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Unlocking Leadership, previously Leadership 2020, is a podcast helping leadership lead in a world that is changing ever quickly. Join us as we interview even more inspiring people who provide information and skills on how to tackle the big questions affecting today’s leaders.
We blend real-life leadership experiences of our guests with the latest management theory to provide practical, relevant tips for anyone in a leadership position.
Unlocking Leadership asks the big questions about being a better leader in the modern workplace. Hosted by Clare Carpenter.
Unlocking Leadership S6 E9 Helen Bunch
[00:00:00] Clare Carpenter: Welcome to Unlocking Leadership, a podcast about leading in a changing world, brought to you by Corndel, your strategic skills partner. I'm your host, Clare Carpenter.
I'm joined today by Helen Bunch. Helen is the Executive Managing Director for Wates. Alongside that full time role, she's also a board trustee for the Bold and Saucy Theatre Company and a non exec director for Morgan. Helen, thank you so much for finding time to join us today, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:40] Helen Bunch: Thank you.
[00:00:41] Clare Carpenter: Can't wait to hear who you are and how you are and how you got there. Maybe I might hand to you immediately to answer those questions in whatever way feels useful to you. Love to find out a bit more about you before we move into the main conversation.
[00:00:54] Helen Bunch: So I suppose the first thing to say is that if somebody had said to me, and it's often a question that you get asked when you're in an interview, you know, what do you want to be doing in 10 years time, but I'm a bit older than that, so if somebody had asked me, you know, 30 years ago, what are your career aspirations? I don't think I would have put forward. about working for a chemical and plastics company, which I worked for many years, what was ICI no longer exists today, but Dulux and Savlon and all those sorts of things, still do exist, the products still do exist and now I work for a construction and property development and maintenance company and again, wouldn't have even crossed my mind that that would be a sector that I would go into.
You mentioned that I'm a trustee of a theater company and actually that's where my roots were. I did an English and drama degree, have always loved the theater and I guess at the time that I was at university, you know, I sort of was interested in going into theatre or theatre in education, but I realised that there was actually no money in it, unless you were very lucky and I did get offered a position in a theatre company when I finished my degree, but it was basically your salary was going to be a percentage of the takings, which were never very much and I had quite a big student loan to pay off and I saw my friends go off and work for various companies doing these graduate trainee schemes and I looked into it and actually I was really interested by it and so applied for a couple of the graduate trainee schemes and got offered a place with ICI and that's sort of what got me into the world of business and I really enjoyed it.
One of my bosses actually said to me when we were talking about my lack of, sort of professional business training actually said to me that he thought that my background in drama was one of the best preparations for the world of business because often, you know, you're doing big presentations or you're going in and negotiating and you know, you have to prepare for those, you prepare your scripts, you prepare the type of role that you're going to play. In a number of negotiations that I've done over the years, which has been with a team, we've sort of all agreed the parts that we're going to play in a negotiation and depending on what they come back with, where we might take the negotiation, you know, it was almost like being in a play. So yeah, I've loved my time in business and I've been very fortunate that I have done a number of different roles working in different sectors and also working in different countries, which has really produced an added dimension of interest for me. But yeah, today I am a contractor and residential developer. So that's what I spend my time doing.
[00:04:08] Clare Carpenter: There's so much in there, isn't there? So I love the idea of drama being a wonderful basis for you in negotiating and presenting and thinking about different ways of being in meetings and that having resonance for you now. When you were in your graduate scheme, was that one of those things that sort of gave you opportunities to try lots of different areas of the organisation? I'm just wondering about the stream that you took from that graduate entry into business.
