I’m Jenni Miller. I’m one of the directors at Management Dynamics, one of the founding partners. We set up Management Dynamics, I think it’s nearly 7 years ago now, with my business partner Alison Grieve. Management Dynamics was born in Alison’s garden, over a cup of tea, as most good ideas are. We were having a chat about where we wanted to take a working partnership that we had been working on for a little while and where we wanted to take it next, and we decided that actually the best solution was to create a company out of it and make something bigger than just the two of us. That was what we wanted to create. We’d both been freelance, individual entrepreneurs up until that point for a good few years and we felt we’d taken that as far as we could and we wanted more. Having a business partner was important to both of us, having somebody that we could bounce ideas off, take risks with, be a bit more courageous with and we wanted something that would enable us to take on the bigger, more exciting projects with some of our clients. We wanted the challenge of trying to grow a business that was bigger than just us. So, that’s where Management Dynamics came from 7 years ago and my role now is co-leading the business with Alison. It’s almost a bit like a job share is how I look at it. We lead the business together, we make decisions together, our job is to work on the strategy of the business and of course we both individually have our own consulting practices that we do inside the business as well. So we are both senior consultants for the business.

Amazing. So throughout that journey what challenges do you face being a woman in that field?

I don’t think that I’ve ever had a disadvantage being a woman, as a leader when I was in the corporate world or as an entrepreneur running a business. I’ve never felt like that’s been a detriment to us or to me personally. It’s funny, as I was reflecting on this question I was thinking about when I was growing up. When I was younger we spent a couple of years in New Zealand and one of the biggest memories I have from that time was being told repeatedly, maybe it was a mantra my teachers at my school were using a lot, but the phrase ‘girls can do anything’, over and over again to me. It’s something that my parents have said because it stuck with us all, my parents said it right through my teenage years, they still say it now to my children who are both girls. I think that there’s something about that phrase that’s really important, there’s literally nothing girls can’t do and so I suppose I’ve always had that belief and with that belief just comes an expectation that the world’s going to treat you the same because you’re a woman and so I’ve always had experience that it does. So, that’s my personal experience, I know that’s not true for everybody and I feel very fortunate that that’s how my experience of being a woman has been. I’m surrounded by very strong, powerful female role models who just inspire me every day and I think that plays a really big part in that.

Throughout corporate into Management Dynamics is there a favourite mistake that you’ve made that you felt like you learnt so much from, that you wouldn’t want to change?

Well I don’t believe in regrets, I don’t dwell on mistakes, so this is a really tricky question for me because I don’t see mistakes as failures, I see them as opportunities to learn. If people say what would you change, there’s nothing because it’s got me to where I am now and I wouldn’t change where I am now. There are little moments in my career that if I could do them again, knowing what I know now, I’d probably advise my younger self to do something different but those were still opportunities in and of themselves. When I first made the decision, for example, to leave the corporate world, I went and worked for a consultancy for nine months. That role was not the right role for me and I should’ve just taken the leap and gone straight into my freelance life but I was a bit scared and that’s what I realised as a result of that role That’s probably the only example I could think of in terms of what would I do differently in terms of my career, but even then I learnt loads from that experience and I’m really grateful for that.

I know you were saying you’ve been surrounded by lots of women that inspire you, who would you say is your biggest female inspiration?

Well, I have to say Alison, our partnership is so strong, and I really admire her as well, her courage and just her little bit of craziness in a really lovely way that just makes me braver and makes me take risks. I’m really lucky to have had so many amazing female bosses in my time in the corporate world, so many female colleagues that I’ve worked with as well. I respect them all in so many different ways, they bring so much and I learn so much from them every day. The opportunity to work directly with another consultant in our world tends to be fairly rare but there have been really lovely moments when I’ve worked with a couple of consultants in our team on a project and have been able to run workshops together and every time I really relish it because I learn so much from them, so it’s really powerful to be able to do that.

Is there a book, more a business/career book that you’ve read and felt like it’s had a really big impact on the way you think and has helped shape your career?

So many, so many books. Well there’s a couple that have come to mind that I would recommend every time to somebody else when they say which business books would you recommend I read first, or want to learn about leadership, or just being more effective as a person in your work and in your daily life. I think the first one that was recommended to me years and years ago was ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey, absolute classic and still would pull that book out regularly and read it again, recommend it to others regularly. I think it’s just one of those amazing works that is great for life as well as work, there’s so much in it that is just a handbook for life. So that’s number one and the second one which I’m now recommending much more to people is ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***’. Absolutely brilliant book, lovely piece around mindset and self-management which I think is a real struggle for a lot of people, myself included a lot of the time, on a day-to-day basis. Again, it’s this idea of being really effective and not taking on too much in terms of your, what Stephen Covey would talk about, your ‘circle of concern’. They’re linked, these two books. That’s a really nice one as well.

Amazing. Looking into the future what are you hoping to achieve next?

Continuing the journey that Alison and I are on with Management Dynamics. We love running our business, love the people that we work with every day, love our team, love the way that we’ve set up the business, the relationships that we’ve got with our clients. So just want to continue that and take it to the next level and grow it more and to carry on going on that trajectory.

And finally what piece of advice would you give to other women who are aspiring to become leaders?

So many bits of advice I could give, what’s the one piece of advice is harder. From personal experience the one that I notice the most is the desire to be everything to everyone, I notice it the most as a mother, so much easier when I didn’t have children, life was different. Life is wonderful with children in my life and I want to be a great mum and I want to be a great leader and business owner and consultant and coach and I try to do everything and be great at everything all the time and something’s got to give in that because they’re both full time jobs. So having boundaries is really really important, being really clear about what you can and can’t do, the temptation to join the PTA, to be a governor – I’m listing off all the things I’ve done, helping out at the school fete and be present for your child everyday after school and be there for them to put them to bed and to want to have a really successful career and enjoy what you’re doing and be present at all of the stuff that work demands as well. That’s a lot and so it’s okay to say no sometimes, it’s okay to say yes sometimes as well, which means a no to something else and that’s about balance and not putting too much pressure on yourself to be everything to everybody and listening to when you need the break as well.

As a woman you are expected to give, obviously, your all to your children but then it’s perfectly acceptable to want to be able to give your all to a career as well. We aren’t taught to say no, we are taught more to stay quiet, do what you can do, says yes, give your all, we’re not given the voice to be able to say no.

Exactly, yes. I think it becomes a lot of guilt on both sides. If you’re being a great mum it might mean that something’s got to give at work and vice versa, you’ll always have the guilt no matter what. So protecting yourself and knowing you can only be the best leader and the best parent if you have the energy to do both of those and so where do you make sure you’ve got time for yourself in all that. Self-care is really really important and just the biggest thing I find in all of that is boundaries. I’m very clear that I rarely work after a certain time at night when I’ve got the kids and I’ve got to be feeding them and picking them up from school and I don’t do work at the weekends, I’m very strict about all of that, so that I’ve got that boundary that that’s my time with the children. Occasionally I need to do it of course, it comes up and that’s my absolute exception. Also the kids know that I cant be there for them all the time. The summer holidays they’re at home with me I’m working, I’m running a business and so whilst I carve out extra time for them more so than I would be able to do in term time, there’s boundaries around that too. They have to realise I’m both, I’m a mum and I work. I hope that’s a really good role model for them as well. I want them to see a working mum, I think that’s really important.

Thank you so much.

You’re welcome.