Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Okay, welcome to this edition of our Digital Academy Session. I’m here with Philippa White. My name is Verity Taylor, I’m Pro Bono Manager at Mishcon and today we are talking about Philippa’s book, ‘Return on Humanity’ which is now an international bestseller, very exciting, and Philippa is the CEO of TIE Leadership.
Philippa White
Thank you for having me, it’s really lovely to be here.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Thank you, Philippa. Shall we go straight into it, I know we’ve been talking about the book and I’ve been so excited to do this. So, I was talking about the fact that, you know, as Pro Bono Manager at Mishcon, the book really resonated with me but there was this one really lovely example in the book that I really wanted you to, to speak to. It was all about people needing to create connections by not only asking questions but by listening to the answers.
Philippa White
Yeah.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
And it really resonated because I do find with lawyers that their very solutions focussed, which is great because they want to run in and they want to fix something. I find that particularly, when there is something happening in the world and I get the call saying, “Verity, Verity what can I do? Let’s do this, I’ve got a project, let’s, let’s, let’s go” and I’m like “let’s just hold on, let’s just wait and see what the best thing to do” and sometimes, yeah, they do like to barrel in so, yeah, I’d love you to tell us.
Philippa White
Yeah, the story, yeah so, I am going to look at my phone where I, why I’ve saved it but just to sort of introduce it, I think what you’re talking about is sometimes we, and I am definitely guilty of this, you know, we’re not, we don’t normally stop to really think about how we’re going to show up, you know, how we show up for something and if we have, you know, this amazing idea and if you’re a very passionate person and if you’re Type A, where you’re sort of kind of bull in a china shop kind of approach, sometimes it’s hard to think about the other stakeholders in that situation and in my book I quite like bringing to life many of these concepts with stories because we can this kind of thing, I think we can all relate to it, I mean there’s a number of times where I’m sure I’ve had this really strong idea about something and I’ve sort of gone in and then it just hasn’t really worked as well as it really could have and you think, they didn’t understand, you know, it’s them and then you think well actually, maybe it was me, maybe I, maybe I didn’t approach that in the best possible way and we can have those kind of conversations but sometimes it’s easier to bring it to life with a story and obviously that story resonated so let me just read it. “I group of Italian engineers were keen to teach the Zambian people how to grow food. They arrived with Italian seeds in southern Zambia in a beautiful valley that stretched to the Zambezi river and they started to teach the local people how to grow Italian tomatoes and zucchinis and other vegetables. The thing was that the local people really weren’t that interested and the Italians just couldn’t understand why, it was such a fertile valley and nothing was being grown. In the Italians’ minds, the Zambians were really missing out. They demonstrated to the Zambians just how easy it all was and how lucky they were to have this input from the Italians, thinking, ‘Thank god we’re here just in the nick of time to save the Zambian people from starvation’ but one fateful day it all became clear when all the food was ready to eat, beautiful red tomatoes and gorgeous zucchinis, 200 hippos came out of the river and ate everything. ‘My god, the hippos!’ exclaimed the Italians. ‘Yep, that’s why we have no agriculture here,’ said the Zambians. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ asked the Italians. ‘Well, because you never asked,’ said the Zambians.” And I think, you know, when we reflect on, again, how we show up but also how do we create trust and connection when we’re trying to, you know, initiate anything really and I think it’s also, you know, it’s reading between the lines and it’s, it is, it’s creating those connections and bringing people along for the ride and if we just bombard with people and just expect people to be as excited as we are about something, you know it’s not always going to happen and it’s not always the fault of the other people and so that’s why I do like that because I think it’s something when we know how important collaboration is, we know how important it is to be able to create, you know unlikely partnerships and to come up with solutions for something, you know, in a vacuum doesn’t really work, we need to be able to engage other people but then we just need to think “what is the best way of doing that?” and I think it’s just checking ourselves sometimes and just being aware of how we’re showing up and just ensure that you know we’re bringing people along…
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah.
Philippa White
…in the best way possible.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Being a little bit humble sometimes about, you know, what knowledge we have but what we don’t have as well, I guess.
Philippa White
Yeah.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
I love that story and I love the way the book is full of stories, it’s so engaging and it just brings the whole thing to life, it’s just so, yeah, so easy to read because you just go from one story to another that, yeah.
Philippa White
Well, thank you and I think that’s, you know, I, I do enjoy reading business books. I tend to, I tend to read them more just because I have a podcast and I do interview a lot of people who write books but you can get really dull business books and at the end of the day if you’re wanting to try and get a point across, I think we all relate more to stories than frameworks and theories and at the end of the day it’s a, you know, it’s a return on humanity, it’s a human business book and I think if you can try and do that through story, it just makes it more relatable and I think, and also I didn’t want to be too prescriptive with the book in the sense that I think a lot of business books can sort of say well it’s my way of thinking and therefore you should be doing this and, you know, I had to get sixty permissions for publishing the book and on purpose, it’s you know it’s leadership lessons from all corners of the world and the thinking really is, you know this isn’t, this isn’t my thinking, it’s actually, you know, a lot of people have contributed to this and it just goes to show that there’s you know many people from many sectors, from many parts of the world who are all coming to the same conclusion and literally, from you know Mishcon de Reya, obviously we’re talking about you guys, to Octopus Group, to an amazing organisation in Zambia, to another organisation in Tanzania so, it’s, it’s very…
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
But really important to bring together all of those different ideas in one place because sometimes like you say, we might not all read sixty business books but to bring it all together…
Philippa White
Into one place is, yeah, exactly.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Something really accessible as well.
