Elaine Godley of The DISCPlus Academy

Can you begin to imagine what it's like to have been given a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis, then to beat that diagnosis, not just once, but twice, through an awareness of the link between behaviour and health? 

In our latest podcast, Elaine Godley of The DISCPlus Academy shares the insights and knowledge acquired from over 40 years of experience in professional services, including accountancy and legal. 

More recently, Elaine has been exploring behavioural analysis and the impact of behaviour on our health.  And let me tell you, it's an inspiring tale.  We cover a range of topics in this podcast, including what it's like to work in professional services, the stresses and strains that it causes on our health, and the ability to self-manage, improving our outlook and being our authentic selves at work. 

Please go to humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform to listen to this fascinating conversation.

Scroll down the podcast’s episode page for Elaine’s contact information and for the additional downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

Transcript

Introduction

Paul Shrimpling 0:05

Welcome to the Humanize the Numbers podcast series. Leaders, managers, and owners of ambitious accounting firms sharing insights, successes, and issues that will challenge you and connect you and your firm to the ways and means of transforming your firm's results.

Elaine Godley 0:22

So I think historically we've never been taught about emotional intelligence. His first book, Goldman's first book, was only out in 1994, which is kind of almost yesterday in the scheme of things. So there's been very little um written uh up until that point. It was you know revolutionary, life-changing, uh game-changing book that came out. So we're only talking 30 odd years. A lot of the leadership team were uh are uh older people who are who haven't been taught about this stuff, or if they do know about it, oh it's a bit wussy, it's a bit woo-woo, and it's a bit soft, you know. Um, and these are high lion type individuals, and they won't even entertain, they won't listen, they won't entertain it. They think it's a load of load of voodoo. So it's a combination of lack of education, um, ignorance on the part of the leadership team, um society's perceptions on you know, men aren't men anymore, and you know, everybody's tone soft and that type of thing, a whole whole combination. Um, there's there's no easy straightforward question really. But in Dolman's at Goldman's work, he he identified that of the the leaders who were effective, um, there were something like 80% of the leadership team who were were more effective if they understood the fact that the team members are humans and they need to be they need to be nurtured, congratulated, applauded, but equally, if there's something wrong, you can't keep on having things that are wrong in a team, you need to deal with it, but need to deal with it in a human way rather than you know just sucking them

Can profiling save your life?

Elaine Godley 2:05

all.

Doug Aitken 2:05

Can profiling save your life? In this podcast with Elaine Godley of Disc Plus Academy, you'll hear how Elaine's awareness of self, awareness of her profile under the Disc system, gave her a significant advantage when it came to dealing with adversity in health.

Elaine Godley 2:27

Hi, I'm Elaine Godley and I work with coaches, leaders and teachers primarily to support them in the Disc Plus Academy. So you're gonna ask me next, Doug, what's the Disc Plus Academy, I'm sure. Lovely to be here.

What is the DISC Plus Academy?

Doug Aitken 2:43

Great to have you on, Elaine. Uh yes, we will ask what's the uh Disc Plus Academy actually. We'll we'll we'll come back to earlier things um uh soon. But yeah, tell us about Disc Plus Academy.

Elaine Godley 2:54

Okay, so I've been running it in beta for the last uh almost a year, and it's based upon my 30 years of dealing with the disc version of behavioural profiling. So I created an academy because I want to extend the reach. There's only me, so I can't, you know, there's a limit to my my human potential, shall we say. So um I figured if I work with coaches, leaders, and teachers, I can then extend to about 10,000 plus people I can make a difference too. So it's using the the diffs model of behavioural profiling, but it's linking it with health and well-being, which is my major uh direction these days from having run law firms and accountancy practices over the years. Um, I've gravitated in the health field because of my own situation that I'm sure we'll um come to at some point. But um, yeah, it's it's it's a blend of behaviour profiling and health and well-being, which is sorely missing in many organisations, particularly accountancy practices in my my experiences, law firms, um the the stiff upper lip professional service uh sector is uh is uh sorely lacking. Lots and lots of uh in um what do you call it uh processes and um policies, but very little on the ground in terms of health and well-being for the team members.