[00:04:35] Helen Bunch: Yeah, I mean I, so ICI, which is a organisation that doesn't exist today, but the constituent part still do, but at the time, you know, I think it was sort of considered one of the bellwethers of British industry. It's employed over a quarter of a million people. It was one of the, you know, it was a FTSE 100 company and they had various graduate schemes. So they would have obviously, sort of engineering and science is an important part of what ICI did in terms of the product developments, but they had a, what they called a commercial graduate scheme, which was sales, marketing, business management and so, you go through the interview process and, then they put you into a business and, you know, I sort of changed pretty rapidly, probably about every 18 months to two years in the first few years of my time with ICI, I did different roles within that spectrum of commercial and they also put me through a number of training programs around sort of financials, what marketing is, presentation skills, those sorts of things that sort of give you the base to be able to do the roles. So I started off as a system product manager, I went into the sales office and I worked as a sales office manager, I then sort of became a product manager, I had my own product to manage and then I got given a little business to run, and so sort of had my own P&L. So, you know, it was a really good basis and a lot of support from individuals and you know, you were part of a graduate scheme that networked right across the organisation so you could sort of share your experiences.
[00:06:31] Clare Carpenter: You find yourself today as the Managing Director for Wates and I'm xwondering about the many hats that you might need to wear and swap between in that role and what that feels like for you?
[00:06:45] Helen Bunch: So, I'm the Managing Director of Wates Residential, just to be clear, just in case any of my colleagues are listening. So there's four businesses within Wates and I run one of them. You know, I think, sort of, all the experiences that I've garnered through the various roles that I've had prior to this one has given me a pretty clear idea of what I've got to do, you know, essentially I have a set of shareholders who have a requirement for a certain amount of delivery because of all the investment that they have put into the business and I am sort of given a remit within a market, a service offer, to develop a strategy or a plan of how, you know, we are going to create value with the resources that I have that in my current role are essentially people and money to invest. So, I have to establish a strategy that is going to deliver on my shareholders expectations. It obviously has to be a strategy that is legal, you know, sits within all the regulations that there are, you know, there's more challenges around the regulatory environment that we work in, so got to be within all of those. The whole agenda around environment, social, governance, I've got to make sure, and actually it happens to be a sort of stipulation at the shareholders that I work for, that wherever we work we have a positive impact on the environment and the communities that we work in. So again, how we work, I have to make sure that it has that positive impact and it's within the internal governance requirements, but also the external governance requirements of the sector that I work in and then, you know, that strategy has to be clearly communicated so that... because I actually don't do anything. I can't do the strategy, I can't make the delivery happen. So I sort of see a key part of my role is about putting the right team in place with the right capability set and giving them the freedom, but the resources and the clarity of what they have to do and being there to support them and, you know, making sure the strategy is working and can be delivered. Sometimes you start a plan and, you know, some of the assumptions you made don't quite work. So you have to reel back and rethink and find another pathway through. So for me, you know, the role of a leader, those people skills, that communication skill is really important because if my team and I've got circa 340 people in my business, if my team aren't clear about what they've got to do, then the strategy is not going to be delivered correctly. Also, it's about creating the right environment so that they can deliver well and also feel that they can feed back up, you know, because business is a two way thing and, you know, things change, you know, I doubt that there's ever anybody who's sort of set a three year strategy and within that three years hasn't changed anything because, I mean, certainly in the world that we live in today, it moves around a lot, you know, you have to adapt to the situations that you find yourself in and, you know, my team are out in the marketplace, they're interacting much more than I am with our customer base, our supply chain is really important to us, the political environment is very important to us, the communities that we work in are very important to us. So getting it right for all of those people is critical to successful delivery and if things are changing, then we need to adapt and I need to, you know, that needs to be fed back up. So that whole people engagement, communication, ensuring you've got the right set of capabilities, ensuring you've got the right structure so that you can efficiently disseminate information and also responsibilities is important and I think the other thing that I've sort of, whenever I've gone into a new role, I've always worked my professional life in commercial organisations. So it is about value creation, you know, I said, I have never been trained, I was never trained in chemicals or plastics, I was never sort of formally trained in construction or property, you know, they are new markets. So one of the things that I always pretty immediately spend time on trying to understand is what I refer to as the levers. What are the levers that we have to create value and, you know, how far can we work them? And, you know, and they're sort of often quite high level questions that I just, you know, constantly keeping my eye on to make sure that we're heading in the right direction. And I think maybe the third thing, I mean, it goes back to the people again, and it's a little bit to helping me do my role, but also what has enabled me to get to the positions that I found myself in is the network that I have developed over the years, you know, informal mentors and it goes both ways. When I can help people, I will always look to help people. I have received a lot of help in terms of good advice, sounding boards, constructive challenge, whether it's on maybe business decisions where I just want a fresh pair of eyes. to help me look through things, or whether it's on personal decisions for me about my next career move. That network that I have today still plays a very important part in my business life as well as my personal life.
