the Internet. And and so I was looking at it from a kind of economic perspective going, well, look, this isn't a massively disrupted industry. Perhaps you have to be super focused on short term competitiveness that relies on maximizing financial returns. And the alternative is death, you know, as a as a retailer. So, yeah, stop being naive. This is this is reality. So, yeah, it was sort of curiosity and, a bit of a an awakening around not only what's what's the human impact of this, but is this just how business is?
James Glover [00:17:51]:
And really wonderful to hear, like, the those kind of parallel experiences emerging from within you. Like, that that almost big personal question of, what's the point of all of this? And is the is it worth it, you know, to be a part of it? Is the is the cost worth it? And at the same time going, there is a there's a bigger economic consideration of is this how it has to be? Like, those are pretty big questions to be kind of wrestling with internally at, you know, 24, 25 when up until that point, it'd been like, do I wear shoes? Like, I wanna be Moana. Like, living on living on an island somewhere, fishing feels great. And now all of a sudden, you're in a place of like, oh, these things are sparking you to to life. What what what happened with with you wrestling with those questions? Where did that then lead you?
Sarah Gillard [00:18:40]:
So I stayed for a bit, probably longer than I should. I stayed for another probably 3 or 4 years because, you know, I was getting promoted. Like I said, I wasn't throwing up at work, so it wasn't, like, a huge personal cost to me. And, I was learning a lot about how big business operates and how it copes with external disruption and competition. But I definitely wasn't loving it. And so I also was not quite ready to go and be a consultant because I was still, frankly, wanted to do 95. Strong lazy theme going through it.
James Glover [00:19:30]:
Wait. But it also says something, doesn't it? That, actually, there might have been some motivation in wanting to do a role like that and, actually, what that might have brought from a, a kind of an intellectual, experience. But, actually, the the kind of the how you go to work around that was still no. Thank you. That's just not worth it.
Sarah Gillard [00:19:50]:
Yeah. And I and I remember, you know, I do remember thinking, well, this is a trade off because, again, I could see all my friends doing it, and they were getting paid a lot more money and, doing really interesting projects, but they were having to work so hard. I genuinely, at that time, just didn't feel interested enough in the world of work to commit that much of my waking hours to it. However, I thought, well, okay. If I'm gonna do 9 to 5, at least I'll try and do it in an organization that, I feel less, I don't know, disconnected from. So I wandered around, and I and I, then took a job at Monsoon Accessorize, because it was a founding member of the Ethical Trade Initiative. And I thought, well, this is gonna be, different and, better. And in many ways, it was.
Sarah Gillard [00:20:39]:
But in many ways, it I could see it going down the same route. So by the time I joined, broadly, it had been set up, and run by brilliant women in flip flops and kaftans working 3 days a week, who absolutely loved what they did and loved all of the craftsmanship that they were using in these small Indian, often family run businesses and the design aesthetic. And, you know, it was a very, love based organization, if I can call it that. And again, in retail, it's one of the things that I sort of realized. It's both an art and a science. And if you only apply it as a science, it's not gonna work because so much of retail is about emotion and feeling. And you can't really create a brand that's gonna last unless it's infused with love in some way. And these brands were.
Sarah Gillard [00:21:34]:
You know? And but when I joined, I think they sort of suddenly realized that they had, like, a 1,000 accessories or something, and and it was growing. And they wanted monsoon to grow. And so they had begun to professionalize it. And all of the brilliant women in caftans and flip flops were leaving, and people like me, suited from big corporates, were coming in. And the soul was dying of this thing. And and again, I was like, oh, God, it's happening again. You know, all of the all of the supply chains It was
James Glover [00:22:04]:
you the whole time.
Sarah Gillard [00:22:09]:
But supply chains are moving from these, you know, artisan workshops in India to big factories in China. And the price was coming down because they bought a load of shops, ironically, from Philip Green that they had to fill with cheap clothes. And so instead of handcrafted stuff, it was kind of printed and mass produced. And and customs are beginning to realize. And, you know, I was just again, my heart got a little sadder again as I was thinking, well, these another great British high street brand is sort of being killed from the inside out because of the pursuit of financial goals, because it was also under commercial pressure. So after I had a couple of kids, there, so it wasn't actually there a huge amount. I was supposed to be on maternity leave. But when I came back, I thought, is now the time in my mid thirties to actually, think harder about how I'm spending my working life? And do I, at this point, go join an NGO or a think tank or a values based consultancy or something because I'm not sure that retail is for me because maybe you just can't survive in it, in this highly competitive industry and have any sense of, trying to do something positive, you know, in terms of people and planet.
Sarah Gillard [00:23:26]:
So that's that was my sort of crossroads. And then a friend of mine, had just moved to the John Lewis partnership. And she phoned me up, and she said, well, it's really weird here, but I think you'll like it. Which I it's a compliment.
James Glover [00:23:42]:
Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. No. Yeah. Nothing but compliment in that.
Sarah Gillard [00:23:47]:
And it was interesting because at the time, you know, headhunters had had sort of suggested various options. And whenever the John Lewis partnership had come up, they sort of said, well, you could go there, but it's really slow. And because of the whole democratic thing, you can't get anything done. It's really bureaucratic, and it's very, it's not cutting edge, and it's not fun. It's not exciting. And, you know, I'm not sure it's gonna be around, and you probably don't wanna go there. But I did a bit of research, and and it sort of piqued my interest because, you know, it's the UK's largest co owned business. So it doesn't have external shareholders.
Sarah Gillard [00:24:28]:
And I thought, well, that would be an interesting change. I mean, come Yeah.
