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Interview Transcript

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Sally Foley-Lewis

Sally Foley Lewis back again for another episode, another video, all about spark, the self leadership video series. And I’m absolutely excited to be with the amazing Michelle Berryman, who is the executive director of the fundraising Institute for New Zealand, whose brain we’re going to pick underneath all that beautiful pink hair. So, uh, welcome to the welcome to the series, Michelle

Michelle Berriman

Kia Ora. And thank you smiley for inviting me to be part of this very exciting series.

Sally

So before we jump into your wisdom and your expertise on everything, self-leadership tell me what you do and tell me all about the fundraising institute of New Zealand. Yep.

Michelle

So the fundraising Institute of New Zealand is the peak body for fundraising in New Zealand. So we look after fundraisers and charities who are fundraising and New Zealand. We have kind of three or four main aspects of what we do the first week there to provide the education and best practice guidelines, ethics, advocacy. And so we’re there really to support the sector and the, the amazing work that all of our charities do to contribute to the, the, you know, the generosity of everyday and who Zealanders, who support their favorite causes. Yeah.

Sally

Yeah. I love that. And, and important work, you know, you’re, you’re supporting those who are supporting others, so absolutely,

Michelle

But you know, our, our role, our role is fun are I think Changemakers is much more powerful. We facilitate change. And so our role is to facilitate a donor’s desire to make impact in the causes that they cared about. And I think change in the retro record and fundraisers, which we, you know, you can empty a room pretty quickly when you say you’re a fundraiser. And I think we, um, I’m really strong advocate of change in that restaurant. I can actually, we are Changemakers on facilitators of change and I think that’s really important.

Sally

Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. So tell me what you think, uh, particularly from the context of fundraising and, and you being in the executive director role now, what is self-leadership to you?

Michelle

Well, it’s interesting. I think when I was appointed a few years ago, I think, um, it was, it was challenging. I think Thai didn’t represent what a typical leader CEO of an organization might be. And, um, I love disruption and I think it’s always nice to my own journey is, is, is one of, of, you know, adversity and, and strong kind of resilience and survival have adopted an attitude of survival from quite a young age. And that’s taken me right through my leadership. And I think being authentic, I think right from the beginning, people were like, why, who is this Scottish chick with pink hair? Who’s leading that organization. And I think, um, in order to really resonate with our members and the, our audience, um, it was so important for me to be authentic and my heart on my sleeve. I tell it as it is. And I’m me, you know, I’m, I’m relationships is, is kind of my specialty. And I think leading, leading strongly with relationships and good relationships is really important to me. And that’s relationships with your team, your board, your suppliers, your members, everyone you work with forming relationships is the key to success.

Sally

Yeah. And, and, and your relationship with yourself as well. You know, you talk about how you’re a survivor and, and, and authenticity, and being truly who you are is, is the way that works for you. Um, to me, that sort of says then that, that then relies on the relationship you have with yourself and your self-awareness and, and the belief in yourself that if I can only be me because, um, when I’m being made and the best of me gets to come forward.

Michelle

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it’s easy to be identified as the chick with a pink here, and there’s much more to me than that, but you know, that the kind of the brand I’ve created is it’s taken me a long time to get to that identity and be confident of who I am, and I’d be proud of who I am, but there’s still part of me, you know, that the motivation, I think over the last year in particular, I think I had a bit of a light bulb moment recently when someone asked me, I w we were discussing resilience and someone said, why are you so resilient? And I’m not. So really you can talk about the traits of resilience and what a resilient nature needs some high, how we, how we behave as leaders, but actually what makes you resilient is a really interesting question.

Michelle

I think for me, it’s not the I’m not driven by success. I think what motivates me is the fear of failure. And I think being honest with myself about that has, has actually been a bit of a game changer in terms of my leadership and my understand my vulnerabilities. And I’ve also realized it’s okay to just sometimes be good. I set the bar really high for myself. And last year I’ve never worked harder than ever, you know, but it came a cost and, you know, it’s, um, adopting an attitude of survival and resilience and back in yourself. And you know, that desire to always kind of be operated at 150%. You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to, it actually comes at a cost. And, um, you know, late last year I did kind of hit the ground, you know, have a, it was a lot and you can’t keep that momentum. It’s not sustainable. Um, yeah. And sometimes it’s okay just to be good enough. Yeah.

