Daniel Taylor: Most managers believe they need all the answers, and Michelle Parry Slater, though, reveals the truth. Effective leadership is all about curiosity, kindness, and unleashing the potential of others. Her story of navigating a difficult redundancy taught her that listening deeply and leaning into uncertainty can transform challenges into growth opportunities, both for her as well as the team. And in this particular episode, you'll discover how to ask the right questions through to the importance of understanding your team's strengths and values to unlock peak performance. Michelle Parislater is an award-winning learning and organizational development expert, renowned for her insightful breakdowns of leadership challenges, as well as her passion for nurturing talent. So get ready to rethink leadership because the best managers don't have all the answers. They ask better questions. So hit play now and learn how to turn uncertainty into your greatest leadership advantage. Welcome to Managing Potential, the podcast where we go behind the scenes with the world's most impactful leaders. And each week we sit down with seasoned managers to deconstruct their greatest breakthroughs, their toughest challenges, and the life lessons they've gathered along the way. So if you're looking to turn talent into performance, you're in the right place. Hi, I am Daniel Taylor, Coach and Management and Leadership Developer, and this week I'm joined by the brilliant Michelle Parry Slater, who is an award winning learning and organizational development. Professional with more than 20 years' experience in the industry. And Michelle builds purposeful learning strategies and programs. She's also got her own podcast, Learning Uncuts, and was named by HR Magazine as one of the most influential HR thinkers and is the author of the Learning and Development Handbook. Michelle, welcome to the podcast.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Thanks for having me. It's so nice to be here. I've listened to your podcast and thought, it's just such an interesting set of questions. So I'm looking forward to this.
Daniel Taylor: Wonderful. I'm I'm thrilled you're joining me today. So can you tell me a bit more about you and what you do today?
Michelle Parry-Slater: Well, you've given me a very nice introduction, so thank you for that. I have been working in the field for over 20 years and for 12 of the past years, I've had my own consultancy, Kairos Modern Learning. And then in 2024, I moved to Australia. So joining you from the night time here. And it was a bit of an adventure really. And recently that's seen me taking over Learning Uncut, the podcast and the consultancy founded by Michelle Ockers.
Daniel Taylor: Mm.
Michelle Parry-Slater: who is well, very well known in Australia. And luckily my name is also Michelle, so sometimes, you know, I'm just riding on her coattails. So today I run both Kairos in the UK and Learning Uncut in Australia. And I've got a really strong belief that workplace learning needs to be focused on performance, behavior, and therefore it needs to be offered within context. So when I wrote my book, Several times in that book, if anyone's read it, they'll read the same thing, the same line repeats, because I really believe that we must be advocates for the right solution, for the right problem, for the right people at the right time, for the right reasons delivered in the right way. And whether we're doing learning and development, organisation development, or management, leadership, I think it stands to be the same.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely. And what's it like running two consultancies on on you know two sides of the world as a global consultancy? That that must be a real challenge.
Michelle Parry-Slater: It's a bit crazy. do sort of bizarre hours. So, you know, tonight I'll be going to bed by about half past eight because I'm getting up for something in America, which is at 5 a.m. But I live on the Gold Coast and the Gold Coast, basically, if anyone's ever been here, you're up at 5 a.m. and you're in bed by nine because we chase the sun. We don't do say daylight savings here. So we tend to get up when the when the sun's up and go to bed. So it's quite a natural. Thing actually is quite a natural way of working. So it means that I can catch the UK either end of the day as well.
Daniel Taylor: Great way to to live your life and work with all all these sort of interesting challenges right you know, right around the world. and with that in mind, what sort of manager were you when you look back on on your time with within management?
Michelle Parry-Slater: You can't work in learning and development and not say that your greatest joy is developing people. And I genuinely mean that to be true. I think as a manager, one of my absolute pleasures, and I've done this a lot during my consultancy, is get a big project and bring together a diverse group of people to do excellent work together. I'm highly collaborative and I just spark when I'm working with other people. I just find my energy increases and where I can put pools of teams together to increase their energy. I particularly love to do it, especially with freelancers, because often we work on our own. We don't get to be part of a team. And so it's my absolute joy. So when I look back at the last 12 years with Kairos Modern Learning, the projects I've enjoyed the most is where I can pull in the great and the good and we can really learn from each other. So as a manager, I guess. I'm good at spotting talent and nurturing it and giving it spark. I particularly love working with young people. So anyone who's known my career will know that I've been involved in Girlguiding. that was just such an important part of my life because when we can see the potential in young people and we can light that fire and that belief in them, that's just, it's just the joy that you can bring to others. through the profession of people development. So there's that kind of angle as well. But I think overall, it's about listening. So as a manager, I listen first. I ask the question, how do you know a lot? Because we want to take an evidence-based approach to all of the decision-making in my consultancy work. So I'm often asking that question, how do we know that to be true? Is that an assumption or is that actually fact?
Daniel Taylor: Okay.
Michelle Parry-Slater: And so we can only make the best decisions when we've got the best information. So gathering information in order to make good decisions. if I ever can't decide when I'm leading others, when I'm leading myself, it's usually because I don't have enough information. So I'll go back out, gather more information, because I think the decision then becomes very natural. And when you're in that space where the decision is like, yeah, this feels right, as well as I know it to be true, because how do I know? I can answer that question. Then life's too short for regrets. You make your decision, you go. You lean in, you gather the feedback, you go again. So that's kind of my style really across all of my work, management and consultancy.
Daniel Taylor: So that's a it's a great point that so that's about you know in terms of listening around the advocacy and really be you know, listening to to you know the people that you you're working alongside and and really championing those individuals. So I absolutely love that. great way. And I think that's a a great question for or or something for people to take away listening to today's podcast. It it's about how do you know that? How how where have you got your information from? And it's a it's a great question for people to take away. Love it. With that in mind then, how did you develop or how do you continue to develop talent that you see around you of yourself and of those around you?
Michelle Parry-Slater: think there's always an assumption on my part that I don't know anything. Start with that. You if I don't know anything, then asking good questions of others. And I've talked about that word spark and I genuinely like that in all of its forms. So lighting fire in people, helping people find their own spark, their own joy. And that's really where the development potential really sits. Oftentimes you've not been exposed to things. So you don't know that you're good at it or you don't know that you could be good at it. And there's a lot of self-limiting beliefs in people. There's also lot of opportunity limits as well. How could somebody get involved in a profession, for example, if they don't know anyone in that profession, they've never heard of that thing. And of course, we're facing that at the moment because we don't know what the future of jobs are. I've got three young children. They're not young. They're young to me, but they're in their early 20s, late teens. We don't know what jobs they're going to be doing when they are my age. And so in terms of how do I continually develop? Well, I'm constantly, constantly looking to learn and constantly, constantly looking for what sparks joy in me. So I'll tend to follow that joy. And that's what I try and do for other people as well, light that fire, give them the joy. And a lot of that comes through coaching and feedback. So my question, how do you know? Sometimes you'll ask that and people are, I don't know. You're like, you don't know what you don't know. You don't know what profession you want to do if you've never done it before. You don't know what you don't know. So it then goes into curiosity. So if you're being really curious all of the time and you're encouraging others to seek curiosity, then that's actually really helpful and it's where feedback fits in, you know, because you can see things in others that they can't necessarily see in yourself. And when I think back to my career, people who've seen things in me that I could never have imagined, I mean, I would never have started Kairos Modern Learning if it wasn't for Catherine Marlowe, who was my director when I was a global head of learning. and she could see in me that I had the potential. I was sort of felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff looking down and she said, look up, know, look up. So I said, well, I'll jump and I'll just see how fast I fall. And I'm fortunate to be 12 years later, still falling and still learning along the way. So when you can spend time with other people and genuinely ask for feedback, generally ask what do they see that you can't see in yourself. So I love helping people in my team. To do that, I love people to help reflecting on activities that they've undertaken, tasks, roles, challenges, stretch things that they've undertaken on their own or sometimes as a group. And these are the sorts of ways that I love to notice my own potential and potential in others.