Doug Aitken 4:14

Yeah,

What does Humanise The Numbers mean to you?

Doug Aitken 4:15

so much to spin off um from there, Elaine. But the first thing that comes to mind is our our own core purpose to humanize the numbers, which is uh a recognition from our perspective, too, that in a numbers-dominated profession it's still all about the people. Um, but I'm interested from your perspective, what what do you take from that core purpose or that phrase humanise the numbers? What's your take on that, Elaine?

Elaine Godley 4:42

Um, well, pretty much what it says on the tin, really, it's it's humanising the um very numbers-oriented business of accountancy practices in particular, but any organisation is looking at the bottom line, they're looking at the KPIs, they're looking at the the figures, they're not necessarily looking at the people. And years and years ago, I used to have business cards that said on the back, when I was a business consultant, it would say people, process, profits. If you have the right people in the right place, they will define the processes, and in turn, the business will gain the profits. So people first. So to me, humanize the numbers is about putting people first.

Doug Aitken 5:24

Yeah, fab. Yeah, definitely. Um there's there's a lot to cover, Elaine, in terms of your background, but I just wonder if you can give us a flavour for um your background. You've

Elaines professional and personal story

Doug Aitken 5:37

mentioned law firms, you've mentioned professional services. Um, you know, give us a flavour for your your early employment and how that's informed what you do now.

Elaine Godley 5:47

Okay, well, at the tender age of about 22, I think, thereabouts, um, I set up my first business with my second husband at that point. Um, so I was an early starter, and it was in kitchen design, installation, manufacturing, retailing, that the whole bit, everything you could imagine. Um, what I was doing then, I was the the administrator, project manager, whatever. I didn't know I was project managing at that point. I don't think the term had been there widely used, but apparently I was project managing, and I could be I could be managing up to I don't know, five, ten teams of fitters. Um, and and this is in the late 1970s. So um it was it was very early days, no internet, you know, no mobile phones, nothing at all. So it was quite it was quite full on. We we had four showrooms uh in London, installation company, contract um uh contract yeah, manufacturing and and and fitting. So I was I was a busy bunny. So I learned how to be um an effective woman in a man's world, shall we say, at the at that time. Uh 1986 it all went horribly wrong. Um, husband of the day was an alcoholic, and all the business success we had, we went to nearly two million turnover. So all the business success, I thought all business people uh drank and uh lived the high life, fast cars, all the fancy things that we had, fancy holidays, and so on and so forth, but um it wasn't sustainable. So, anyway, uh cash flow problems, um alcoholism, as I've said, and so on. We I ended up in 1986, one of us had to uh to pay the bills, so I went into London and uh I got my first administrative role in a firm of accountants, and from there on I I kind of built my way up and ended up over a period of I don't know 20 years or something, I was um head of this, head of that, and to the point of becoming managing partner um with law firms and the candidacy practices, and I was chief operating officer at Ernst Young, EY, for um uh consultancy division uh in London, and I was uh head of credit management at Grant Thornton and um variety of smaller firms, and during that time I also met um Paul at Remarkable Practice and um he introduced me to uh many many accountancy practices and I've profiled managing partners, teams, and so on over the years. During that time I had breast cancer twice. Um I also then in 2015 had stage four cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and I was given less than a year to live. Um I'd previously beaten a rare kidney disease in my mid-40s. I'm 69 now, so in my mid-40s, I beat a rare kidney disease completely naturally after being on medication for 20 years. So I've trained as a nutritionist and a biohacker, and I've got a lot of information and experience and skills in the natural health field. So over the years I've kind of brought together this unique combination of disprofiling, which I've used throughout my whole life. No matter what organisation I've been in, I've been using profiling because when we can understand the behaviour strengths of ourselves and the team members around us, we can then put together a really, really, really good strong team because not everybody is good at everything. Some people are extroverts, extroverts, some are introverts, some people like all the detailed stuff, some people prefer bullet points and so on. And there's there's patterns that I've observed over the years. But the core thing is health and well-being for me these days. That that's where my focus is.

What did Elaine learn from working with accountancy firms?