Philippa White
Yeah, yeah. And that was the idea so, happy that you felt that too.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Something else that really resonated was how you talk about having the courage to be imperfect and I think it’s interesting sort of following that example because that’s about the enthusiasm and the, you know, and that’s wonderful but and that you need that wonder and how do you reignite wonder for those who perhaps have lost it a little bit. The example I’m thinking of as a law firm may see it, the more senior you get and particularly in the pro bono world, you sometimes found that, find that there’s this really senior lawyers but the more senior they get, they’re more specialised in one little area and they are the absolute expert so, to try and get them out of their comfort zone is a little bit harder than actually the more junior lawyers who are sort of fresh out of law school and, and, and do have that wonder so, yeah, I guess the point is how do you reignite that wonder and particularly, with our leaders and the more senior?
Philippa White
It’s a really good question and I actually see it working in two ways. One is having that wonder and that curiosity and one is being able to be vulnerable and I think they actually almost go hand in hand. I think as, I mean as children, we have children right, so we learn a lot from our children but it’s amazing how children just constantly ask questions. Why this mummy? Why this? And I mean it’s really annoying, yeah okay. Because I said so! But, you know, but at the same time it’s, it’s well why is it like that and then you sort of oh god, well I hadn’t really thought of that, I need to try and explain that and, but as we get older we ask so many like less questions and why is that? Because actually, how we learn and how we grow is by going into situations that are different and meeting with people that are different to us and having those different types of conversations, I mean it can be anything from being in an Uber and having a conversation with the Uber driver who probably will have some interesting stories to tell and just asking questions but also, if you see things from different people within the business that are doing things, like involving different people and asking questions. But to be able to ask questions or actually just going back to being curious, you know it’s reading things that you wouldn’t normally read or it’s going to maybe a place that you wouldn’t normally go to and again, I think it is just pushing ourselves out of our comfortable world to be able to open our minds and children are very good at that but the more specialised and the more expert you become, the more narrow focussed you become and again, so that kind of brings me to vulnerability because I think the more expert you become, the more people go to you for solutions and you become quite comfortable in that position of being the expert and it becomes more uncomfortable to have doubt and to say I don’t know but actually, we also know that many of the solutions within a business come from the younger people who are actually who have completely different ways of seeing things or who have different perspectives and, and it’s so important to tap into that. And I think having that doubt and reminding ourselves that doubt is actually really important and actually just because you’re a law firm, you know, in the justice system you have, you know, reasonable doubt but what about unreasonable certainty.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, absolutely.
Philippa White
Right. Jim Carrol actually said, he’s one of my advisors, and I, and I love that because I just think maybe having complete certainty is unreasonable but it takes strength to be able to say I don’t know and actually, if you, if you reflect on like what are the pros and cons to having complete certainty about something or being able to say I don’t know. And if you’re in a really, you know, senior position and you probably might not know and actually, you might need to draw on other people’s opinions and to be able to do that takes strength, but it also creates connection and it, and it creates space for younger people to be able to grow into, to be able to prove to you or even to themselves that they actually have an opinion about this and to have that strength to be able to draw that out of other people gives, it empowers them, gets more ideas going, shows that probably don’t know everything because I think it’s impossible to know everything and actually it’s interesting because with the work that we do, we do take pretty senior individuals into situations that are quite different. We do it virtually, we do it in person but they have to solve an issue that is very different to what they’re used to, pushing themselves in different situations and in order to find those solutions, they are working in a different, they’re using the skills that they know but in a very different context and they’re having to work with people who are in a, you know, could be in Malawi and they have a very specific objective and they have sort of thirty days to kind of find the solution, but it is impossible from somebody who has grown up in London to suddenly arrive in Malawi and have all the answers, that’s just impossible and actually, many times you need to be able to get, you know, conversations going with the beneficiaries of an organisation, you have to really kind of go out to the communities and sort of bring in voices from other places to be able to even start to kind of understand the context but it’s quite funny how often it takes a good number of week, you know, I’ll often get to sort of the third week of one of our programmes and I’ll have somebody call me and say you know I still haven’t unearthed the, you know, the big idea, you know, I, I, I’m still just not sure what it’s going to be and again, it can be virtual or it can be in person and I’ll often say, so, have you, have you said like you don’t know and have you gone to the, to the beneficiaries and like spoken to the people in the communities to kind of understand what it is that, you know, how to unearth that and they’re like no, because I, you know, I feel like I need to go with an idea to the organisation, I need to come with a solution but I just don’t know what the solution is and I’m like why are you calling me, tell them that you don’t know and then ask them to put you in touch with people. No but I, I can’t say that I don’t know, I’m like well why not because you don’t know. And then finally, it’s so extraordinary because the moment that they kind of let those barriers down, admit to the fact that they don’t know and actually they then go and speak to, you know, the local people and bring in those voices, suddenly everything just happens and then, you know, an amazing solution is found and then, and it’s unbelievable that the number of times that people go back into their day to day jobs and they realise god, you know what, I need to, I need to ask them questions, I need to involve other people, I can’t be making decisions and, you know, in a vacuum because that’s god, you know, it’s so much better. And it’s funny because you can’t really teach people that with a PowerPoint presentation, it’s like you need people to actually experience that.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, like that sort of experiential learning when they sort of…
Philippa White
Yeah.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
I think we’ve all had it though haven’t we where we’re like, you know, going over and over and over and then it’s, it’s always when you have a dialogue with someone and you say I’ve got this problem and I don’t know, and then it’s always that that they just, they might even, it’s not that they’re giving you the answer, it’s just that that dialogue gives you a different way of thinking about an issue.