Daniel Taylor: I th I think that's a it's a great way to to do that, to focus on the joy and what gives you an absolute spark and and and drives you forward. And in interestingly, recently I was speaking to somebody in the university sector and and he was telling me that he said I'm I'm training people up for jobs that just don't exist. And it's like how how that that that sort of really got me sort of questioning about how do you even do that? You know, it's you know the th providing all that education with j jobs that just don't exist at the r at this very moment.
Michelle Parry-Slater: think a lot of it's self awareness. So knowing what you are fulfilled by, understanding what your values are. So oftentimes I'll talk about strengths, skills and values. So if you know what your strengths are, you know what you're good at naturally, and you know what skills you've acquired and learned or could potentially learn, but you're also very grounded in what do you believe, what are your values? And if you can work in a job that sort of fulfills you in those three areas, it doesn't feel like work. It's just you in a space and being paid for it. So that's the kind of thing that I'd always try and bring out in people. It's what I talk to my own children about. What is it that fills you up? What is it that makes you feel happy? What is it that you get joy about? And that's why I say it's important for other people to see it in you. Because sometimes you'll ask somebody something about their job and then maybe you'll ask them something about their hobby and suddenly this light turns on. you know, and they're talking about their hobby and they're talking about what they do outside of work. And you're like, this is the wrong job. You're in the wrong space because your joy sits somewhere else. Now, of course, some people pragmatically needs to work in order to fulfill their hobby. And they couldn't necessarily do their hobby as a job, but imagine if everybody could imagine if everyone could live in their joy. That would just be a world that would be amazing.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah. I totally agree. Definitely play to your strengths and focus on on what brings you joy, ideally, if it's possible, like you say. Not always possible, but absolutely. within all of that, what brings me joy? I always say, in terms of my my job, it's about helping people to be the best that they can be. And it's I think that's what I really focus on. Cause I don't want to try and push somebody too far, not far enough. It's about
Michelle Parry-Slater: What brings you joy, Daniel? Hmm.
Daniel Taylor: taking that person to where they absolutely want to be and that they are happy and fulfilled and they're getting the best out of it. So I think that's within my my day job if you like. in terms of outside, I'm gonna go Eurovision and music and travel. That that is me, that's what, you know, I my job pays for that.
Michelle Parry-Slater: No, I've never met anyone outside of David Hayden and my husband who love Eurovision. So now there's three of you.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely. And I I went to your vision this year, loved it, and it's now gonna become an annual pilgrimage. absolutely. I know.
Michelle Parry-Slater: my goodness. See what's happened, look at your face, look how joyful you are. I'm not saying that you don't love your day job, but I'm thinking, can this guy do something with music? Because this is the point, maybe that's where your future joy lies, doing learning and development, leadership development in the music industry.
Daniel Taylor: I for your revision. my God. See it it works, absolutely. okay. What was your biggest learning experience as a manager?
Michelle Parry-Slater: When I was thinking about this question, I was like, there's so many. And actually, then I thought that's such a blessing. Isn't it a blessing when we're really aware of what we've learned, when we've reflected on it and we've truly learned from it. So my biggest learning experience was the first time that I needed to make somebody redundant. It's also one of my proudest achievements. Now that might feel like a very unkind thing to say, but let me just tell the tale and see if others.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: see how this was my learning. I had been made redundant after pregnancy in 2004 and again in 2008, so when I had my first daughter and then my son. So I knew what that felt like. It was brutal, it was rough, it was not something that I necessarily wanted to put myself through again and I certainly did not want to be managing a team where it had to happen. But unexpectedly, I found myself managing a team of about 35. It was, I don't know, 2011, 2012, something like that. I was covering somebody else's maternity leave. And there was someone in the team who had transferred to the UK office from the Hong Kong office. They sat in the corner. They had a team of three people. And in our first one-to-one, I noticed that they weren't really on the ball. I noticed that they weren't kind of up to speed on a lot of the jobs and they kept sort of saying, you know, ask the team, ask the team. And I thought, well, you're the manager. So you really ought to know what's going on. And I did speak to the team and they were really effective. They were super productive. and I just checked in with them about their manager and they said, yeah, she just lets us get on with it. You know, she's largely absent and we don't mind it actually. We quite like the autonomy. you know, she never sort of beefs at them about anything. So there was just a few flags. flying and alarm bells ringing and I thought this just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like somebody who's really connected to the work. Is it that she's relocated? Is it that she's feeling unhappy? And I had previously lived in Japan and then come back to England so I could understand homesickness. I could understand that sort of thing. So I kind of brought her back in. I was like, nah, something's not right. You what's, what's going on? And in that second conversation, I was just really curious. All I was was just tell me about how it is moving from Hong Kong to England. Tell me about, you know, where you're living now. How different is it? We weren't really talking about work stuff. and the whole autonomy piece, you know, tell me more about that because that wasn't really in the company culture at all. which I think is a shame because it's a great way to manage your team, to let them be autonomous, but it was all off. And because I remained curious, they suddenly confessed how over the head they were. they were and what actually happened was that in Hong Kong, the word manager is actually anybody who is not necessarily managing a team, but anyone who has responsibilities. And it's because customers want to always speak to the manager. There was one that had speak to somebody with authority. And so a lot of people will have that title. So when that person moved to the UK with that title, of course in the UK, manager means leader of people. never led people before in her life. So came into a role, was very stressed from relocating and kind of landing in a job. And suddenly it was like, my goodness, now I'm managing a team. Didn't know how to speak out. Come from a reasonably collectivist mindset, you know, a lot of the Far Eastern countries, it's about the group, it's not about the individual. And that just wasn't understood when she moved over here. So. It was quite a shock to hear that, you know, that transferee had never done that before and nobody realised. It was just a language difference, a cultural difference, really. And at what point should they have piped up? At what point should they have said, excuse me, I've never led a team before? It was just an awful, terrible situation that, you know, nobody really could have predicted. But at the same time, we were in. So I went with being more curious and more kind. It wasn't her fault.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: It wasn't our fault. It was just a circumstance and a misunderstanding. And so I offered that let's get you up to speed. Let's let you manage a team. What do you need? And so we put a personal development plan in place and we ran through that for about three months or so. In the end, she said, you know what? Actually, I don't want to manage the team. This is not for me. And we were looking in the wider scope then to downsize the team and redundancies were being discussed. And so In the end, we did make her role redundant. The team were very autonomous. Why do you need a manager if they're doing the job anyway without her? I mean, and she was literally just sitting there terrified every day. She had 4,000 unread emails, 4,000 unread emails. She'd been sitting there for months and months and months, just literally paralyzed with absolute fear. And the system failed. That was all. It wasn't the individual at all. But... going through this whole process with this person I was really touched that they sent me a bunch of flowers, they sent me chocolates and a card to say thank you for listening and thank you for allowing me to breathe. Just sat in the corner and held their breath for months and months and months. So my biggest learning from that experience was lean in. If something isn't right, if something doesn't feel right, then that is recognition primed evidence. It's coming from somewhere. And what I feel like I was recognizing in her was because I'd relocated and moved back and I'd had that going to work every day. I mean, I was really homesick seven months into living in Japan. And my manager in Japan said, people pay a lot of money for your teaching English, for your English lessons. I don't care whether you're homesick, suck it up basically. So I could, I think I was just recognizing that, but it comes from a place of generosity, curiosity, humanity. And,
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely.
Michelle Parry-Slater: you know, that's really why that was such a a big event in my life as a manager, because I could have just let her go on with it. I could have blamed her. I could have not leaned in, you know, and I could have not offered kindness. I could have just sat her on the spot, but it just all didn't feel right. So I'm very much led with that curiosity, that kindness and that feeling.