Doug Aitken 9:27

I'm just um curious to go back to the professional services side, especially accountants Elaine, since we're we're both in that uh sector now. But um what did you learn from your time working with accountancy firms? I know there could be pages written on this alone, but if there was one or two standout things that you learned about accountants or accountancy in that period, um what would you say it was?

Elaine Godley 9:55

So the management team are always, always made of different stuff than the team members. And every single managing partner and senior leadership team that I've profiled over the years, I would not hire them as accountants. They are not natural accountants, they are leaders, um hence hence their position. Um the people who do the work are are different behavioural characteristics, they're more introverted, they're very detailed, um process-driven, dotting the I's, crossing the T's, doing everything properly, slowly, uh thoroughly, whereas the leadership teams are usually not thorough, they're often slapdash, they make decisions on impulse. Um, they're very dictatorial. Obviously, I'm hugely generalizing here, um, but very dictatorial. You know, it's my way or the highway. There's there's two distinct behavioural profile styles that I've come across over the years, no matter what the industry sector is. Um, using the disc model, D represents the high direct individual. So imagine the lion in the jungle, ego, control, fierce, direct, straight to the point, etc. Most of the lead, well, in fact, every leader, I can hand on heart, every leader I've profiled of any industry sector is a high D. So that's kind of how they've got to that position because their their their um characteristics lend themselves to that sort of uh position. The the two bits that change are the introvert or the extrovert. So you have a what we call a DC profile. C is about conscientiousness following the the procedures and the systems and the processes, or we have a DI, I is about being more fun-loving, happy go lucky, party time. So you have the DI leader, you have the DC leader, um, both having high D and goal-oriented and focus. However, one one is miserable as sin and the other one is happy as anything. And I say that tongue-in-cheek, although I do actually mean it because when you get the DC profiles, um, they need to learn how to relax, how to have more fun, and so on. And you know, this all goes back to the core of the humanize the numbers.

How DISC plays out - internal and external profiles

Doug Aitken 12:14

Yeah, yeah. It's really it's intriguing. Well, to me, it's intriguing in terms of um so how does that play out? So you've you've mentioned the the high D's that it's almost a prerequisite for a leadership position in an accountancy firm. Um, but how does that play out in in terms of the dynamics within the firm, Elaine? If you're leading a team who are not disposed to high D, who are high C, who want to do a thorough job slowly, um, how does that actually play out then when you've got a leader like that and most of the team completely different?

