Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Maureen: [00:00:00] Hi. Welcome Michelle Harrison. Thank you for having me. She is the global CEO of Cantor Public, the WPP Group, public Policy Consulting and Research Business. Michelle, why don’t you share a little bit of the conversation that we were having about. Women in business.

Michelle: What I said to you, was the reason why I can’t attend dinner tonight is I had thought that I would be on a very early train outta Brussels tomorrow morning in order to be back with my two younger children by mid morning tomorrow.

My eldest son is now at university and. Actually, when I check the train timetable, the train that takes me back to where I need to get off doesn’t leave until the afternoon tomorrow, which means I don’t get home till mid-afternoon. And I guess what I’ve just been saying to you is I have an algorithm in my mind that I go through with regard to, I suppose.

How much time I can cope with being away from my family at the weekend and somewhere between 11 o’clock in the morning [00:01:00] and three o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday is the point at which I feel I’m no longer going to have my weekend at home with my children and how important that is to me.

And so I had just explained that. I’m being extremely honest and the reason I can’t attend a dinner tonight is because I do want to be home with my kids before lunchtime tomorrow

,

Maureen: so I’m assuming you are away from your family, a great

Michelle: deal of time. It varies. So part of what went into my mind when I was making that decision is I’m just about to go into a period of travel. So next week I’m overseas for three days. The week after that, I’m overseas for three days. And then I do one of my very unusual long hauls when I’m actually away for nine days, and I’m very rarely away at the weekend.

So it might have a period of travel coming up, which does mean I won’t be spending enough time with my kids, which makes this weekend particularly important. If I was going to be working from home for the next two or three weeks, or working outta [00:02:00] London where I live for the next two or three weeks, I would’ve made a different decision.

Maureen: As a global CEO, you don’t always get to be home when you want to. Just so the balancing with family and the people for whom you have responsibility for their livelihoods.

Michelle: If you take on a leadership position in a business, then ultimately you are taking on responsibility for ensuring that business is thriving.

And if that business isn’t thriving, then they. Ultimately that leads to material damage to shareholders and employees. We can be very glib about things like expressions, like work-life balance, but what you actually have is a series of different responsibilities, and if you choose to take a leadership role, you must do that in full knowledge of your obligation.

To the business and all of the stakeholders in that business and to understand yourself, your own, the room you have for maneuver in [00:03:00] also being able to fulfill your responsibilities and your needs to be with your family too. So I don’t think that’s something that , only women or mothers experience. I think that’s a challenge for people in leadership roles who are parents or people who in leadership roles, who have any for of community or family obligation.

I think all of us would have those same difficult conversations in our own minds.

Maureen: In fact, I slide home and then two days later turning around and get in on another plane to see my parents. My dad is aging and my stepmom was gonna be traveling and it’s not an obligation. It’s a desire to be there to help rather than have someone who’s not family, helping my dad .

Michelle: Yes, and I think though where it’s important that we are honest is these things are highly contextual, so they depend. On an enormous number of variables in terms of the circumstances of [00:04:00] your home life at a particular moment in time.

The arrangements you have in place can afford to have in place or have in place because you have familial support versus also where your business is at, or your business responsibilities are at that particular moment in that organizations. Yeah, transition or growth and so where your leadership team are in terms of their own experience and sophistication.

So I think these things are highly contextual. And so when we talk about the trade-offs that people make, I think we have to view them as changing often according to the circumstances of the business or the organization they lead and the situation they’re in at home, for instance. You’re talking about a parent who needs you.

Now, 10 years ago, that may not have been an issue, so it’d be highly contextual.

Maureen: This is just that point in life where I didn’t wanna outsource my parents. Yeah. To your point, the support system and the context [00:05:00] allows us to make different decisions.

Michelle: Yes. So I guess from a leadership point of view, we want to be able to provide an environment where people have the best chance of being able to make the trade offs that are right for them at that time.

Yes. I think one of the other things we discussed before we started recording is that for many years in my. Career as a mother of three, I haven’t always been entirely open about the decisions I was making, and that has come out not quite as I intended. I may not have said The reason I won’t be there is because I’m going to be at home, or I may not have taught very openly about the trade offs I felt I was making.

I would’ve made the same trade offs, but kept them to myself. Over the last few days actually listening to you, there’s been a controversy on the radio as to why women haven’t spoken out about that particular situation at the moment in Hollywood. And I understand that. I understand why people [00:06:00] who do not feel that they are in positions of power feel that they don’t have the position or power to say what’s going on.

So in a very small way. One thing that I can do is to talk openly about the challenges of parenting and leading from a business point of view, and I hope that makes it easy for other people to do the same.

Maureen: Thank you for your candor on that, because I have at times, not spoken out more on the sexual harassment side.