Philippa White
Totally, totally. It’s so powerful, right, and you’re right, even when you’re having a bad day, I mean we all have bad days and you’re sort of feeling in a slump and you’re sort of stuck in your own head and then the moment you pick up the phone and talk to somebody, even if it’s not even about that thing but you just have a different kind of conversation and you just open your mind or you listen to a podcast or you have a podcast, you do a podcast and you have a conversation, suddenly your, your energy levels change, right and you suddenly have a different viewpoint about things and I think we need to find ways to do that and have that wonder and have that kind of just desire to kind of open our minds and when we do that.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
I think we’re vulnerable because I guess that’s, that is at the heart of it isn’t it, that we all feel we want to know the answers and everyone needs to think that we know what we’re doing all the time and yes, it’s quite hard sometimes for I imagine senior leaders particularly to be vulnerable.
Philippa White
Yeah, but it’s a strength, right.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Can you tell me a bit more about the, the TIE leadership programme because I think that’s really interesting and, and how people come to it because, you know, are the people who are coming to the TIE leadership, the people who are always going to be engaged socially, I guess I’m wondering how people come to it and, and how it changes them.
Philippa White
Yeah, god…
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
And how do we reach the people who should be on this…
Philippa White
Yeah, right.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
…but perhaps wouldn’t put themselves forward?
Philippa White
Yeah, okay so, that, that last question is actually really interesting. So, we work with different types of companies, you know, so banks like Santander to ad agencies, we’ve got a programme right now with Leo Burnett, the London agency, you know, investment companies, so all the different skill sets and we do it in a number of different ways, so it can be as I mentioned that people can go to a place so, the experience is around six months but they’re only out of the office for thirty days, but again it’s a very immersive experience where you sort of are 100% kind of on your own with a security net of TIE kind of the process taking you through it but you’re really in. And then there’s a cohort opportunity which is virtual, two hours a day over six weeks but it’s coming together as a group of people around a business, that’s what’s happening with Leo Burnett now. So you’ve got, you know, six people from round the London agency coming together to solve an issues two hours a day, pretty flexible but there’s kind of key things that happen like international development training, which you would love, so it’s super, super interesting, coaching and then kind of the TIE process with the objective to coming together to solve a real issue that’s facing an organisation together in six weeks, which is using kind of constraints at the core because you’re sort of short amount of time, short amount of money, short amount of human resource. And then, and then we’ve got another one which is a really kind of scalable one which involves up to 500 people and that runs throughout a year and it’s sort of habitual learning, so it’s kind of one hour a month. But it’s all, the whole idea with what we do, and the way I like to explain it is, it’s kind of pushing people to the edge of their mental maps and gently nudging them off, creating kind of an evolution of behaviour change for teams and individuals and the whole idea is just to get people to be seeing themselves in the world differently. So back to your last question, which was, you know, how do you get people excited about this? Well the way that we do this is by exposing people to real global challenges around the world and exposing them to different realities, different cultures and getting them to be able to solve a real challenge in a pretty impactful, you know, applicable kind of way that they create something amazing at the end of a very short amount of time. So why do people do it? Well, individuals want to do it because it’s an opportunity for them to develop competencies and abilities that it’s really hard to do that in the day-to-day so, if you were, you know, if, if, if we look at the way that most companies function, you need to have silos. As much as we talk about being siloed and the negativity of being in a silo, silos exist for a reason because it’s safe, you know, people fit into an area and their role is important and they kind of fit into the structure of whatever that company is and then it runs like a sort of well oiled machine but at the end of the day, people need to step out of that hierarchy to be able to grow so, we know that people need to find situations that make them uncomfortable, we know that people need to be able to push themselves in different ways, we know that to be able to grow we need to kind of feel that feeling where our feet aren’t quite touching the ground or we’re kind of “ooh, my god” but it’s not safe for companies to create those kind of situations in the day-to-day because actually they need to know for their clients that things are going to work well so you need to find opportunities for people to be able to reignite that fire in their belly for them to be able to do something that speaks to them, so that’s where the sort of pro bono stuff comes in, I mean of course it’s a lot of people are searching for that opportunity to be able to make a difference if you like, but there’s a big part of it of being able to use their skills in a different way, to be able to feel excited about what they know, to be able to try something different, to get stuck into different parts of business that they don’t normally have the opportunity to get stuck into and to be able to say to themselves like look at what I know, like I was able to create something that’s like I would not normally have the opportunity to create whatever it is that we’ve created for an organisation in Guatemala and then be able to speak to people in Guatemala. So, it’s interesting because it is people who are keen to push themselves, keen to learn more about themselves, see themselves in a different way and definitely to be able to make a difference comes as part of that package but it’s not always like the, the sort of the main thing, that’s definitely part of it but it’s, it’s not the only thing and so, yeah, and you know it depends on the organisation, it depends on the way that we work and, and you know the scalable option is probably less about doing good but it certainly is more about perspective and it just sort of depends on which, you know, offering that we have.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
I think again, in the pro bono world it’s, it’s similar which is you know we have lots of really passionate people who really, really want to make a difference and give back but I always say that, you know, you do have to have that win-win, that there has to be, you know, part of it is, this amazing development opportunities and people stepping outside of roles that they, you know, things that they can’t do in their day-to-day role that they can do in a pro bono role and I don’t think that’s a bad thing because, you know, so they’re getting that opportunity as well as giving back is fantastic.
