Nia Thomas [00:00:02]:
Hello and welcome to the Knowing Self, Knowing Others podcast. I'm your host, Nia Thomas. Join us as we discuss self aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. I'm delighted to be joined by Neil Woodbridge and he's the dynamic CEO of Thurrock Lifestyle Solutions which is a social enterprise that he helped to grow from a very small initiative in 2007 into a thriving organization which is supporting over 200 disabled people with over 5 million million pounds turnover. Under his leadership, TLS pioneered the experts by experience model and he'll tell us a bit more about that shortly. Ensuring that services are co led by disabled people who serve as equal directors and active decision makers. Formerly a community service manager at a local council, Neil has driven bold transformations in local care provision. Closing traditional day centres, launching community based hubs and embedding the social model of disability into governance, favouring and empowerment over passive support.

Nia Thomas [00:01:07]:
A passionate social entrepreneur and advocate for self directed lifestyle, Neil brings both lived experience, leadership and strategic vision to the table. Neil, it is brilliant to have you on the show.

Neil Woodbridge [00:01:18]:
Thank you very much. Kind of recognize myself, I'm very flattered, but yes, thank you.

Nia Thomas [00:01:23]:
So tell us about your board and what does experts by experience mean?

Neil Woodbridge [00:01:28]:
Yeah, sure. So in 2007 when we were first forming the company, which seems a long time ago now, we kind of went through our whole phase of thinking about how we would do this and we realized it all sounds rather obvious now, but people with lived experience really are the people that know what might be best for their contemporaries, if you like. So for us it was about saying actually we're going to form a community interest company and it will be led by and for disabled people themselves. So when I sit on my board, everybody who's a director, and I'm not a director, I'm an employee as a chief executive officer, has to identify as a disabled person. And that brings a massive breadth of skills to the board, anything from Asperger's and autism. Which means that people will say things to me, oh, you know, section 3.2 of the Memon art says you can't do that without three signatures. And this, you know, lots of detailed knowledge through to people with the lived experience of cerebral palsy and how that impacted on them and different types of schooling. And so basically our model of selling the products, if you like, the support that we support, we sell first.

Neil Woodbridge [00:02:29]:
People within local authorities in Thurrock here is based on what they've designed for themselves.

Nia Thomas [00:02:37]:
That is quite different and not everybody is working to that model because some People are still quite reticent of working alongside their service users or their customers or their clients.

Neil Woodbridge [00:02:49]:
Absolutely. I mean, I get a lot of shtick. Even today, people say to me, it's not real. You're in charge, this is about you. It's not about the disabled people. They'll just do what you say. So what I do is I invite them to come and sit on my board and just observe. And at the end of it, they say, my goodness, how do you do it? You know, it's quite incredible.

Neil Woodbridge [00:03:08]:
We've learned lots of tips and tricks over the years, but the truth is, I often say to people, so if you think your board are going to go off subject, not know what they're talking about, not understand the finances, then come with me and sit in a local government council meeting.

Nia Thomas [00:03:23]:
Absolutely. So tell us about your leadership style. Why is it important that you have experts by experience sitting alongside you and leading alongside you?

Neil Woodbridge [00:03:33]:
For me, it's about inclusivity, so I don't like to be. I often base a lot of my model of leadership on how terrible it was for me as a Saturday boy in the late 70s at Tesco's, where the manager would call me Woodbridge and basically just shout commands at me without any understanding about why I was doing what I was doing and for whatever reason. And for me, it's about getting people alongside, identifying their skill set and because we believe that everybody has gifts. So no matter how disabled you are, you've got a gift, some knowledge about something, some way of doing something, there'll be really useful for the business and we help people. My leadership style is to support people to find their own gifts and then work on that and build on them to help the business.

Nia Thomas [00:04:15]:
I'm lucky that I've spent a little bit of time in your company and watches and listeners. I've. I've worked with Neil, probably on and off for the last three years, and I'm lucky that he's come and talked to colleagues and, and we've listened to how he leads and advice that he has. You are very aware of the role that you have and the impact that you have as a leader and a co worker. How did you get to this place of awareness?

Neil Woodbridge [00:04:40]:
Very good point. I think, like everybody, as you, as you go on your journey, of your working journey, you know, the. The Tesco's manager, I wasn't particularly fond of their style when I was 15, you know, and then as I went through, over time, I've met people that have been fantastic leaders who've led me and so I kind of steal bits really from them as I've gone along. Thought that's actually a really good way of doing that. It's okay to be like this. And there's also something as well about not having too much ego. Ego is a pretty terrible thing to have in, in the, in the leadership world because it gets in the way and it blurs your vision. And so understanding what that means and have.

Neil Woodbridge [00:05:18]:
And avoiding that means that I've. I'm very conscious so I actually, it's an old fashioned word but I like a bit of humility. You know, who am I to be doing this at this point? Even today? Yeah. As you say, the business has grown massively. We're pushing near a 6 million these days turnover. But turnover is vanity. Profit is SAN, remember. So we kind of like, you know, I'm not really.

Neil Woodbridge [00:05:37]:
I don't say, oh, I've got 6 million turnover. I talk about impact. What's the impact on the people that we're supporting? How different are their lives now? What is it we could do better? Constantly improving, never thinking that we're getting there, always willing to upset the, the norm if you like. Oh look, we've always done it in this way. Let's do something different with it then. Is part of my, my leadership style and all my evidence base is by having people alongside me. So if I do public speaking I take one of my directors with me and, and let them do. Because they're much better at it than me.