Just tolerated, deflected and tried to get my work done because I didn’t know. If being honest would adversely impact my job with the client or my job with the firm.

Michelle: My guess is that if we had a hundred women in here right now and they were over the age of 16, my guess is they would all say that if they were in an environment where they felt they could be [00:07:00] enlist,

Maureen: and I would love to see that change.

Michelle: My view is though, honestly, it’s about. Inclusive leadership structures. So if I think about the experiences I may have had and why I would not have felt I could talk about them, that would’ve been to do with positional power. Once you have a situation in organizations of endless sort where the positional power is not held just by one particular group, then so many of the things that we are discussing.

No longer exist, so it’s the inequality of who has traditionally held that position or power that makes it harder for another group that’s trying to gain access to it, to speak openly. Once you have fully inclusive boards that are equally proportionate, men, women, and equally proportionate in terms of other types of inclusivity [00:08:00] too.

You remove those challenges to a very large degree. There will always be. The abuse of positional power between Andra and younger, senior and junior. But the issue of it being men versus women is easily removed by changing the pair structures

Maureen: well, especially when we have options for people to report that don’t reinforce the.

“It’s not safe for you to be honest and to take orders.”

Michelle: Yeah, and I’m not at all cynical about that. I think options for reporting have existed for a long time. We still go back to the issue of why they’re not used, and it’s because people fear the consequences of speaking up. And so I think to truly remove the consequences of speaking up, you have to create organizations.

Where men or women or anyone who caves in that way is not in any way viewed as nor. And I think that [00:09:00] becomes, I think we’re getting there. I think we are getting there a do honestly,

Maureen: and I don’t mean to say that all the women can move forward to women or any, it’s on an anti-male thing. No, it’s more of a cultural thing because I had female bosses and I, in some cases I wouldn’t have felt any safer reporting to them, or I do wanna be clear that it’s not.

Specifically a gender issue, but more a culture of deferring to authority?

Michelle: Yes, completely. And I have enormous sympathy for how difficult challenging it must be for men who are having to the vast majority of men who will feel self-conscious about things they’d never, ever dream of participating in the vast majority of men.

So from that point of view, I also think we have to be. Very careful the other way.

Maureen: Yeah. That we’re not reverse Exactly. Engineer. Exactly. Correct.

Michelle: Yes. We’re talking about inclusivity, not exclusivity. Yeah.

Maureen: I think that’s a great point. In no way do I think we improve anyone’s [00:10:00] situation by just shifting the outgroup to a different group.

Michelle: No, and I have two sons and a daughter. When I think about what I want for them, so my daughter is now six or seven years away from entering the workforce and. Sometimes I feel quite depressed that she may enter a workforce where there is still a very real pay gap, gender-based pay gap. That just, that just appalls me.

Why would my daughter earn less than my sons for anything she may do? I don’t love her less than I love my son. She isn’t less able than my son’s. The flip side of that is I also am very aware of what it must be like to be a young man going into the workplace and all of these extra things or burdens they can potentially carry because of not making them vulnerable to being accused of things as well.

So I think we must always move with caution, but the greatest way around this is [00:11:00] inclusivity in leadership. Diversity and inclusion in leadership is. So vital to make it easier as on, on us all

Maureen: moniker. Back to something you said that strikes me, I know people talk about I can’t say anything because of the political correctness, police and, and we don’t wanna go there.

And so inclusivity and a culture of transparency and fairness.

Michelle: Yes. Fairness. And also not being too harsh on people unnecessarily. These things are such a matter of. Balance and caution. I’m aware that when you are in a role where you talk a lot and you talk a lot and you’re very tired and you wish to keep energy in a room and things come, you say things before you’ve necessarily connected with your brain.

I’m aware that if someone did a sort of an analysis of my discourse over the course of a [00:12:00] day. I am sure I say all kinds of things that if I’ve read them written down, I think, oh my goodness, I can’t believe I said that. That’s not an expression of what I believe. And I think that when we are looking at people who are in.

Positions of authority or met and coming from a point of view where they’re more likely to experience complaints. I do think we also need to be really cautious about when we call things out. I think being overly judgmental about language, things like that, that just, that do this with humanity and good sense.

Anyone is capable of saying the wrong thing. That doesn’t mean they’re trying to damage someone’s career. And I think we need to be really cautious. The issues to do with sexual harassment, don’t take us into a position where men feel they can’t talk. For being accused of things that they don’t really think or feel.

And that’s possible and you do have to be cautious to keep that balance. So I think that everyone to move forward with [00:13:00] good grace and the presumption that people do wish to do the best things,

Maureen: but I do have clients, who’ve said, I couldn’t ever say nice outfit, or You look attractive today. ’cause they’re terrified of saying anything that will seem inappropriate and it does seem unfortunate that I could say to you, I love that green blots.