James Glover [00:24:32]:
Nobody has a yacht here. That's a yacht. Exactly.
Sarah Gillard [00:24:36]:
And you're not trying to make any, like, one personal group of people rich. The whole point of it is an organization that is owned by the people who work in it. So from a sort of politics, philosophy, and economics degree, he was a bit geeky. I was a bit like, this is, labor deploying capital rather than capital deployment. This is an interesting experiment. So I joined. And I saw immediately that it was different. I remember that.
Sarah Gillard [00:25:07]:
I can't remember what the decision was, but my 1st week there, a decision needs to be made that in all of the other businesses I'd worked in, it wouldn't have even been a conversation. There was a kind of, here are here are 2 ways we could go. 1 is the right thing long term and for all of our stakeholders, but makes us money in the short term. The other one, we make more money in the short term, but it's not great for the other you know, it's legal, but it's not great for the other stakeholders. And there was a discussion, and they went with the long term mutual value creation option. And I was just like, what?
James Glover [00:25:38]:
Yes. Sorry. Can we just pause there for a second? We wanna go, what?
Sarah Gillard [00:25:43]:
You know, and and literally, I was going, well, what does success look like here? How do you know what good things like? Or how how what are the criteria by which, you know, we judge whether the civilization is successful or not? And so began what turned into a 12 year proper geek out, James, on a different way of thinking about business that completely lit my fire. And I went my poor husband and kids, I went from being a clock in clock out 9 to 5 person to a swivel eyed obsessive. This organization, I worked like an absolute dog. Every book I read, I didn't read a novel for 10 years. I was reading strategy books and management theory books and books that the founder had written, and I properly geeked out.
James Glover [00:26:33]:
You know, and what's what's really wonderful what's really wonderful here is, you know, you like, at one level, you share the story of your experiences in those kind of those those those first moments of your career and, you you know, kind of diligent and committed, but in no way engaged. And so 9 to 5 was where it was at. Then you and and and yet those environments were about go, go, go, push, push, push, maximize, maximize, maximize, and you were entirely resistant. Right? Entire resistant. I'm not I'm not doing that. I'm here for other reasons. In fact, I'm gonna be out of here for a couple of years because I'm gonna have a niece and children. And then all of a sudden you find yourself in an environment which isn't push, push, push, isn't maximized at all, and you flip.
James Glover [00:27:15]:
Like, I'm in, and I'm in, you know, up to the, like, up to the forehead, and I, like, deeply committed. So there's something about that that just flipped how you wanted to engage. So this feels like it's gonna be rich territory. But before we dive into that, there's a couple of things that I just want to almost kinda play back, which is you you described this, this experience at, at Dorothy Perkins of of I was learning a lot, and I was progressing. I was being successful. I was being promoted. I was learning it, but I wasn't loving it. And then, actually, the kind of the next step into Monsoon was there's a whole bunch of people there that really loved what they did, and they kind of loved what they created.
James Glover [00:27:58]:
And they loved the the and this this language of love all of a sudden started to emerge in what what you were sharing. And then again, you kind of went another layer for me, which was the soul of the business was dying. So there's something in this kind of experience for you where the emotional connection to what you were doing and why you were doing it was was was kind of growing internally for you. And so I'm wondering if you could just speak to that, your kind of experience of that if you like. Because there's this, like, the cerebral of a I'm I'm engaging at this level, and I'm kind of clear why, but there was also something else playing out for you the whole the whole time.
Sarah Gillard [00:28:34]:
Yeah. Good good observation, James. You're good at this. Right?
James Glover [00:28:38]:
I'm trying. I'm I'm learning too. But
Sarah Gillard [00:28:42]:
It's a really interesting observation because I so whenever you do those MBTI profile things, I am off the scale of t. So there's a the the the the pairs for those they're various sort of pairs, and one spectrum is thinking and feeling. And it's not to say that you can you only do one or the other. It's just, you know, what your natural preference is. And I'm off the scale think. I I live in my head, basically. And, that suited my job up until my mid thirties. I didn't really want my heart to be engaged with work because I was selling leggings.
Sarah Gillard [00:29:19]:
I just didn't
James Glover [00:29:21]:
Soft bottoms.
Sarah Gillard [00:29:24]:
Exactly. It was fun, but it I didn't I wasn't passionate about it. Now some people were, and and that was great for them. They really, really loved developing the products and imagining what the customer's gonna want, and and they tended to be buyers. I was merchandising. So I was the buyer was the one going to New York saying, darling, I love it. It's fabulous. And I'm the merchandiser sitting back in the office on the screen going, you can buy 4,800 of those because, you know, I predict there's gonna be a 73% sell through.
Sarah Gillard [00:29:51]:
But, you know, I mean, I was the math geek on the other end of the who never traveled anywhere and just worked out. And intellectually, that's that that was kind of stimulating, but it wasn't a passion. But I guess the my curiosity came from what's the impact on people. And, and like I said, at Monsoon Acceleration, people loved it. There was a there was a real sense of pride about the organization and what they were doing and and the lives that they were touching and the products that they were creating. And and it was really infectious. And I think, again, brands at their best, that's what that's what they're selling, is is is that love that is coming manifest in in products. And and you either feel it or you don't.
Sarah Gillard [00:30:39]:
And and I and I suppose what I observed in the first bit of my career is, customers can feel it too. They might not be in the head office seeing people crying the toilets. But as soon as the love disappears from a brand, it becomes very transactional. And you kinda sense it because we're humans. Right? You know, we we like to think that we're just cognitive rational beings, but actually most of our decisions are based on stuff that we then post rationalize. Yeah. Exactly. It's yeah.
