COACH/LEAD™ with Sehaam Cyrene

E006 Glenn Martin on conversation stamina and healthy challenging

How do you know, through conversation, if someone is a good fit for your team and your company, both now and into the future? 

My guest is Talent Acquisition Project Manager, Glenn Martin. Glenn talks to a lot of people - candidates and hiring managers. Companies bring him in to find great talent and to create the best hiring experience so from reviewing CVs to the interview, making us an offer, on-boarding us and then, once we’ve joined the company, how we can grow, and what career paths are open to us. He works with several clients or companies at a time to help them make smart hiring decisions, fast.

Which is no small challenge because people are sometimes unpredictable and sometimes surprising. And there’s often gap he’s helping to bridge between what a company is looking for in a new hire and what that particular individual could offer beyond the immediate need they’d be fulfilling, beyond the first 3-6 months. 

How does Glenn influence who gets that job offer and what influences his own decision-making? That’s all in this episode including what he does to put you at ease at the interview and how, as someone who studied sports science, he found himself in talent acquisition.

Connect with Glenn Martin on LinkedIn.

Catch the latest episodes of COACH/LEAD™ with Sehaam Cyrene on Apple | Audible | Podbean | Spotify | YouTube …and other fine places.

YouTube ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@sehaamcyrene
LinkedIn ▶️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehaam/
Courses ▶️ https://coachlead.co/
Book ▶️ https://amzn.eu/d/bm0J1BQ

E005 Aisha & Bhav on thriving off positive energy

My two guests are Aisha Bano and Bhav Chawda, equal partners in A&B Tax Consultants, who set up in business together because they wanted greater autonomy over how best to serve their clients and they wanted to build stronger relationships.

They are driven by a desire to really get to know their clients, they want to know about your business, and they are genuinely interested in what’s going on in your business and personal life - yes from a financial perspective but also just your life too and they’re always delighted to hear about how you’re overcoming your challenges. They get that their success depends on your success - and they’re keen to learn from you too.

They also get that their clients like to know how well they’re doing too - “we’re trusting you with our business so we need to know yours is solid too.” - in that kind of a way. Over the past four years since founding A&B Tax Consultants, Aisha and Bhav have committed to meeting every single client in person, together. And, in fact, their clients have come to expect it. If you ever have the pleasure of meeting them, you’ll understand why.

I asked them to be my guests because, as you’ll notice for yourself, there’s a great energy between them and personally I love seeing in that in people who’ve set-up in business together - they really do enjoy conversation as a way of getting to know you. They’re genuine and they both talk about the importance of just being themselves. What you experience of them is exactly who they are and you know that because of their laughter, their smiles, their eye contact, their hand gestures, and the way they riff off each other. 

And they really love working together!

To learn more about Aisha and Bhav, visit A&B Tax Consultants.

Catch the latest episodes of COACH/LEAD™ with Sehaam Cyrene on Apple | Audible | Podbean | Spotify | YouTube …and other fine places.

YouTube ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@sehaamcyrene
LinkedIn ▶️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehaam/
Courses ▶️ https://coachlead.co/
Book ▶️ https://amzn.eu/d/bm0J1BQ

E004 Anne Chatroux on trust and childhood triggers

My guest, Anne Chatroux, was an investment banker but she gave up that very lucrative career. While she was good at it she found that, after a while, she wasn’t that interested in it. Like many of us, her relationship as a child shaped who she is today, not without some investment in working out some old unhelpful narratives. Her work these days – coaching successful senior executives – is way more fulfilling for her, as she partners with her clients to help them expand their own sense of fulfilment, reach and impact on their world.

What you just heard is an example of how she helps her clients (21:47) – to hold the bigger view of themselves than others have of them so that they can achieve that bigger reach, that bigger impact. And of course, conversations are the primary tool for her trade

I’ve got many favourite moments from my conversation with Anne about conversations like how our childhood difficulties can shape us (39:55) and give us both useful skills as adults for work and personal relationships, and narratives that become unhelpful triggers in our adult life that make connecting with others complicated.

Trust comes up again and again too. “Yummy trustful conversations” are important to Anne and she talks about how when we trust the person we’re speaking to, and conversation is flowing easily, naturally, she has a sense of “being smarter than normal”. 

Listen to the podcast find out what she means.

Connect with Anne Chatroux on Linkedin.

