James Whiting talks mission, momentum, and leading change

Karen Falcon (Host, Performance & Development Lead at Tenzing):
Hello, and welcome to The Ascent. I’m Karen Falcon, Performance and Development Lead at Tenzing – a private equity firm passionate about the human stories between high-growth businesses and their teams. Guy, Tenzing’s co-founder, and I speak with driven and insightful founders, CEOs, and high performers. Previous series focused on the tech world; now we’re looking beyond. We talk through the highs, the lows, and everything in between – what fuels people, how they build standout teams, and how they keep pushing boundaries. No topic is off-limits, and every conversation is packed with lessons you can apply to your own journey.

Karen Falcon: My guest today is James Whiting, Chief Executive of Doughty Street Chambers and a leader with a remarkable track record across law, human rights and global advocacy. From starting out as a solicitor, to driving major change at organisations like Friends of the Earth, Malaria No More UK and now Doughty Street Chambers, James has spent his career at the intersection of purpose, policy and leadership. We talk about developing a truly strategic vision through complexity and what it means to stay values -driven in a high -stakes environment. A fascinating conversation with a truly mission -led leader. James, it’s great to have you with us today.

James Whiting: Thank you, Karen.

Karen Falcon: So we’ve talked a lot about building teams and really driving to get the best for and from people to benefit the firm, the team and other people. So with the podcast focus on high performance, I cannot wait to get into this. In your view, how do you develop truly strategic vision?

James Whiting: Well, I guess I have to think about a couple of examples that I’ve done. I’ll say just to start off that I’m not the world’s best at analyzing exactly how I’ve done something, so it’s easier for me, if you don’t mind, just to talk about a particular example. So when I was in my mid to late 20s, I’d been a solicitor for a while and I joined a charity and there were three people at the charity working out of a barn which had no heating, no lighting, no nothing really. And we were just writing letters to people and hoping that we could kind of build this organization. And it was run by a British army commander who had been the army commander in the Balkans during the Balkan conflict and his wife. And he’d come across an orphanage that had been completely blown up and he’d rebuilt it for the children during the war whilst he was commanding the British army in Croatia and then started doing the same thing in Sarajevo, in Bosnia. And you can imagine, he got a lot of support from the public and he had a board and there was a lot of enthusiasm and some quite kind of well -known people started backing it. And then this little whippersnapper comes along, age 27 or whatever I was, and I just thought, I couldn’t believe that I had the opportunity to be part of this. But within about six months, I’d kind of listened to a lot of people in Eritrea, in Sierra Leone, in Sarajevo, in the UK, and I just realised that what we were doing wasn’t the right thing. We were building orphanages and we were thinking that all the children were going to come to a mother home in the UK and it was all very grand vision. But it became very clear to me that, you know, what children need is a family and they need the love of a family. And actually, these children often had families, but for one reason or another, they were not with them. And so, essentially, I had to start thinking, at quite an early age, very hard about, I’ve got this organization that could be something very, very special. Although there’s only three or four of us, I knew that Mark was one of the great communicators. He was incredible. People just hung on his every word. And yet there was I disagreeing with what he profoundly believed to be the whole mission of the organization. And so it was a really kind of challenging moment of thinking strategy and yet also the dominant personality and the critical, you know, founder of this organization. And it’s a real testament to him and his wife that they actually went on this journey. It was very difficult. But we effectively changed from an organization that would have been just building orphanages, which would have been very costly and it would have been the wrong thing for children. Children don’t grow up well in what are effectively warehouses. And we turned it into an organization that was at the forefront globally of closing orphanages all over the world. We actually demonstrated how to do that in country after country and country after country followed that model. So that to me was my first chance to be part of something very special. But think about, you know, how can this tiny organization have a real impact on the world? And the only way it could do that was by helping… actually national governments and local governments to completely change their childcare systems from ones based on institutions to one based on families. And that was very complicated, particularly for a little organisation like us, but it was incredibly exciting because it’s now rolled out all over the world.

Karen Falcon: Yeah, so I’m really interested. You know, you say that as a 27 -year -old in you went, amazing opportunity. And I heard you say that, you know, you, you listen to people, you spoke to people and you listened to what they were saying. What were the clues or what were the signs that the vision wasn’t the right one?