It looks great on you. And if a man said that the rules, the political correct rules say you can’t do that. So I think in some places we have, to your point, not demonstrating grace and kindness.

Michelle: So it’s a pendulum swinging, isn’t it? And I don’t blame people for being concerned about how those things. May be heard.

It’s not what always what they intended to say. It’s how things are heard, and I talk to my sons about this because I want them to be careful and cautious. I think that you get a pendulum swinging, so at the, sometimes you have to swing too far the other way in order to get us back to a good middle place.

Again, it goes back [00:14:00] to this issue of when we have diverse and inclusive leadership in organizations, some of these things will no longer need to be discussed.

Maureen: And the flip side of that, when we have people who are different than us, we’re gonna make mistakes. So to your point, it’s the reason I don’t record live.

I need to be able to edit ’cause I say things that don’t come out of the My mouth, the way I

Michelle: intended. Oh, I think I do this several times a day. And already as we’ve done this interview, and I hope this is a bit that you don’t edit out already as we’ve done this interview, I have felt that I’ve expressed myself inappropriately on a couple of occasions.

And I’ve said things where I was speaking before. I really knew quite how I’d, I’d finished my sentence and I already understand I’ve done that. It is a constant and also. What will happen for someone in the kind of role you are? We are often finding ourselves, having conversations with people we don’t know or people.

I’m very fortunate because I work in such a global environment, [00:15:00] so I have the enormous pleasure of meeting people all the time from different parts of the world, and it is one of the greatest pleasures of my job. But equally, it’s also when I can be very challenged. Through my own pure lack of knowledge and ignorance.

I sat next to a wonderful young woman at dinner a few nights ago who was from Vietnam, and I had just been watching a documentary series and at home in London about the Vietnam War, and I raised this in conversation, and as I did it, I realized I simply did not have enough knowledge culturally to know whether or not this was something.

That she would want to talk about. As a European, I understand those sensitivities across Europe and even to some extent in the U.S. But I, I was immediately, ’cause I, I don’t know Vietnam, I immediately realized that. So I, I think, yeah, we should judge people. It’s like when we do research, we look for evidence from many different areas.

When we are putting together data sets for [00:16:00] governments to base their public policy decisions on, we triangulate, we. Look at a problem from many different angles. And I think, I guess my final point would be on this issue of of leadership and how we evaluate people, we must evaluate ’em from many different areas and allow people the chance to illustrate their true integrity and ethics over more than what conversation.

It

Maureen: sounds like going to intent. Yeah, and we all make mistakes. As much as I can gauge in some of the political banter, I’m so grateful that I am not in that role of people scrutinizing everything I say, because out of context, some very high percentage of what I say could be made to sound mean-spirited or ridiculous.

All uninformed. And I hope we’re not as leaders, we’re all at risk of [00:17:00] that. Yeah. And it seems like the biggest antidote is to create an environment of, the word I love is grace.

Michelle: Yes. That’s a nice word. We do need to be gracious. Yeah.

Maureen: With one another and with ourselves. ’cause as you said, I hear myself and I wish I could reel back in what I’ve said I do as well.

And as soon as I get on that cycle, I inhibit my ability to. Be present.

Michelle: Yes, and actually, yeah. I think in all areas of leadership, I make mistakes all the time. Probably daily. I work on the basis of if four outta five of the decisions I make are the right decisions, we are moving forward. And what I hope is

the decisions I’ve made that are wrong are not fatal to us. And my job is to constantly reevaluate and actually poor decisions are generally decisions that we are yet to just improve on, but we have [00:18:00] to go forward at pace and we have to understand that leadership.

All of us make poor decisions. Regularly. We say things that have been poorly constructed regularly. I will sometimes go home at night. Regretting what I may I. Have said to a colleague, not because of my intention, but how the phrasing of it may have given the wrong impression. And I’m sad that my words may have made someone else feel sad.

So I think I’m, I learned to forgive myself a bit more for those mistakes I learned to understand, to judge people on the basis of a series of behaviors, not single incidents. Mm-hmm.

Maureen: Which is so critical in an environment where many people are afraid. To do anything for risk of being fired.

Michelle: Yeah. , and I can’t bear that.

I can’t bear that. , especially with a senior team, if you’ve put someone into a position because you can [00:19:00] see what their talent is. And honestly, the single best thing to do is to let them be the best they can be and get out of their way. And if they make an odd decision, which is not the one you would’ve made, say what?

As long as it doesn’t. Yeah, of course. And then that needs to go all the way through. The organization all the way down. Our junior people coming in can quickly be able to feel that they have the opportunity to be the trusted advisor in some conversations. Yeah. Thank you so much.