Catch the latest episodes of COACH/LEAD™ with Sehaam Cyrene on Apple | Audible | Podbean | Spotify | YouTube …and other fine places.

YouTube ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@sehaamcyrene
LinkedIn ▶️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehaam/
Courses ▶️ https://coachlead.co/
Book ▶️ https://amzn.eu/d/bm0J1BQ

E003 Thom Langford on being serious and humorous

“Security isn’t funny but it can be fun” and “information security doesn’t have to be hard” the mantras of my guest today Thom Langford - your virtual Chief Information Security Officer with a big, friendly but serious personality. 

Thom is always ready to engage, he does a combination of being serious in the same breath as pointing out truths and irony with humour and dry wit - not an easy mix to pull off, and he admits that, until people get to know him, occasionally some people don’t get his brand of fun or might find it intimidating.

As the former Chief Information Security Officer of Publicis Groupe, Thom was responsible for all aspects of information security risk and compliance as well as managing the Groupe Information Security Programme. He now consults and does speaking gigs at information security conferences around the world.

His conversation style is to listen deeply and then talk as he thinks, and he’s very comfortable correcting his own words - a verbal version of typing a sentence, deleting back a few words and then retyping something better, more accurate.

What came through strongly in our conversation is how he’s watched others manage people and what he’s learned about his own experiences managing people. Things like speaking truthfully and not shying away from giving bad news while still being thoughtful, compassionate and supportive. He believes in the power of a face-to-face discussion and the eye-ball to eye-ball handshake to create credibility and trust where an email is more likely to create distance and wiggle room for excuses about why work hasn’t been delivered as agreed. 

When I asked him what’s influenced his conversation style, it’s his need for honesty. He talked about how being a public speaker has taught him to be more comfortable when receiving a compliment not just because it’s validating the other person’s opinion and it's the polite and gracious thing to do but also because he sees it as a gateway for a more useful, in-depth exchange - it invites further conversation and connection. 

He believes that not only do experiences like this grow you but they also generate respect from others towards you. If you’re a new manager, you might enjoy listening to Thom’s counsel and his shared learnings as he’s risen in seniority

When it comes to information security he points out that it’s a topic that’s not always well understood - it’s seen as a nice to have and an annoying part of the business that gets in the way of business. This view is changing, slowly. So it’s important that Thom can communicate the seriousness of security and have stakeholders view it as critical to the speed and resilience of the business. But that doesn’t mean the conversation can’t be fun.

In talking about his best conversation and his worst conversation, Thom is a great storyteller. He speaks as things really are - he’s not looking to blame, he just names things as they are and is willing to accept responsibility for his part in a disagreement. And he’s very comfortable naming the feelings, emotions and states of mind as he takes us through work situations and significant conversations.

Connect with Thom on LinkedIn.

Catch the latest episodes of COACH/LEAD™ with Sehaam Cyrene on Apple | Audible | Podbean | Spotify | YouTube …and other fine places.

YouTube ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@sehaamcyrene
LinkedIn ▶️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehaam/
Courses ▶️ https://coachlead.co/
Book ▶️ https://amzn.eu/d/bm0J1BQ

E002 Graham Oakes on joy and being an introvert

As a systems engineer, scientist and entrepreneur who describes himself as a deep introvert, Dr Graham Oakes FBCS, FRSA has a deep passion and fascination for working through complex problems. He really enjoys it - he says he finds it exciting. I wonder if you can pick that up from the way he talks? His voice is gentle, his choice of words is careful and his energy is constant. If you’re an extrovert, you might need to slow yourself down to match his pace of expression. And perhaps it’s his capacity for listening that tunes him into what people say and drives him to create space and time for them to get their thoughts out on the table.

Graham helps people think about challenging situations in ways that draw out the opportunities and possibilities - most recently in the energy sector. He was the founder and chief scientist at Upside Energy - a company built in response to a challenge prize run by Nesta, a global innovation foundation, in 2013. Upside has built a cloud service that uses algorithms and AI to coordinate large numbers of devices like home batteries, electric vehicles, heat pumps and back-up power supplies. The aim is to make it easier to get energy onto the grid and thereby increase the use of renewable energy.

In conversations with Graham you start to understand just how chaotic and complex the energy sector is but he’s optimistic about the opportunities new technology presents to us. As well as traditional energy users and providers, there are new stakeholders joining the grid which includes local community groups and prosumers - people who both consume and produce products, basically owners of smart energy systems like solar PV arrays, home batteries, electric vehicles, and so on.  The best solutions aren’t always clear. In fact, often he finds his clients overwhelmed by the web of options.