Sally

Yeah. I absolutely love that. I think that, um, it’s, it’s, it’s a double edged sword, isn’t it? It’s, you want to have high standards. You expect, you expect things of yourself and you want to deliver and you want to be seen to be as well. There’s a little bit of us that a little bit of ego shows, um, you know, you’ve got a brand that you’ve created that you feel good in your skin. And so we have to maintain that. Um, heaven forbid you change your mind because all these bull, these characteristics are all these complexities come into play. Um, I totally hear you. I mean, I’ve in early days, I’ve burned out a couple of times. Um, and so I absolutely resonate with what you’re saying, and I think that you having that light bulb moment and thank you for sharing it, um, about that question about what makes you resilient, I think is a really important one, because it does come into the, the, the big, the big vessel of understanding self leadership. Because if we don’t, if we don’t have that self-awareness, and we don’t actually know, well, what does keep me resilient? Or what do I rely on to, to be resilient or what makes me resilient plus all the other things, like what motivates me? What are my values? What am I expectations and standards of myself compared to others and myself compared to yesterday, um, you know, that all comes into that play. And I think the, the more we’re open to those lessons in those light bulb moments, the better we’ll always get. So thank you.

Michelle

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Sally

So when it comes to the impact of self-leadership, uh, particularly on things like, uh, courage or influence or confidence of a leader, what do you think, uh, what role do you think it plays?

Michelle

It’s huge. Like I said, when I first started at friends, there was a mixed response and I just, I think our first annual conference, we host an annual conference every year. And I took the decision at the first conference. I was part of that. I would do the keynote speech and I decided to do tell my story, my own personal story, which was my reason why. And it was incredibly confronting. I spoke about, um, mental health issues, a suicide attempt as a young person. It really did take me through the journey of my life, but I didn’t tell my story to poor me. It was actually to explain my reason why. And at the end, it was just overwhelming. Um, you know, the service members and the audience in tears. And I didn’t expect such a positive response, but what it did do was it set the tone for how I wanted to lead our Institute.

Michelle

I think institutes tend to have a certain expectation of what an a, a P a national Institute should be. And we all turn up to conference and our best and looking to, you know, look at, you know, I’m cheating our best self and look at all this amazing work I’m doing when actually conference should be a time where your interview with all the people in your sector, nobody else understands what it is that you do, but everyone in this room does. And it should be an opportunity to come and see and share your failures, share your vulnerabilities and go, ah, actually this is really tough. And I think that was the moment that things changed for our organization. I think everyone resonated with someone who was leading the organization that was a real human, that had a real story and had a reason why. And so many, so many people had conversations with that conference that they’d never had before. And it was just, it was amazing to witness. And I think that’s taken us through the last couple of years of the approach that, you know, that’s, that’s how we want. That’s how I want to lead. And it’s, it’s really worked,

Sally

Oh, sorry. You’ve given permission for, for others in that event too. Also just that little, even if it’s just a little bit, um, walk away a little bit more of the mask and, and give themselves permission to maybe have that even one layer down, deeper conversation. So, um, your willingness to be vulnerable, I think is, is again, um, a gift that you’ve given and I totally get, it’s not about for me. Um, it’s about, this is who I am, and this is where I’ve come from. And if there’s a lesson in that for you, then as it, as it’s been lessons for myself, then, then take them. Sorry. So that’s, that’s huge Michelle, and you don’t want to acknowledge you for doing that because not everyone is ready to share this story at all, let alone on a stage to open a conference.