Elaine Godley 12:51

It causes friction, big friction, it causes ill health. Um I profiled a team um last year and um discovered that many of many of them are sick, and many of the team members are sick. Um and what happens is that they're such nice people, they don't like to cause any trouble. So they say, yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir, or yes, miss, no, miss, you know, but whatever, whoever the leader is. And what they're doing, they're internalizing instead of expressing the way they feel, or you know, they're they're it's like put up, shut up, it's stiff off the lip, British culture type of thing. So they're not saying that they're feeling put upon, they're not saying that they're they're they're rushed, they're not saying that they're um they can't meet the deadlines, and so they're they're possibly working candles at both ends of the day and night, taking their stress home with them. Maybe they've they can keep it together in the workplace, but excuse me, they get home and they're taking their stresses out on their family. Um, maybe they turn into drink. I mean, there's a whole variety, many of them are on medication. Obviously, again, I'm hugely generalizing, but we can tell this by looking at the behaviour profile pattern because we have an internal profile, we have an external profile. The internal profile is who we are, who we've been since the age of about seven or eight. So that's just why when psychologists will kind of unravel what's going on when people have got challenges, they always you know go back to you know, what happened in your childhood, what would your parents like, what was your culture and the environment, you know, all that stuff. So we have our internal profile, and that stays with us pretty much the same behaviour pattern all our life. So that's a key one to understand. Then we have our our external profile, so that's our public mask. And a lot of people come to work and they don't bring the whole self, they bring the mask that they think they should be bringing. Sometimes it's conscious, they know they're doing that, other times it's subconscious level. But where that gap is between the internal and the external profile, that's where the damage is, and that's where the person is not being authentic. When they're not being authentic, their cells in their cells, so the cells in the body, pick up the stress, and then as I say, being nice people, you know, not wanting to rock the boat, keeping the status quo, they keep everything inside of them, and then they get to a point where there might be a sudden outburst, and the people go, Oh, that's not like that's not like Fred or Mary or whoever, but actually it's because they've been building up and there comes to a point where they can't keep the lid on. So we can identify this on a preventative basis way, way before they they even have symptoms in some cases. So my my my focus now is all about preventing health, or if there are any issues identified, helping the individual to unravel what's going on. And I've got a um a team of health professionals, um, as I mentioned, I'm qualified anyway, but we have a lot of um uh mental health experts, um physical doctors, oncologists, nurses, all kinds of people that I liaison with um that I can refer on to if if it's if it's required. But I've also created something called the godly health method. It's something that I've been doing for nearly 30 years, but I've only just given it a name. And it's uh behaviour profile, it's a hair hair tissue mineral analysis. So we take a bit of hair sample from the back of the scalp, that goes to a laboratory. This is all done at home, nobody needs to take any time off work, and the individual is in control. So they complete an online behaviour questionnaire which gives a 20-something page report all about themselves and about other styles as well, so that they can work out how the dynamics is working or not in the workplace in their team. Um, the hair analysis shows us what the mineral imbalances are, and a lot of the problems uh we we hear a lot of stuff at the moment on menopause, for example, menopause in the workplace and the ramifications that um that come from that. So very often the bedopausal style of problems for men and women, there's a there is such a thing called a manopause, um, but it's um it's mineral imbalances. When our minerals are out of balance, our whole life is affected. So the magnesium, calcium, sodium, zinc, etc. So we so I I look at things in in the round, and then with AI these days, um the individual gets a scientific report on the hair stuff, the the behaviour profile report. I run both through AI and it gives the very informative infographic and also an audio version, which kind of breaks it down into very simple lay terms on what the people can do to help themselves and may or may not continue with me mentoring, um, but most of the time it's not necessary. So my aim is to help people to help themselves without needing to rely on a crutch once you give them the information, off they go and they can help themselves, and and it works very, very well with with teams.

Doug Aitken 18:09

Yeah. So uh you've made me think about work making us unwell. Now it's easy to see in a a job like mining, you know, people down the pit or whatever, it's easy to see a physical illness or a physical manifestation of um of that. It's quite obvious. What's less obvious perhaps is the physical manifestation of being unwell in an office environment. Um how does I'm I guess I'm curious about why why isn't there as much focus on that as there might be, Elaine? Why do you think that is no let me ask a better question first of all? Give me an idea how many people what percentage of workers um you've seen in terms of disc profile who are out of kilter as you've described. You know, is it is it 1% or is it closer to 50%? You know, give give us an idea.

Elaine Godley 19:07

The organization that I've I've touched on uh recently, 41% of the team were sick as parrots, and that's not unusual. Um, I would say probably an average of about 30 to 40 percent. Um, that organization was particularly uh stressed for whatever reason, but it's always a story behind. So whether you're looking at an individual's profile or team profile, there is always a story, and the key is to unravel what the story is. Um, maybe they've got trouble at home, maybe they've got friction within the workplace, maybe they don't get on with their boss. I mean, there's a whole myriad of things it could be. Maybe they're not getting any sleep because they're looking for looking after an older parent or or sick child or something. So it's always understanding that the story behind. And whilst the profile is to me is you know 80% of the picture, it's

How out of kilter is the workplace?

Elaine Godley 20:00

not the be all and end all. We need these other, you know, and people need evidence, so that's why the the hairodalysis, which I've been I've been using over 20, well, 26 years old, I've been using turn turn of the millennium, I I started using, and that's how I I fixed myself with my health. Um, the uh kidney disease that I had that I was told was incurable. Um, I I was was guided by a nutritionist at the time and a chiropractor, both worked uh with me in different areas, and um, completely naturally, food, diet, lifestyle, better sleep, um, no medication whatsoever, I was able to come off of uh antibiotics that I've been on for over 20 years. So anything is possible, um, and I'm living proof that you know you don't have to agree with whatever the doctors tell you. Um, there are alternatives, and with the integrative approach now, it's it's not rocket science, it's really quite simple.