Philippa White
Yeah, definitely, and that that’s the thing I mean we know, I mean Elliot talks about it in my book, Elliot from Mishcon, you know he talks about the importance of you know having these opportunities to expand our perspectives and to have these different perspectives because at the end of the day, you know lawyers are expected to make nuanced advice and, or give nuanced advice and have these very special relationships with clients where there’s empathy involved and understanding and, and also just knowing how the wider world works to be able to put into context whatever it is the issue is that their client is facing but if you only hang out with all of the same types of people and you’re stuck doing the same sort of thing all the time and you’re just living in this very kind of save bubble, it’s really hard to be able to empathise and it’s really hard to be able to advise on, on nuanced issues if you’re not in touch with the rest of society and that’s why these types of opportunities are just so, so important because it, it gives people sort of a window into how the wider world works and access to people who you wouldn’t normally have access to and then it, it just makes life and your life just more colourful.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Absolutely. And so many examples in the book of how being an empathetic leader, an empathetic company to your employees is so important and but for profitability there are some amazing stats on you know happier and more engaged employees, their productivity is much higher and profitability and you know all these examples seem like such like so obvious that this is what people should be doing, so why aren’t more companies doing it?
Philippa White
Why aren’t more companies doing this?
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah.
Philippa White
Yeah, and I think, you know it’s funny because I studied Business, I did a Business degree and you know I talk about my business school in the book and I, you know, I don’t talk negatively about them but I do talk negatively about business schools, you know, and my experience of business school and interestingly, I thought that they might, they might be really angry with me about being so vocal about that but actually they completely embraced it and they’re now wanting to fly me to do keynote for the incoming grads in September and you know I’ve been on roundtables and keynotes because they’re actually wanting me to provoke them because they recognise that the system is broken and things do need to change and I think people are starting to recognise that but, you know, business is currently stuck in this kind of mid-20th century paradigm where people are chanting like I chanted at business school, “The main goal of business is to make money” and only focussing on ROI and so that’s why my book is called ‘Return on Humanity’ because actually it does need a bit of a movement and people to actually start shaking things up and saying so, you know, who is actually teaching about the importance of being more human in business and when I say that, just to sort of take a bit of a step back, I’m talking about the importance of people tapping into their human assets is what I like to call them, and it’s these softer competencies of empathy and flexibility and vulnerability and, and you know cultural intelligence and kindness and when I actually provoked my university just a couple of weeks ago when I was on a panel and said so you know I think it’s proven that the more human our leaders are the more human our corporate cultures are and I think we can agree that people are looking for more connection and belonging at work and I think we can agree that customers are looking for more connection with their, you know, the places that they want to do business in. And actually, it’s a really good question just I go off on a little bit of a tangent, because if we all just stop and think, you know, what are the companies that we relate to, that we genuinely love doing business with, that we genuinely have a connection with and we come in contact with thousands of companies a day, a day, now what are those companies that we rate and we think god, you know, I really love doing business with that company, like it’s not very many and if you think about the grads that are coming out of university who have their list of companies that they’re wanting to work for, the list is tiny when it comes to the companies that they genuinely want to work for and the power balance is changing and customers and employees are looking for companies and businesses that they genuinely feel a connection and belonging to and we need to now recognise that in order to be more competitive and the stats for example, more human companies are 32% more competitive, they make more money so, and, and employees that are happy are 400% more likely to be more creative and more innovative. Now that makes sense because if you’re happy, if you genuinely feel safe and trusted and empowered and like where you work, you know that you are more likely to be excited about work and you’re going to go into work with ideas and you’re going to spend time thinking about it and you’re going to be coming up with, I mean we know that, we can, we know that because we’re human beings and we can relate to that. So if we’re creating environments at work that recognise our human employees like human beings and understand how to get the most of out them and create those human cultures, and again those human cultures are only possible with leaders that understand how to tap into their human assets and the question is who is teaching that. And when I provoked my university on that roundtable, like the answer was the self-help gurus, and I was like that’s interesting, so