Sarah Gillard [00:31:15]:
So so it became increasingly interesting to me how that heart stuff, soul stuff, gut stuff, human stuff was a really important part of what work is and what the outputs are. And it wasn't just all spreadsheets and numbers and clever strategies.
James Glover [00:31:34]:
Yeah. And I again, I'm really interested in this kind of, emotion led, post rationalised kind of experience, and predominantly because it feels like your entry into the John Lewis world was an was a connection between that cognitive clarity, if you like, and emotional conviction. And again, just hearing you talk about, I didn't really know why I was what I was going to do at university, you know, kind of philosophy, politics, and economics sounds like a really great idea. But then using this this the the kind of the frames that you understood to make sense of the world around you in terms of there seems to be a net negative here. What does a net positive look like? And then all of a sudden, you were going into environments like Monsoon and going, oh, wow. There's something that feels important here. And being able to then post rationalize that within this, oh, there's a net positive in this environment because there's a soul and there's some love and there's some kind of community and there's, you know, ecosystem, etcetera. And then all of a sudden, you're in a situation where, well, cool.
James Glover [00:32:35]:
All of that exists in the same place and not with the same cost and compromises I've seen I've seen before. So, like, wallop. Let's let's like, I've been you've been sandwiched now between this thing that you weren't paying attention to and this thing that didn't seem important, but actually was critical.
Sarah Gillard [00:32:50]:
Yeah. Totally. Totally. And I again, I mean, I really loved the exploration of it because it was so it had not been my experience, and I had never expected to really be engaged at work. You know, I was very prepared to just do the hours and take the money. And then suddenly here I was, utterly sucked in and obsessed by an organization that I genuinely you know, people would say, what do you do? And on the one hand, I'd like to say, Oh, I work in this department at Jean Louis Partnership. But mostly what I said was something like, I'm reinventing capitalism. Or, I'm trying to work out how to make sure this organization still survives a 100 years from now.
Sarah Gillard [00:33:32]:
I mean, these are not normal things.
James Glover [00:33:35]:
Yeah.
Sarah Gillard [00:33:37]:
Amazing. Yeah. It was a it was a real shift in my sense of what I was actually doing at work. So regardless of what my job was, I felt a very different connection to what I was doing and and why it mattered to me.
James Glover [00:33:51]:
Yeah. How did that how did that show up? So for the people that are kind of listening and kind of following almost what feels like a kinda linear career progression, there is something really emotive in those experiences that what was it that, you know, that that word obsession, I became obsessed. Like, for somebody that's gonna show up and take the money, see you later, is now obsessed with what what, like, what what what flipped the switch?
Sarah Gillard [00:34:14]:
I mean, so many things. So for instance, you know, often when I walked into the reception at the head office, instead of seeing people crying in the toilets or, you know, throwing up on the pavement, there'd be a ukulele orchestra of so they're called partners. The employees who work there are partners because everyone owns the business. And partners would come together and play the ukulele for the delight of other partners as they came in something. And this I mean, this it's the most extraordinary place. You know, it has choirs. It has orchestras. It has all sorts of communities.
Sarah Gillard [00:34:52]:
And just to give a little bit of the background for people who don't know it, I mean, honestly, I we could do a whole series of podcasts on the John Lewis partnership, James, because I properly it was so the it John Lewis the original John Lewis is a Victorian capitalist, Philip Green of his time. But his sort of epiphany was, if you treat customers honestly, then they'll come back to you. So but it was a very kind of, how do I extract the most money out of customers? Well, just treat them honestly, and then they'll be more than his son, John Speed Lewis, was a natural scientist. And in, I don't know, 19 09 or something, however, when he was, he fell off a horse and had spent 2 years lying down to recover, which gave him a lot of time to think. And what he observed was that his father, himself, and his brother took more money out of the business, which was by then just the Oxford Street store, than the 300 people who worked there each year. And he thought, as a natural scientist, that level of imbalance just wouldn't happen in nature. That's not sustainable. And he was also observing the kind of massive inequalities that unfettered capitalism at the beginning of 20th century was creating.
Sarah Gillard [00:36:04]:
So there were millionaires and there were slums. And he thought that that's not sustainable. But not only that, it was he was also observing it create this political polarization and extremism. So you had the rise of right wing fascism. You had the beginnings of, you know, communism. And and he could see that that was creating real instability in the world, you know, pre First World War, pre Second World War. And as a natural scientist, he was interested as to whether you could harness the internal dynamism, the intrinsic motivation that capitalism offers and all of the ingenuity and innovation and whatever that it offers, but make sure that the outputs of it were spread in such a way that enhanced the system in which the business operated in. So it was basically a multi stakeholder theory of business that he was interested in from a natural scientist perspective.
Sarah Gillard [00:36:59]:
He was like, can you create a business that works like a living organism works, that's in harmony with its surroundings, and that is in constant balance with its surroundings? So that as its surroundings change, it sort of amends itself in order to keep surviving. And so his his idea was, well, let's align the interests of labor and capital. So if if we give this business to the people who work in it, will it operate like a living system and constantly regenerate itself in order that it can survive because it's in balance with its surroundings? So it was basically the idea of a man probably, in fever who had a natural science background who wants to use the family business as an experiment to see if you could help it, act like a natural living organism because it's benefiting all of its surroundings.
James Glover [00:37:51]:
How did he get that past his father then?