Michelle

Yeah, I think for me the most frightening part was the board, my board at the time, I hadn’t kind of prepared them for that. I didn’t tell them, I guess I was scared to, you know, I mean, it’s terrifying. I remember studying there and we said to go on stage and there was, you know, the full over one of these amazing speakers from the us and was four, four women during the keynote. I was sitting there going, but what, what, what I find really interesting was while we were all sitting there, these were women that I admired and I was terrified. Um, but when I looked at them and we spoke, they all felt the same when I look to them. And, uh, yeah, I said, are you nervous? And they’re like, Oh, of course. And actually when you see powerful, strong women that you admire feeling the same as you feel when you’re about to go on stage again, it’s, it’s, it’s a moment of, I am, I am not an imposter.

Michelle

You know, I, I suffer from imposter syndrome and I spoke about that at conference for every, because I left school at 15, I’ve got no formal education. I think that’s always, that’s always something that’s kind of sat on my shoulder and thought, Oh, I don’t have a degree. Like all these amazing people I am, you know, I have, I’ve just worked really hard to wait. I’ve got to. And so that’s always held me back mentally, but I’ve broken through that. And I, by being able to share that I’m, you know, I’m just as kind of, yeah. I deserve to be where I am because of the hard work, without a degree or a piece of paper. But, um, I think imposter syndrome is real for all women. And I think it was really nice to see them feel the same way that I did. Yeah.

Sally

It’s a human moment. Isn’t it? Definitely.

Michelle

Yeah. I think I do want to add as well. I think it’s also really important to recognize that not everyone to cheer, I strongly believe that in everything you do, you should always give a little bit of yourself away, but that doesn’t mean that you tell, you know, I’m not, it’s okay not to tell everyone about your personal kind of hardship. Some people don’t want to do that, and that’s absolutely fine. And that isn’t the only way to be successful in relationships. But I do think that when you meet someone who’s genuine and authentic, you can tell, and it doesn’t have to be a bit personal, deep issues of adversity, but just about who you are. And I think it’s so important that every conversation you have, you give a bit of yourself a way you don’t talk, shop all the time. And some of the best relationships I’ve taken with me through all my jobs, my suppliers, my tech teams, all of these guys, they know that no matter where I am, they know my values because they know who I am. And so wherever I go, they know I’m going to be doing what aligns with them. Yeah.

Sally

Yeah. And I think it’s about, you know, when, when you do give a little bit away of yourself and I totally agree, it doesn’t have to be everything and we don’t do therapy from the stage as such. Um, but, uh, but I think that that’s courage, you know, you’re you not telling your board first and still, and still trusting your gut somewhere in Saudi, you said, this is still the right message to send. Um, so there’s some courage in there as well. And I think that, you know, your, that, that story you’ve just shared is a great example of where, where self-leadership and, um, courage come into play. Because even though in the face of not being sure what the board would say in the face of being in a room with people you admire and seeing their imposter syndrome, um, and the energy play with your imposter syndrome in that moment, you know, and still you get up there and give that message I think is, is amazing. And, and I, and I think that’s a great way to also show that coming out of the other side of that. How did you feel? Like what, where was your confidence on the other side of that presentation?

Michelle

How I was, I was just, so I was just so grateful for how it was received, you know, there was, there was, I think what was, what was so amazing was those that were very doubtful to see the change in them was what was quite remarkable and actually a couple of them apologized. Um, and, you know, I felt a little bit sad for that actually, because they just, because they found out who I was, it’s interesting, isn’t it? But they, they themselves felt that they judged somebody where they really understanding. And I think that that was really nice. I mean, it was so well received. It was just you, that was a couple of years ago. Now I went, you know, I think a few, a few kind of managers over the time have often said to me, Michelle, you wear your heart and your sleeve.

Michelle

It might a few. And I think sometimes on one occasion, I think it was a positive thing, but most of the time, what they’re saying to me was, you know, you’re too emotional. Um, and I, and Rob has confused me because I thought you really don’t understand good relationship fundraising. You really don’t understand good leadership because actually reading your heart and your sleeve as is, that is what I’ve just said. You’re giving yourself, you know, you are given a bit of who you are away. And I think so many leaders and CEOs of organizations, they feel that there’s this expectation that we don’t do that. We’re professional. I mean, what does professional mean? Does that professional mean you can’t be human that you can show emotion? I mean, that, that, I just don’t buy into any of that. So