Daniel Taylor: And that really com comes out for me. I can see this sort of a a thread there around absolutely how you're listening to some trusting your own gut feelings and really demonstrating that that curiosity. And it I think it's so powerful just that phrase around you you've helped me breathe. and I I c I can only imagine the the stress, the anxiety, the challenge that they must have felt
Michelle Parry-Slater: Mmm.
Daniel Taylor: And that could have been such a negative process. So I think that that absolutely has to be championed about and and the lesson for all of us really about leading with kindness and really just being a bit curious, testing the water and understanding where that person is and and seeing what comes out of it and obviously you were able to take her on on on that journey and it was the the best result by the sounds of it.
Michelle Parry-Slater: It was, yeah. I mean, it sounds terrible. We made someone redundant and that was the best thing for them, but actually felt freeing for them. And they went on to get a different role in a different organization because they felt that they could. If you're looking for a job whilst you're in a job, it's very, very hard. It's almost like a full-time job to look for a job, isn't it? And so giving somebody the confidence back, giving them the permission to be themselves, I think was all part of... their ability to then find another job.
Daniel Taylor: If you could give some advice to a new manager, what would it be?
Michelle Parry-Slater: that you just don't have all the answers. I think that that's what was paralyzing in that story I told about that person, that coming into that role, suddenly you're just, you you're the answer person. And I don't think that makes a good manager at all. I always go back to David Marquet. I don't know if you've ever seen that really fantastic video that the RSA did. It's called Greatness and it's wonderful. David was a leader in the American forces, I think it was the Navy. He was on a submarine, must have been in the Navy. Anyhow, he always, in this particular video, he talks about how he had been deployed to a submarine that he hadn't been prepared for. He had two weeks notice to get deployed to the submarine. So he walked on board and there's 135 people who know more than him. And of course you shouldn't know more in the US Navy. You should be the person who's got all of the answers and you can fire the nuclear submarine. So you need to be really confident in that. But his humility enabled him to say, okay, well, look, I don't have the answers. And they said, yeah, you shut up. We'll do our jobs. And so he really turned around thinking in those very hierarchical settings. And I met him some time ago. I had the opportunity to do a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of work alongside. And it just really reminded me that you never have all of the answers. So somebody who's coming new to management, you were never expected. to have all of the answers. I think it's a myth of management. Your role is to unlock the answers in your team. If you've hired well, then you've created an inclusive, open, of trusting space for people to shine, to spark that joy. And if they haven't got some of the answers, then that's where the training comes in, that's where the people development is your opportunity. so... Let people be free to be themselves and to shine, to do their best work and together collectively, the collective intelligence has the answers. And I think that that's something that we don't talk enough about when it comes to leading and managing that there's just this expectation. Well, you're paid the big bucks, therefore you've got the answers. No, you're paid the big bucks to unleash the potential within everybody in your team.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah. I totally agree. And it does make me think about how some people can be gifted, a team and you know, and and the pressure of of what that could be, particularly if it's not what you naturally want to do, and then particular and if you start to then try and put that pressure on yourself to go, I must have all the answers and I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna be there with you know instant answers on everything and sometimes just like say, coaching people, talking it through, unlocking, unleashing it is Is an absolute superpower. And I think that the best managers that I've had is ones that have I've encouraged and developed and supported and been the bit of the cheerleader in the background, going, You are a mate, you know, keep going, do that. And and bolstering up the team to achieve what you need to as the organization. yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think that's that's something people listening now can just reflect on is like how do you unleash and how do you unlock
Michelle Parry-Slater: and try to
Daniel Taylor: the the the the strengths that exist within your team.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Yeah, it comes back to that word strengths, doesn't it? Recently had an experience with the city of Gold Coast, working in a team there. Because of what I've often done during my consultancy practice is take what I call my coalface jobs. So I'll take a job in an organization for a period of time, three months. This ended up being quite a long time actually, but it helps me be a better consultant because I can see what is it really like on the front line, so to speak.
Daniel Taylor: Well.
Michelle Parry-Slater: And strengths-based leadership is super strong in the particular team that I was working within. And it means that, you know, we're recognizing people for what they bring. We're recognizing people, everyone's different. So you might have the same job title, but actually some people will do one thing one way and one thing another way. And there's a story when I was interviewed for that role, there was two people who were both in the same sort of position. And the leader chose one of them to join the interview panel to interview me. And the other one was like, well, picked, you know, I'm not the favorite and got a little bit uppity about it. So of course like, okay, help me to understand why do you think I've picked Person A over you? And they said, well, I don't know, they're really different than you. Exactly. We're the same. Then I want...
Daniel Taylor: There we go.
Michelle Parry-Slater: somebody to interview who's different. that makes total sense. That's it. Of course. So you're just playing to strengths, you know, and it was quite funny because when I joined the team and I met this person, they were like, yeah, I was going to hate you, but actually I realized they were just playing to my strengths. And so if you can have a very open and nice conversation about that and about strengths and about skills and about value, then it helps people to just unlock and understand why you need to make the decisions that you make.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: So I'm really loving leaning into strengths. I first learned about it from Ian Pettigrew, who's written a book called Hope is a Strategy. And what a fantastic approach to life and work that he's got because he really does lean into strengths and strengths-based coaching. So he's a really great person to follow and recommend his book.
Daniel Taylor: And then we will come to some more of those recommendations in a moment. And the last podcast, the the absolute brilliant who amin gifted a question to yourself and then you've got a question you can gift onto someone else. So her question was, What is the most expensive assumption you have made about people? Great question.
Michelle Parry-Slater: It is a great question and I've never talked about this before, but I'm going to talk about it now. So I trusted somebody and it turned out to be I'd misplaced that trust. And it was hugely expensive to me actually. I've talked earlier about how one of my deepest joys in work is to bring people together. So I'd put together a team of eight. And we were working on a project which was so important to me, so utterly important to me, particularly around, I won't talk about the industry or anything like that, but it was particularly around an industry which was very, very broken. And a lot of that breaking in the industry came from Brexit. It came from a consequence of lockdown when we had COVID. And it was almost like a perfect storm of awfulness. So we were kind of breaking down each facet of the employee experience and rebuilding it. A lot of the work that I do is not solely learning focused, but more along the whole employee lifecycle experience. And this was a really important project. I felt very, very connected to it for a number of reasons. And why was it the most expensive assumption? Well, I had not done my due diligence particularly because I trusted this individual who I'd known, not well, but known in my village actually for some time. And so I kind of took my eye off the ball a bit and consequently this person turned out to be not as trustworthy as I had perhaps first thought and I didn't get paid. for about nine months on this project. Now, if you work with me, you'll know I pay on receipt of invoice. So if you're one of my associates, I pay you immediately when you are submitting your invoice. Because I know that for small businesses, cashflow is absolutely king. And I never want any of my associates to be out of pocket on my account. And so I'll always pay on receipt of invoice. So I had all of these people invoicing me regularly and I wasn't being paid at all.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely.
Michelle Parry-Slater: And I never ever would have imagined that that would have been the case ever. It just didn't even occur to me at all. So that was an incredibly expensive assumption. was trusting somebody and that trust was misplaced. It was also not doing the due diligence that you almost, you know, always must do. And it ended up that I had no choice but to walk away from the project and it broke my heart. It actually started.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: the whole, like, what should we just move to the other side of the world conversation? Because we just didn't believe that that would ever happen to us. Just like, why would, I don't know, it was just really bizarre. And of course, you'd walk around the village and bump into that person and just very awkward. So that's where that kind of came from. And of course, moving to the other side of the world is not cheap. So it became even more of an expensive assumption.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Um, yeah, it was a pretty pricey gig overall, but I'm still really proud of the work that we did. Really proud of the work that we did. And I'm really proud of the team that we pulled together. They all really contributed to changing a profession that really needs to be changed. I say, catastrophic reasons why that needed to be changed. yeah. Do you do diligence people? That's my advice.