Sarah Gillard [00:37:53]:
Well, he had to wait for him to die. James Goodwill. Right.
James Glover [00:37:55]:
Okay. Cool. We're all interested. Like, oh, how do we how do you that transition happen in organizations? Yeah. Kill off the guy who owns it. Oh,
Sarah Gillard [00:38:03]:
yeah. He had to so, basically, his father his father gave him Peter Jones as an experiment. So they they'd got Peter Jones down the road in in Chelsea as another store. And he gave him Peter Jones a bit of as an exasperated, father to go, go on then run your weird ideas in this, in this in this shop. And he did for a few years. And then eventually his father died. And it took him a few years, but ultimately he gave the business to the people who owned it in order to see if it would think more long term. It would think more about the society in which it was situated.
Sarah Gillard [00:38:38]:
It would think about making sure that all of the stakeholders had value from the relationship. It would think about fairness. It would think about, community. It would think about humans. You know, so it and and it would make sufficient profit to enable it to continue to do that. And it had a written constitution, which I think it, again, is one of the first written constitutions of an organization. One of the only ones still that was written. I think the first one was in, like, 1927 to try and capture why this organization was an experiment in doing business better.
Sarah Gillard [00:39:16]:
And that totally lit my fire as you can probably tell. And I properly was excited by by that. And so I wandered around the business. I blagged my way into strategy roles. I blagged my way into HR and culture and leadership roles because I was so fascinated about how is this thing gonna continue to survive in a very different century.
James Glover [00:39:39]:
And and interestingly, you just, like use the language that ultimately echoes the organization that you now lead. You know, where and, there's there's just something really wonderful about, listening to you tell the story of an organization that's, you know, a 100 plus years old and then how that mirrors the work that you're doing now across multiple organizations thinking about the future. And and I don't know if I have a question is that I'm just sitting in this experience of business reflecting nature. Like, actually, would this survive in nature? No. It wouldn't. There is such an imbalance that everything would be wiped out. There would be extinction if that continued in the way that it was going. And so what can we learn from the lessons of nature? And is there a way in which you can be successful in an organization by replicating some of the thinking that just exists all around us in the world.
James Glover [00:40:37]:
And you would you'd have to say that a profitable organization for well over a 100 years is a pretty good example of that that that that working. Right?
Sarah Gillard [00:40:45]:
Well, indeed. And what I was I I was thinking about the other day, so all those headhunters said, oh yeah, you don't wanna work with the John Lewis partnership. It's slow. And, you know, and I was thinking, well, but it's still around. Right? And, and so the, the way that it does things seems to have an ability to create resilience and adaptability in changing circumstances. That's something like, let's say, Hassa Fraser or Debenhams or some of the other competitors where they were trying to maximize something didn't have. And actually, you know, when you look at nature, nature never tries to maximize anything. If it does, it creates an unsustainable system.
Sarah Gillard [00:41:23]:
It's trying to balance, and it's constantly iterating to try and find harmony and balance. And I think that is the genius of Speed and Lewis, the the founder, that he recognized that if a business tries to maximize or or, put one stakeholder above any of the others, it will create, disequilibrium and and dysfunction. And therefore, finding a way to constantly be in balance and harmony, is the sort of kernel. My sense of what the what the sort of heart of the of the organization is trying to do. It's not trying to maximize anything. It's trying to balance things.
James Glover [00:42:01]:
So if we, if we bring this back to kind of your experience of of purpose and and that kind of internal felt experience of meaning and contribution, it feels like this in this environment provoked that within you, and you could see and understand what it was like to be in service of something. How, how did that grow and where did you become more aware and more conscious of it and its significance both for you and and for the kind of possibilities within organizations?
Sarah Gillard [00:42:31]:
Well, so the John John's has, John's partnership has 2 brands, John's and Waitrose. And, you know, they are under the same competitive threats as all other retailers. And I had spent a while in the organization seeing the long term future of the business get ever more threatened. And I didn't know about purpose then. I I wouldn't have called it that. I didn't I hadn't read any books on organizational purpose. It you know, in the sort of, early 2000s, I'd I just haven't come across it as a concept. 2010 or so.
Sarah Gillard [00:43:08]:
So first of all, I thought maybe it's a strategy thing. So I liked my own strategy and thought, you know, clearly, the answer is we need a clever strategy to get us out of this kind of difficulty, commercial difficulty. And certainly, strategy plays a big role. But I could also see that we were spending really quite a lot of money on clever strategies, and then nothing was really changing inside the organization. So then I became interested in, well, maybe it's a cultural thing. Strategy is clearly important, but, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. So let's go work in HR and understand culture and leadership and how I mean, again, one of the brilliant things about the partnership is it has, you know, 400 sites. And you because we, like, look at employee engagement regularly, you could see that on a 100 point scale, the top 10% and the top and the bottom 10% of sites, shops, had a 90 point difference in terms of employee engagement.
Sarah Gillard [00:44:10]:
And over the years, there have been so many investigations as to why, and it always came down to local leadership. Does the local leadership create an environment where people feel heard, respected, trusted, listened to, able to contribute their ideas, feel like an owner, feel like they cared about, has a supportive team. You know, it was it was a human thing that was creating these very different kind of engagement scores, but also very different financial results and customer engagement scores. So I was like, like, culture is really important. And, of course, culture is super important. And and I could see that lots of interventions were happening at kind of the strategy and culture level, but that the organization was still struggling. And I couldn't see how it was gonna recover its mojo, basically. And I began to be interested because of all the geekery in, well, what was the founder trying to achieve here? Because everyone believed that the John Lewis partnership was a purpose led organization.