Nia Thomas [00:06:09]:
Amazing. I've heard you talk about neurodiversity and what neurotype you might be and how it's very much shaped your energy and your drive that you bring to your leadership. Tell us about you've harnessed your uniqueness in this leadership role.

Neil Woodbridge [00:06:27]:
Yes, it's a really good point. Really. I mean, yeah, I mean I haven't been completely formally diagnosed but I do identify as having ADHD because of the nature of the sort of alleged superpower that that gives me. I am slightly. I don't expect other people to work like this, but I do give 110. I tend to be up at 6am I go through till 10 when I go to bed and I don't watch much television, do you know what I mean? So it's not about. I have a lot of social life as well. I go see a lot of bands, I'm into sailing.

Neil Woodbridge [00:06:57]:
I've got all sorts of other things that I'm involved in lots of charities that I support. But what that does enable Me to do is have a hundred ideas before lunch. The reality of that as well is I deliberately, part of my leadership style is to surround myself with people who are the opposite to me and will go, well, hang on a minute, that's 10 things you've just said there in one sentence. And you're speaking very fast like you do. I now need to separate out what one of those are we going to work on? And actually that one won't work because of this reason. And so once you understand your kind of psychometric type, if you like, then it's very useful to have people around you that are going to give you the level head and say, well, hold on a minute, let's see how we best might do this.

Nia Thomas [00:07:35]:
Was there a point where you had a light bulb moment and thought, actually, the way that I am doing things, I do need people to balance me out?

Neil Woodbridge [00:07:44]:
Absolutely, yeah. I think I had a period in my career where I chose to go and work in local government and unsurprisingly, I really didn't fit in. And I was always labeled a maverick, I was always in trouble for not following the rules, etc. Etc. But I could definitely see the whole time better ways of doing things. And during that period, I think I realized then that I needed people around me to say, whoa, hang on a minute, love what you're saying, but actually this is how we're going to do it. That's not to say your energy can't, you know, be used, but in a local government context, I'm their worst nightmare. You know, in TLS context, as in thorough lifestyle solutions, you know, with things like on a Monday.

Neil Woodbridge [00:08:24]:
A few years ago now, we decided that a brilliant idea was to have a camper van to take people on respite. So you'd have autism, you could set the van up exactly how you wanted it and then your respite would take you to where you wanted to go. So you go to Cornwall for a weekend or whatever in this van. So that was on the Monday. By Wednesday, we'd bought one on ebay and by Friday we launched it. Now, in local government, that would take six to nine months, would be super fast, if not two years. It failed for all sorts of reasons, but. But it.

Neil Woodbridge [00:08:50]:
And then. And it actually got stolen. So we cashed the insurance in and didn't buy another one. But it was a good idea. We tried it really quick. We failed fast, if you like, and we put that one to bed. And in local government, that's just simply not possible.

Nia Thomas [00:09:01]:
No, I agree and as you say, there is definitely something about humility with that test and learn. And you know what? It didn't work. We got to move. How do you take people on that journey with you so that people don't feel like a failure? It is very personal.

Neil Woodbridge [00:09:16]:
Yeah, very good question. I mean, for me it's about. You'd have to speak to my team. But when we do, you know, 360 reviews or whatever, I am seen as a good confidant, I'm seen as someone who, who can be trusted and that you have to earn. You know, what is it? Trust arrives at the speed of a tortoise and disappears at the speed of a hair or something like that. He's not an expressionist. And for me, I work a lot on trust and I, I won't let my team will shoulder the responsibilities if there are risks that are involved. And you know, I.

Neil Woodbridge [00:09:46]:
And also the beauty of working for people with learning disabilities in particular is they make me slow down. So in order to understand me, they make me make things into simple language so they understand, hence our accounts, that we have an easy read version of our accounts, et cetera. And that helps keep everybody on track. So when it comes to my management team, I don't expect them to go out and randomly decide we've had a really good idea, we're going to burn down a day central or something crazy, you know. But I do expect them to say, we've had this really good idea, we want to change this, can we talk about it? So it's about that communication, sharing the risk across us and if things do fail, sharing that failure. But me ultimately being the ultimate person of responsibility that will be accountable to the board.

Nia Thomas [00:10:27]:
How do you protect yourself and your team from burnout?

Neil Woodbridge [00:10:32]:
Yeah, really good point. So we've really got into as an organisation, supporting each other and wellbeing. So we made the decision a long time ago. We actually employ a counsellor. Yep. For a few hours a week. And what she does is lots of the senior leadership team. I don't necessarily know if someone's going to see her.

Neil Woodbridge [00:10:50]:
I've been very public in my own. When I've had a few deaths around me over the years, like you do when you get to my age and some particular tragic ones of young people that I supported who died and I've been to the counsellor to talk about that and the impact that that has on me and I was quite public to the team about that and I think again, that's a good leadership is saying, hey, I'M human, I'm not a robot. And so we put that into place. We do things like the duck race, which is this thing where we get people to choose a duck at random. I've got this silly little program online, so you come to an online conversation with me, a Q and A where the entire team, you know, can have up to 150 people there, will come and ask me any question that they would like. But as part of that, you put. You choose a duck and then I run a race on the live screen and whichever duck comes first, we give them £250 and. And people.

Neil Woodbridge [00:11:37]:
And it seems, for whatever reasons fates means the right people win that often. And we also employ a masseur now, so we have free massages for the team, because I used to get that years ago when I worked for people with autism and I really rated it. So we're part of a spa, a Thai spa locally. We give them business and people go and have a massage there, which has taken off. We've got lots of debt advice, counseling, as I say, stuff that people understand. We're trying to take care of you as an organization because, yes, we would love to pay you more money. Reality is, we don't get paid enough to be able to do that. It's not just money.