Daniel Taylor: Do know what I really hope that out of this some j absolute joy has occurred, you know, th and that you're in enjoying your time in in Australia and that actually th there's a
Michelle Parry-Slater: It's hard. I'm not going to lie to anybody relocating. mean, I've done it before. I've moved to Japan and back. And I said earlier, seven months in, I got really homesick. Then I worked in global mobility for a long time when I came back to the UK and I know that there's cycles. So generally if you move abroad, you've got to watch yourself at three months and at seven months. And I'd experienced that myself before I knew that they were the triggers. And that generally is a change of season or that you've missed enough that it starts to become a problem. So, you know, depending where you're living, I live on the Gold Coast, there is hot or not quite so hot. Some people call summer and winter. There isn't really autumn and spring. We're in the winter at the moment, so it's not so hot, but it's still high teens. And I'm wearing my cardigan and my long sleeve sweater because I've really acclimatized. So no, this is all good here. Living is all good. But it isn't always easy, you know, navigating new cultures, navigating new ways of working. Even certainly I remember going to the supermarket in Japan and I'm like, I can't buy anything. I can't read anything. I don't know what any of this stuff is. And it's quite unsettling, but that's also the adventure. That's also why we do it. That's also what stretches you and what makes you a sort of more grounded individual. So I'm glad I've done it. I'm glad it was an expensive assumption, but I'd rather have never lived through any of that.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely. Hundred per cent. Thank you very much for that and thank you absolutely f for sharing. And you now get the opportunity to gift a question to my next guest on the podcast.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Well, I'm going to gift a question that's not actually my question. I'm going to gift you Nancy Klein's generative question. So the beautiful Meg Pepin taught me a number of years ago all about Nancy Klein's work. And Nancy Klein, if you're not aware of her, she's come up with a thinking environment and I am a thinking partner practitioner. And that's the course that I did through Meg. I hugely recommend it. It's literally changed my practice for the better. It's made me a better manager. It's made me a better leader. It's made me a better consultant. It's made me better human. It's made me a more patient parent. It literally has changed my life. I have, that was more than three years ago now that I did that program. And since then, every week, I have a thinking partnership with a lovely, lovely lady. who I didn't know before the programme and we met on the programme and so every week we get together and half the time I gift to her and half the time she gifts to me and we have a think. And so if you've never heard of the thinking environment, if you've never looked at any of Nancy's work, I really, really recommend that. And the question that she asked, the generative question which reignites your thinking when you come to the end of your thoughts is this. What more? Do you think, feel, or want to say? So that's my gift to your next guest when you can ask them that question. What more do you think, feel, or want to say? And as a manager, it's a beautiful question. I use that a lot when I'm in group settings because what Nancy talks about is how we live in exchange conversation where somebody asks a question and somebody answers a question. And as you're listening, you're not truly listening because you're thinking about what you're going to say, but to truly listen to somebody, to give them your truest and fullest attention, if all you're thinking about is, wonder what this brilliant brain will come up with next, that generative question gives them another wave of thinking. And so it's wonderful practice. think everybody should get involved. in being a thinking environment and creating a thinking environment for others.
Daniel Taylor: Thank you very much for that. Definitely got me thinking and it's a great question. I will make sure all of these books and links are all in the show notes and Yes please. And with that in mind we've got some quick five questions for you. So can you give me actually now another book recommendation? So over to you.
Michelle Parry-Slater: yeah, I'll send it them all. I have so many book recommendations, I do not want to anybody professionally, so I'm not going to give you a professional book recommendation. I'm going to give you my favourite novel instead. I think that it's really important that we read outside of our areas. So my favourite novel is The Colour Purple by Alice Walker.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah. Very good. Yeah. Brilliant book, thank you very much for that. And can you suggest someone to follow on LinkedIn?
Michelle Parry-Slater: Again, there's so many people. How do I pick just one? I'm not going to pick one. I'm going to pick a few from different areas. And that might be more helpful. So for L &D stuff, definitely follow Andy Lancaster. He is the total king. I've loved working with him and I love working with him over the years. For AI stuff, definitely give a shout out to Erica Farmer and to Eglevina Schuyter, who are just doing such wonderful work in that space.
Daniel Taylor: This is really so
Michelle Parry-Slater: And for OD stuff, definitely follow Danny Bacon and Garen Rouch. I have to say, beyond my own and yours, one of my favorite podcasts is their podcast, the Org Dev podcast. It's just wonderful. And they get such fantastic guests on there. And for DEI, I really like following an Australian called Bree Gorman. I really love the introduction to DEI. in this space in this country is a little bit different than in other places that I've lived so Brie is a good one.
Daniel Taylor: Wonderful. Some great recommendations there. And I won't tell you who, but one of those is gonna be on the future podcast. so watch this or listen to this space. what's your favourite quote?
Michelle Parry-Slater: Boy, that's great. I'm going to steal this from my husband. My husband always says, he's a teacher and he says, success is the journey, not the destination. And I think for, from a teaching and learning perspective, that really is true. It's actually being really conscious of, of what you're going through and how you show up. One of my favorite OD practitioners, Myung Chung Judge, she always talks about use of self as instrument. And I think that success is the journey is... is you using yourself as the instrument to really reflect and learn. so, yeah, I think that's why that's one of my favourite quotes. We just have to pay attention to it, don't we? We to pay attention to the journey and stop just chasing the destination.
Daniel Taylor: And again, that's another thread that I'm I'm seeing here today, which is about reflection and taking that time out to reflect on where you are, what you've done, what you you've achieved. And I think that's something that if you if you don't do, people watching and listening today, do more of that. I think it's it's it's a absolute asset to your learning journey.
Michelle Parry-Slater: You get no argument from me because for me that's, it's a whole chapter of my book for exactly that reason. I think it's where the learning is at. Otherwise, if we're just going through the learning for, you for the course or for the event or for the e-learning, it's injection education. You know, it's a single sort of event. It's a single injection, a single intervention and inoculations wear off. So we need to keep it alive. We need to reflect. We need to really think about it. Thinking is, the difference between us and the AR. We've got to be able to think.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely. Makes us who we are. Best Interview question.
Michelle Parry-Slater: So these questions are great. They really got me thinking. I loved prepping for this, but I am going to give that credit to John Helmer. So I was on John Helmer's excellent podcast and he interviewed me about my book, The Learning and Development Handbook. And he's the only person who's ever picked up on, because I've had a lot of people interview me about the book, but he's the only person that's ever picked up on string theory. So it's in chapter two. And what I love about, not so much the question itself, but I love it when an interview has done their homework and John really had done his homework. So he asked me, well, this is, this is what he said. L and D isn't rocket science perhaps, but according to you, it does have something to do with string theory. Can you explain what that's about? And that level of detail is something that managers I think should have for their staff. They should be that close to their output in work. that they can ask that type of insightful question. So that's why I picked up that one being my favourite interview about my book.
Daniel Taylor: Great point. And the final question, sometimes the one that stumps people, which is what song describes you best?
Michelle Parry-Slater: There was no question without shadow of doubt. I didn't even hesitate when I thought of this question. It's Sunshine by Dario G. And you'll probably go, what's that one? But if you heard it, you'll go, oh, it's that one. So it really is my absolute favorite track of all time. It's kind of play it at my funeral kind of track. It's just uplifting. It gives me energy. It makes me dance. It's pretty much the musical equivalent of me living my best life of joy. And so.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: I exist to be useful to others. That's my whole kind of purpose in life. I just want to be useful to other people. I want to make a positive difference in this world. And that song makes a positive difference whenever it comes on. It's to the point now, like my kids, they ever think, know, mum's feeling it a bit, they'll just stick it on. It's just, you know, it's just randomly on my playlist. Yeah, you stuck it in the queue. I know what you did.
Daniel Taylor: Okay.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Yeah, so you can't fail to have joy when you listen to that tune. I'm a bit of an early 90s dance classic girl, so that's my song, that's my jam.