James Whiting: Well, I mean, obviously it took me the first two or three months. I was happily going out to rotary clubs all over the country, just selling the vision. you know when you think about it most people if you say to them look these are children who’ve been orphaned by war it’s absolutely appalling what’s happened and we’re building them a home most people will support you and so we had tremendous funding coming in as well but it just I think actually the first time was I was in Sierra Leone during an anarchic conflict and I mean really appalling conflict where people were literally lobbing bombs into the capital city and there were there were just all sorts of different sides and Somehow there was still something of a government and I remember going to talk to the minister for children who happened to be a very experienced pediatric doctor and he just said Orphanages are not the right way forward and I remember sitting there thinking oh my really And then I went to Eritrea which was actually a country where for all its problems that the government had it was very, very kind of thoughtful about how a child can be, and they also said something similar. So I started talking to people in the UK and realizing this had to change. But then, in a way, that’s the easy bit, listening to people saying it’s not right. Then you’ve got a profound question, two questions, which is one, what should you be doing that’s going to be impactful on a kind of global stage? That’s a huge question. And then the second question is, how on earth do you get from here? with a board that doesn’t believe in what you’re saying and a founder that certainly doesn’t believe in what you’re saying, to there. So that was the challenge.

Karen Falcon: How did you answer those two questions?

James Whiting: Well, maybe, I mean, the second one was a fun one, although it didn’t feel fun at the time, which is that I actually wrote about a very, very long letter. I mean, poor Mark had to read this very long letter, but I was so worried about how he would react to it. I’m genuinely worried because, and I thought, I can’t just give him this letter, because if I just give it to him here, then, you know, he could get really quite upset, and it could fracture things, if you know what I mean. So I need to find a way of presenting this to him in a way that he’s able to kind of go away… and think about it. And so actually, I waited until he was going on a flight to Sarajevo, which may not have been the kindest thing, and gave it to him literally before he was getting on the flight. And he always said after that, that it was the most bumpy journey he’s ever taken. I mean, it was obviously smooth as anything, but it was quite a thing for him to be reading, you know, this is not the right thing to be doing. But he got it really, really well. He got it. It took a bit of time. It took a bit of time to go through. But he really got it. And we went on this just incredible journey. And it really was a journey from build orphanages to create about 40 different services alongside local authorities. And that’s difficult enough in the UK. In Romania, Ukraine, Albania, Kosovo, really hard stuff to do. and to do it at the same cost as the orphanages, because you’ve got to do that, because you can’t just say to people, oh, you’ve got to tax people more, they’re not going to do that. So that was incredibly exciting. I mean, and the outcome, if I can say that, was that there had been 100 ,000, over 100 ,000 children in Romania in these terrible orphanages, and people may remember those kids rocking back and forth and hitting themselves to get stimulation. And within 10 years, there were less than 10 ,000 children in… orphanages in Romania because we were able to show how it could be done.

Karen Falcon: So you and Mark must have had quite a relationship. It doesn’t necessarily mean it was smooth or easy, but how would you describe that relationship with him?

James Whiting: Well, I mean, this is now 20, 25 years on. I mean, we’re still friends, first of all. I mean, and he and his wife, Caroline, who actually played an incredibly important role between the two of us, actually, you know, he was incredible because if you’ve ever met You’ve met many founders, I know. And founders tend to have a very, very strong view about what they’re doing. And Mark was, you know, former army commander and a founder of a charity. He knew very well what he was doing. And people had responded to it. It wasn’t just that he knew it. He had thousands of funders and he had a whole board and he had all sorts of people. That’s a difficult… You’ve got to have real flexibility and a level of humility, actually, to be able to say, you know what? not only have I got to change, but I’ve got to help these other people to go on that journey as well. And, you know, I think he really bought into it. And we went on that journey together and we had a, you know, we had an incredible relationship. You know, we worked so closely together and I owe him everything, really, because everything that I’ve done since then came out of the intensity of that experience. Because it was intense.

Karen Falcon: Yes. And… You said that Caroline played quite a key role with the two of you. What role was that?

James Whiting: Well, first of all, when I was thinking about that letter, she was the person I spoke to. I obviously couldn’t have gone to Mark and said, I’m writing this letter. But I knew I could talk to Caroline about it and I knew that she’d be really cool. and incredibly helpful and loving about it. And she really was. And we kind of almost plotted together, which was quite strange because I hadn’t done that before then. I’d only known her six months, but I think she could see enough that there was something in this and therefore she wanted to help me. And so we kind of thought it through. And, you know, I think these things matter because that tiny organization could have absolutely easily could have fractured if it hadn’t been for her being that kind of, that center person, that mediator, if you like. And she genuinely had to mediate for a little while. It was quite difficult.

Karen Falcon: Yeah. And in that mediation role, what were some of the qualities that she brought to that role?

James Whiting: I’m going to say, you know, I’m going to say kindness and love. She’s just a really, really special person. And I don’t think either of us could ever have thought that she was doing anything other than trying to do her best for the children and for the charity and for everybody that was involved with it and the lack of ego. Yes. Let’s face it, you’ve got two blokes who probably are not short in some ways and I think Mark would allow me to say this that we’ve both probably got a bit of ego and to have someone who’s just prepared to be egoless in that situation I think is probably very important.