Neil Woodbridge [00:12:10]:
While you work in, particularly the caring profession, we recognise that, but at the same time we also want to recognise you. So we do monthly or six weekly. I think it is staff awards, where. Staff recognition awards, where we give people vouchers for different shops and that as a thank you and good examples of their good practice that are shared with everybody else. So we're continually looking at ways of recognition, praising and giving people the support and professional love that they need. Having said that, there are still people that sometimes say, it's not for me. And that's absolutely fine. That's absolutely fine.

Nia Thomas [00:12:42]:
A lot of what you talked about and the way that you've described your organization, your style, your culture and your team, there seems to be a lot about balance. Million miles an hour. But actually we do something to balance that. Is that something you consciously think about in terms of balance, or is it. Everything is sort of individual and you think about the leadership and you think about the processes, or do you think about balance?

Neil Woodbridge [00:13:08]:
I think it is all about balance, you know, And I think it kind of. It almost happens naturally, because thinking about it, that probably is my style. So although I talk about long days, for me, my work finishes, I meet up with one of my older children, I go to a Gig in London, I come back to Grace, I come home late, I might sit and quickly do something that I'm thinking about and then I'll go to bed and then I'll get up. You know, it kind of blends. So maybe it's more of a blended approach and a balance. But I'm absolutely clear, you know, we've increased our maternity rights for people because we think people should have more time off with their children. We're always happy. Please not.

Neil Woodbridge [00:13:43]:
But if someone gets seriously ill, the board will always give people extra pay off, you know, time off with pay if they're genuinely sick. Obviously there's stuff like that. People who've. Someone wanted to go on their hajj recently and we supported them to go off and do that. If you come to our annual general meeting and we're doing well, if it's a good year and we've made profit, then what we'll do is you can nominate some, some local charities that you like and we will have a card system that people can vote, a vouch system so that the people that come to the AGM vote and then whichever one gets the most gets money donated to them. So we're always trying to kind of do exactly that, that sort of balance. I think you're quite right.

Nia Thomas [00:14:19]:
You've talked about a lot of things that you do in your organization. If people want to find out more about what you do in your organization and how you do it, how do they find out about it? Do you have a blog or is it a conversation or could they invite you or pay for you to come and speak? So how does it work?

Neil Woodbridge [00:14:38]:
Part of the social enterprise ethos, as you know, is we give away everything as much as we can to other social enterprises. If you're a for profit organization with shareholders in a Canadian pension fund, I'm not particularly interested. But if you're genuine people trying to make a difference in your community, we will show we do like. For example, one of the things in our industry is carers. Parent carers can be quite tricky so we offer a service called a parent dectomy, which is the removal of the parent from the child. It's quite painful and it takes a few years, but. But what we do is we talk to other parents from other, say, say, I don't know, Essex or Luton or another authority want to come with a group of parents to see what we've done to help them change their mind about their young people and see what their future might be. We're always happy to do that.

Neil Woodbridge [00:15:18]:
And that's free. You know, Sonny and I, who's my. One of my principal directors, one of the founders, will come and give talks about our journey and our experience. We can definitely do that. We're just about to revamp the website. As one of my staff said to me, oh, Neil, websites are so 1990s. I felt very old. But we don't use them anymore and I get that.

Neil Woodbridge [00:15:37]:
So we've got a Facebook page. You can see what's happening there, which older people tend to use. I am not very good at social media. We do have an online radio station because we would have when we thorough Community Business Radio. I run a chill show on there, Tuesday and Sunday nights, which is about music and gigs I've been to and music that people like. We have about a thousand people, I think listen to that, which is apparently quite good. We've got all the licenses for that. So we get shows that are made up about local things, etc.

Neil Woodbridge [00:16:01]:
So people can find out some stuff through that. But mostly it's kind of talk to us, get in touch and see what we could do for you and what you might learn from us and what we can learn from your good selves. So we had connected to Japan. One of these weird, strange things that happened to us because the Japanese law on capacity was that people who learned disabilities didn't have capacity, so lots of them were having their property ripped off them really their rights. They had no rights when parents or carers died. So they come to see TLS and were just completely blown away by the fact that people with learning disabilities can be signed up to Companies House and we can prove that they have capacity. And. And so in Japanese law, in the example of how they want to change their capacity act is.

Neil Woodbridge [00:16:41]:
Is a reference to TLS and a whole example of our work, which is fantastic really, isn't it? You know, it's really, really good. Yeah, yeah, it was really, really good fun. So I've been on the equivalent of Japanese News Night speaking fluent Japanese, apparently. Well, my lips were moving in English, but there was a overdub of Japanese, which is brilliant. But yeah, so. So we kind of will spread the word as far and wide as we can. We linked up to Poland because we have a Polish group that we connected to as well. And it's never for us as well saying that we've got this all right, because we haven't necessarily, but the feedback that we get, we can do it cheaper and better than a local authority.

Neil Woodbridge [00:17:13]:
We have really good outcomes for our customers. As we say, the people that use our services and are able to make a difference in people's lives. What more could you ask for?

Nia Thomas [00:17:24]:
Definitely. And as I said earlier, listeners and watchers, I've been lucky to hear Neil speak before and what he's been able to achieve. Steve and his organization with his board is really very interesting, very innovative. You definitely want to go and find out more. You've made some revolutionary changes in your organization, not just procedurally, but in terms of way of thinking. When you're making big decisions, like whether you're growing the organization or launching something new, how much do you check in with others with your gut feeling before you go ahead? Because I'm conscious. You talked about your minibus on a Monday, bought it on a Wednesday, launched it on a Friday. Where does the gut feeling of this is a good thing to do? Where does that come from?