the self-help gurus are responsible for basically providing or creating the human competencies that are absolutely vital for driving business into the future, so it’s all, it’s a sort of, there’s a massive disconnect and I think this the reason why I’m excited about this book because it’s putting, it’s creating a movement that I think is necessary and I think it's, it’s reminding all of us that it doesn't matter where we come from, how much money we have, where we fit into society, we all, we all have access to this power and it, and, and one, the, you know, businesses need to start investing in training that really genuinely can unleash that and, you know, I do that but I’m sure there’s a whole load of other companies that do it too and the whole idea is, we need to make this a priority, it can’t be up to the self-help gurus and for individuals to be investing in their own development, this needs to be something that companies really do need to invest in. You need to make sure that you hire the right people, you have the right management, you know, Mishcon like, this is a huge thing that Elliot’s super passionate about at Mishcon and there’s a reason for it because it’s competitive and I think it’s just over time, I think more and more companies are going to start recognising that the old way of doing things sort of top down type of running a business, cog in a machine, it’s just about you know make as much money as you can for me and see you later, like that’s just not the future because I don’t relate to that and I’m sure there’s a whole lot of people who are like well, why would I do that, I think there’s, there’s more to life.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
And clients aren’t going to relate that as well so, I think it’s interesting because I think back to my law school days and you know, all you’re thinking about law school is learning the black letter law and passing those exams but when you’re getting to trying to get your training contracts and your vacation schemes, you’re being interviewed on so much more than just black letter law, it’s how you present yourself, how you’re going to relate to clients, how you’re going to build those networks and relationships, are a huge part of that role, but no-one’s teaching it, so where are we expecting people to learn it, right.
Philippa White
And it’s so crazy because I mean think about the professionals in your personal life that you deal with, you know, so I, you know, with my work, with my life, like I have, you know, I have to deal with lawyers, I have to deal with accountants, I have to deal with professional services without question the people I hire are the ones who understand me, understand my reality, understand the sort of nuances of, of my business, of my life, of my kind of setup and the ones that I deal with who sort of think that they know everything, clearly very smart individuals but the ones who just don’t understand how to tap into kind of the human essence of life, like you’re just not going to have a job for very long with me anyway because I, it’s like it just doesn’t work, you need to be able to, but those, it’s so, it’s nuance isn’t it and it’s very…
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, you can’t put your finger on it. It’s like anything, you know you, from speaking to a builder about a quote on something and he was just, you know, a really nice guy and took time out and was very human and, and immediately I’m terrible, I’m like oh just go with him because he seems so nice, you know, should be getting four different quotes and absolutely and I will but you know it’s just, it makes such a difference when you make a connection with someone and, and people have that sort of empathy. Speaking of which, I did have another question which was, I was thinking about this when I was at a pro bono conference a couple of weeks ago and I mean it struck me before but really struck me that day that I looked round the room and over a hundred people, probably nearer two hundred people and there was probably count the number of men in the room on two hands, it’s a very female dominated profession, pro bono lawyers and pro bono managers and I think you see that a lot in the charity sector and I guess my question is, you know, do women make more empathetic leaders and would, would the world be a better place if more female leaders.
Philippa White
More female leaders. So, you know, I’m going to plug another book, just because if you’re wanting stats around this, it’s really worth it, it’s called ‘The XX Edge’. I did a podcast with Ruth Shaber, I think is her last name. Fascinating. I do touch on it and interestingly I didn’t know about her when I wrote my book but there is a part in my book where I do touch on the importance of more female leadership and that business is proven to be more successful if women are at the table and making decisions so, again, I’m not suggesting that only women need to be in business, at all, I’m just saying that women need, it needs to be a gender diverse make-up of a company and Ruth goes into so much detail in her book about this. So, I mean, for example, 90% of the world’s wealth is managed by men, 90%. And she actually with her foundation, she has actually made a point of only investing in businesses that have either women at the table, that certainly have women at the table or just women run or women at the table and decision-makers so, just having some women as decision-makers but she has only, she only invests for this fund that she has in these types of companies and her portfolio has completely outperformed the market.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Really?
Philippa White
Yep.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
That’s fascinating.