Doug Aitken 20:54

Yeah. Why do you think are leaders not as aware of this as they might be?

Emotional Intelligence

Elaine Godley 21:02

Well, again, there's a whole variety of reasons there. Um, it depends on the age and the maturity of the the leadership team. Um, it depends upon the the um measurement, shall we say, or the scoring of the high D. So you can be a high D if you're 52%, so anything above 50 we consider the high characteristics, and they're normally the behaviours that we see on a day-to-day basis. So you could be a 52% D, you could be a 95% D, and anything in between. So it depends upon their level of D-ness, shall we say, directness, as to how um robust um and authoritarian that their their leadership style is. As I said, if if they're if it's blended with a higher, most people are not a D, an I and S or a C, where a blend uh you know, between all of this. But um, it depends upon the individual measurements of their their style. So they will live. According to what their when their natural style is. However, circumstances usually mean that they have to be adaptable, and very often high Ds are extremely adaptable in contrast to the team members who usually are very, very not adaptable. That's bad English, isn't it? Not adaptable. So the higher the S, so the S is stands for steadiness and supportive. So it's nice. Imagine a puppy dog, you know, little lovely puppy dog working in a team that's led by a lion. You know, that the lion's going to eat the puppy dog for breakfast and some. And this is what happens. So the puppy dog is, you know, very loyal, you know, licking round the feet of the of the of the owner, sort of thing, um, sucking it all up. And then the the ID is usually completely oblivious unless they have done some humanising of the numbers and they appreciate um the work of uh Daniel Um Goldman at Harvard University with the emotional intelligence. So the emotional intelligence aspect of any leadership team is very, very important and is often overlooked. Sometimes people don't even know what I'm talking about when I say emotional intelligence.

Doug Aitken 23:17

Yeah. And and why is that so, though, Elena? I'm keen to understand. Is it because it's perceived as too difficult? Or is it you know, gaining a physical um degree, for example, it's easy. You just study, you pass the test, and you get your degree. Um, is it because this emotional intelligence side is more difficult, or is it just that the world is slowly catching up that this is a requirement for a leader, or you know, what are the what are the reasons behind it, do you think?

Elaine Godley 23:47

Yeah, good, good, good questions. So I think um historically we've never been taught about emotional intelligence. Um his first book, um, Goleman's first book, was was only out in 1994, which is kind of almost yesterday in the scheme of things. So there's there's been very little um written uh up until that point. It was you know revolutionary, life-changing, uh game-changing book that came out. So we're only talking 30 odd years. A lot of the leadership team were uh are uh older people who are who haven't been taught about this stuff, or if they do know about it, oh it's a bit wussy, it's a bit woo-woo, and it's a bit soft, you know. Um, and these are high lion type individuals, and they won't even entertain, they won't listen, they won't entertain it, they think it's a load of load of voodoo. So it's a combination of lack of education, um, ignorance on the part of the leadership team, um society's perceptions on you know, men aren't men anymore, and you know, everybody's turned soft and that type of thing, and a whole whole combination. Um, there's there's no easy, straightforward question really. But in Dolman's at Goldman's work, he he identified that of the the leaders who were effective, um, there were something like 80% of the leadership team who were were more effective if they understood the fact that the team members are humans and they need to be they need to be nurtured, congratulated, applauded. But equally, if there's something wrong, you can't keep on having things that are wrong in a team, you need to deal with it, but need to deal with it in a human way rather than you know just sacking them or um you know castigating them in front of the other team members and so on. So each each profile needs to be dealt with in a different style according to you know whether things are good, bad, or indifferent. And you know, for example, appraisals, appraisal time, most organisations in my experience don't do appraisals the right way, they don't do them often enough. Um, and very often the people who are in the leadership team they're doing appraisals. Well, how's that going to work? If you've got a you know, puppy dog reporting to the lion and the lion's doing the appraisal, you know, it's it's not a happy situation.

Doug Aitken 26:10

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Please forgive this interruption to the podcast. You've heard Elaine Godley talking about the importance of emotional intelligence in a people first firm. You'll find a link in the show notes to a business breakthrough that will tell you more about that subject. Let's get back to the podcast. Um it's interesting, I've been challenged coming into accountancy from being at RBS, a big corporate, but um exceptionally good at training people. Um and coming into accountancy, I've been staggered by how little training there seems to be on anything other than hard um numbers type training. Is that something you would um so you may have seen different in the big four, um but generally across accountancy, would you agree with that?