Sarah Gillard [00:45:09]:
But when I began digging into it, there were 80,000 different versions of what the purpose was. All of them, like, good. Right? So some would go, this is an engine for social social mobility. Others would say, it's a massive experiment in industrial democracy. Others would say, it is about being totally transparent and honest with the customer and being the most trusted retailer in Britain. Others would say, oh, it's a very useful combination of general merchandise and grocery, which means we could do click and collect better better than anyone else, and we're gonna be a great you know? So all of these are valid things. But if you've got 80,000 different versions of what the purpose of the organization is and you're in a very disrupted industry, how do you make big strategic decisions that require pivots or massive investment or long term thinking or whatever? Because even at exec and board level, you've all got a different idea of what success looks like. And the key thing was they didn't know they had a different idea of what success looked like.
Sarah Gillard [00:46:08]:
So because I'd sort of hopped around the organization and geeked out, I was in there going, look. I can see this problem. You have all got different goals. And because we're not a traditional shareholder based organization, we haven't got a profit maximization goal. And so instead of that, we've got all these other things, which are pulling us in all these different directions, which is creating strategic lack of clarity. Cultural, disintegration as people come here thinking that they're here for their own personal purpose, hoping to find it in the organization, finding a bit of it. And then you know, so we've got this kind of very loose conglomerate of lovely people doing great work, but without any central mission of what it is we're trying to actually do, which is fine if the environment is stable and you can just kind of do what you do and sell some stuff and make some profit. But in a very disrupted competitive environment, that is a massive handicap.
Sarah Gillard [00:47:04]:
So that's where I began to go, What we actually need to do is articulate why this organization exists. What does success look like? What are we actually trying to do? And how do we do that in a way that is authentic based on the founder's thinking, relevant to the 21st century, cocreated not just by all of the employees in the organization, but their suppliers and the customers, the communities in which we operate, and future generations. And and so, yeah, basically, literally about a month into COVID when 99 what I mean, you can imagine the operational chaos. Jono's stores are all shut. All of the trades having to go online. Waitrose stores have got security guards on the toilet roll aisles. I mean, these are the unanticipated operational challenges that supply chains have been less. You know? I mean, huge amounts of effort going on helping customers and supply chain, all the rest of it.
Sarah Gillard [00:48:00]:
And I'm there going, hey. This is a great moment to talk about why we're here. Who's in? Who's up to that? And, actually, the surprising thing was lots of people were up for it because they could see, as in so many organizations around the world, people were doing stuff driven by a sense of trying to make things better for people, right, for communities and suppliers and employees and all sorts of things. Nobody was telling them to, nobody was saying, here's your bonus if you do this. Nobody was saying, here's the impact on our share price if we do that. It was just a very human response to, there is a clear need here. How do we help? How do we use our assets and resources to help? And people felt empowered. They felt like they were doing something meaningful.
Sarah Gillard [00:48:49]:
They were able to make decisions and were trusted to do so. They were innovating at extraordinary speeds. They were on fire, you know, engaged. The the all of their human capabilities were absolutely, focused on how do we help. And in in the John Lewis partnership, I was like, well, this is the essence of our organization. How do we, make sure that throughout this experience, we're able to harness this, capture it, and understand how that relates to who we are as an organization, and then take that into whatever emerges post pandemic. And so we began, basically, a massive project to listen to all of these stakeholders and then rewrite the front page of the constitution so that it was, relevant and resonant for a different century, which is, you know, a bit of a sacred cow, James. I'm not gonna lie.
James Glover [00:49:49]:
I was gonna say that that that must've how did that feel?
Sarah Gillard [00:49:53]:
Well, goodness me. I I mean, massive imposter syndrome. What helped was, there was a so one of the wonderful things about the partnership is all all previous partners who have any kind of, connection to the partnership in terms of emotional connection are sort of hanging out in the shadows waiting to see if they can be helpful. And there's this brilliant chap called Ken Temple. So my title at the time was director of special projects, which made me sound like a spy, which I really enjoyed. But this role only happens about once every 20 years in the partnership, and it sort of emerges when something needs doing, and then it goes away again. And the last director of special projects was this guy called Ken Temple, who retired, like, 25 years ago and was the last person to have redrafted the front page of the constitution in 1999. And, I got in touch with him.
Sarah Gillard [00:50:49]:
He'd been retired for 25 years and said, mentor me through this process, and he did. And he was brilliant. It was like Yoda. You know, I would I would go and talk to this brilliant wise man about the history of the partnership and how to make sure that this was done with integrity. And, anyway, so yeah. So I felt, hugely honored, but also that it was the natural result of 12 years of geeking out on the history of this thing and and why I loved it and why I wanted it to continue. And, so, yeah, it was it was an extraordinary experience.
James Glover [00:51:23]:
Yeah. I mean, what what I find really interesting listening to you speak, Sarah, and I'm kind of having just a moment of, like, the the kind of the richness of what it must have been like to be part of that experience of rewriting that and what how what that must have meant to you in the kind of depth of that. And I'm kind of sat at it going, like, I'm hooked, but, like, totally hooked. But there's also something, like, really interesting for me. And and when I listen to you talk, the it's the key it's the geeking outfit that you kind of lead with, which is the, like, the the problem solving, the thinking, the kind of the how do we how do we solve this in a way that, you know, enables us to continue. Yet all I feel when you talk about it is there is an intangible magic about the experience that you're having that is fueling you in these moments. Because, you know, we can we can talk about COVID really lightly because it was something that happened a few years ago. But, like, that was a frightening like a frightening experience.