Neil Woodbridge [00:18:09]:
So I think you can't escape from the fact that I'm 62. So I've been doing this a long time. And so sometimes my gut feeling it, my intuition is, if I do any psychometric test, my intuition is off the scale. I'm a Pisces as well. So I don't know quite what that means. I like to say that even though I'm not particularly into the star signs, but whatever, but what that means, I have a lot of intuition and so I, I like to hone in on that. So for example, a few years ago we were saying there's a gap in the market. People with autism don't seem to be being served very well.

Neil Woodbridge [00:18:38]:
And we knew that the local school had outstanding reputation and the young people started to go through that. And in two years time, at that time there was going to be a load of people reaching 19, leaving their special school. And the council had an autism strategy they hadn't looked at for 10 years. So we kind of went for it. And at that time it was a question of the people that I was talking to were the people with autism themselves, stroke their parents. So we called it tax thorough autistic community together. And so we talked to them about what they might want and how that might work. I had this big instinct just to set this up and make it work.

Neil Woodbridge [00:19:12]:
So we started with one person as a guinea pig, you know, classic business market testing, in a sense did a deal with the council. They pay for this one person to see what we could do. They were amazed by some of the transformation that he went through. So we started to build it with other people. Then Havering, which is the Local authority next to us got very interested and started sending us people as well. So in no time at all, that's a million pounds of the business in four years. And I've got 1.3 million's worth of business waiting because I can't get enough staff to run it because it's going so well. And that was based on people that I'd met.

Neil Woodbridge [00:19:48]:
Parents having worked with people with autism many years ago in the 80s and learned some of the techniques that we used to use back then, are developed even more now about helping people with their behavior that's challenging you. And then we move from that into, right, let's test this. And then I trained one of our staff members to go to the Tizard, which has a special in positive behavioral support. So we inputted some investment as a business into her. She was amazing and came up with all the sorts of different techniques and ways of working. She then moved on to another job. That's fine. Other people came in, so we started training them.

Neil Woodbridge [00:20:19]:
Then we learned about something called Proact Skip, which is a particular way of working for people with behavior that's challenging. Then we realized that people had nowhere to go once they'd reached an age of maturity. And we hate them living with their parents till their parents are in their 80s. Then I get a phone call that mum's gone into hospital and died and this young man's just sat there on his own. So we started, started buying properties and supporting people to live in those properties. So that's kind of started to grow that wing. So it kind of developed organically. And so constantly they were checking out mostly with the parent carers and more importantly the people with autism, getting the feedback all the time.

Neil Woodbridge [00:20:49]:
If it's working, listening to the staff, having the staff forums and the ability to listen to them to say, does this really work? Is there some other different way of doing this? And slowly building it from there. But it kind of goes in big jumps because we were on the money and the demand was right. It's the same for people with profound or multiple learning disabilities. In Thurrock, there's a whole group of people that have now survived that wouldn't have survived back when I first started to do this work, which is fantastic, but there's very little support for them. So we've been adapting buildings and building support for them and getting that model into place to support them going forwards too.

Nia Thomas [00:21:19]:
You also mentioned 360 degree reviews earlier. Is that something that you do quite.

Neil Woodbridge [00:21:24]:
Often in your organization? Yeah, definitely. Because what happened Was in gosh, probably 1980. Scary 7 8, when you were probably still at school. But 1970 8,788 I met an amazing boss called Imelda and she introduced that concept to me. I was a, you know, 20 odd year old lad. I'd never heard of this. People kind of say things about me and I loved it because we have the again, humility to sit there and say, you know, really positive, really positive, really good. But actually, you know, and, and I got, I think a few ago recently, one of the feedbacks to me was Neil needs to Understand there's only 62nd minute, which is very funny, but a good way of putting it.

Neil Woodbridge [00:22:03]:
And if you've got that, it's also about how you have to have that maturity to be able to receive not, you know, critical but honest feedback, you know, without being horrible to each other. That's not necessary at all. But we're doing some work at the moment because I've got a bit of a new leadership team around me with Bubble Chamber, which is one of our other social entrepreneur people and he does this really good thing. So they do this thing where they're teaching the team about how to communicate with each other and how to have difficult conversations. So one of our, our favorite courses that we've always put on, but this is a bit more extensive than that is how to have a difficult conversation. And most difficult conversation is about timing. You don't do it as the person's putting their coat on, leaving the door or whatever it's about, this is a good day, they're in a good space, I'm in a good space, we can both leave this room feeling alright. But I've been able to tell you that actually I've got a problem and I own it, etc.

Neil Woodbridge [00:22:52]:
And it's that level of maturity of those conversations that's really helped. And in our supervision list I tried to get staff and some new people, new to management, struggle with this. Have a bit that's called candid, where you've just been very candid at this point. There's something that's not going right here because the num. And we do also. Actually I've just remembered something. We also do this thing where we have letters of concern, which isn't a written warning and it isn't telling off even. It's just saying I've had this conversation with you, but I'm just going to keep a record of it for us because I need you to know that you being late every Monday morning is causing this massive issue for us.

Neil Woodbridge [00:23:26]:
It's not a disciplinary yet, but I need to let you know that I've told you and I'm going to have a record of that and Unison taught me to use those. Because you get into the end state of some horrible disciplinary. Hopefully not, but. And you've got no evidence that you ever had the conversation. They can still disagree with what you're saying, but you're saying this is, I. This is what I have told you is the problem. Because loads of times you hear that all the time. People get to the end of their probation and they're just given the job and you're kind of like, really? You know, because the honesty of month one, month three, and for us, month six, giving people the feedback, seeing what we can do to support them and sometimes just saying goodbye is fine.