[00:13:12] Clare Carpenter: Yeah, I think that last point is really fascinating to explore maybe a little bit more as well because it's really interesting, isn't it, to think about how you spend time developing your, I don't know, your bench, your support network, but actually your challenge network is as important, isn't it, as the support network that's available to you, people who, especially in the more senior roles that you've had and the one you have now, who will have the challenging conversations with you, who will perhaps show you something uncomfortable that other people are not going to.
What advice or encouragement would you give people who are approaching perhaps their first senior leadership role where they have less access to a big peer group to find people like that who will challenge them along the way in a, as you say, constructive way?
[00:14:04] Helen Bunch: I mean, as you will know, being a professional coach, you know, you can pay for it and I have had, over the years, professional coaches that have helped me with, sort of very significant transitions. What I've always been clear with when I've had those coaching sessions is a clear set of objectives and also I met with a number of different people to find the right chemistry because a coach that works for, you know, one situation might not be the right person for five years later when you're in another situation.
So, I think there are situations when professional coaching is really valuable. I think in terms of, like, finding those informal ones, it's being mindful to it, you know, being conscious of thinking, I need to develop my network and I think when you are maybe earlier in your career. You probably meet people that you think, gosh, you know, you connect with them, you like them and they have experience that would be invaluable to you to be able to share and what I would just encourage somebody to do is just approach them. I mean, nine times out of ten, I have found that people are willing to help and you know, if they say no, don't take it personally. It may be because they are super busy, but I get approached about it now and actually I find it very flattering and because I'm quite a nosy person, I'm always interested in people. So, you know, if anybody's listening right now and sort of thinking, you know, I need to build my network, I would say be conscious about it and when you find yourself in those situations where you're meeting people and you might find it's a good friend. But you just had never thought about them in that way. But if you find yourself in situations where you're meeting other professionals and you know, you think you click with somebody, ask them. All they can do is say no. The one thing that I would say is that I am very clear if I'm ever asked to be a mentor, whether it's in a formal or informal ways, the responsibility is on the mentee. Don't expect the mentor to do the chasing, put the dates in the diary, you know, they are doing you a favor. So make it easy for them and go prepared, having a bit of thought about what you want to get out of the session, what help you're looking for and actually just recently, I got approached by somebody and we had a long chat and I realised I wasn't the right person to help them, but I knew somebody who was, and I put them in touch and they're off now, talking to each other, so you never know which way it's going to go. But I would say nine times out of ten, in my experience, people have always been very willing to help, as long as you're sensible about what you expect from them.
[00:17:08] Clare Carpenter: I think that's really good advice because I don't know if it's a cultural thing and I'm interested in your view on this because you've worked in different countries in your career as well. I wonder if in Britain, I wonder if we are more reticent to ask for help from people to whom we don't necessarily have an immediate line of responsibility than we are in other countries. I don't know the answer but, and I'm sure it's a generalisation either way, but I wonder if your experience is similar in the other countries that you've worked in.
[00:17:39] Helen Bunch: I can't say I've noticed it sort of from a country perspective. I definitely notice it from a male female perspective.
[00:17:46] Clare Carpenter: Do you? Yeah.
[00:17:47] Helen Bunch: You know, I think the whole gender question, you know, is definitely moving positively forward. I've seen sort of big changes in the time that I've been working, but I have worked all my life in male dominated industries and most industries are male dominated and there are a lot of informal already sort of male networks in place. I mean, what you're finding now in many organisations, that a lot of organisations are putting in, you know, all sorts like, establishing networks, not just for sort of women, but for ethnic minorities, so you don't feel isolated and particularly in the business that I'm in at the moment, where the majority of our people are out on different construction sites, you might be the only woman on a construction site, so you might feel quite isolated. So, we in Wates, we have a Women and Allies Network, we have a Race and Allies Network, and I think there's more and more of that happening and my experience is, because we're overtly putting these structures in place, I'm seeing more people sort of willing to put up their hand and ask. I think it's sort of being, you know, everybody's talking about imposter syndrome and, you know, the fact that we talk about it now means that you can do something about it and people sort of realise, oh, I'm feeling, you know, I'm like this because I'm feeling imposter syndrome and I've sat and listened to various talks and I realise this is ridiculous and I shouldn't be shy about talking.