Karen Falcon: Yeah and did you continue to you know use that mediation dynamic that she provided? Did you continue to use it over time or was it at almost key points?

James Whiting: I think after that it became a bit more complex. So a lot of it was, you know, I realized that it was, I think we all realized, but I certainly realized that it was too narrow to be relying completely on the three of us. Yeah. So, and that was dangerous. That’s risky. Yeah. So one of the next things that I did was talk to Mark and Caroline about the need to have a more expert board. So at that time we had a lovely board and they were fantastic. And I, you know, but, you know, I do remember discussions about how many scones we should have at the Christmas carol service. You know, that was a big issue. And it’s actually lovely talking about stuff like that, but it was probably more important to talk about what are the right suite of services to be setting up with the local authority in Maramourish County in Romania and who should we be working with and how do we, you know, blah, blah, blah. So we recruited, we pretty much refreshed the board completely. And we had to go out to all of our funders and say, look, we’re going on this journey. Will you come with us? This is why we’re doing it. We explained it. We were really worried that we would lose a lot of our funders. I know Mark was desperately worried about that because they all felt that they could put their name on the doors of the orphanage, genuinely. And we used to do that. If you gave us a thousand pounds, you’d have your name on them. And now we couldn’t do that because you can’t, when you’ve got 40 different childcare systems, you can’t bang something into them.

James Whiting: So, you know, these things were real kind of issues for a very small organization, but we brought the funders with us. And actually, when you do the right thing, this is what I learned, if you do the right thing and you’ve got a really good strategy and you’ve really, really thought it through in a tough -minded way, funders will come. Mark always said that. He always said, if we do the right thing, they’ll come. And he wasn’t wrong. And so, you know, we got people like ARC, who was brand new hedge fund charity at that time, now very seasoned. But we were one of their, we were their first charity to support. And they suddenly, our Romania work that had been spending about 100 to 200 ,000 pounds a year, they put in a, what would you call it, a seven figure sum. And all of a sudden we were able to do something on a county scale. Yes. That meant that it had a real impact nationally and then internationally. And we have ministers from eight other countries come and visit. Wow.

Karen Falcon: And bring it back to their countries.

James Whiting: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that influence just continued to spread.

Karen Falcon: Yeah. And it just shows if you get the right strategy, you get the right people behind it, you get those kind of funders, it’s amazing where you can get to.

Karen Falcon: Yeah. And that initial strategy, which gathered traction, gathered huge support, you know, passion for it, actually exploring what else could be. listening to where it’s going to be reaching, you know, learning and following some of those threads, which at the time you think, oh gosh, I’ve just said something which goes against what we’ve planned for. If we follow this and find out more, we might have to change. But you follow that with the passion because it’s very clear what you’re aiming to do. And you sharpen what you’re aiming to do. Change what you knew when you’ve learned more. And then it comes into the skills of… Then getting the right people to be able to support that to grow and I guess it became more people Well, you’re suddenly working not with bricks and mortar you’re working with as you said with services with governments so actually and I think that that’s I think the The need to keep questioning. Yeah, it’s so important I was listening to a podcast yesterday and they featured actually it was it was Rory Stewart and Mr. Campbell and they featured a guy called Atul Gawande who I’ve known about for a while. Yes, he He ran all the global health programs at USAID, but before that he was a chief medic at Harvard University and et cetera, et cetera. Just an extraordinary man. And he was talking about how the highest functioning hospitals are the ones where they are best at saying every week, this is what I’ve got wrong, and this is what I’ve learned from it. Absolutely, yeah. And not doing that in any performative way, but doing it genuinely. Really genuinely. This is what I’ve got wrong this week. This is someone who died because of things that I got wrong. So we’re not talking about any old mistake, but these are real mistakes. And I think there’s something in that for all of us, you know, and to learn from really. It’s the importance of keeping questioning.

James Whiting: Yeah. And that questioning and the questioning. and being open to hearing the answer because the answer can at times be uncomfortable. It can be absolutely opposite to what you thought. We had a talk from a paramedic from London Air Ambulance and we’ve had an A &E consultant from a major trauma hospital in London, echoing what you said, the urgency and then like, you know, it’s absolutely non -negotiable that they review and they have their cold debriefs. They have their hot debriefs because they need to with absolute room for improvement. do better next time you know and what’s happened has happened there’s things to learn there’s things to bank there’s things to improve and that’s been something quite powerful here but how do we you know when the day doesn’t really stop you know at what point are we taking a step back and reflecting on ourselves on our processes on on how we operate together and that’s been a big a big change because you can be busy there’s no time but actually it’s one asking the questions it’s two being prepared for absolutely what comes through which can be more work but if it’s the right thing because you’re clear on where you’re going it makes it much easier so you mentioned that you know changing the board so there’s new people come on board and I imagine with then how how you grew you then had to hire more people you know and build that how did you go about building that team, how did you go about bringing the right people and not always right from the beginning, but you know, how did you do your best to find people to recruit them, to nurture them?