Nia Thomas [00:24:03]:
Yeah, definitely. And I think that supervision and having those open conversations, and particularly when you're in management, is to make sure that you are recording that for both parties so that you can reflect and you can agree to disagree, but nevertheless you need to be able to go back and have a conversation about it when you're in a different place, place next month or next week.

Neil Woodbridge [00:24:24]:
Absolutely, I agree with that. And one of the things I teach my people that are newer to management is they often kind of say, well, Neil says, no, no, I. It's worth saying this and you have to agree that, or whatever, I don't know, we're changing the working pattern for something or other, whatever it is, and, and I want you to own it. So you'll write the letter saying, this is what's going to happen. It's not Neil up in his ivory tower making some mad decision. This is a collective decision that we've made and this is what's right for the business and more importantly, it's usually what's right for the customers. So we're going to go, but you need to own it as well. Sometimes I think what happens, particularly in care, people get promoted into their coordinator first ever management job and they kind of think they're still carers and management, something they do in their spare time or something.

Neil Woodbridge [00:25:06]:
Do you know what I mean? So we deliberately invest a lot and we put everyone through a level five in leadership and management if you're, if you're working for us, because we need people to be functioning at that higher level.

Nia Thomas [00:25:16]:
Oh, that's really interesting. As a part of your, your standard training, you put everybody through level five. So for people who maybe are outside of the uk, a level Five, I think, is a degree level bachelor's. It's just that sort of maybe a one module or that sort of thing. But that's this kind of level we're talking about.

Neil Woodbridge [00:25:35]:
Yeah, it's two. Two years. Two years of a degree, essentially. It's very high. It's usually about 12 modules. Also, you know, talking about leadership and management and how to do it, particularly in social care, because that's the business that we're in and we do that as an apprenticeship and we can then get money through our apprenticeship levy. That's the way it works in the UK to fund that. But we're happy.

Neil Woodbridge [00:25:55]:
I think it's the only budget my chair doesn't ever query at the training budget. And that's where we both agree that actually that's not something to cut. That's such a massive input for our customers that we're just not going to cut that one. So I probably got about half a dozen, maybe more people on the level five as we've got the new leadership team that's in place. It's good.

Nia Thomas [00:26:14]:
I wonder if some of that answers my next question, which is helping people move from being supported to being in control of their own lives really takes a lot of emotional intelligence. How do you keep that human side front and center in your leadership and I guess in the culture of your leadership as an organization.

Neil Woodbridge [00:26:34]:
So in a sense we always. We're. An upside down triangle is our logo, which is about the reversal of the power. Yeah. And so we always start with the customer first. And if we know that if we get it right for them, then it's going to be right for the staff. So because in terms of the customers, we're trying to move them from passive recipients of care to active citizens in control. So instead of being someone that just receives care, you're actually, I can vote, I can get a job, I can do this.

Neil Woodbridge [00:26:57]:
I'm an active citizen in control of my life. And if we do that, then the same way when I worked for Tesco's all those years ago, I don't mean to pick on Tesco's, I'm sure they're fine now, but in the 70s, you know, when I worked for that Tesco store, I was always just told what to do, no question, no debate, whatever. Whereas what we've got is a lot of techniques. There's something that the directors invented called how are you? Which is a way of measuring where people are at in their domains of life and then supporting them to move forward with that. And the Truth is, we actually use that same technique with staff to say, okay, so this is where you, you're at. What is it you want your future to be? And staying a carer and doing that for rest your life, that's absolutely fine. But we want you to enjoy it. And you actually, you've got these other things.

Neil Woodbridge [00:27:37]:
So we teach the staff when they do their induction with us, we do this thing called the head, the heart and the hands. And so you have to fill out paperwork that says what you're good at with your head, what you're good at with your heart, and what you're good at with your hands. So my head might be. I actually quite like spreadsheets. I'm quite good at them. Yeah. So I could teach you about that. My heart is a massively passionate about music and live music.

Neil Woodbridge [00:27:59]:
I can talk to you about that. And my hands are. I could probably teach you to play the drums because I'm a drummer. Yeah. So, you know, and so each person's got that and that's. We match to the customers, so we pair people so that you've got those different things that you might have in common as a way of getting your perfect personal assistant. And by doing that with the staff, we're recognizing that they've got gifts. So if you've got a particular gift around photography, then great, set up a photographic group up for us and we'll support people to go through that route.

Neil Woodbridge [00:28:24]:
Do you see what I mean? So you're kind of constantly matching them to their skills and making them feel good about themselves within the new role.

Nia Thomas [00:28:31]:
As you were describing then, your head, heart and hands. I'm reminded that, oh, many, many years ago, I was part of a children's social services team and we did person centered planning and we did a one page profile and it was about describing what are the things that I like, what are the things that I need and what are the things that I don't like, what are the things I want to achieve. So that you had a one page profile and that was really helpful because you, you're right, it does give you that whole person view of somebody as opposed to just the professional that leaves the emotions at the door. And, you know, you're just an employee, you're bigger than that. There's far more to you.

Neil Woodbridge [00:29:10]:
Yeah. And I think with our customers, again, what happens is the nature of adult social care in the UK is it's a negative function. You have to say, I can't do this, I can't do that, I can't do the other in order to get support. But what we're forever doing is being solution focused and positive. So we will list through a person centered plan, like you say, a description of someone that's really positive. So, so in an extreme case, I've just entered my head. One of the things I do is I'm a, I'm an independent adoption chair, chair of adoption panel. It's a lot, much longer story about how I ended up there.