So I think there's a lot more encouragement today to do it, certainly in the organisations that I'm involved in and what I hear from others, but ultimately it does come down to the individual and maybe we Brits, you know, there's still a little bit of that stiff upper lip. I don't need any help. I can do it by myself attitude. But it definitely seems to be a topic and an encouragement I see it a lot more.
[00:19:44] Clare Carpenter: Yeah. I think there's a lot more to say about that rather than get sort of stuck in it, I think that what you're sort of moving towards as well is this sense of inclusion really meaning that actually, rather than it being another part of the board agenda, you know, what are we doing on EDI this month, you know, what do the numbers say. Actually, do people who work here feel like they belong here and is it something that's important to us as an organisation? Sort of leads me towards that question around I wonder what your experience has been in your career about where you have either a convergence or a divergence of your own values and the way that you show up in the world versus what you think you have and what you found in different organisations without asking, putting you on the spot with individual businesses, of course. But I wonder if you've experienced that shift and change of values and the impact that's had.
[00:20:37] Helen Bunch: I've definitely seen a positive shift over my 30 plus years in business. You know, I think either I've been extremely lucky, you know, I've worked twice in Japan, I've worked a lot in Asia, which again, you know, as a country, sort of traditionally is viewed as very male orientated and now obviously I was a westerner in Japan, so that sort of made me slightly different to the Japanese women that I was working with in the office, I was viewed in a slightly different way. But having said that, I still made tea or coffee because that's what the women in the office did and I would have discussions with my Japanese colleagues, males and females about this. But I was quite happy to do that because the men, their job was to clean the office at the end of the day. So I was like, actually, I'd far rather make a cup of tea or a cup of coffee for the guys who're sat next to me in my row desks then have to stay behind later and sweep up the office and I felt like there was a fairness in that. So even though there was sort of some maybe typical female roles like making the tea or those sorts of things, the harder labor of cleaning the office was down to the men. I felt like, well, at least there was a sharing of duties there, that I felt comfortable with.
I mean, we did have conversations, they asked me a lot about my life back in the UK and I was very honest with them, but, you know, I've never felt in any organisation that I have worked in that I've had to compromise my values and I think my values are probably pretty normal compared to most people's. I have had a situation where I was given a promotion, which I was absolutely delighted about. I then subsequently found that the other two people who were given a promotion, to the same sort of job title and in fact their business areas were smaller than the business area that I was given, were on a grade higher than me, and I thought it had to be a mistake. So when I questioned it, I was told that it wasn't a mistake, and that the reason why I was a grade lower was that basically we were all given a promotion from our previous level. So these two guys were already a level above me because of the jobs that they were doing and I couldn't work out that logic in my head in any way and I questioned the fairness of it. I mean, this is going back quite a number of years now, and the policy was the policy, which sort of didn't quite stack up with their fairness value and it got to the point where I felt very let down by my management as well, because when I spoke to my manager, it was like, how can you justify this? You know, you're asking me to do exactly the same, and yet I'm being paid less. In fact, the money wasn't the issue. It was the fact that I wasn't being treated equally and so I resigned and then when I resigned, the Chief Exec got involved and it all suddenly got corrected. But for me, the damage was done and I shortly left the business after that because I had lost trust and confidence in being treated fairly.