Sally

I’m laughing because I totally agree with you. And it’s like, um, uh, the old, I don’t hear it as much now, but it used to be just keep your emotions out, outside, don’t bring your emotions to work. And I’m like, well, out of which hole do I take them? You know, we are a bag of emotions. We are a bag of feelings. And I just think that, um, they also are incredibly important because they’ll help us to be part of the process. They’re part of who we are. And they’re part of how we show up every day. And I totally agree with you about, um, the, you know, wearing your heart on your sleeve. Yes. You know, full well that some days that, that will burn you, you will get hurt because you do that. But most days it’s the right thing to do. It’s it’s again, back to who you are and it’s, and it serves you and you’ll get more, um, you’ll get deeper relationships out of that.

Sally

I remember years ago I had a mentor say to me, I was in a leadership program. Oh gosh. In a dinosaur. I just, um, but it has stuck with me for years. And it was, you cannot hate the person whose story, you know, and hate’s a strong word, but that’s, that’s, I think that was deliberately powerful and deliberately used word. Um, but it has stuck with me because if I know you, then I’m, I’m, it doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with you. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to have the same values, but if I get to know you, then I’m going to have a deeper level of respect for what you’re trying to do. I’m going to a little bit more respect for your, your journey in this world. And so, um, we cut each other a bit more Slack.

Michelle

I was going to start. So I was going to say, yeah, there’s some, there’s some as, as part of developing relationships comes forgiveness of mistakes. I’ve made mistakes. I remember when I first started as so much to do and I’d let diner do the big sponsor. And the first thing I did was get on the phone to say, I am so sorry, but this is what I’m going to do to fix it. And they responded and said, nobody has ever got in touch so quickly, not only apologized, but had a plan to fix it immediately. And I think that’s really important too, as owning your mistakes going. Yeah, I’m sorry. Taking risk, taken ownership of, of the failures and fixing them. I mean, it’s fine. We all make mistakes, but I think sometimes when leaders are too, um, I can’t admit I’ve done this mistake and, you know, w yeah.

Michelle

Dust on it. And I think when people see that honesty and transparency, forgiveness comes with that, and it just builds stronger relationships, and people actually want you to do better. We had to do an emergency appeal last year. So it was the first time ever, we are registered charity and we, um, re released $50,000. It was the world’s first ever peer to peer ASP. And 80% of our donations came from overseas, which was incredible. And, um, lot of the comments that came in said, this is for you, Michelle, we don’t want your hard work to be, to go to waste. And so people, you know, people were giving to support me, which I think is it’s a little bit scary because I don’t want, you know, I’m not the organization, but actually a good leader will take the organization with them. And my role now is to, to make sure the organization is, is this just as good as its leader? Do you know what I don’t mean to? I don’t mean that in any legal way, but I think I’ve used my relationships and my brand. And, you know, I think it’s the, the organization has to shine and what we do has to shine, but I think good leaders make that organizations get to that point.

Sally

Yeah. Well, that’s your influence. I mean, you’ve, you’ve walked your talk. You, you know, you, you’ve got the confidence in yourself to be able to own your mistakes and, and smart enough to also say, this is what my plan is. Um, you, you build those relationships in your end, through your authenticity, which means that you actually come with some influence. And so you’re able to then do that peer to peer, uh, emergency fundraising. And so I think that’s a really great example of those three elements of, you know, confidence, influencing courage, um, being intertwined with self-leadership. So, wow. You know, and good on you. And I don’t think that’s an ego thing either. I think you’re smart enough to know, okay, they’re doing this for me now. How do, and you’re smart enough to not leave it in that ego space either and go, all right, this was, for me, people are telling me it’s for me, how do I now transfer this? Or at least bring the organization with me. Um, and I think that’s really cool. That’s really cool. Yeah. Yeah. So is there some sort of event, like, even if it was COVID, I’m really interested to know about when, when a leader has had the, the Spock as such, you know, slightly dampened and they’ve needed to re re-ignite themselves and, um, reignite their self leadership in particular, um, what did you do and do you know, what are the lessons that you learned from?