James Whiting: Yeah, I think things I’ve learned probably, I mean, for me, and I’m sure for most people in my position, you know, there are two things that are just so important. Number one is being really, really hard nosed about your strategy. How do you do something that touches the dial, as it were, on a kind of big scale, even if you’re quite small. And then the second thing is how on earth do you get the right people to be able to implement that? And how do you kind of set them free to really have an impact? And I think I start off from some very kind of simple and rather simplistic things really, which is when it comes to recruitment, I’ve noticed a lot of people, a lot of organizations where I’ve been and things, you know, there tends to be just a sense of, okay, well, we’ll just let HR go off and do that. And we’ll just say, look, we need this person you can go and do. And I’ve never really had that. I certainly haven’t had that attitude. I don’t think that, I think you’ve got to get all the marginal gains you can get when you recruit. So that means if you’re going to use headhunters or agencies, make sure you get the right one. make sure you motivate them like crazy. Don’t just assume because they’re professional, they’re just going to do a job. They’ll do a better job if they’re really, really motivated. And you’ve given them real clarity about not just the experience you want, but actually the kinds of people that you want, what are the kind of attributes that you’re looking for. I’ve always thought, you know, that it’s incredible really that we take people on after a one -hour interview and then maybe a second interview of 40 minutes or whatever. And yet you’re taking someone on who’s going to be integral for the next five years or could be, you know, disastrous for the next year or two and affect the entire organization. So I have no constraints in thinking, well, if we need another conversation, let’s have another face -to -face conversation before we actually say yes. Not just for me, but for them as well, to make sure this is the right place for them to be coming. And because we have… high expectations and all of that kind of thing. So they need to know that and be really clear about it. And I think, I mean, in terms of the kinds of people that I’ve always been looking for, I think we’ve touched on it a little bit. I think for me, I’m always looking for someone who they’ve got a bit of, they’ve got a real entrepreneurial kind of bent to them. Now that sounds like an odd thing when you’re talking about a charity, but actually charities have to be entrepreneurial. They have to be incredibly, you know, if you’re starting from pretty much nothing, you’ve got to be very, very good at getting out there and making things happen and making people want to support you rather than the hundred thousand other charities that are out there. So I’m always looking often for people who come very frequently from smaller organizations because, you know, They have had to get their hands dirty in a whole lot of different places, they’ve had to be self -starting, all that kind of stuff. But I’m also looking for people that have got that humility, not manufactured humility, but a kind of genuine humility of wanting to be better all the time, because they’re the people that will ask those hard questions that we’ve talked about. They won’t just assume that they’re doing the right thing forever in a day. They’ll keep saying, how can I do this better? How can I do this better? I have a wonderful team at the moment. And one of the things that defines them at Doughty Street is their hunger. They’re all hungry to get better and to be doing their job as best they possibly can. As a CEO, once you know that, the job is just to kind of help them to be kind of looking pretty much in the right direction. The rest is, to some extent, be a sounding board, but sit back, let them own it, let them get on with it.

Karen Falcon: Yes, absolutely. And so then as you bring them people into the team, you’ve done a diligent job of doing your best to ensure that the person that you offer that role is going to come in and be successful. How do you then nurture them when they join that team? Because every person who joins, I look at it a bit like jelly. You add someone in and the jelly wobbles and you fit around it. Or sometimes it doesn’t, you know, for various reasons. Or the jelly splits in two. I’ve never used a jelly analogy before. I’m not sure where that one came from, but I guess I see it as something that can move. So every person very much impacts the team, you know, and can affect the team. And how do you continue to nurture people as they nurture, develop, coach, guide? How do you go about that?

James Whiting: I say one thing, first of all, if I may, which is that everybody gets this wrong. And I get it wrong. I mean, I definitely get it wrong. I mean, I’m happy if 75 % of people I recruit really work out. If they really work out, I think that’s a pretty good ratio. But it’s really hard, you know, finding the right people for the right roles in the right organization. Sometimes it’s just not right. And it’s not right for them. So, you know, you have to move on. I don’t have all the answers to this. And if someone does, I’d love to hear more from other people, actually. But I always think, you know, first of all, you as a collective have to make sure you’ve got this incredible strategy. That you have made sure that that small organization, or whatever it is, is moving the dial as far as it possibly could be. You’ve asked all the hard questions. And that person that’s coming in… should either be part of that or they should be coming into something where that has happened. Therefore you should be able to kind of explain to them how exciting this is and with great passion and I do think that I mean you can’t manufacture it but if you’re really passionate about something and you think you’ve found a way to kind of get from A to B in the most effective way possible share that you know get them excited and they almost certainly will be anyway because they’ve that’s why they’ve joined you but and then set them free and kind of Just, I always think a CEO’s job to a large extent is to just try and help remove the barriers from the people that are working for you. Actually, that’s what you should be doing as much as possible. Where are the barriers that are phrasing this person? It could be people, it could be all sorts of things. Well, let’s try and get rid of them. What can I do to help if they’ve got to get, somehow get the biggest advertising company in the world to back them because there’s no other way we’re going to get blah, blah, blah. How can I help to kind of build that relationship or get to that relationship? You know, that to me is the job of the CEO, but it’s to get out the way as well. We had David Beckham supporting us in my last charity for 10 years. I never met him because I knew that the person that was my director of comms and her team were way better with David than I would ever have been. The last thing he wanted was to meet a boring person like me banging on about passion and strategy. Genuinely, they were fantastic with him. I always felt, you know, the CEO is not there just to kind of stick themselves in front all the time. Let other people be out there and leading.

