Clare is a leadership coach and social innovator. After founding her ground-breaking grassroots regeneration initiative Clare has been in demand helping leaders meet ambitious goals, without the need for ambitious budgets. Her book The Scavenger Mindset rethinks the role of leadership to reflect the new challenges and opportunities faced in the 21st century, and the critical need to now leverage ‘community’ to solve complex problems. Clare believes that we already have what we need if we change our leadership perspective and focus on facilitating the conditions where everyone can contribute at a higher level. Her mission is to embed those conditions into every organisation and business.
Clare Richmond, Leadership Coach and Social Innovator
What inspired you to set up your consultancy SpeakTo?
Since my first leadership role in my 20’s I have been curious about how effective the top down style leadership really is in harnessing, empowering individual and collective potential to achieve long-term growth.
It felt to me that the leadership role was often limiting for all involved. The weight of responsibility fell too heavily on a few shoulders, who were often tasked with the untenable, and that too few people were involved in vital process of learning and innovation. The narrative of certainty and control shut down new ideas and insights and led to risk averse working environments. The challenge was how to instigate change and what might a better approach be?
A few years after having my daughters I set up a grassroots regeneration initiative that necessitated a very different leadership approach and gave me the beginnings of the answer to what a stronger model of leadership might be.
When I began my initiative I had no money, resource, experience or even ‘permission’ – so on paper it didn’t look promising. I was very clear about what I wanted to achieve, but little idea about the best way to do that. Which proved in the long run to be an advantage. I had to adopt a very different approach that felt more akin to inspirational facilitation and less like being ‘in charge’. Without access to the normal enticements, I had to rely on building strong sense of purpose and possibility to attract and retain people and focus on building strong working relationships to form a cohesive team.
It was exhilarating and liberating, and we all learnt fast and made rapid progress.
My role was not to offer ‘neat answers’ but create an environment where people could contribute at a meaningful level, whatever the size that contribution maybe.
The result was astonishing. Within 18 months we had grown to involving nearly 200 businesses and organisations. We identified challenges and new opportunities, and created a business led engagement programme that transformed the community and reinvigorated a business proposition that had long since ceased to be relevant... We had changed behaviours and the perception of what is possible even without big budgets and resources.
The process revealed to me how much more people are capable of when able to participate fully, feel connected and have agency, and how transformational leadership can be when focused on creating those conditions.
In my book I outline what happened when asked to replicate this success in other areas, but within a conventional leadership framework. ( Hint, not good. A lot of wasted time and money and a legacy of frustration and disappointment).
Through this my interest in leadership grew and led to an MA in Creative Leadership to explore how my approach might work in more conventional leadership situations. I was excited to learn that my approach to leadership was hardly pioneering that there were many examples of similar approach to leadership emerging worldwide in all sectors and proving highly successful.
As more of us are experiencing the impact of greater complexity there has been growing interest in my work, and so I decided to write my book, The Scavenger Mindset to help all leaders recognise the benefits in changing perspective to reveal new talent and opportunities, whilst reducing stress and saving a lot of time and money.
There is a better way, where everyone benefits.
The Scavenger Mindset seems an unusual title for a book about leadership. What’s the reason behind this title?
I admit it’s an unusual pairing leadership and Scavenger, but it raises curiosity, and signposts that this book offers a different perspective on Leadership.
The Scavenger mindset requires high levels of critical and creative thinking and broader perspectives to seek solutions. Vital elements for inspiring leadership in 21st century that ensures we are properly equipped for today’s challenges
With increasingly complexity we must challenge our relationship to and narrative around the role of leadership and I hope that Scavenger is one way to help people to do that.
Can you explain the key characteristics of the Scavenger Leaders you feature in your book are, and why you believe they are so important in leadership today?
I often ask audiences what they believe the key characteristics of a Scavenger maybe, and how these might relate to leadership. I am never disappointed in the answers I’m given, including;
Being Resourceful, agile, smart, creative, collaborative, quick learners, determined, pragmatic, survivors, innovative, focused, productive, and highly efficient… and ‘ugly’ has also come up which can provoke a whole new, but equally important debate!
All of which, apart from the last (!) Beautifully describe the Scavenger qualities shown by the Leaders in my book. Qualities I believe we very much need to navigate present challenges. This is true of any leadership whatever the size of the company, industry even for those who work alone.
All the leaders I feature focus on making the most of what they already have, and utilise uncertainty to inspire and precipitate discussion. They harness change and uncertainty to their own competitive advantage.
I offer practical ideas and examples of how anyone can achieve this.
In your book you refer to two distinct types of Scavenger Leader, ‘Scanners’ and ‘ Scourers.’ Can you explain the difference between the two and why that is significant.
‘Scourer’s’ are the original inspiration behind Scavenger. These are leaders who typically start with nothing, like me, and have gone on to achieve extraordinary results rapidly, even globally. They have lessons for all of us on what is possible when we focus on where we have real influence and understand what matters most.
What I find fascinating about these leaders is how many defy conventional wisdom on what makes a good leader – often having no leadership experience, and those that do quickly realise that their past experience is more hindrance than help.
Particularly of interest is how they create highly effective and ambitious teams from often completely random groups of people, many of whom have few qualifications or relevant experience. In this they demonstrate that long term motivation is not about money but the relationships you build and investing in this has a profound impact on performance.
The Scanners are leaders typically operating in established businesses and organisations. In these more conventional roles Leaders are having to address the rapidly changing dynamic in their markets, find new ways to motivate teams and build momentum within established cultures and systems that are frequently risk averse.
Scanners learn to galvanize new learning and innovation within these frameworks to build capacity and confidence from within. I describe their abilities to ‘scan and scope’ their environments to unlock new thinking by bringing in new perspectives and employing small action strategies to learn. Their skill is in building something from within an established structure that may not initially sit easily with ‘the way we do things here’ culture.
In these challenging circumstances, these leaders need to draw on their conviction of the importance of this change to drive through necessary steps to transform the way they work.
What ties the two types of Scavenger leader together is the recognition of the importance of facilitating people to become ‘ everyday leaders’ to fully reach their individual and collective potential and learn how much more can be achieved with very much less.
What are the key lessons you believe leaders now need to learn (or Unlearn) to adapt to a fast changing world and achieve a competitive edge.
Big is rarely better
Let Go of Perfect to make sustainable progress
Equip yourself and others with skills and confidence to navigate uncertainty
Develop strong working relationships
Build ‘community’ around complexity – leaders should not operate in a vacuum
Nurture a high performance environment in which imagination & action matter most.
What one thing would you like to leave our readers with that they can expect from Scavenger.
Essentially Scavenger is a book about hope.
In all my years of studying, researching, practising Scavenger Leadership I have good reason to have big Hope.
I know people are capable of far more if we can go beyond the boundaries of our expectations and change the narrative of leadership. That the most unexpected, unlikely people have so much to offer and will be willing to do so with the right conditions in place. How it can actually cost very little to achieve a lot, so much time and money is wasted investing on things we have little power to affect, and causing toxic working environments.
Whilst we face many challenges I know the answers lie within, that if we just adapt our thinking and change our perspective we will discover that ‘ Everything we need is already well within our grasp.’
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