Philippa White
It’s really fascinating. And she said, “When women are on boards, when women are managers of money,” so portfolio managers of money for investment, so she said most of the portfolio managers are men and therefore the decisions that they make are a certain type of decision. “When women are in charge of money, when women are part of decisions within companies, they are proven” and she, her book is just basically full of stats and so, in my book I found some of those stats, which obviously when I spoke to her I then was like god, I wish I know about her before because I might have made a longer kind of sub-chapter about this but I think what, what’s, what’s frustrating for me, and you might relate to this, is you know I feel lucky and I’m sure you do too that you sort of managed to do it all, so you sort of got your career and you’ve got your children and you’ve managed to kind of have, you know make it all work, there’s a lot of women that I know, highly intelligent women, who didn’t and so, you know, they were the ones to stay home with the kids, you know Oxbridge graduates, Ivy League, but you know they had to take a bit of a step back, they had to you know be the one ferry kids around and looking after the children and as a result they really struggled mostly from a sort like a confidence point of view and they are starting maybe now, starting to get kind of back into the sort of the working world but again, taking a huge step backwards and I just find, and really struggling from a, from sort of a confidence point of view, and I, that really, really upsets me because I just think the system is not allowing these extraordinary individuals to work within the system and we do know unfortunately for a number of reasons, you know, so much of the family responsibility does tend to fall on women, and that’s a whole other conversation, but if we know and it’s proven, if we know that business is more successful with women, if we know that we’re just talking about a diverse workforce, we’re not, we’re not, again, we’re not saying that they only to be on boards but we do know that if women are in powerful positions and if they are part of the decision-making of that company, that company is more successful and if we know that, why are companies not then taking into consideration all of these kind of dynamics and making it more possible and, and being more flexible and empathetic and just thinking of those dynamics and women who are running companies, those companies do understand those nuances and they are more flexible and they are more competitive and so it kind of, it’s, it’s understanding these dynamics but it, again if we know that business tends to be run by men because of the dynamics and sort of inflexibility, you know, we need to kind of break through that and it is more competitive.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
And I guess, speaking again to you know the win-win, which is that it’s such a waste of resource, you’re losing this amazing resource and often the company’s you know losing women who they are trained up or you know really valuable resource and then they’re losing them because they don’t have the…
Philippa White
And, and the problem is it’s like, it’s the problem is two-fold and one, it’s not flexible, they have responsibilities, they you know all the things that we can relate to with our children, but it’s also, if it’s a male culture and if it’s a culture that is not human, you’re going to lose those women because at the end of the day they’re like I don’t, like life is not worth this and does that make sense? So I think there’s so much more proving that the more we understand the real power of these human assets, the sort of, those softer skills that we didn’t see as that important before, they are so important because they are proven to make business more successful and if we only focus on, on return on investment, you miss out on all of this and it, and it’s not the way forward anymore, I mean your business is going to go out of business because it’s just not going to be competitive. And, and just, you know interestingly because just as far as examples of companies, and I talk about a number of companies, I mean I talk about Mishcon as one of them, but I talk about Octopus, that’s another one, I talk about First Direct, I mean First Direct, that’s, I mean I love…
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
That bit made me want to switch my bank. Yeah. I was like I have to stich banks now.
Philippa White
It’s the best thing and it’s so funny because I remember when I first moved to London, 2001, you know everyone has to go along the high street and you sort of go in and you book, you know bank with a bank and I won’t say which name it was but anyway I banked with them and I remember complaining with people and just saying this sucks, like and this was back in the say when you did go in and speak to people and you did try and call and people should have answered the phone and I remember somebody saying to me, “You’re more likely to separate from your spouse than you are to fire your bank” and I was like really? Well, I’m firing my bank, I mean, I’m not going to be that statistic and so, but I needed to find out the best one and someone said, “Oh you need to, you need to bank with First Direct”. No, I’ve been with them since whenever, 2002 I guess, and I, I absolutely love them and it’s just funny because it’s you know they pick up with one ring, you speak to somebody even if it’s like 3 o’clock in the morning, they ask you how you are, they talk about their cat, I mean it’s just, it’s so human, but it’s interesting how the company is very human, so they understand that to have great customer service, your employees need to be happy and they need to be cared for and they need to feel a part of something and they need to be working towards this purpose that, you know, whatever it is that your company stands for and people who work there genuinely love it and they genuinely feel a part of something and so that’s where a lot of that comes in as well, it’s sort of treating your people well but there needs to be a shared mission and that shared mission also needs to really work with whatever that mission is that you have in your life, and so I talk about that in my book as well but…
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
And it filters down, it can’t just be oh we’ve got great customer service and that’s what we’re focussing, it’s coming from somewhere else.
Philippa White
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a package, right.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Something I want to talk about that you talk about towards the end of the book is the problem with polarities and it really spoke to me, I think there’s, I think there’s been so much going on in the political world…
Philippa White
Yeah.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
…over the past five years with Brexit and with American politics and I feel it’s become, it’s changed, there’s been a change in the way we discuss politics and I’ve always quite enjoyed discussing politics and been happy and comfortable with people with different political views but there definitely seems to be this problem that there are such divisive issues now and people can’t even speak about them and how do we, you know, how do we build those bridges? How do we get people to overcome that and connect because until we do that, how are we going to…?
Philippa White
How are we going to move forward? Yeah, and I mean to be honest, going into the, I mean what it, well you know this because you come from a political family but what, how many people are going to poll, how many countries are going to poll this year?
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
I think it’s like half the population will be voting.
Philippa White
Voting this year.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
This year, yeah, and we are likely in the UK to be having an election around the same time as the US.