Karen Falcon: Yeah, absolutely. And recognizing when sometimes as that CEO in some of those roles, you could be a barrier.

James Whiting: Absolutely.

Karen Falcon: Yeah. What am I doing that I can get out the way?

James Whiting: Yeah, absolutely.

Karen Falcon: And that’s quite a key thing, you know, if sometimes you have as companies grow, as teams grow. recognizing when you do become a barrier in a process, either because of a skill set, either because of what used to work with five people doesn’t necessarily work with 25 people. And that awareness of where do you now have the most impact is quite key. And one of the things I will often look at, it doesn’t always matter if it’s a head of department in a school or whatever the team, who’s growing the team, the company, the department, who’s running it, you know, and If the people who were once running it need to really be growing it and there’s more people who can run it, at what point do they need to step away a bit to allow others to come in? And then also take on bits of growth because those others can grow even more. And that’s quite an interesting one of opening up the group who are growing. It just is one example of a barrier, which can be quite interesting with almost at that part of a team.

James Whiting: And I think in small organizations, particularly perhaps, but I’m sure elsewhere as well. I think, particularly in small organisations, particularly in small charities, if you identify someone who’s a bit of a star and you’re either recruiting them in or they’re coming through, then promote them early. Give them more responsibility than anybody would expect you to give them at an early stage. I mean, obviously you don’t want to overwhelm them, but… It’s amazing what people, what those kinds of people can take on earlier than other people will think. And I’ve done this, you know, I’ve seen this throughout my career. People have said, oh no, she’s too young. She can’t, she won’t be able to handle that. And you’re kind of like, I think she probably can. But that means you have to get out of the way or someone has to get out of the way to allow that person to be coming up. And ultimately as CEO, you’re the one that has to get out the way. You either have to keep growing and growing and therefore your role is growing in different ways. Or you need to say, look, actually, I’ve got some people that can replace me as CEO. That’s the place where I think we should all be aiming to head towards. And I think that’s really exciting. It’s also a bit daunting because you’ve got to go and find something else.

Karen Falcon: Yeah. Yeah. And that in itself is, you know, when you remove yourself from certain areas to free up and to not be a barrier, there’s something that maybe you’ve done a lot or that’s part of what you do. And you’ve got to get comfortable with not doing that anymore, which is a huge challenge.

James Whiting: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you are really good at this stuff. Yeah. And then someone else is becoming really good at it. Yeah. And you’re kind of like, oh, I’ve got to step away and I don’t know, I’ve got to be more external or something. Or, you know, I’ve got to be more involved with the government or whatever it is that I’m trying to advocate to. And it’s, you suddenly got to learn a little bit. Yeah. But it makes it, makes it fun, right?

Karen Falcon: Yeah. Become comfortable with it. what is uncomfortable, you’ve got to become uncomfortable with. You step out of having that knowledge or stepping in very quickly. We sometimes describe it as an octopus. Where’s the octopus? You know, cause you can be all over everything, but actually to allow others to grow, you’ve got to just bring it in a little bit. And with those, you know, the people that you talk about being, you know, showing that they’ve got that talent and, you know, kind of getting out of their way, maybe promoting them early. Do those kind of people demonstrate particular qualities or does it just depend? Or are there certain things that there’s a pattern?