Daniel Taylor: Love it. This weekend I'm going to big nineties dance festival, so hopefully it'll be on. and we'll make sure that's on the the the playlist which is on Spotify. And thanks so much for taking part today, Michelle. Hope you've enjoyed the podcast.
Michelle Parry-Slater: You'll hear it, I'm sure you will. It's a joy. think it's a really lovely pod. So yeah, listening peeps and I'm really, really grateful that you asked me to be on. So thank you so much, Daniel.
Daniel Taylor: Thank you very much. And if you have enjoyed today's conversation, hit the subscribe button to join our community. And if you want more, go to managing potential podcast dot com to sign up to the newsletter and get regular leadership insights delivered straight to your inbox. And until next time, have a great day. Thanks very much. Bye bye.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Thanks for having me. It's so nice to be here. I've listened to your podcast and thought, it's just such an interesting set of questions. So I'm looking forward to this.
Daniel Taylor: Wonderful. I'm I'm thrilled you're joining me today. So can you tell me a bit more about you and what you do today?
Michelle Parry-Slater: Well, you've given me a very nice introduction, so thank you for that. I have been working in the field for over 20 years and for 12 of the past years, I've had my own consultancy, Kairos Modern Learning. And then in 2024, I moved to Australia. So joining you from the night time here. And it was a bit of an adventure really. And recently that's seen me taking over Learning Uncut, the podcast and the consultancy founded by Michelle Ockers.
Daniel Taylor: Mm.
Michelle Parry-Slater: who is well, very well known in Australia. And luckily my name is also Michelle, so sometimes, you know, I'm just riding on her coattails. So today I run both Kairos in the UK and Learning Uncut in Australia. And I've got a really strong belief that workplace learning needs to be focused on performance, behavior, and therefore it needs to be offered within context. So when I wrote my book, Several times in that book, if anyone's read it, they'll read the same thing, the same line repeats, because I really believe that we must be advocates for the right solution, for the right problem, for the right people at the right time, for the right reasons delivered in the right way. And whether we're doing learning and development, organisation development, or management, leadership, I think it stands to be the same.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely. And what's it like running two consultancies on on you know two sides of the world as a global consultancy? That that must be a real challenge.
Michelle Parry-Slater: It's a bit crazy. do sort of bizarre hours. So, you know, tonight I'll be going to bed by about half past eight because I'm getting up for something in America, which is at 5 a.m. But I live on the Gold Coast and the Gold Coast, basically, if anyone's ever been here, you're up at 5 a.m. and you're in bed by nine because we chase the sun. We don't do say daylight savings here. So we tend to get up when the when the sun's up and go to bed. So it's quite a natural. Thing actually is quite a natural way of working. So it means that I can catch the UK either end of the day as well.
Daniel Taylor: Great way to to live your life and work with all all these sort of interesting challenges right you know, right around the world. and with that in mind, what sort of manager were you when you look back on on your time with within management?
Michelle Parry-Slater: You can't work in learning and development and not say that your greatest joy is developing people. And I genuinely mean that to be true. I think as a manager, one of my absolute pleasures, and I've done this a lot during my consultancy, is get a big project and bring together a diverse group of people to do excellent work together. I'm highly collaborative and I just spark when I'm working with other people. I just find my energy increases and where I can put pools of teams together to increase their energy. I particularly love to do it, especially with freelancers, because often we work on our own. We don't get to be part of a team. And so it's my absolute joy. So when I look back at the last 12 years with Kairos Modern Learning, the projects I've enjoyed the most is where I can pull in the great and the good and we can really learn from each other. So as a manager, I guess. I'm good at spotting talent and nurturing it and giving it spark. I particularly love working with young people. So anyone who's known my career will know that I've been involved in Girlguiding. that was just such an important part of my life because when we can see the potential in young people and we can light that fire and that belief in them, that's just, it's just the joy that you can bring to others. through the profession of people development. So there's that kind of angle as well. But I think overall, it's about listening. So as a manager, I listen first. I ask the question, how do you know a lot? Because we want to take an evidence-based approach to all of the decision-making in my consultancy work. So I'm often asking that question, how do we know that to be true? Is that an assumption or is that actually fact?
Daniel Taylor: Okay.
Michelle Parry-Slater: And so we can only make the best decisions when we've got the best information. So gathering information in order to make good decisions. if I ever can't decide when I'm leading others, when I'm leading myself, it's usually because I don't have enough information. So I'll go back out, gather more information, because I think the decision then becomes very natural. And when you're in that space where the decision is like, yeah, this feels right, as well as I know it to be true, because how do I know? I can answer that question. Then life's too short for regrets. You make your decision, you go. You lean in, you gather the feedback, you go again. So that's kind of my style really across all of my work, management and consultancy.
Daniel Taylor: So that's a it's a great point that so that's about you know in terms of listening around the advocacy and really be you know, listening to to you know the people that you you're working alongside and and really championing those individuals. So I absolutely love that. great way. And I think that's a a great question for or or something for people to take away listening to today's podcast. It it's about how do you know that? How how where have you got your information from? And it's a it's a great question for people to take away. Love it. With that in mind then, how did you develop or how do you continue to develop talent that you see around you of yourself and of those around you?
Michelle Parry-Slater: think there's always an assumption on my part that I don't know anything. Start with that. You if I don't know anything, then asking good questions of others. And I've talked about that word spark and I genuinely like that in all of its forms. So lighting fire in people, helping people find their own spark, their own joy. And that's really where the development potential really sits. Oftentimes you've not been exposed to things. So you don't know that you're good at it or you don't know that you could be good at it. And there's a lot of self-limiting beliefs in people. There's also lot of opportunity limits as well. How could somebody get involved in a profession, for example, if they don't know anyone in that profession, they've never heard of that thing. And of course, we're facing that at the moment because we don't know what the future of jobs are. I've got three young children. They're not young. They're young to me, but they're in their early 20s, late teens. We don't know what jobs they're going to be doing when they are my age. And so in terms of how do I continually develop? Well, I'm constantly, constantly looking to learn and constantly, constantly looking for what sparks joy in me. So I'll tend to follow that joy. And that's what I try and do for other people as well, light that fire, give them the joy. And a lot of that comes through coaching and feedback. So my question, how do you know? Sometimes you'll ask that and people are, I don't know. You're like, you don't know what you don't know. You don't know what profession you want to do if you've never done it before. You don't know what you don't know. So it then goes into curiosity. So if you're being really curious all of the time and you're encouraging others to seek curiosity, then that's actually really helpful and it's where feedback fits in, you know, because you can see things in others that they can't necessarily see in yourself. And when I think back to my career, people who've seen things in me that I could never have imagined, I mean, I would never have started Kairos Modern Learning if it wasn't for Catherine Marlowe, who was my director when I was a global head of learning. and she could see in me that I had the potential. I was sort of felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff looking down and she said, look up, know, look up. So I said, well, I'll jump and I'll just see how fast I fall. And I'm fortunate to be 12 years later, still falling and still learning along the way. So when you can spend time with other people and genuinely ask for feedback, generally ask what do they see that you can't see in yourself. So I love helping people in my team. To do that, I love people to help reflecting on activities that they've undertaken, tasks, roles, challenges, stretch things that they've undertaken on their own or sometimes as a group. And these are the sorts of ways that I love to notice my own potential and potential in others.
Daniel Taylor: I th I think that's a it's a great way to to do that, to focus on the joy and what gives you an absolute spark and and and drives you forward. And in interestingly, recently I was speaking to somebody in the university sector and and he was telling me that he said I'm I'm training people up for jobs that just don't exist. And it's like how how that that that sort of really got me sort of questioning about how do you even do that? You know, it's you know the th providing all that education with j jobs that just don't exist at the r at this very moment.