James Glover [00:52:26]:
Like, I remember being sat on the sofa with my wife. Our son, our son had not long been born. My daughter was was supposed to start school And Boris Johnson telling us that we're not allowed out of our house anymore and thinking, what's the future for my children? I've never felt anything like that before. I'd never lived in a world where I felt fear or concern in that way. Like, I'm all about kind of optimism and what might be possible and unrealistic aspiration. And then all of a sudden, I'm not allowed to leave the house, and I don't know if my daughter can start school, which was well, you know, which is a critical thing for for any young person and and the kind of the world that they they inhabit. So for you in that moment to turn around and go, alright, let's really lean into who we are and why we're here. Like, that's a deeply courageous thing to do in that moment on one hand.
James Glover [00:53:17]:
And on the other hand, there's totally the natural question to pose to an organization like John Lewis. Right? There's this harmony if we use your language, this balance between intellect and soul in, in the way that you were kind of navigating your way through all of that. And I love the fact that you turned around and went, I didn't really understand or know of purpose as a concept because I hadn't read any purpose books.
Sarah Gillard [00:53:42]:
You don't wanna observe, James.
James Glover [00:53:44]:
And and yet and yet here you are, like, in everything that you talk about, it's imbued with what purpose really is, which is an emotional experience of meaning and significance.
Sarah Gillard [00:53:55]:
But I like, I literally hadn't hadn't read about it. I mean, I'd read a lot of a lot of books, as you could tell, on all sorts of things to do with business. But I haven't come across this as a concept. I think the nearest I can't remember which book it was. The nearest I got to was there was a book that talked about the logic and magic of business. And I liked that as a you know, if you try and run a business with only one of those two things, you will fail. And magic, I'd seen talked about in lots of ways that to me looked like great branding or great marketing or great product development or innovation, but I hadn't really connected to it at a soul level of why does this matter to me as a human being rather than as a retailer or as a somebody who's trying to flog something? How do I think the world's a better place as a result of this? And and with the John Lewis partnership, I genuinely thought the world was a better place because the organization exists. I could see the benefits that it had on people's lives and their families.
Sarah Gillard [00:54:58]:
I mean, it is it is extraordinary as an organization. It really is. And, and I could see the benefit it had on suppliers. And we would ask them this. So what what's different working here, working with us? And the suppliers would say, you basically you treat us like humans. And you trust us, which means that we're prepared to innovate and invest more, which means that we do better stuff with you. And, you know, it's it's all human. It's not contractual.
Sarah Gillard [00:55:22]:
It was all human. And I you know, the the dominant narrative of business was that it's a nexus of contracts, that it's financial maximization, that it's, you know, people showing up and being financially incentivized to do stuff. And I was like, but this is not my experience. I you know, when I look around, I've I've seen that in in my early stage of the career, and I saw what happened. And it was sold for a pound. This multibillion retail empire was sold for a pound in, like, 2022. And here's the John Lewis partnership thinking very differently about success and what matters and how to treat people and how to think about business and the role of business. And I and I was really struck, I think, particularly as a result of COVID and the climate crisis and the massive social inequality crisis and the mental health crisis and everything else.
Sarah Gillard [00:56:13]:
Thought not only is there huge benefits for the individual and businesses if they really understood this purpose thing, but that right now, society radically needs businesses to harness their capacity to influence the future in a positive way. Business is so powerful, and it creates so many ripple effects in terms of how we live and, you know, how we relate to each other and all sorts of things and the environment. And it wouldn't be enough. I mean, this was this was my kind of, you know, particularly over the last 2 or 3 years. It would not be enough of business to just do less harm through regulatory compliance and disclosures and all the rest of it. We're still on an extraordinarily unsustainable trajectory environmentally and I think socially. And if business could reimagine its role as creating positive, lasting value for all people and planet for generations to come, because of the huge influence that it has, I felt that there was a very strong calling to, try and help accelerate that.
James Glover [00:57:28]:
Let let's just go full circle. We started this with, I didn't know what I wanted to be apart from in sandals all of my life. Now all of a sudden, we have a huge calling. You know? Like, what what a what a transition. What a journey to that to that to that to that moment. So before before we kinda get into where you are now and maybe maybe what's to come, a question I'm I'm really interested in is, what about life outside of work? So how did how does how did all of this show up in, you know, all of these significant moments that right now are kind of dot pointed by the the kind of the career journey, like, in terms of meeting a partner, becoming a parent, you know, all of that, and the kind of the life that you're creating beyond the world that you you kind of live in from a work perspective. What what's been the influence of that journey, that full circle journey of sandals to kind of unleashed? How was that expressed in in a in a kind of outside of work?
Sarah Gillard [00:58:23]:
So so I've got, 2 kids. They're 17 and 15. So during COVID, I I I think we were extraordinarily lucky in that, a, my husband and I could work from home, and b, my children at the time were, what were they, 11 and 13? So they were not stressed by GCSEs and a levels. They could go to the toilet by themselves, James. I didn't know how to get I didn't know how to get involved. They really enjoyed homeschooling and just got on with it. Although, I have to say, my son will not thank me for saying this, but he had one of those pull up bars on the doorway of the room that he was doing his work in, and he thought the camera was off. And he is anyone in Spanish? She said, Thomas, would you mind coming down from that? Because he was hanging upside down like a bat.
Sarah Gillard [00:59:12]:
Well, pretending to be involved in his Spanish lesson.