James Whiting: That’s a really good question. And it’s a very hard one. I mean, I can think of individuals and I can think of things that unite them, but whether, you know, I mean, hunger. I think that’s a, you have to have that. And not everybody does. And I mean a real hunger to get better. And there are flip sides to all of these things, by the way. There are things that are not, you know, everybody, every positive has a bit of a flip side. You know, hunger, the flip side is possibly overwork and overworking others and that kind of thing. But I am always looking for someone that really has a hunger to achieve and to see what they can do better. I do think that humility is incredibly important. Not some kind of, you know, like vocal humility, but a genuine understanding that the answers are out there, that if we’re going to do something, it’s going to need me to suborn myself to partners who are out there. They’ve got egos of one sort or another. By that I mean huge companies or governments or whatever. You’ve got to treat them the right way. So it needs to be someone who’s not just always putting themselves out there, but who recognizes that in order to have a hundred times the impact, you’ve got to build an incredible coalition. of organizations and governments and this and that and the other. That requires actually a degree of humility because you have to, you can’t just be your everything you want to be all the time. You’ve got to kind of think about how that all works. I think people with passion, there are very few people that I’ve worked with who don’t have, who aren’t really successful, who aren’t able to kind of convey that passion. But having said that, within those kinds of things, the people I’m thinking about are very different people. you know, if you met them, you’d think, well, you’re very different to you and you’re very different to you, but they do all share these kinds of qualities, I think.

Karen Falcon: Yeah, yeah. And they can often, they’re a huge asset to a team.

James Whiting: Yeah. I mean, they’re incredible. And I think the CEO’s job is to make sure, A, that their self -confidence is as high as possible, as often as possible, because we’re all human. We all work. Twice as well when we’re feeling self -confident when we get up in the morning and we’re thinking yeah, okay This is great. I’m in flow. I’m really going Whereas if we’re going in to work and kind of going oh I wonder what they think about me or I wonder what they think about me so to help Get over all of that. I think self -confidence trust amongst the team absolutely critical. I mean, books are written about this, but it is so true. And, you know, it’s taken me 20 to 30 years to really understand how important that is. I was reading a book, I think it’s called The Culture Code recently, and they were talking about how you’re really, I mean, you talk about this all the time, Karen, but, you know, they were thinking about how these school kids, young kids, primary school kids were given the old kind of, you know, the spaghettis and the blue tack and how can you build something as high as possible. And then they gave it to a similar number of group of eminent CEOs. And of course, the school kids were better. They did better. They got much higher because they had no issues between themselves. They all just got on and supported each other and helped each other. We all grow these immense kind of issues and things between us, you know, and we’re worried about how we look and all of these kinds of things. And I’ve discovered, and it has taken me a long time to discover that, you know, if you can just… get people so they get to know each other they get to understand each other and we don’t do that if all we’re doing is doing doing doing you know all we’re doing is focused on that you know big ambition that we’ve all inculcated and we’re just what are we gonna do today and tomorrow and the next day we need to go away or get some time and actually get to know each other you know what drives you what drives you Karen what what hardships have you faced What do you not like about the way that people work? What works best for you? I mean, this is all obvious. I know most people do it these days, but we have to really invest in it. Yes. Because it pays off tenfold. It really does. In just in effectiveness and efficiency. Because you’re no longer worried about, you know, people aren’t overreacting. It’s something I call kind of the condemnation of distance. If I’m a bit distant from you, I can be in the same office. Yeah. But if I don’t know you that well and you’re doing something that I don’t think I like, then I’ll go to other people and say, Karen, whatever. If I know you, there’s no way I’m going to do that. I’m going to come and have a chat with you. And I’m going to approach the chat in a very nice way. And I’m just going to say, I just don’t quite understand this. Can you explain it to me? And the difference in time that it takes and the emotions. You know, I mean, it’s incredible. So yeah, these are all things that I think I’ve learned, but it’s taken a long time to learn.

Karen Falcon: Yeah, really. really value that way of looking at it. We’ve definitely had a very deliberate focus on improving self -awareness and improving effectively how we speak and listen, you know, and we have a listening framework, five different types of listening, of course, accompanied by five different types of speaking, but it’s about noticing what does this person need from me now? What am I trying to say? Or what am I trying to listen for? And being very aware of if we’re needing to give this space to listen and learn? Or are we trying to ignite thoughts in other people? Are we trying to, you know, put across an idea that we might want to protect a little, you know, because we don’t want people flip -flopping the whole time, you know. We might want to protect it a bit and actually we get taught to speak grammatically correct, you know, but we pick it up and we would pick it up without books. Listening, we also, it’s innate. Reading and writing, we would not do that if we didn’t get taught it and I always find it very interesting that the amount of teaching that goes into reading and writing compared to speaking and oh my goodness listening. Listening is don’t talk. You know we’re not actually taught how to listen we’re just taught how to not speak and it’s just been amazing for just thinking about those social interactions because any well especially here but so many so many companies services are built on the people you know whether it’s internally externally and those relationships and actually as you say the less we need to process the more we can say, but say skillfully, you know, listen skillfully. We end up with, it doesn’t have to be smooth. It’s not going to be harmonious because actually some brilliant discussions and debates are what we need. But to be able to do that with skill without believing, thinking, ah, do they like me or not? It doesn’t matter. We’re here to work and get the best outcome, which links back to then, you know, that vision or getting them looking to the style that that company created or that team or even that meeting, you know, so they’re aligned on that. Yeah, I really like that. That image you shared. How far apart are people? And therefore, how long will it take them to go and have that conversation?