Michelle

I definitely learned that I can cope with disruption. I definitely learned that I’m adopted and that’s true of survival is, is, is part of resilience. But I, I also get, do you, do, I think it’s, it’s hard because wellbeing is so important and I’m a mom of five kids. And so I think, um, you know, my motivation is there for them, but I’ve put a lot of teenagers. And so I think it’s really challenging that you can, for me, I can be really struggling in my personal life and with the family, and then I, you know, jump on screen and I’m Michelle and I think, yeah, I think, I dunno, I think the positive, I think when you see that you’ve succeeded and that you’ve done the emergency appeal with confidence last year, we did lots of every milestone that you achieved. You do have to stop and reset.

Michelle

So cause with every success, I, I always feel that you have this kind of real low after a big event. It’s yeah, it’s a, it’s actually a real thing, but you, I quite often physically get sick, you know, I’ll get a cold or it’ll get run down. And I think it does take her, but it takes an impact on your body when you’ve been running with adrenaline and then it was amazing and you’re buzzing and it was so successful. And then the next day you just compassion to the grind. And how do you get your spark back again? Well, I think it’s really difficult. I think you’ve just got to reset and refocus on your core purpose, remind yourself what it is you do, and to do it well, but it takes a lot of strength to keep. And I think I’m just writing an article at the moment about to actually, I think last year we all thought, Oh, we’re so glad that 2020 is over.

Michelle

And this, I dunno if we all thought on the 31st of December, everything was going to change and go back to normal. But the actual reality is that this year I think so almost going to be a little bit harder because it was, we all reacted in a way that we wasn’t in our strategy. We were never taught to last year. You know, that global pandemic was across the board. It actually really even doubt the leadership. Like there, no, there was no leadership course prepared you for that. It really even died that kind of experience there, but we learned with it, but moved quickly and, and that in itself, the, and that we can do this attitude was, was incredible. But now keeping the momentum for another year or two, two or three years still, we’re going to see this impact, particularly in our sector. How do we keep that momentum and high? Do we keep that passion and that determination to keep going? And I’m just not sure, actually,

Sally

Well, yeah. Oh, sorry. There’s a bit of an echo. Sorry. Um, I totally agree. And when you said 31st of December, I actually sent in a keynote speech recently who woke up on the 1st of January, hoping it was another Y2K and it was all good again. Yeah, no such luck. I think you’ve really nailed it. I liked that perspective is that, you know, when it hit, we, we, I hate the word, but we did, we pivoted, we had to drop the strategy. It was an emergency it’s, you know, it’s when you, when you, when your kid needs triple a or, you know, the emergency ambulance to come, it was that kind of sense. And I think it really just strips away the unimportant really quickly. Um, whereas now it’s like, well, what’s important. Yeah, because we don’t know, are we going into another lockdown? Are we not going to lock down?

Sally

How long will the vaccine type? When do we get a vaccine I weigh in what tier and what group, depending on what country we’re in, you know, it may still be another year or so before we get a vaccine, depending on where we are. So I think that that distinction between reacting and now being re being professionally and positively and, and trying to be a proactive responder is really, really hard right now, I think. Um, yeah. And I think that comes back to then, you know, as, uh, thinking about the concept of self-leadership, you know, where’s your resilience, you know, so yeah. And what’s going to make you resilient, so, yeah.

Michelle

Yeah. And making sure that you have those people that I enjoy, I am, I think it’s really important to ask for help is really important too, to have your peer leader, to have those people you admire, I’ve managed to create a wonderful group of people all around the world who were my heroes, actually, that I know have developed a relationship with. And I make sure that I check in with them all, you know, every other week, because you really needs that peer to peer support. You need to be able to see, Oh, this is. I am really struggling. And I think being able to ask for help, know what kinds of help and support you want and also, you know, to ask and ask authentically. And honestly, and, and that, that was one of my biggest learnings was to take advice from others and to take ideas from others and work with others. And yeah, I think having your, your peers to, to really reach out to is so important.

Sally

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so, um, how do you help far up others? How do you get them to really ramp up and fire their self-leadership?