Graham uses his conversation style - listening, slowing down, and enquiry, to help them first understand the problem they have, and second, make choices and decisions about the best way forward. And the best way forward typically involves working out how to decarbonise the energy source in response to climate change, how to make access to energy easier and fairer, and how to take advantage of digital technologies.

Given the complexity of the energy system, Graham’s work means he’s conversing with a huge range of people - government and policy makers, regulators, energy generation and supply companies, technology developers, network operators, local authorities, and property developers and facilities managers, as well as citizens like you and me, consumers, community energy groups, academics, data scientists, mathematicians, engineers, software developers, economists, financiers, and designers.

He says that a key part of what he’s trying to do is to help society develop an energy system that works better for all these people - cleaner, more equitable, cost effective, and reliable for today’s generations and generations of the future.

Graham has taken his deep knowledge and experience of the energy sector to help his clients across the UK and Europe do just that.

We talked about what makes him successful in helping clients navigate their landscapes, what a good, joyful conversation looks like, what type of dynamic he rates as counterproductive and counter-collaborative, what has shaped his thinking about conversations, and he shares a delightful story about communicating across language and cultural barriers that perhaps you can relate to if your work takes you around the world.

To learn more about Graham, check him out on LinkedIn.

Catch the latest episodes of COACH/LEAD™ with Sehaam Cyrene on Apple | Audible | Podbean | Spotify | YouTube …and other fine places.

YouTube ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@sehaamcyrene
LinkedIn ▶️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehaam/
Courses ▶️ https://coachlead.co/
Book ▶️ https://amzn.eu/d/bm0J1BQ

E001 Gail Sixsmith on embodiment of character for actors

Actor, art director, screenwriter, and movement specialist, Gail Sixsmith joined me to talk about her perspective on conversations - what makes them good and what makes them frustrating. 

As human beings we are transmitting messages all the time, whether we are aware of it or not. An actor, says Gail, has to learn to embody those messages in how they portray a character through gesture, posturing, quality of voice, intonation and so on. Unless there are layers of subtext in play, what they are saying in words has to be congruent with what their body is transmitting. She reminds us that this is something that inspirational communicators do really well.

Gail coaches Performing Arts students to use their bodies effectively in becoming expressive, potent, and versatile actors. She draws on a wide range of physical practice which reflects her eclectic and extensive line of artistic enquiry: Dance Theatre, Choreographic Performance, Body Weather, Butoh, Alba Emoting, Rasaboxes, Physical Improvisation, Suzuki Method, Capoeira (Brazilian Fighting Dance), Laban, Elemental Transformation, Motion Capture, Mime, Yoga and 5 Rhythms.

As you listen to Gail, perhaps you’ll hear the energy in her voice - or even imagine what her gestures might be or how she is communicating through her body as she emphasises certain words or ideas. As a former Lady Macbeth, an artistic collaborator, and now an acting coach, you can hear how important it is to Gail to choose her words very carefully, to be precise in what she is describing to us. She wants us to understand her, clearly, with no ambiguity and it’s important that what she says is as close to the truth, to reality, as possible.

We meandered across many aspects of conversation - what makes for a good conversation, what inspires her, where joy sits, honesty, ego, difficult conversations, and even her worst conversational habit.

We also exchanged thoughts about how dismissive we can be of each other, what we may be in danger of writing out of our conversation culture because of the presence of addictive technologies or the way, in the workplace, we are able to read body language less and less. Add to that our preference for avoiding conflict or avoiding having that difficult conversation or the fear of getting caught not knowing something, it’s easy to find ways to disconnect or even over-react in situations where we feel uneasy or exposed.

I also asked Gail if she thinks it’s possible to be animated and dishonest, or at least hold something back, at the same time. Her answer brought us back to her trade in congruency between our words and our body movement, and between our energy and our impulses.

To learn more about Gail, visit her website: www.gailsixsmith.com or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Catch the latest episodes of COACH/LEAD™ with Sehaam Cyrene on Apple | Audible | Podbean | Spotify | YouTube …and other fine places.

YouTube ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@sehaamcyrene
LinkedIn ▶️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehaam/
Courses ▶️ https://coachlead.co/
Book ▶️ https://amzn.eu/d/bm0J1BQ