Neil Woodbridge [00:29:40]:
So I get to a beautiful, beautiful privileged role to, to support people on their adoption journey and, and we get couples that come along to that. And sometimes in the bad old days when you heard people describing someone's birth mum, it was always negatively framed. Yeah. And for me it's important you know that child when they're 21, whatever, 18, when they access the file, they're going read, to read that. So it needs to say things like mum was a very pretty young woman who was really into, you know, Netflix and like to watch it every day and did this and positive stuff and she tried really hard to keep you as a child but unfortunately she had an addiction to drugs or whatever the issue is. Yeah. Because it's important to think like that. And in a way it's the same with the staff team.

Neil Woodbridge [00:30:21]:
You know, we could. Not quite as extreme obviously but it is about yeah being, being very positively framed in the way that we think. And I am completely a glass half full person person always.

Nia Thomas [00:30:33]:
You're right. We do very much talk about what can't be done, what hasn't been achieved, what are the barriers, what's broken, what needs fixing.

Neil Woodbridge [00:30:41]:
Correct. Yeah.

Nia Thomas [00:30:42]:
But if we changed all of those questions and flipped it, wouldn't we be in a very different place, different mindset?

Neil Woodbridge [00:30:50]:
Yeah. I always remember when I was at school I was incredibly good at English and so I did my gcse, my O level as it was then English when I was 14 and got a B, you know. But I was rubbish at math. So what happened was I'd get extra maths lessons and less English lessons. And if you think about it logically, that's kind of the wrong way around, isn't it? Why could I have not been made supported to do A level English at 16 or something? But because I was not particularly good at maths, I got my extra maths. It's kind of like a deficit model's understandable. But the truth is, of course everybody has gifts and if you work on that and we've often got solutions so let's just do more of that. So we bought a home care business.

Neil Woodbridge [00:31:30]:
One of those new decisions, stroked the board and everybody, one morning we woke up and thought, oh, do you know what, let's buy a home care business. And then Covid hit. Great timing. But it's now making profit, which is good. And we've just won a 10 year contract, which is amazing, for 10 million quid. A million a year over 10 years, which is brilliant. So we're really happy. But I can't bear the model, it needs to change.

Neil Woodbridge [00:31:51]:
And so we're kind of looking at and going. Because home care is just this weird thing still turn up, do something to someone and leave, you know, and contentiously don't believe the myth at all on minimum wage, because what they do is they time steal. So we put you pay them an hour at £12, whatever, but they'll do the job in 20 minutes if they can get away with it. So the night run will finish instead of 11 at night, at 9 o' clock, because they manage to go around really quick and get everyone to bed. Really poor practice, but that's the way we've kind of engineered it for people. And the whole thing is commissioned on time. Half an hour for this, an hour for that, 15 minutes for that. And actually what we're saying is let's do it on outcome.

Neil Woodbridge [00:32:26]:
Outcomes. What's the outcome you want to achieve? That Mrs. Smith lives happily in her house, is well fed and clean and comfortable and is. Is happy in her life or something like, I don't know. But, you know, so, so already we're, we're doing things that we're taking everyone out to lunch because loneliness is a massive killer, actually. And what we're doing is I've got access to minibuses and people and a deal with the local superstore. So we're just going to take people out and sit down, have some food with them, have a nice time and see what happens. It's going to be really interesting and I suspect their quality of life indicators will start to really take off and it's not that difficult.

Neil Woodbridge [00:33:03]:
Yes, I've not got shareholders to pay. I'm a social entrepreneur, folks, that's what I do. So I understand why for some of the providers that's much more difficult. But I think there's margins in there that means they could do that. But, you know, I think, yeah, and finding out if that works and then doing more of that, that's what we'll do rather than thinking, well, we can't do this, the staff are meant to be working like that and also a level of trust with the staff. They all to be on salaries and yes you can earn whatever 25k a year and you might not have to work 37 hours. Some weeks you might only work 30, but the next week you'll do 40 and not worry about it because you, you know what I mean? It'll balance. Yeah, we're not there yet but that, that comes from the culture of the organization which again another old expression but so true.

Neil Woodbridge [00:33:45]:
A fish rots from the head.

Nia Thomas [00:33:47]:
Yeah, absolutely. I agree there is something about working positively, having a strengths based model and I'm reminded of appreciative inquiry. I don't know very much about it but it's something that's cropped up in, in the last 15 years. It feels like more needs to be done. That's appreciation based. It's about strength, space. It's about let's flip the what you can't do to what you can do and then see what happens. Very interesting model.

Neil Woodbridge [00:34:17]:
It is, yeah, love it. I mean the other thing we also are very keen on is asset based community development. ABCD Cormac Russell just Google amazing character, met him a few times. And that again is strengths based. Instead of saying oh you're all fat, you smoke too much, you're dying too young, you drink too much alcohol as a community, what we really saying, do you know what I mean? Whereas if you say actually you know, you need to, there's all sorts of things you could do in your leisure time and we're hearing about all these social clubs that you're forming and we know about your work with your young community and what you want for them in the future, etc. Etc. Let's get some of the adult ed stuff happening on your estate and train you ready for the new job prospects are coming from local employers or whatever rather than otherwise the country's gone a bit into, you're poor because you're lazy or something and it's just, that's not what's actually happened. So it's been, you know, it's interesting times with that but yeah, absolutely right.