So it's something that me as a leader, I'm very conscious of, as I look at my own teams and treating them fairly and I often talk to people about the fact that I've been very fortunate in the people that work for me, but I could tell you that probably 90 percent of the guys that work for me, when it comes to that time in the year, when you're sort of doing the reviews and the salary reviews, they all come to me asking as a minimum for a 10 percent salary increase. I could probably count on one or two people, females, in my time and I've been fortunate enough, I've had a number of females who reported directly to me who had asked for a salary increase. I think it's again, it's a pretty common thing that as women, we're not sort of forthright. We expect to be recognised rather than ask and when the guys would come, I would always ask them, which they were very surprised by and if they carried on working for me, they knew in the future that they had to explain why they had earned a 10 percent salary increase and why I wasn't going to give everybody a 10 percent or 15 percent salary increase and so, you know, fairness is really important to me and aside from that one incident, fairness is something that I hope guides me in how I lead my teams and my business and it's, you know, it's not just about salary, it's about opportunity, it's about training, it's about experience, it's about exposure, it's about recognition and making sure that you're fair to everybody on those things.
[00:25:42] Clare Carpenter: It brings, I mean, language is a thing isn't it, but it sort of makes me feel like you're talking about equity rather than equality. You're sort of thinking about, you know, everybody could be treated equally unfairly, but that doesn't make it right. Fairness is such a fascinating psychological trigger as well, isn't it, for so many of us.
Let's perhaps move from there and think about then as you're encouraging people to develop and perhaps one of the skills that they're developing is the capacity to stand in front of you and or another and say, I've done this and I believe that to be worth something here. But there's a really strong sense of development in that for you. What would you share in terms of the importance of people development? You've said a couple of times how people are a really important resource for you. In fact, in your current role, I think you said them above all else, it's your people who are out there, you know, meeting your customers, dealing with your suppliers, your supply chain. What do you have in place that feels really important for you in terms of people development then?
[00:26:40] Helen Bunch: I think it's having a process where between a manager and the people, team that they manage, you have a good process to discuss development, but it's also about individuals ambition. So I suppose there's sort of two types of people development. Most people, sort of come into a role and are doing some sort of functional technical job, you know, even if you're a salesperson, there's maybe negotiation skills that you need to develop. So, I mean, certainly I would encourage anybody early on in their career to take whatever learning opportunities that they are being offered and if they're not being offered anything to ask about them. You're always going to learn something.
Also, it's a great opportunity to meet other people in your field that maybe aren't connected directly with your area of work that could become good allies or mentors or whatever and then there's sort of the personal development and I think this is where the conversation that you have with your manager and a good manager, part of their responsibility is to develop their people and that, you know, my philosophy has always been to try and employ people that are better than me because it's going to make your life a lot easier and you know, never be worried if that they go on and flourish. If you've done a good job to help them succeed, they'll probably look down on you and look after you in the future, but I digress. A manager's job is to develop their team and develop people and, you know, the first part of that is understanding, actually, do people want to be developed? What is their ambition? Sometimes you maybe have to be a bit truthful with them if the ambition is crazy. So, sort of having honest discussions, but I would hope that a manager doesn't close down somebody's ambition and then sort of breaks it down and says, okay, how can we help you develop? And again, it's not always about going on a training course or going off to Harvard to do an MBA. It might be about taking on a project and getting support, so you know, you stretch yourself a little bit. It might be about going and working with a new team, because I've certainly learned a lot from working with different people. People have different styles. It might be about planning your career progression and sort of if somebody expresses the desire to go on and be a project manager and they're a site manager today, for example, looking at, you know, well what are the skills? What's the experience that you need to gain? And then mapping out how are we going to get you from where you are today to be able to demonstrate you have the capability to take on that next level of role? So I think there are a variety of ways of the development, but you know, I do believe the responsibility sits with you as the individual, to ask for that help, be open to it, be open to ideas that may not have seemed obvious to you, i.e. it's not just about going on a training program, but taking on a project, or you know, one of the things that we encourage in Wates and certainly, I benefited from it was, it's doing some voluntary work, you know, I became a school governor and I did it for eight years and I got an immense amount of learning. I mean, and that's what sort of propelled me into taking on a non exec role because it taught me how I can bring value to an organisation when I'm not actually working in that organisation, and you know, there's hundreds and thousands of companies who would welcome volunteering, you know, particularly if you think of not for profit organisations, a bit of consultancy or some mentoring for their people. Again, you know, all of those things will add to your experience and add to your development. So I think there is loads of opportunity out there, but often people just sort of think I need to go on some very expensive training course or go and do a year's study. That might be the solution in some cases, but I think often in many cases it isn't, and often it's not practical. You know, they can be very expensive or they can be extremely time consuming and, you know, you've got to fit it in with your life as well.