The importance of building self awareness in profiling

Elaine Godley 27:01

I I would agree with that. It's also in the medical profession as well. Um, doctors typically are DC profiles, and it's you know it's my way or the highway, this is the way we do things, and that's it. So there's friction in in medical teams, there's friction in in many organisations where the leadership are either choosing not to be aware of how to deal with people on a human level, or they're they just haven't been trained, you know.

Doug Aitken 27:28

Yeah, yeah. How do we go about learning about ourselves a bit better, Elaine? Because you know, to me, the the first step is learning about yourself and how you tick before you can start to um if you learn how you how you impact others, then you start to get a pr a feel of how others are. But how do we learn about ourselves in that way?

Elaine Godley 27:54

Uh again, another good question. So when I first got trained in profiling 30 odd years ago, perhaps more than that now, um, I volunteered in schools. There was a scheme in London, uh, well, in fact, nationwide, but I was I was located near London. So I used to mentor head teachers, and I was teaching head teachers, uh, the recognition those you know, pre-internet days was that they've gone up through the ranks from being a classroom teacher to a head of department to deputy to head of head of school, and now they're actually running a business, they're not doing teaching that they went into the profession. Um and a similar kind of thing with accountants, accountants might go in to the practice to you know to do the numbers and look after clients, but the further up the tree they get, the the less uh action, you know, sleeves rolling up that they have with the with the with the clients that they serve. So um it's it's a whole there's no easy, you know, straightforward answer to to any of the questions, but um it's it's awareness. So when you know what your own profile is, so again, going back to the school days, um I I was invited to help a mentoring program that that had gone wrong, and it was linking business owners uh in Essex to schools, so that the business owners um were then mentoring the students with a view to okay, well you might not be academically bright, but you know, you can run a business. So um I trained, I identified and trained suitable business people to work with the students, and and we used profiling as a as a key tool. And um, so I we profiled the the business owners, so that helped them with their business, profiled the students, profiled the teachers, and then I did a bit of um magic and then um ended up you know making teams and so on and so forth. So that's kind of where I cut my teeth in the in the practical world of profiling, as I say, nearly nearly 30 odd years ago. So and the reason it was I I chose schools was because if I had known when I was at school, I was constantly told, you know, sit still, put up, shut up, don't ask questions, um, you're always speaking up, you know. Um I was into sports in school. Well, I'm still am, hence, hence my broken wrist falling over. Um, so I was I was continually on the sports field or the swimming pool or the gym or you know, around the racetrack or whatever. And um that's what kept me at school. I hated the damn place. Um, because I I've now I know my profile doesn't lend itself to sitting at a desk all day. Um you know, I felt like I was put in a box. So um sooner we can find out, so we can use a profiling system from the age of about 12 upwards. So I've helped families as well of clients that um so I've I've you know I've profiled leadership teams, team members, and families as well, um, in in all across all industry sectors.

Elaines profile

Doug Aitken 30:54

Yeah, interesting. So uh what is your profile as a matter of interest, if you don't mind me asking?

Elaine Godley 31:01

Yeah, yeah, my profile, I'm a very high I high D, very low S and C. So I'm 100 miles an hour. Very often with a high D you get a low S, which means I'm not a consistent person. I'm I love bright, shiny new objects, I'm always learning new tech. Um, I need to be stimulated, I need to be um uh interested in something, I need to look after uh myself um and keep reminding myself that I'm not superhuman, and um that's one of the challenges. So we can see the level of adaptability. So on the profile uh report, we see the internal and the external, and as I said, it's the gap between um if somebody's lacking authenticity, that's where the health challenges will arise. They're trying to be somebody they're not, and yet with the um the different profile styles, there's there's different different aspects to it, and they're all we we are all predisposed to certain health conditions. So even though with my profile style, my adaptability is huge, it's off the scale, but my adaptability is anywhere between 60 and 90 percent. So I can be whoever I want to be, which is great for me. However, it also means I end up taking on too much, and I'm saying yes, yes, because you know, to anything that comes along because I'm interested, I'm curious, and um interested to learn about other people and other other situations. So I've I've learned now over the years to my cost, um, stage four cancer, um kidney disease, um, breast cancers, you know, loads of different things that have happened. Um I I've I'm learning, I'm getting better at knowing myself, but we're work in progress, we're all human, you know, to her as human. So um, but as you rightly say, the when we know ourselves and how we differ to other people, we can then put ourselves in a situation that we can see things from the other other standpoint rather than you know thinking that our our view is the right view. There's always there's always um probably three or four versions to any story at the end of the day.