Neil Woodbridge [00:35:12]:
And social workers in their assessments are encouraged in a sense to be a deficit model because you've got to describe, to get it through panel to get approval for an hour a week of home care or whatever it is, you need to describe the person in those negative terms. Well, you can move away from that model if you just free them money up in a way that means that the right people get the right support which is why we went for individual service funds, which is the way in which we do it.

Nia Thomas [00:35:36]:
I think there's something about courage to be able to do that.

Neil Woodbridge [00:35:39]:
It's massively courageous and it scares the life out of me. I have a vision in my head of jam jars attached to a ceiling with cash in them. Because that's how we do it. Everyone's got a jam jar with cash in it and we keep undoing that jam jar and spend money on that individual. Then sometimes they go into negative and then they're passively into positive. But across the whole piece it all balances and we make profit. And guess what? We also return money back to the authority some years. How scary is that?

Nia Thomas [00:36:03]:
Indeed. And there is something about what we know about happy workplaces that actually they're far more productive. Well, if that works for organization and it's relevant for organizations, of course that's going to be relevant for our communities and our clients and our patients and our service users. I can imagine that this work is pretty full on at times. What keeps you steady, what keeps you grounded, calm, focused? How again, maybe it's the question very linked to burnout, but how do you keep that steadiness, keep that calm?

Neil Woodbridge [00:36:38]:
So I'm not proud of the fact that in, in the forming of this business there was a phase and I have to probably ask my partner when she thinks that my wife what she what years it was. But there was at least a four year period, maybe three where I didn't take a single day off other than weekends and Christmas. I'm not proud of that. I don't expect any of my staff team to do that. But that's what we had to do in the early days or I felt I had to do in the early days. I enjoyed it massively. My children had grown up and left home, so I the ability to do that. But what does keep me grounded, I think is my volunteering in other organizations and the stuff that I get very interested in.

Neil Woodbridge [00:37:15]:
So hence, as you heard, I'm an independent chair of an adoption panel. I do get paid for that one. But I also chair voluntarily the independent advisory groups for Essex Police which looks at all the stuff that's happening across Essex and gets the right community connections. My biggest joy is when I look across the whole of Essex or Thurrock, I see it's like an electric light bulb wiring diagram wise. And I love nothing better than to connect people and network not to do with me to art. If you speak to this person and they speak to that person, you'll come up with the community solution to do things and that. That keeps me grounded by passing that sort of stuff on. I do mentor people.

Neil Woodbridge [00:37:51]:
I've met some amazing people along the road doing that and they're very good for me because, like your good self, they ask you questions that you wouldn't normally think about in your day to day, which is fascinating and really good. I go to see a lot of live music. I love music. I've been playing music since I was eight and I just. Yeah, I just love it. And my sailing, I like sailing. I've got a. I bought a dinghy for 500 quid off eBay and hit.

Neil Woodbridge [00:38:14]:
Hit the sea with it. But it's good fun here on the Thames estuary. And now I teach kids to sail, which I really like doing. I like introducing the water. We have a thing in South End, we've got quite big estates where they overlook the sea, but the kids and young people have never actually been in it. How weird is that? And I'm saying this is for everyone to enjoy this estuary and it doesn't cost a lot of money. So we introduce people into sailing and let everyone have a go and see what happens. And then you.

Neil Woodbridge [00:38:40]:
So. So I have this kind of. But it all blends into one. My meeting might finish at 4, I'll get down to the yacht club and do a couple of hours sailing. Then I've got something online that's happening at 8, do you know what I mean? But. But that's what helps keep me balanced and relatively sane. Plus, I'm not going to deny it, some counseling from our counsellor.

Nia Thomas [00:38:58]:
That's quite amazing. And everything that you've talked about that is underpinned by this need to give back and give to your community. Do you know where that comes from? Is. Is that a thing?

Neil Woodbridge [00:39:11]:
It's kind of weird because some people don't see it. I have been questioned. And so we're coming in with a boat that's worth about a thousand pounds and there's these millionaire yachties there and they're lovely, lovely people. But you go into a yacht club and you're having these conversations and one of the conversations, people were telling them about the success of my business and I said, well, actually, it's not my business owned by the community. I get paid a salary. And they just couldn't get their heads around it at all. Why do you not own all these properties? How come your business owns all these properties but you don't? How come. Why are you not making Making money.

Neil Woodbridge [00:39:42]:
What motivates you? And some people assume that I'm some sort of mad Christian or something, but I've actually never been christened. But there is something in me and I think if I'm being really honest. I see. I think other people have spoken about this as well, so. So my. My dear mother lover, she died six months or so ago now. But she was a very, very, very critical human being. So I think in some ways I'm still trying to prove some.

Neil Woodbridge [00:40:09]:
Something, you know, she was one of those people that say, oh, this is Neil, he's got a degree but he never uses it. She still used to say that about me all the time. It's geography. What's the point of that? I don't know why he did that, but yeah, you know, it's that sort of thing. But it's kind of her nature and I love her. She was a damaged human being herself. Second World War, all the rest of it. But the reality is.

Neil Woodbridge [00:40:28]:
So there was always this criticism. I think not recognizing my ADHD when I was at school meant I would often get into trouble. I was seen as being really clever, but then couldn't pass exams. That's because I'd lose the track halfway through the exam and not know where I was or why I was there. Yeah, I tell a story about every Tuesday morning we used to go to school. We used to have to listen to some Radio 4 program called Bible Workshop. And it'll be a story from the Bible and then you have to walk from the hall back to your classroom and write the story up. Not a clue.