[00:31:12] Clare Carpenter: I think that's really interesting advice as well. There's something about, and it's connected to what we were talking about earlier around networking and around mentoring and actually asking for support and asking for feedback from people who you've admired or you see as a potential role model, isn't it? That says you actually do have to put yourself out there as well as expect it to come to you. There's a mutuality of that sort of learning and development responsibility, isn't there? It doesn't all sit with the organisation that you work for.
[00:31:41] Helen Bunch: And you know, you do have to stretch yourself a little bit and put yourself a bit out of the comfort zone. But again, you know, with a good manager, that's something you can talk about and sort of say, what are my safety nets around me? You know, who do I go to if you are very worried about that? But again, from my personal experience, I mean, I've gone into jobs where I've had no experience in the sector, but you know, I've had to take a bit of confidence from the fact that my senior managers think that I can do it. So let's give it a go. But again, I work with them to make sure that I'm staying safe, not taking the business careering off somewhere it shouldn't be going.
[00:32:20] Clare Carpenter: I love that. People usually say, well, you know, just jump in at the deep end, I sort of go, yeah, that's okay if you know you can swim. There's something else that might be needed if you're not sure yet.
As we come to a close in our conversation today, I wonder what you might like to offer people who, I don't know, potentially in a place of listening to our conversation going yeah, I sort of understand that, and you know, in my role, I don't really know where to start with that. Where's a good starting point for people to go to do you think in terms of this networking or mentoring or asking for more place for them?
[00:32:58] Helen Bunch: Well I suppose it's, what are you wanting to get out of it? You know, if you're feeling like you need a mentor, what is it to do? Is it to help you with a business problem or is it to talk about your career? Because you might not want to talk about your career with somebody who's in the business that you're in now. You know, it's sort of thinking about what is the issue that you're wanting to tackle, which might help you, you know, if you think about that, then that might help you think about, well, this has got to be outside of my immediate work environment. So where can I go? Are there friends? Are there people in my family that I can talk to that might know somebody? Am I on any training programs that are sort of away from work? I suppose it's being a little bit strategic, but knowing what you want to get out of it, I think is the most important thing to start off with because also when you, whether it's finding the mentor or the development that you want to do, you've sort of got to have an idea of the point that you're trying to get to. Otherwise, you know, you might have found this wonderful person to talk to and they're going to sort of sit there expecting you to sort of say, I want to do this and you just start chatting away, and they've got no idea how they can help you. So I think it sounds a bit obvious, but it's most important thing to get clear on and I think that will then help you work out where you go find that.
[00:34:23] Clare Carpenter: Yeah, I think that's really pragmatic. It's this sort of, what's the outcome you want and then what are the steps you're going to take towards it, isn't it? Rather than it being get a mentor, it's actually learn how to ask for what I want in a meeting where I feel like my voice is quieter than other people's.
[00:34:39] Helen Bunch: I suppose the only thing I wanted to just sort of add is just don't be shy because my experience is that people on the whole will help if they can.
[00:34:48] Clare Carpenter: Yeah. Well, you know what? On that note, let's close our conversation. Thank you so much for your time today. That has been such an insightful and really thought provoking conversation. So I love the way it's closed as well. Don't be shy, ask for help, people will generally help even when you think they might not. Wonderful advice. Thank you so much for your time this afternoon.
[00:35:09] Helen Bunch: You're welcome.
[00:35:10] Clare Carpenter: Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode of Unlocking Leadership, you can subscribe through all the regular podcast channels and please do leave us a rating and review there. We'd also love you to share any episodes you've found interesting so that others can join the conversation and share their experiences.
This podcast was made in association with Corndel. It was produced and edited by Story Ninety Four