Doug Aitken 33:11

Yeah, I loved your um story about you know what happens in accountancy, and I mean I've uh uh I've had the same thought process for a long time that we promote the great nurses, we promote the great teachers, and we take them away from the very thing that they were great at and add a lot of admin to them, a lot of paperwork, and it it turns them into something that they're not. Um and accountancy is absolutely the same, you know. A good accounts person will end up running an accounts department, it doesn't necessarily mean they're great at running a team, um, which has caused me huge frustration in um uh you know in the firms that we lead. Just when we think about ourselves as individuals and profiling and whatnot, and also for the sake of fairness, um, so I'll get you to tell everyone what my profile was in a minute if you can remember it. Can you actually talk to someone for a relatively short space of time and profile them in your head, just in terms of how they're

Can she profile someone in a short space of time?

Doug Aitken 34:16

interacting with you?

Elaine Godley 34:16

Or does it actually mean yes, absolutely? Yeah, yeah. There's a there's a variety of different um different uh techniques. So I teach people about this. Um within within the academy, um, it's a membership uh monthly subscription, and within the subscription I teach people about profiling, I I give them advanced training as a matter of course, and um we uh we have uh you know weekly meetings and so on, and we know we chew the cud over people's profiles, and oh that's an awkward one. How do you do with that person and so on? You know, what's their story? So uh so there we go. But uh yeah, there's you know the way people dress, the way they hold themselves, the language they use. You can tell by by looking at somebody's uh uh what they've written in an email or a letter, um, the the the the core behavioural style of that person.

Doug Aitken 35:08

Wow. So just in the um uh interest of fairness, um, we should probably disclose what my profile was. I don't know if you can remember even.

Elaine Godley 35:17

Um I can't actually, I didn't think to look at it. I think it's not dissimilar to mine.

Doug Aitken 35:23

Yeah, I think I think I was higher on the S. I think I was D uh higher on the S, relatively high I, very low C from memory.

unknown 35:33

Yeah.

Doug Aitken 35:34

Yeah um just and just in the and to be fair, Elaine, and tip the balance back, um we've talked a lot about high D's um as though it's a bad thing. What positives does a high D energy bring to a business or to an accountancy firm for that matter?

Elaine Godley 35:54

The good the good thing is there's no such thing as a bad profile. None of the none of the styles or the blends are bad. Um they create happy uh teams or not so happy teams. Um D is you you need to be a D to be an effective leader, in my view, and all the people that I have profiled over the years have been um in the leadership team, have had an element of D, not necessarily raging high D, might only just be kind of a mid-high D, whatever. Um, but we're a blend, we're not one style or the other, we're a blend, and it's the