James Glover [00:59:15]:
Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Like, he's working on his abs and his hip flexors by, like, yeah, by Haget. And that that would have been brilliant if it had just come straight back and gone. But the blood flow is going to my brain, and it's helping me learn.
Sarah Gillard [00:59:26]:
Do you know? Have you met my son? He probably
James Glover [00:59:28]:
was. Yeah.
Sarah Gillard [00:59:29]:
I'm expecting that. So we were really fortunate in that I could devote a lot of my bandwidth to okay. So what how do we use this right now to to really think hard about what matters? You know, so so that was great. And I, and I think, having teenagers who are interested in the world and interested in their future, really helps clarify your own my own thinking around how do I wanna feel? You know, if I if I look at 2050, I'll be 75. Shh.
James Glover [01:00:09]:
Say it isn't so. Say it isn't so.
Sarah Gillard [01:00:11]:
That's a feeling like I was so young, isn't it? But you know, the world, who knows? But it's likely that the world will be a lot hotter and things will be a lot more difficult from a better best perspective and from a scarce resources perspective and a whole load of other challenges. Politically, who knows? Socially, who knows? I would hope that there is less inequality and less war and a whole load of other things, but really with that kind of environmental stuff going on, it's not I think it's gonna be turbulent. And I feel, as, you know, I'm sure most humans do, that you wanna be able to look back and go, I tried my best to make this better than otherwise it might have been. And to be able to look at my kids and go, I tried my best to make this better than otherwise it might have been. Still might not be great, but I but I did what I could. And one of the one of my ex, external mentors, I was so lucky, I'm so lucky to have Margaret Heffernan, who is a brilliant author and thinker and speaker, as a mentor. And the and the reason that came about is in my in my very early I think the John Lewis partnership is interesting, like, 1st year. I'd gone to a talk that she did because I thought she was brilliant.
Sarah Gillard [01:01:30]:
And this is not the kind of thing that I would have done then. Still not really the kind of thing I was on now, but I went up to her at the end and I said, I think you're brilliant. I work at the journalist partnership, and I think it could be a really interesting and important organization for how we might think about business in the future. I don't know what to do about that. Can I take you for a coffee? And she's bless her. Said yes. And basically transformed my life. She introduced me to people and books and thinking and just a whole world that I had not had any idea existed.
Sarah Gillard [01:01:59]:
And that has been transformational. Not just for my sort of work self, but my my whole self. Yeah. So, yeah, I've I've been very lucky.
James Glover [01:02:08]:
Amazing. Amazing. And that there's just something wonderfully human about meeting people who are willing to do that. You know, like, the that's that for me is part of where the magic happens for us as a as a as a species on the planet is when there are people around us that are just willing to go, hey, I can connect you over here or, hey, I can help you with that. Or, hey, like, let's just, you know, chat and see what see what comes out of it. Because that the the kind of the Aristotle misquote around we are, you know, greater than the sum of our parts couldn't ever be more true. Like that for me is a really, grounding philosophy. And just how I try to show up in the world is I personally, James Glover, am greater than the sum of my parts.
James Glover [01:02:51]:
There is something intangible within me that is trying to be in the world. And yet when that joins with somebody else and joins with somebody else and joins with somebody else, like, the multiplier effect of all of those things is, you know, is magical, genuinely magical.
Sarah Gillard [01:03:06]:
Completely agree. And I and I'm really at the beginning of my learning journey on this on this sort of interconnected, you know, very kind of human I mean, I'm I'm interested in the inner development goals. I'm interested in these ideas of deep connection and love that are gonna be so important as we navigate turbulence. You know, we can talk about all the tech and the politics and the finance that needs to move and the investments that need to be made and the net zero plans and all of that. All of that stuff is super important. But I think it's only really gonna get driven by a deeper sense of what it means to be human and how connected we are and how we need each other. And I think we're I am beginning to learn what brilliant others are doing in this space that I think is gonna be ever more important. And and part of what I'm interested in is how you bring that language into the business world Because it's so logical and cognitive and rational and financial and and all those things which are very important.
Sarah Gillard [01:04:15]:
But if it's not combined with love and creativity and imagination and joy and connection, we're not gonna get there. So
James Glover [01:04:25]:
No. A 100%. A 100%. And there there's that, a kind of a mentor and friend of mine just said, I think the challenge of our time is to be able to connect meaning within individuals into meaning within organisations. And the more we're able to make that interconnection happen, the more it's possible. And I'm like, well, that's my that's I'm I'm going after that because actually, right now, the more an individual has a truer understanding of of of what is meaningful to them. And even in even that language is misunderstood, misconstrued often. Like, oh, yeah.
James Glover [01:04:58]:
I'm clear on my values. Great. Well, we've probably got about 12 words that cover everybody's values. But what really informs that? What are the experiences that have fundamentally shaped who you are that are beyond the roles that you play? And and I, I get I get myself in a in quite in lots of discussions about, you know, being a parent isn't a purpose. It's a role that you play, but it's a way in which you express your purpose. So, you know, you you're clear on what is meaningful and then think about the contribution that you want to make. Well, the things that are meaningful to me, you know, to your point, love, connection, belonging, joy, whatever they may be, how do I express those in the roles that I play in my life so that actually there is a depth in all of those roles that, yeah, just enables more? That feels that feels like an incredible thing for us to to try and make happen, to to proliferate.