Michelle Parry-Slater: think a lot of it's self awareness. So knowing what you are fulfilled by, understanding what your values are. So oftentimes I'll talk about strengths, skills and values. So if you know what your strengths are, you know what you're good at naturally, and you know what skills you've acquired and learned or could potentially learn, but you're also very grounded in what do you believe, what are your values? And if you can work in a job that sort of fulfills you in those three areas, it doesn't feel like work. It's just you in a space and being paid for it. So that's the kind of thing that I'd always try and bring out in people. It's what I talk to my own children about. What is it that fills you up? What is it that makes you feel happy? What is it that you get joy about? And that's why I say it's important for other people to see it in you. Because sometimes you'll ask somebody something about their job and then maybe you'll ask them something about their hobby and suddenly this light turns on. you know, and they're talking about their hobby and they're talking about what they do outside of work. And you're like, this is the wrong job. You're in the wrong space because your joy sits somewhere else. Now, of course, some people pragmatically needs to work in order to fulfill their hobby. And they couldn't necessarily do their hobby as a job, but imagine if everybody could imagine if everyone could live in their joy. That would just be a world that would be amazing.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah. I totally agree. Definitely play to your strengths and focus on on what brings you joy, ideally, if it's possible, like you say. Not always possible, but absolutely. within all of that, what brings me joy? I always say, in terms of my my job, it's about helping people to be the best that they can be. And it's I think that's what I really focus on. Cause I don't want to try and push somebody too far, not far enough. It's about
Michelle Parry-Slater: What brings you joy, Daniel? Hmm.
Daniel Taylor: taking that person to where they absolutely want to be and that they are happy and fulfilled and they're getting the best out of it. So I think that's within my my day job if you like. in terms of outside, I'm gonna go Eurovision and music and travel. That that is me, that's what, you know, I my job pays for that.
Michelle Parry-Slater: No, I've never met anyone outside of David Hayden and my husband who love Eurovision. So now there's three of you.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely. And I I went to your vision this year, loved it, and it's now gonna become an annual pilgrimage. absolutely. I know.
Michelle Parry-Slater: my goodness. See what's happened, look at your face, look how joyful you are. I'm not saying that you don't love your day job, but I'm thinking, can this guy do something with music? Because this is the point, maybe that's where your future joy lies, doing learning and development, leadership development in the music industry.
Daniel Taylor: I for your revision. my God. See it it works, absolutely. okay. What was your biggest learning experience as a manager?
Michelle Parry-Slater: When I was thinking about this question, I was like, there's so many. And actually, then I thought that's such a blessing. Isn't it a blessing when we're really aware of what we've learned, when we've reflected on it and we've truly learned from it. So my biggest learning experience was the first time that I needed to make somebody redundant. It's also one of my proudest achievements. Now that might feel like a very unkind thing to say, but let me just tell the tale and see if others.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: see how this was my learning. I had been made redundant after pregnancy in 2004 and again in 2008, so when I had my first daughter and then my son. So I knew what that felt like. It was brutal, it was rough, it was not something that I necessarily wanted to put myself through again and I certainly did not want to be managing a team where it had to happen. But unexpectedly, I found myself managing a team of about 35. It was, I don't know, 2011, 2012, something like that. I was covering somebody else's maternity leave. And there was someone in the team who had transferred to the UK office from the Hong Kong office. They sat in the corner. They had a team of three people. And in our first one-to-one, I noticed that they weren't really on the ball. I noticed that they weren't kind of up to speed on a lot of the jobs and they kept sort of saying, you know, ask the team, ask the team. And I thought, well, you're the manager. So you really ought to know what's going on. And I did speak to the team and they were really effective. They were super productive. and I just checked in with them about their manager and they said, yeah, she just lets us get on with it. You know, she's largely absent and we don't mind it actually. We quite like the autonomy. you know, she never sort of beefs at them about anything. So there was just a few flags. flying and alarm bells ringing and I thought this just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like somebody who's really connected to the work. Is it that she's relocated? Is it that she's feeling unhappy? And I had previously lived in Japan and then come back to England so I could understand homesickness. I could understand that sort of thing. So I kind of brought her back in. I was like, nah, something's not right. You what's, what's going on? And in that second conversation, I was just really curious. All I was was just tell me about how it is moving from Hong Kong to England. Tell me about, you know, where you're living now. How different is it? We weren't really talking about work stuff. and the whole autonomy piece, you know, tell me more about that because that wasn't really in the company culture at all. which I think is a shame because it's a great way to manage your team, to let them be autonomous, but it was all off. And because I remained curious, they suddenly confessed how over the head they were. they were and what actually happened was that in Hong Kong, the word manager is actually anybody who is not necessarily managing a team, but anyone who has responsibilities. And it's because customers want to always speak to the manager. There was one that had speak to somebody with authority. And so a lot of people will have that title. So when that person moved to the UK with that title, of course in the UK, manager means leader of people. never led people before in her life. So came into a role, was very stressed from relocating and kind of landing in a job. And suddenly it was like, my goodness, now I'm managing a team. Didn't know how to speak out. Come from a reasonably collectivist mindset, you know, a lot of the Far Eastern countries, it's about the group, it's not about the individual. And that just wasn't understood when she moved over here. So. It was quite a shock to hear that, you know, that transferee had never done that before and nobody realised. It was just a language difference, a cultural difference, really. And at what point should they have piped up? At what point should they have said, excuse me, I've never led a team before? It was just an awful, terrible situation that, you know, nobody really could have predicted. But at the same time, we were in. So I went with being more curious and more kind. It wasn't her fault.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: It wasn't our fault. It was just a circumstance and a misunderstanding. And so I offered that let's get you up to speed. Let's let you manage a team. What do you need? And so we put a personal development plan in place and we ran through that for about three months or so. In the end, she said, you know what? Actually, I don't want to manage the team. This is not for me. And we were looking in the wider scope then to downsize the team and redundancies were being discussed. And so In the end, we did make her role redundant. The team were very autonomous. Why do you need a manager if they're doing the job anyway without her? I mean, and she was literally just sitting there terrified every day. She had 4,000 unread emails, 4,000 unread emails. She'd been sitting there for months and months and months, just literally paralyzed with absolute fear. And the system failed. That was all. It wasn't the individual at all. But... going through this whole process with this person I was really touched that they sent me a bunch of flowers, they sent me chocolates and a card to say thank you for listening and thank you for allowing me to breathe. Just sat in the corner and held their breath for months and months and months. So my biggest learning from that experience was lean in. If something isn't right, if something doesn't feel right, then that is recognition primed evidence. It's coming from somewhere. And what I feel like I was recognizing in her was because I'd relocated and moved back and I'd had that going to work every day. I mean, I was really homesick seven months into living in Japan. And my manager in Japan said, people pay a lot of money for your teaching English, for your English lessons. I don't care whether you're homesick, suck it up basically. So I could, I think I was just recognizing that, but it comes from a place of generosity, curiosity, humanity. And,
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely.
Michelle Parry-Slater: you know, that's really why that was such a a big event in my life as a manager, because I could have just let her go on with it. I could have blamed her. I could have not leaned in, you know, and I could have not offered kindness. I could have just sat her on the spot, but it just all didn't feel right. So I'm very much led with that curiosity, that kindness and that feeling.
Daniel Taylor: And that really com comes out for me. I can see this sort of a a thread there around absolutely how you're listening to some trusting your own gut feelings and really demonstrating that that curiosity. And it I think it's so powerful just that phrase around you you've helped me breathe. and I I c I can only imagine the the stress, the anxiety, the challenge that they must have felt
Michelle Parry-Slater: Mmm.
Daniel Taylor: And that could have been such a negative process. So I think that that absolutely has to be championed about and and the lesson for all of us really about leading with kindness and really just being a bit curious, testing the water and understanding where that person is and and seeing what comes out of it and obviously you were able to take her on on on that journey and it was the the best result by the sounds of it.
Michelle Parry-Slater: It was, yeah. I mean, it sounds terrible. We made someone redundant and that was the best thing for them, but actually felt freeing for them. And they went on to get a different role in a different organization because they felt that they could. If you're looking for a job whilst you're in a job, it's very, very hard. It's almost like a full-time job to look for a job, isn't it? And so giving somebody the confidence back, giving them the permission to be themselves, I think was all part of... their ability to then find another job.
