#109 Leading business through people with Vera Quinn

Let's talk Transformation : The business leaders podcast

" life is about taking risks, I don't think you get incredible rewards without incredible risks..... the best things in life are often risky"

A brilliant conversation with Vera Quinn about how to successfully navigate business challenges and opportunities. Vera puts the focus on people and what we can learn from each other if we are open to embracing this. we live in a world where life and systems in general are set up to reward people who are ‘right’ – a leader's goal should be to have smart people and give them a voice for the right answer to come through dialogue/brainstorming.

We discuss the power of people in a digital world and how this can translate into business growth. We delve into valuing collaboration, diverse perspectives, learning from failures, risk management and understanding cultural differences as a way of finding strategies to manage the different pressures in the workplace. Vera also addresses managing CEO pressures, focusing on impactful work, self-improvement, and aligning actions with goals. We also explore true success through peace and contentment, the transformative impact of therapy, and the importance of taking action to overcome challenges and pursue personal growth and positive influence.

If you’ve ever wondered how to navigate the complex landscape of business growth while staying true to your roots, listen to the full episode where Vers generously shares her experience, wisdom and inspiration.

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

- People can be whatever, whoever and however they want, from both a potential and self-worth perspective - transient states do not define us.

- Seeing life through an immigrant lens was very influential personally and professionally to strive for a better life; a formative experience in a sales job talking to people on the doorstep was an opportunity to learn about values.

- Big moves and changes or once-in-a-lifetime experiences can be very rewarding but require risk and risk-taking is integral to entrepreneurship.

- Life and systems in general are set up to reward people who are ‘right’ – the goal of a leader should be to have smart people and give them a voice for the right answer to come through dialogue/brainstorming.

- Leaders can reward speaking up, collaborating and pushing back to encourage risk-taking, and can role model the behaviour of only having the right answer 10% of the time (and reward the process instead).

- Tolerating risk reframes failure, and failure is what happens when we give up: risk is a part of life and failure is a learning, with role models coming in all shapes and sizes – both younger and older.

- Bias training looks at everyone’s unique set of experiences and lens on the world: we need to stop and understand others’ lenses and appreciate that different cultures are real by valuing feedback from other perspectives.

- It will take time to have more women in leadership, but women must organise, support, teach, and advocate for each other – the system will not keep women out as 50% of talent is women and businesses need good talent.

- Employers must understand why there are fewer women in the pipeline for digital and tech – how can we fix the process, make the roles attractive to women? Barriers take time to break down and there is residue bias in older generations.

- The pressure of being a successful CEO is created by the stories we tell ourselves. A commitment to provide an opportunity for employees to create a better life for themselves means focusing on what is important.

- A person’s legacy is forgotten after two generations so it is far better to make the here and now count. In developed countries, we have a responsibility to be the best version of ourselves as we can, having won the birth lottery.

- Delivering on commitments for the long term means eliminating, automating and delegating for productivity and involves a constant cycle to find the highest and best use of your time.

- Definition of success: to feel peace (nothing to do with business) and understand what peace means - peace is about acceptance, not trying to change, being present in the moment and being ok with it.

- Transformative personal experiences from which we change and learn allow us to influence the most people and this flows out into professional life - leadership is an inside job that can influence the culture at work.

- Life is short so we must take the step and not shy away from challenge and regardless of the outcome, we will be better for it - everyone has power in their circle of influence.

- People are always willing to help but we need to ask for it – we are not alone if we don’t want to be; we can change our state immediately by moving in a different direction.