James Whiting: I mean, this is all the work that you do. So I’m not teaching you anything. I’m teaching you to suck eggs. I mean, you are the expert at this.

Karen Falcon: Not at all. Always good, you know, always, always motivation, always more we can do. Relentless.

James Whiting: Relentless is important.

Karen Falcon: Yeah. Always more places we can practice. We can do it again more skillfully, learning from each other, especially as, you know, as again, as a team grows. There’s somebody else that needs to make those connections across the team. You know, someone else joins. Got to make all those connections again. So everyone is individual.

Karen Falcon: Yeah. Wow. Okay. So you are very thoughtful. You’re very deliberate in how you go about things. You’ve worked, you know, a lot, you know, in very busy environments with, with deadlines, with big teams, with competing challenges asks, how do you have that time to be creative? Because. There’s clearly a piece in you which is about how do we make this better? How do we get the best, you know, and is very aware of the fact that you mentioned listening to podcasts, reading books. How do you get into that space where you are reflecting, creating, planning? What’s the next move going to be? What do we need to do? How do you go about that?

James Whiting: So the first thing is that I want creativity ideally to be coming from as many people as possible, but I have very deliberately tried to find people who I think are pretty creative thinkers to work with me. So the first thing to say is it’s not all about whether I can be creative or not. But clearly as CEO it’s helpful if you can step back. And I think in any job, any job, it doesn’t matter whether you’re CEO or whoever you are, you know, you often find that day to day your to -do list isn’t going down and it’s just constantly constant. And how in that circumstance can you possibly be creative. And I think you just, you have to invest in time and you have to say, look, the only way I’m actually going to get that to -do list down is to work out how to get to where we want to go much more effectively and efficiently. And the only way I can really do that is to go away and get into somewhere that’s more peaceful and where you’re even getting bored. I think some of the you know, greatest ideas that I’ve heard from other people or from myself have been in places where we’ve been really bored. When I was at Malaria No More, I was at a, yeah, I’m sorry to say this about the World Health Organization who are… wonderful organization, but I was at a kind of learning thing that they were putting on and I was getting a bit not there for mine. I was getting a bit bored in the afternoon. Yeah. And just kind of thinking, oh, the global malaria campaign, you know, it’s kind of it’s it really needs a bit of a boost. But like, you know, and I started I just started kind of jotting a few thoughts down. Yeah. And thinking, you know, I wonder if we could get some presidents to kind of get behind it and do this and that. And where would we start if we did that? And blah, blah, blah. And then I went on a run about a couple of months later and I was just running along randomly somewhere in Hampshire. And I think that really helps that when you’re thinking on a run, your thoughts are clear. And just suddenly thought, well, how are we going to get all those presidents? Because I mean, how do I get the president of China or the president of wherever to kind of take an interest in malaria, which must be about two thousandth on their list of priorities. Oh, well, you know, actually we’ve got this connection that we could make to David Beckham or Andy Murray or Elliot Kipchoge. But what could we possibly do? And then suddenly ideas started kind of coming. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those ideas came, A, when I was bored and B, when I was… just doing a run, you know, no emails, no phone calls, no whatever. There’s something in that and there’s something about needing to kind of get away. And so I like when people say, oh, you know, this team needs to do a bit more training. I’m often thinking, right, how can we get you away for more than a day so that it’s not just you’re going somewhere for three hours, getting told a whole lot of stuff and then you’re coming back. Yeah, okay. But if we get you away for a day or two or three or four days, then maybe actually you’ll have a bit of time when you’re a bit bored or you’re just talking to people and you suddenly hear something. And you’re thinking, oh yeah, and it’s those connections, isn’t it? You mentioned books and podcasts. That’s another way to be creative for me. I listen to podcasts like Eat Sleep Work Repeat, and I’m not thinking that everything that I’m hearing from the owner of Dawn Books, who’s now made Waterstones incredible and has now transformed to booksellers in the United States during COVID. I mean, how do you do that? Not an online bookseller. But in -person bookseller and you’re just thinking, gosh, how has he done that? And from that, I might take one or two things, but those one or two things, you know, you bring them into your own space and that’s so exciting. I think so. Yeah. Sorry.