Philippa White
Yeah. I mean that’s, you know, I live in Brazil so most people I’m sure will have heard of Bolsonaro and Lula, I’m, my company is based in England so I’m well aware of Brexit and my family is British and then of course we’ve got the American elections and they are so polarising and also, you know, just even with, with the pandemic and vax and don’t vax and, it’s, it’s, it’s complicated because there are, people become very passionate and you, you, you kind of dig your heels in and you almost, you almost identify with one side or the other and you kind of become these kind of warring tribes don’t you. And I think we just need to, I think it’s just one of those things where we need to kind of take a bit of a step back and think well, first of all, am I completely right? Okay, I had a belief in something and I have a, you know, I know my values and actually, when we’re looking at certain politicians, I mean I know myself I, I have similar values to one or the other and that’s fine, you know, I might not like that politician but at the end of the day voting for that politician doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody who is voting for that politician is that politician or represents everything that that individual stands for and I think it’s like what we were talking about earlier, just about you know having doubt or asking questions or understanding and putting ourselves, empathising and I, it’s so important for us to push ourselves out of our comfort zones and have those uncomfortable conversations and that’s what building bridges is isn’t it, it’s kind of talking to someone who might have a completely polarised view to you and yes, it will be an uncomfortable conversation and it might not feel great but there is a reason why 51% of the population is voting in another way to you and to be honest, you voting in another way doesn’t necessarily make you right because what is right? At the end of the day if 51% or 49 or whatever these really tight elections are, there are so many reasons why people are voting for whoever that person is and it’s not, it’s not because they’re racist or it’s not because they, you know, they’re, you know machismo or whatever it is, it, there’s so many other subtleties that do we even understand what they are and if we don’t understand, you know, us playing against other people just makes that other side, it just becomes this kind of warring tribe and it just sort of ends up having two sides yelling at the other side and that, that is not going to be able to create sort of evolution, and I mean I see this in Brazil because obviously it’s very, very polarised and you have these nasty names of people who vote for Bolsonaro and you have really nasty names of people who vote for Lula and then you just basically, no one’s talking to one another and that type of behaviour is not progressive and we really do, in order to be able to make it through the next year, we do need to have those uncomfortable conversations just to be able to understand because especially if you do work in politics, to understand why people are voting for the other side, you really need to understand why and I don’t know if enough people are having those conversations, I mean I know a lot of people in politics in Brazil and they’re so vehemently married to their, their viewpoint and absolutely hate the other side and they believe they’re the owners of the truth and they believe that they are, you know, they’re the smart one and anyone who thinks otherwise is, is stupid and the thing is, well that’s not going to be very helpful for anyone and the risk is that, you know, that’s going to probably get another party into power because people are just going to, it’s going to create a lot of, you know animosity and hatred and then that doesn’t create those bridges and so you need to…
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, we all focus on winning and our, our side…
Philippa White
And our side is better.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
…winning and then, and then if they do then you’re like great but then what happens next? What happens at the next election for the people who do feel disenfranchised or you know if we’re not having those conversations or building those bridges?
Philippa White
And it’s just understanding, I mean, and the key really is building bridges and just and it is, it’s having those conversations and also just understanding, I mean and that’s why I do think having conversations with Uber drivers is one of, certainly in Brazil, it’s fascinating because you do get, you get a, there’s a certain type of population that does tend to vote for one side or the other and you very quickly start to understand the underlyings of where a lot of these votes are coming from and that’s fascinating, that’s fascinating because when you just..
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Because one of the challenges your assumptions when you have these conversations because…
Philippa White
Totally.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
…I remember around Brexit and in the lead up having these conversations with taxi drivers and many being very pro and many of them being immigrants themselves and that really made me…
Philippa White
It’s fascinating.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, really fascinating and challenged by assumptions on things.
Philippa White
Right. And then, and those kind of conversations and again, at no point in time am I suggesting that having these conversations to, to sway you one way or the other, that’s not it, it’s actually just humanising everything and creating that empathy and like you say, how is it that an immigrant can vote and get, that’s fascinating and then once you start to understand those nuances like, god okay, well I didn’t even, I hadn’t even considered that and then and then how does that then play into other relationships and other conversations that you’re having? And, and it just, it again it makes everyone kind of come together a little bit more and it’s something we have to remember moving forward to really try and have those uncomfortable conversations because if everyone did that, the next eight months or however many months we have ahead until the end of the year when, because it’s going to get, it can get really ugly and is that even the kind of society that we want to live in, you know, and I think just one thing that I do talk about, Simon Anholt, I talk about him in my book and he has a great book as well which I can’t remember off the top of my head but anyway, I talk about in my book, but he does talk about this kind of stuff and, and he was saying how like you know when you would buy records or CDs and you would sort of buy the whole LP and, you know, you didn’t necessarily like the whole album but you, you bought it and they were sort of like, basically, you bought it for the sort of the couple of singles didn’t you and it’s a bit like that with politics, you know, at the end of the day you don’t buy the entire party and actually, to become married to a party, I also think is quite dangerous because it’s not that you, you know, you don’t actually identify necessarily with that entire party and everything that it stands for, there’s different things that you agree with and if we see life like that rather than just being Democrat or just being Republican, just being Bolsonaro, just being Lula, PT, you know, if we start understanding the nuances of what we’re voting for and actually, no, I like that single and actually now I understand that’s why people are voting for Bolsonaro, not because of everything he represents but there’s a couple of singles in there that actually, I’m not completely against and the more that we start asking those questions, it becomes less about the party and more about whatever it is that they’re discussing and then we can make more informed decisions and we’re not married to one thing or the other and I think again, that’s where those conversations really come in.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
I’m definitely guilty of always voting for the same party, slightly brainwashed.