Daniel Taylor: If you could give some advice to a new manager, what would it be?
Michelle Parry-Slater: that you just don't have all the answers. I think that that's what was paralyzing in that story I told about that person, that coming into that role, suddenly you're just, you you're the answer person. And I don't think that makes a good manager at all. I always go back to David Marquet. I don't know if you've ever seen that really fantastic video that the RSA did. It's called Greatness and it's wonderful. David was a leader in the American forces, I think it was the Navy. He was on a submarine, must have been in the Navy. Anyhow, he always, in this particular video, he talks about how he had been deployed to a submarine that he hadn't been prepared for. He had two weeks notice to get deployed to the submarine. So he walked on board and there's 135 people who know more than him. And of course you shouldn't know more in the US Navy. You should be the person who's got all of the answers and you can fire the nuclear submarine. So you need to be really confident in that. But his humility enabled him to say, okay, well, look, I don't have the answers. And they said, yeah, you shut up. We'll do our jobs. And so he really turned around thinking in those very hierarchical settings. And I met him some time ago. I had the opportunity to do a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of work alongside. And it just really reminded me that you never have all of the answers. So somebody who's coming new to management, you were never expected. to have all of the answers. I think it's a myth of management. Your role is to unlock the answers in your team. If you've hired well, then you've created an inclusive, open, of trusting space for people to shine, to spark that joy. And if they haven't got some of the answers, then that's where the training comes in, that's where the people development is your opportunity. so... Let people be free to be themselves and to shine, to do their best work and together collectively, the collective intelligence has the answers. And I think that that's something that we don't talk enough about when it comes to leading and managing that there's just this expectation. Well, you're paid the big bucks, therefore you've got the answers. No, you're paid the big bucks to unleash the potential within everybody in your team.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah. I totally agree. And it does make me think about how some people can be gifted, a team and you know, and and the pressure of of what that could be, particularly if it's not what you naturally want to do, and then particular and if you start to then try and put that pressure on yourself to go, I must have all the answers and I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna be there with you know instant answers on everything and sometimes just like say, coaching people, talking it through, unlocking, unleashing it is Is an absolute superpower. And I think that the best managers that I've had is ones that have I've encouraged and developed and supported and been the bit of the cheerleader in the background, going, You are a mate, you know, keep going, do that. And and bolstering up the team to achieve what you need to as the organization. yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think that's that's something people listening now can just reflect on is like how do you unleash and how do you unlock
Michelle Parry-Slater: and try to
Daniel Taylor: the the the the strengths that exist within your team.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Yeah, it comes back to that word strengths, doesn't it? Recently had an experience with the city of Gold Coast, working in a team there. Because of what I've often done during my consultancy practice is take what I call my coalface jobs. So I'll take a job in an organization for a period of time, three months. This ended up being quite a long time actually, but it helps me be a better consultant because I can see what is it really like on the front line, so to speak.
Daniel Taylor: Well.
Michelle Parry-Slater: And strengths-based leadership is super strong in the particular team that I was working within. And it means that, you know, we're recognizing people for what they bring. We're recognizing people, everyone's different. So you might have the same job title, but actually some people will do one thing one way and one thing another way. And there's a story when I was interviewed for that role, there was two people who were both in the same sort of position. And the leader chose one of them to join the interview panel to interview me. And the other one was like, well, picked, you know, I'm not the favorite and got a little bit uppity about it. So of course like, okay, help me to understand why do you think I've picked Person A over you? And they said, well, I don't know, they're really different than you. Exactly. We're the same. Then I want...
Daniel Taylor: There we go.
Michelle Parry-Slater: somebody to interview who's different. that makes total sense. That's it. Of course. So you're just playing to strengths, you know, and it was quite funny because when I joined the team and I met this person, they were like, yeah, I was going to hate you, but actually I realized they were just playing to my strengths. And so if you can have a very open and nice conversation about that and about strengths and about skills and about value, then it helps people to just unlock and understand why you need to make the decisions that you make.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: So I'm really loving leaning into strengths. I first learned about it from Ian Pettigrew, who's written a book called Hope is a Strategy. And what a fantastic approach to life and work that he's got because he really does lean into strengths and strengths-based coaching. So he's a really great person to follow and recommend his book.
Daniel Taylor: And then we will come to some more of those recommendations in a moment. And the last podcast, the the absolute brilliant who amin gifted a question to yourself and then you've got a question you can gift onto someone else. So her question was, What is the most expensive assumption you have made about people? Great question.
Michelle Parry-Slater: It is a great question and I've never talked about this before, but I'm going to talk about it now. So I trusted somebody and it turned out to be I'd misplaced that trust. And it was hugely expensive to me actually. I've talked earlier about how one of my deepest joys in work is to bring people together. So I'd put together a team of eight. And we were working on a project which was so important to me, so utterly important to me, particularly around, I won't talk about the industry or anything like that, but it was particularly around an industry which was very, very broken. And a lot of that breaking in the industry came from Brexit. It came from a consequence of lockdown when we had COVID. And it was almost like a perfect storm of awfulness. So we were kind of breaking down each facet of the employee experience and rebuilding it. A lot of the work that I do is not solely learning focused, but more along the whole employee lifecycle experience. And this was a really important project. I felt very, very connected to it for a number of reasons. And why was it the most expensive assumption? Well, I had not done my due diligence particularly because I trusted this individual who I'd known, not well, but known in my village actually for some time. And so I kind of took my eye off the ball a bit and consequently this person turned out to be not as trustworthy as I had perhaps first thought and I didn't get paid. for about nine months on this project. Now, if you work with me, you'll know I pay on receipt of invoice. So if you're one of my associates, I pay you immediately when you are submitting your invoice. Because I know that for small businesses, cashflow is absolutely king. And I never want any of my associates to be out of pocket on my account. And so I'll always pay on receipt of invoice. So I had all of these people invoicing me regularly and I wasn't being paid at all.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely.
Michelle Parry-Slater: And I never ever would have imagined that that would have been the case ever. It just didn't even occur to me at all. So that was an incredibly expensive assumption. was trusting somebody and that trust was misplaced. It was also not doing the due diligence that you almost, you know, always must do. And it ended up that I had no choice but to walk away from the project and it broke my heart. It actually started.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: the whole, like, what should we just move to the other side of the world conversation? Because we just didn't believe that that would ever happen to us. Just like, why would, I don't know, it was just really bizarre. And of course, you'd walk around the village and bump into that person and just very awkward. So that's where that kind of came from. And of course, moving to the other side of the world is not cheap. So it became even more of an expensive assumption.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Um, yeah, it was a pretty pricey gig overall, but I'm still really proud of the work that we did. Really proud of the work that we did. And I'm really proud of the team that we pulled together. They all really contributed to changing a profession that really needs to be changed. I say, catastrophic reasons why that needed to be changed. yeah. Do you do diligence people? That's my advice.