Michelle

Yeah, well, with my team, I approached my team the same, you know, again, with a high level of trust, you know, I think it’s been a game changer. We can work whatever we want. And I think that’s been a big game changer and the dynamics of having to be dined in office. So, you know, my team operate under a high level of trust. They, we don’t, I’m not watching anyone, you know, it’s always been for me, always about there’s a job to do, get the job done, where when, how that’s entirely up to you, um, checking in with them and things. And I think celebrating success and it’s not done enough, particularly at board level, but really celebrate in those successful moments and stop pain, pausing and rewinding. And I just recently posted and reposted on one of our social media about a moment that from conference last year, that was incredible.

Michelle

I think it’s too easy to keep going and you keep going to keep going. And so we put up, um, what other do have from our conference, just to remind everyone, Hey guys, stop, take a moment, look how amazing this was and the thing you have to be able to stop and reflect and remind everyone of the big things that you’ve done. And if you can show that visually through a video or whatever, and go, Hey, let’s flip, let’s kind of rewind on, on, on what went, you know, the good thing celebrating success is so important. Yeah.

Sally

I love that trust and celebrating success. And, and I totally agree with, um, about both those concepts and we do move on too quickly. We, we, we, don’t just, um, you know, I like to say get our fingers or pruney just for a little moment, Bowie Baskin, how good it was. And, and we should be giving ourselves permission to do that because it’s what makes us feel good about why we’re connected to a purpose or an organization or a teams or the work that we do. So, yeah, yeah,

Michelle

It absolutely does. Um, and I think those there’s little things, um, that I, you know, with just sending cards, you know, a couple of people sent me flowers recently and we weren’t successful with some funding that we got and out of the blue, there was a bunch of flowers on my doorstep when I got home and I do the same for other people cards and flowers. And, and, you know, it’s just so important to kind of personalize those, if you know, those key moments and, and reaffirm those, um, those people that support you and that you cared about. Absolutely.

Sally

Just, um, look, I think that you and I can have a chat all day long, but I wanna, I wanna respect your time. Um, I’ve got one more question for you and that is, what do you wish you knew about, you know, self-leadership for yourself? Um, the first time you stepped into a leadership role?

Michelle

Wow. I am. That is a big question. I wish I knew that I didn’t have to prove myself every single day. I think I, I, yeah, I, I wish I realized that I should have taken a breath that it’s okay to take a breath quite often. Um, and to slow down, I am, I, I mean, I I’m someone who, you know, remembered at my interview, they said, so why should you get the job? And my answer to them was because I get done and they kind of laughed and that’s, and that was true. And, um, and yeah, I think, um, I constantly, I think try and achieve too much. And I think realizing that doing something well is better than doing too much, or that might kind of, you know, where there’s too many opportunities for the ball to be dropped. Um, I think it’s important to do what you do and do it well, rather than doing too much.

Sally

Yeah. I love that. I resonate with that because in my early days and my first management roles, I was a bit of a bull in a China shop,

Michelle

Desperate to prove yourself.

Sally

Yeah, yeah. A talk show who present knife with that deal. Yeah. So thank you so much. I really appreciate spending some time with you and learning more about the, what you do and who you are and your, your perspective on self-leadership plus a little bit of insight into the fundraising Institute in New Zealand. So, um, any last words you’d like to share?

Michelle

Just remember that like it’s okay. Sometimes to last Friday, help us two in the afternoon, I put on my Sesame street pajamas, I shut my laptop. I put my phone on, do not disturb and you know, it’s okay to take some time for you and be kind to yourself.

Sally

Yeah, definitely. It’s it’s about filling up your tank so that you’re running on full. I love that. Thank you so much, Michelle. I really appreciate you. I really appreciate what you do and the messages that you share and thank you for being on the spark self-leadership video series. So yeah,

Michelle

Sally, thank you so much for having me.

Sally

Thank you. This is Sally Foley Lewis and stay tuned. There’ll be more videos in this fantastic Spock self-leadership video series. Just asking you the question, what makes you spark your self-leadership bye for now?