Karen Falcon: No, no, no. The space for thinking, it’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Because it needs deliberate attention. You know, it doesn’t need an hour between two and three because it doesn’t necessarily come, especially if you’ve got lots on. But actually, taking the opportunities when you can create that space to be bored, to not be doing other tasks, is phenomenal. One of the joys of working where this office is, is when I walk back to Waterloo, I have missed many a train, actually, because, well, because you get looking across, you know, you get looking across the Thames, you know, you get looking in Trafalgar Square, you know, you’ve got these, it doesn’t have to be there, because it’s also on the train home, and you know, there’s these lovely fields you go past. And you just get thinking. of yourself or your kind of your context, but in a different space. And I find that that can be incredibly useful of just of the what could be. And sometimes you’re not even thinking about it and that combination of space, which allows your thoughts to do something magic. The trick is capturing it, you know, and doing it. But yeah, so that space, the boredom plus the time away from from your day to day is when you get into into that space.

James Whiting: Yeah, I think so. And the importance of it is almost incalculable, I think. Because it’s at those moments where you make those big mental leaps, in the case of Malaria No More, where I was at before Doughty Street, it was that kind of boredom or that bit of space that suddenly enabled myself and one or two others to be just thinking, well, we could be buying bed nets and treatment for malaria with the money that we’re getting in. And we’d be doing something that’s, you know, world class, because effective altruism movement, that’s one of the things they think is the best investment in the world. But what if we could get governments to be investing 100 times what we can invest in that? Then we’re actually doing that times 100. And so we started to get governments involved and then eventually put on a summit where over $4 billion was raised. And then another one where another $4 .5 billion was raised. But that only came because we had that chance to think outside the box, and literally outside the office. And because of the trust that existed between the members of that leadership team, and indeed the trust we have with people like the Gates Foundation and others. Because if we hadn’t built that trust, if we didn’t have that level of trust, they’d never have said, oh yeah, okay, we’re willing to listen to this. Might sound a bit bonkers and a bit kind of highfalutin, but, and you know, there’s only 10 of you, how on earth are you going to do it? But Well, listen to you, because, you know, we’re friendly, we trust each other, so, you know.

Karen Falcon: Yeah, I find the word trust so interesting, and there’s so many different frameworks that, you know, what is trust? You know, it is one of those that we talk about so much, and in trying to bring it to life, we’ve adopted a breakdown, which is, you know, about that credibility or the capability is about the commitment and the care. And it’s very interesting, those three, because, you know, one of them is very much a skill set, you know, it is learnable and that capability, but that commitment and that care, I just love those two for that care, especially, you know, and also breaking sometimes trust down. Why do I trust this person? You know, actually I trust it on one of the tree or I trust it to a certain extent. Now in different situations, you’re going to want to maybe be stronger or you’re back something because of the other, but it’s quite interesting that the trust you talk about, you are clearly very skillful with those different teams of getting that trust on those different levels.

James Whiting: I’ll say it’s not something I’m particularly naturally, I don’t think I’m naturally very good at it. And I mean that I’m not trying to be, you know, modest or anything. I mean that quite sincerely. I was listening to, you know, Bruce Dazley’s podcast the other day, and I can’t remember who it was, but someone was talking about what you’ve just said, which is that One of the highest markers of high performance is, does someone care about you at work? Does someone care about you? Not, are you included? Not, have they engaged with you? Do they care about you? Genuinely care about you? And I actually find that quite difficult. I’m an only child. I don’t kind of naturally, when I first meet people, I tend to be quite transactional in the way that I’m talking to them. I’ve had to learn a lot and I’m still not very good at it, but I love the people that are because they come in and they say, oh, James, how did your young boy do the other day? Because he told me he was whatever. And you’re suddenly like, oh, OK. You actually listened and you care about that. And it’s all of a sudden that conversation. And maybe if you’ve got something difficult to talk about, you’ve got a bit of a challenging thing, it becomes a lot easier. So, yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. Care. easy to say and very hard to do for me anyway.

Karen Falcon: Yeah. Well, I think you’re probably better at it than you are. I’ll give it credit for, I’d say so. James, that has been a really interesting explore of that work to really get the vision. the right vision that’s going to have a real impact, building a team, identifying people that should be brought into the team and should be encouraged and promoted on, and then going into thinking about, well, how do we create the space for us to make sure that we are pushing, that we’re driving, that we’re daring, and hearing how you’ve really mastered those with a team of people to have some great impact around. So thank you very much for joining us today.

James Whiting: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Boundlessly surprised to be here, but really grateful.

Karen Falcon: Amazing. Thank you.Karen Falcon: What an insightful chat with James Whiting, discussing how to develop a strategic vision whilst bringing stakeholders with you. I loved discussing how deliberately teams need to be built while scaling an organization. These are common threads to strengthening a team, and it is always interesting to hear how this unfolds in different sectors. If you enjoyed listening to that conversation and want to hear more inspiring stories, then you can search Tenzing wherever you get your podcasts from. We’d love you to rate and review this episode. Please don’t forget to subscribe. You can find out more about us on Tenzing .pe, on LinkedIn or on Instagram. Bye for now.