Daniel Taylor: Do know what I really hope that out of this some j absolute joy has occurred, you know, th and that you're in enjoying your time in in Australia and that actually th there's a
Michelle Parry-Slater: It's hard. I'm not going to lie to anybody relocating. mean, I've done it before. I've moved to Japan and back. And I said earlier, seven months in, I got really homesick. Then I worked in global mobility for a long time when I came back to the UK and I know that there's cycles. So generally if you move abroad, you've got to watch yourself at three months and at seven months. And I'd experienced that myself before I knew that they were the triggers. And that generally is a change of season or that you've missed enough that it starts to become a problem. So, you know, depending where you're living, I live on the Gold Coast, there is hot or not quite so hot. Some people call summer and winter. There isn't really autumn and spring. We're in the winter at the moment, so it's not so hot, but it's still high teens. And I'm wearing my cardigan and my long sleeve sweater because I've really acclimatized. So no, this is all good here. Living is all good. But it isn't always easy, you know, navigating new cultures, navigating new ways of working. Even certainly I remember going to the supermarket in Japan and I'm like, I can't buy anything. I can't read anything. I don't know what any of this stuff is. And it's quite unsettling, but that's also the adventure. That's also why we do it. That's also what stretches you and what makes you a sort of more grounded individual. So I'm glad I've done it. I'm glad it was an expensive assumption, but I'd rather have never lived through any of that.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely. Hundred per cent. Thank you very much for that and thank you absolutely f for sharing. And you now get the opportunity to gift a question to my next guest on the podcast.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Well, I'm going to gift a question that's not actually my question. I'm going to gift you Nancy Klein's generative question. So the beautiful Meg Pepin taught me a number of years ago all about Nancy Klein's work. And Nancy Klein, if you're not aware of her, she's come up with a thinking environment and I am a thinking partner practitioner. And that's the course that I did through Meg. I hugely recommend it. It's literally changed my practice for the better. It's made me a better manager. It's made me a better leader. It's made me a better consultant. It's made me better human. It's made me a more patient parent. It literally has changed my life. I have, that was more than three years ago now that I did that program. And since then, every week, I have a thinking partnership with a lovely, lovely lady. who I didn't know before the programme and we met on the programme and so every week we get together and half the time I gift to her and half the time she gifts to me and we have a think. And so if you've never heard of the thinking environment, if you've never looked at any of Nancy's work, I really, really recommend that. And the question that she asked, the generative question which reignites your thinking when you come to the end of your thoughts is this. What more? Do you think, feel, or want to say? So that's my gift to your next guest when you can ask them that question. What more do you think, feel, or want to say? And as a manager, it's a beautiful question. I use that a lot when I'm in group settings because what Nancy talks about is how we live in exchange conversation where somebody asks a question and somebody answers a question. And as you're listening, you're not truly listening because you're thinking about what you're going to say, but to truly listen to somebody, to give them your truest and fullest attention, if all you're thinking about is, wonder what this brilliant brain will come up with next, that generative question gives them another wave of thinking. And so it's wonderful practice. think everybody should get involved. in being a thinking environment and creating a thinking environment for others.
Daniel Taylor: Thank you very much for that. Definitely got me thinking and it's a great question. I will make sure all of these books and links are all in the show notes and Yes please. And with that in mind we've got some quick five questions for you. So can you give me actually now another book recommendation? So over to you.
Michelle Parry-Slater: yeah, I'll send it them all. I have so many book recommendations, I do not want to anybody professionally, so I'm not going to give you a professional book recommendation. I'm going to give you my favourite novel instead. I think that it's really important that we read outside of our areas. So my favourite novel is The Colour Purple by Alice Walker.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah. Very good. Yeah. Brilliant book, thank you very much for that. And can you suggest someone to follow on LinkedIn?
Michelle Parry-Slater: Again, there's so many people. How do I pick just one? I'm not going to pick one. I'm going to pick a few from different areas. And that might be more helpful. So for L &D stuff, definitely follow Andy Lancaster. He is the total king. I've loved working with him and I love working with him over the years. For AI stuff, definitely give a shout out to Erica Farmer and to Eglevina Schuyter, who are just doing such wonderful work in that space.
Daniel Taylor: This is really so
Michelle Parry-Slater: And for OD stuff, definitely follow Danny Bacon and Garen Rouch. I have to say, beyond my own and yours, one of my favorite podcasts is their podcast, the Org Dev podcast. It's just wonderful. And they get such fantastic guests on there. And for DEI, I really like following an Australian called Bree Gorman. I really love the introduction to DEI. in this space in this country is a little bit different than in other places that I've lived so Brie is a good one.
Daniel Taylor: Wonderful. Some great recommendations there. And I won't tell you who, but one of those is gonna be on the future podcast. so watch this or listen to this space. what's your favourite quote?
Michelle Parry-Slater: Boy, that's great. I'm going to steal this from my husband. My husband always says, he's a teacher and he says, success is the journey, not the destination. And I think for, from a teaching and learning perspective, that really is true. It's actually being really conscious of, of what you're going through and how you show up. One of my favorite OD practitioners, Myung Chung Judge, she always talks about use of self as instrument. And I think that success is the journey is... is you using yourself as the instrument to really reflect and learn. so, yeah, I think that's why that's one of my favourite quotes. We just have to pay attention to it, don't we? We to pay attention to the journey and stop just chasing the destination.
Daniel Taylor: And again, that's another thread that I'm I'm seeing here today, which is about reflection and taking that time out to reflect on where you are, what you've done, what you you've achieved. And I think that's something that if you if you don't do, people watching and listening today, do more of that. I think it's it's it's a absolute asset to your learning journey.
Michelle Parry-Slater: You get no argument from me because for me that's, it's a whole chapter of my book for exactly that reason. I think it's where the learning is at. Otherwise, if we're just going through the learning for, you for the course or for the event or for the e-learning, it's injection education. You know, it's a single sort of event. It's a single injection, a single intervention and inoculations wear off. So we need to keep it alive. We need to reflect. We need to really think about it. Thinking is, the difference between us and the AR. We've got to be able to think.
Daniel Taylor: Absolutely. Makes us who we are. Best Interview question.
Michelle Parry-Slater: So these questions are great. They really got me thinking. I loved prepping for this, but I am going to give that credit to John Helmer. So I was on John Helmer's excellent podcast and he interviewed me about my book, The Learning and Development Handbook. And he's the only person who's ever picked up on, because I've had a lot of people interview me about the book, but he's the only person that's ever picked up on string theory. So it's in chapter two. And what I love about, not so much the question itself, but I love it when an interview has done their homework and John really had done his homework. So he asked me, well, this is, this is what he said. L and D isn't rocket science perhaps, but according to you, it does have something to do with string theory. Can you explain what that's about? And that level of detail is something that managers I think should have for their staff. They should be that close to their output in work. that they can ask that type of insightful question. So that's why I picked up that one being my favourite interview about my book.
Daniel Taylor: Great point. And the final question, sometimes the one that stumps people, which is what song describes you best?
Michelle Parry-Slater: There was no question without shadow of doubt. I didn't even hesitate when I thought of this question. It's Sunshine by Dario G. And you'll probably go, what's that one? But if you heard it, you'll go, oh, it's that one. So it really is my absolute favorite track of all time. It's kind of play it at my funeral kind of track. It's just uplifting. It gives me energy. It makes me dance. It's pretty much the musical equivalent of me living my best life of joy. And so.
Daniel Taylor: Yeah.
Michelle Parry-Slater: I exist to be useful to others. That's my whole kind of purpose in life. I just want to be useful to other people. I want to make a positive difference in this world. And that song makes a positive difference whenever it comes on. It's to the point now, like my kids, they ever think, know, mum's feeling it a bit, they'll just stick it on. It's just, you know, it's just randomly on my playlist. Yeah, you stuck it in the queue. I know what you did.
Daniel Taylor: Okay.
Michelle Parry-Slater: Yeah, so you can't fail to have joy when you listen to that tune. I'm a bit of an early 90s dance classic girl, so that's my song, that's my jam.
Daniel Taylor: Love it. This weekend I'm going to big nineties dance festival, so hopefully it'll be on. and we'll make sure that's on the the the playlist which is on Spotify. And thanks so much for taking part today, Michelle. Hope you've enjoyed the podcast.
Michelle Parry-Slater: You'll hear it, I'm sure you will. It's a joy. think it's a really lovely pod. So yeah, listening peeps and I'm really, really grateful that you asked me to be on. So thank you so much, Daniel.
Daniel Taylor: Thank you very much. And if you have enjoyed today's conversation, hit the subscribe button to join our community. And if you want more, go to managing potential podcast dot com to sign up to the newsletter and get regular leadership insights delivered straight to your inbox. And until next time, have a great day. Thanks very much. Bye bye.