Philippa White
Well, you can’t, you do come by it honestly, I don’t know how many people understand your background but it is understand...
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
I did read that the best voter is the one that’s the swing voter, who’s actually examining the policies each time and, and making a decision based on, based on different circumstances rather than just being like “I am tribally Labour” or “I am tribally brought up,” you know, “Tory” but we should be open.
Philippa White
But it’s interesting just even from what we were talking about earlier, you know, again within the parties it’s so important to understand like when you have leaders of parties who actually do understand where the world is going and, and actually those nuanced kind of conversations that okay, he is Labour or he is PC whatever but Conservative but it’s, it’s, it’s understanding that no, actually we don’t want to go completely to one side, we actually need to be more, you know, right of left for example and again, I think it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s understanding those nuances and the way that you get there is through these kind of conversations.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
How do you feel looking, you know, to the future with all the challenges that the world is facing? Do you feel optimistic?
Philippa White
Yeah and you know what, I, again, I’ve just written a book obviously on humanity and I, I, I have been, sorry, on humanity no, I’ll rephrase that, it’s, you know, I’ve just written a book called ‘Return on Humanity’ and again, it’s ‘Leadership Lessons from All Corners of the World’ and writing that book and obviously doing the research for that book, it was a very positive experience because as I say, I’m having conversations with so many different business leaders but also NGOs in different parts of the world and you know different sectors and different areas and from different backgrounds and it was so positive and then when it started to kind of get to the point of getting the book out there and getting the endorsements and then, you know, getting it ready for the launch, this has really resonated with people in a way that, I mean obviously it resonated with me because I was writing the book and it was a really positive experience but then I’m, I’m seeing the, the sort of the knock-on effect of these kind of conversations and how people are really resonating with it and really kind of needing it and feeling this hope that I think a lot of people are really needing right now and then when we launched it last week, I mean it made it to Number 1 in the US, Canada, Brazil and the UK, and, and on Amazon but I mean like we were the top of five categories in Brazil and the top in four categories in the UK and the top of three in Canada and one in the US. Now that to me just showed god, like there’s clearly, this is not just some plat, you know fly by night kind of conversation, this is something that I think is really resonating with people and I think people are really feeling, you know we’ve got a lot of people coming to the launch tomorrow, to the launch party, it’s sponsored by a company, by Next 15 which I’m going to plug because so kind but also, you know, it’s an investment and it’s also something like no but we need people first cultures at companies, it cannot just be focussed on the money, the world, and we haven’t even touched on this, like the world can’t handle it, we need leaders who understand like cause and effect and who understand the power of interdependence, like we need other people, we need to understand like if I’m making a decision here, it can impact people there and stakeholders, you know it’s not just about shareholders, we have to take into consideration everything and the world can’t handle any more and it kind of feels like this is now, like this is the time is now and, and it really feels like it’s resonating and I just think, I think that’s why because I think people are really wanting that and I just, I do believe that people are innately good, they are, I just think sometimes the system doesn't allow them to be or, or conventions don’t allow them to be or the education system hasn’t allowed them to be or given them the permission to kind of tap into these, this essence that they have and I think the more that people are provided with that permission and the more that they can relate and the more they’re like, no but this is it, this is, I see myself in this and I think more and more and people are seeing themselves in this, but this just makes sense and so that makes me optimistic because it’s really resonating and I think it’s resonating because we’re all innately good people, it’s just we need to have the opportunity to, to be good.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
To really enhance it. I mean it really, really resonated with me the book and it doesn’t, it leaves you feeling positive and I think it’s, we’re all just so challenged at the moment and so feeling like I don’t have power and I don’t have a way to change this or do something positive so we all feel a little bit helpless and I think the really lovely thing about the book is it gives you that permission…
Philippa White
Totally.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
…and also the small things like in, because there is some challenging things in there and certainly you know our conversation about the polarities, it made me question myself and think yeah, I’m definitely sitting on the side thinking well they’re wrong and I’m right and I need to challenge that way of thinking, I think that was a really important, important thing for me that I took away from the book.
Philippa White
But it’s easy to do that, right, like we are all guilty of it and the thing is, I’m not even suggesting like I have all the answers or I’m perfect of that person’s perfect, no one is perfect but I think we just need to have that constant reminder of, again, putting ourselves in check and be like okay, how am I showing up, like, how we started the conversation. Am I, am I asking enough questions? Hold on a second, that probably wasn’t very good, let me try that again, and I think we just need to remind ourselves because the more that everyone just kind of, and also I, I love that you got out of the book because I genuinely believe it, it’s sort of, we all have so much more power than we think we do and if everyone just taps into that just a little bit, everybody the world will be such a different place because it’s not passively going through life or passively thinking oh I can’t, no, like it’s, it’s so tangible and it’s so easy, again, it’s just permission and I hope that the book gives people permission.
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
I think we should end there because that was such a positive note to end on and thank you so much.
Philippa White
Thank you for having me, it’s…
Verity Taylor
Senior Pro Bono Manager, Mishcon de Reya
It was a pleasure to read the book and a pleasure to get to know you, Philippa.
Philippa White
Thank you. Thank you for reading the book. Thank you for having me, it’s a huge honour so, thank you.