Neil Woodbridge [00:40:59]:
I have no idea what I just listened to. It was something about a camel and a needle and thread. I don't know. So I could never do it. So I used to try and bunk off school every Tuesday, but the teacher used to get annoyed with me. I couldn't understand why I couldn't do it, do it. And I think it was ADHD unrecognized way back then. Yeah, I'm talking a long time ago, early 70s, you know.

Neil Woodbridge [00:41:17]:
And so. Yeah, so. So I do think that I've learned techniques. And then I married a homeopath, of course, which really helps. But I've learned techniques of being able to try to make myself concentrate and remember certain things in the right order. Like now I have clue what that last question was you asked me. Not a clue. Couldn't tell you for a million years.

Nia Thomas [00:41:35]:
Well, it's such an interesting question conversation. The last thing I want to ask you for somebody who's just starting out in leadership, particularly in community and social impact work. What's some golden nuggets that you'd want to share, particularly around behaviour, particularly around leadership that you'd want to impart to them?

Neil Woodbridge [00:41:54]:
Wow. Who am I? Gosh. So for me it's something about always focus back on your customers. What is your core purpose in the charity world? Back in the day, because I used to work in the charity world before coming to local government, before going back through social enterprise to not for profit. And in the charity world this is mission drifting, isn't there? Because there's a funding for blue eyed people with left hands on a Thursday fund, you suddenly work with those people. So what we constantly do as a leader, what you need to do is write. So what is the core mission here? So right at the very beginning, no matter where you start, even if they've got good missions and values written down, relook at them and engineer ways in which you take people with you on defining them. So you might end up with the same rough, the same vision as was before, but the people that are there own it.

Neil Woodbridge [00:42:41]:
So what I've always done is surrounded by my. Myself, by people who not looking up to me at all. But. But we all understand the mission and we're on the same journey together also to get people to understand that you never really arrive. Just enjoy the ride, just I. The horizon's still there, this perfect world, funnily enough, in 40 years of work and whatever, it's not arrived yet. Fancy that, but you know what I mean. But we're still on that interesting journey and absolutely be open to learning at all opportunities that you can get through studying sometimes.

Neil Woodbridge [00:43:12]:
You know, I went to, I did a post grad myself. You know, it's good to do that stuff to get the academic side of things so you have an understanding. It's a bit like music in it. I can play the guitar, but I can't really read music very well. I can do drums, I can, I could just about read it, but I would need to study it more which would. If I'd have had formal lessons I probably would have progressed faster or better. So there's something about that in there. And also be prepared to say goodbye to people, people early on.

Neil Woodbridge [00:43:38]:
You know, once I learned the expression of having. What is the expression? Protected conversation. So I like protected conversations because I say to people, look, you clearly don't like me or what's going on here. I clearly don't value you and what you're doing. Let's Talk of a number that means you go away. And I have, I'm very happy. So although I'm kind and nice and everyone's getting on fine, I have on probably three or four occasions done that and said to people, there you go. And for me, my head as chief executive thinking six months worth of salary, that's going to cost me the same and I'll have six months worth of grief and in six months time I'm quits in.

Neil Woodbridge [00:44:14]:
And so it's good there's. Is it Henry, the chocolatier guy. I've gotten his name. He doesn't, he doesn't. He do that thing, the chocolatier man that at the end of your, at the end of your probation you either take £5,000 and leave or you sign up. Something like that, you know.

Nia Thomas [00:44:26]:
Oh, interesting. We look him up.

Neil Woodbridge [00:44:28]:
Yeah, he's an interesting character. But he did, he did a talk at one of the social events that we were at. But yeah, but no. So I think there is something, isn't there, about being willing to say goodbye to people quite early on, having a very candid conversation and completely transparent and laying out what your motivation is. Even though people will tell you nonsense about you or they make assumptions about you based usually that you're holding a mirror up to them and they don't like it. And so you kind of learn to say, okay, why is this person reacting like this? I've clearly hit a button here. So there's something that's going on for them but actually come back, everything comes back to the customers. Upside down triangle.

Neil Woodbridge [00:45:05]:
Right. What is it we're trying to achieve for the customer here and what's the best route to do that? So we're not going to alter all the staff times of working and their rotors to suit them. We're coming back to the customers. Oh, and look, there's a win win here and we go forwards based on that. So that's kind of firstly and know your numbers, be really critical about your numbers. Cash flow is the killer of business, still is. Always be. You know, there's lots of builders that I've known over the years who go bust because they've got tons of work but no money in the bank to do it.

Neil Woodbridge [00:45:34]:
It's a classic thing to do. So, you know, that's a really important one to get right. Ask for an overdraft when you've got loads of money in the bank. Don't wait till you're running out.

Nia Thomas [00:45:44]:
Good advice. And earlier you said that you've got an easy to understand management accounts. Yes, and I think that's brilliant. Or watchers, listeners, if that's something that you want to use to make sure that you've got ultimate transparency for your organisation, we will make sure that there are links in the show. Notes. Neil, I've really enjoyed our conversation. I think I definitely hearing themes about humility, about self awareness, about partnership working, about being equal to the people you're supporting, about learning and about being handed. And I think there's a lot to unwrap in our conversation.

Nia Thomas [00:46:25]:
So listeners, watchers, if you sign up to the newsletter, you will get top takeaways from our conversation on Tuesday following the launch on a Monday. And I think that would be really good for people who really want to unwrap our conversation and do something really constructive with it. Neil, I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much for joining me.

Neil Woodbridge [00:46:43]:
Thank you. And it's really lovely to speak to you.

Nia Thomas [00:46:46]:
Thank you for joining me on today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed the conversation as well, much as I have. If you want to keep up to date with what's happening with knowing self, knowing others, head over to my website, ksko.co uk.