Sarah Gillard [01:05:52]:
And who who wouldn't want that? Right? I mean, it's it's, I think it's just her ultimate expression of what we are as as humans. And I think for us just so long, but not forever, maybe the last 50 or 60 years, particularly in the Western economies, we have assumed that that is not, applicable to business. Not important, not applicable to business, maybe a private thing that you might think about, but certainly not to be done in the workplace. And I think that's been alright for a bit in terms of if an organization is optimizing for efficiency in a relatively stable environment, politically, economically, socially, environmentally, maybe that's that's good enough. But I think in a very disrupted future, that is unknown and, likely to be very turbulent, and you we're gonna have to use all of our human abilities to adapt to a very different environment. You're gonna want all of that human capability, and optimizing for efficiency is no longer, a sensible choice. You need to optimize for adaptability and trust. And really, the only things that are gonna underpin that is human connection and intrinsic motivation and a deep connection to to what's meaningful.
Sarah Gillard [01:07:09]:
So do it or be irrelevant is my advice.
James Glover [01:07:12]:
Yeah. Well, be extinct. Let's go back to the kind of the yeah. So I and I'm wondering, Sarah, if that kind of just leads us quite nicely into when you start to think about going forwards into the future and the kind of the role that you play in your organisation, but where you are in your life, and the things that you're interested in and where the kind of the, the kind of the cerebral and the well, the logic and the magic kind of coalesce into something for you. What what does that really what does that really look like? What are you most excited about given given the challenges that you've just expressed? What are you most excited about?
Sarah Gillard [01:07:45]:
So it's a good question. And I to be honest, the the so at the moment, I I work at this brilliant charity called Blueprint for Better Business. And we work with leaders of large businesses, to try and help them imagine, basically, a better way of doing business that, creates positive impacts on people and planet. And, the charity's been going for about 12 years. I've only been there for two and a half. It's it does really excellent work, and I would recommend the website to all of your listeners.
James Glover [01:08:18]:
We will put it we'll put it in the show notes. Let's link it up.
Sarah Gillard [01:08:21]:
And it's becoming increasingly clear to me and many others who work in this space that the pace of change of our our economic system broadly is not happening fast enough. So we're gradually incrementally getting to a do less harm mindset. But, really, if we're gonna create an economy and a society that is trying to aim for the long term well-being of all people and planet, the role of business is gonna have to be radically reimagined to not just do less harm, but to focus their attention on optimizing their contribution to the long term well-being of people and planet and making money as a result. Right? I'm not, you know, you've gotta have fuel, drive the car, but where the car where is the car going to? Now that's so if we're still thriving as a species on a healthy planet in a 100 years, it's because we have worked out how to shift the economy to optimize for the long term well-being of all people and planet. And how do we get from here to there? Because it feels very entrenched, the system that we're in at the moment, and it's very difficult to see how do you how do you move such a global system that has got, you know, capital markets and huge mega global organizations and governments, all these things that are sort of locking in place. And how do you move to this much more human and life and planetary focused system? And it's challenging. But I feel like we're at the sort of the interregnum period between these two paradigms. You know, this old version is dying because it's unsustainable, so it's gonna stop one way or the other.
Sarah Gillard [01:10:04]:
And something new is trying to emerge. And I, you know, I really wanna spend the rest of my life trying to get this new thing to emerge faster and in a more positive way than otherwise it might if it was just left to its own devices because I think it will take too long. I'm being patient. So so, really, that's that's where I get my energy from is trying to to imagine a better future collectively, you know, getting inputs from from all sorts of different people and all sorts of different cultures and learning from all sorts of different people and cultures. And saying, well, you know, if it's grounded on on the core concepts of human dignity and the common good, how might we reimagine society, economy, organizations, business, so that that becomes a more likely outcome. And and one could get disheartened at the current pace and a lot of the pushback and the politicization and the challenges. But I get my energy from imagining this better future and then trying to work backwards from that.
James Glover [01:11:12]:
Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. I love how, I love how the the kind of the experiences that have shaped your journey, especially in John Lewis, have just, just challenged you to to scale up. Because there's something about where where you what you had to step into in that space that has now enabled you to go, There's an even bigger space for me to be able to step into. Like, this this the the kind of the foundations and the principles and the philosophies of harmony and balance are true and are real. And yet, actually, they need to be applied in a far, far greater way than they are now. Like, how do we do that? It's almost like, to some degree, it's a it's a similar problem, but the scale of the problem and therefore the impact of the problem, has has been has been increased as your appetite for it and your engagement for it.
James Glover [01:12:04]:
And, and and maybe you can do it in flip flops too. That's a great
Sarah Gillard [01:12:11]:
idea. Maybe in minus 6 though.
James Glover [01:12:12]:
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not today apart from inside. But, yeah, that's, that's absolutely amazing. And and I think so just a wonderful place for us to pause. And I I'm so deeply grateful to you for for, for coming on the podcast. It's been so wonderful to talk about your journey and your experiences and your kind of transformation in thinking and feeling into the logic and magic of purpose and what might be possible with that in the world. And, I, for 1, am a colossal fan of, Blueprint for Better Business and obviously a big advocate of purpose in practice community that that I get to kind of be a contributing part for of trying to be a force for good around this this work.
James Glover [01:12:53]:
So thank you for everything that you are doing and bringing and continue to do and bring. It's just, yeah, incredibly exciting.
Sarah Gillard [01:12:59]:
Thank you very much, James. I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for the invite.
James Glover [01:13:04]:
Massive thank you for taking the time to listen to the excitable soul podcast. If you are interested in uncovering, understanding, and unleashing your sense of purpose, come and explore our purpose immersion programs at the excitable soul dot com. We look forward to hearing from you there or being with you on our next episode. Have an incredible day.