The positives of a high D

Elaine Godley 36:28

unique blend that makes us who we are, coupled with our level of emotional intelligence, our experience, our culture, qualifications, maturity, you know, etc. etc. Um, but um so so with the D, it's uh it's taking control, it's it's leading from the front, it's having a clear goal, a focus, it's getting things done, very task-oriented and not people-oriented. So, this is why if you have a DC profile, it's all about task. C is about the task, it's getting things done through a process. The eyes get things done through their energy, through their inspiration. So the I is uh it can be um uh inspiring, um uh uh intuitive, though those kinds of words. So, so high energy, both of them, the D and the I have high energy. Normally you have a low S when you have these these uh characteristics, not always, but but very often. So that you can't have a bad profile, but yeah, you we find that the higher the S, the more the stress, the more predisposed people are to stress because they're they're not terribly adaptive. So when you have so it sounds counterintuitive, but the higher the S, the more the stress. The lower the S, the more the person multitasks. So they're not doing things one at a time. If you've got a high S person, they're they're ticking the boxes, dotting the I's, crossing the T's. So that's another trigger. When you see a change in behaviour pattern from somebody who is naturally a high S, but in the workplace they're presenting as a low S. That's an immediate red flag for health challenges because that means they're operating outside of their comfort zone. So the system will tell us what their adaptability, their natural adaptability factor is, and then it will measure what their current level of stress is by taking the biggest shift. So every every report gives you a different different story, but even if you had somebody's profile that was very similar to the next team member's profile, their story would be different, their life would be different. So we can't just go, Oh, they're a this or a that sort of person. We you know, we need to look at the whole the whole picture and you know themselves in the round.

Elaines approach to illness

Doug Aitken 38:45

Yeah. Let's go back to when you you had um significant health challenges, Elaine. The normal the normal inverted commas mindset would be to go to the doctor to take um whatever we're told to take. Your mindset was clearly totally different. Um how did that come about? Why you know why did you react the way that you did? And how did that actually show up um over the piece in terms of your research and diligence and and whatnot?

Elaine Godley 39:20

Okay, so um I was I was uh uh well I am a baby boomer, so um I was brought up in the in the concept that doctor knows best. If something's wrong, you go to the doctors, you know, did that several times over the years. Um, little niggles. I've never actually been ill as such. Um, I've been inconvenient, so definitely a mindset, you know, this broken wrist, you know, I'm not ill. People say, How are you feeling? You know, I hope you get better. I'm not ill, I'm just inconvenienced. I'm left-handed, it's my left wrist. Anyway, um have you learned to play paddle with your right hand yet, by the way? Well, I can I can do lots of things with my right hand now. I'm I'm I've resigned from um a pickleball, it was that I fell over here. I've actually resigned now from from the thing in in mine and everybody else's safety, I think. Um but uh I can't remember where we were going, what the question was.

Doug Aitken 40:17

Yeah, uh-huh.

Elaine Godley 40:18

So then so um so I I was uh when I was 22, just starting the the kitchen business with my my second husband, I um I did become very unwell and I got blue-lighted to an isolation ward in a hospital in London. They thought I had typhoid, and I was met by hazmat-wearing uh staff who were very cruel and um not very nice to me at all. So 2022 I was. So um after a period of time, it turns out that I had this condition that I was born with called medallary sponge kidneys, and if you look it up today, it's still considered incurable and you're on medication for life. So I dutifully went along. It was put down all my teens, I had um water work um infections, or I would have projectile vomiting for no apparent reason, and it turned out it was the kidneys. So in the bottom of the kidneys that are tubes, and my tubes weren't pumping out. I was a competitive swimmer, I trained, I represented my county at national level. I was training twice a day, so it was put down to the um the chlorine in the pool and and so on. It was all these infections that I kept getting. So then um it was discovered uh about this condition. I was then put on antibiotics, and then eventually they didn't all work, and and I had my daughter when I was 25, so I was in hospital for 10 weeks when I had her because they were working out the the combination of medication, you know, for the pregnancy situation. Um I ended up on a rotating cycle of three weeks, different antibiotics. I'd start one for a week and then another for a week, and then I go back to week one. This went on for years, years and years and years. I was also born with um a bit of spina bifita, a twisted and and a twisted and curved spine. So from the front of me, I'm okay, but when you see my posture is it's atrocious. Um, and that was the the uh the spinal defect. And the um uh the at the time, I suppose by this time I was mid-40s, and I was kept on getting terrible back problems. So I I went to a chiropractor, his girlfriend was a nutritionist, and she did shiatsu massage and different things. So the pair of them worked with me. I told them about the medication I was on and I'd like to get off. Um, and then within about a year, I had weaned myself off with their support, um, lifestyle guidance, and this is how I got into the um the hair analysis because the nutritionist um guided me through the hair analysis. So by looking at how my body was out of balance, um uh Robert was looking at my my spine and manipulating my spine, she was looking at my lifestyle, my diet, my sleep habits, all this kind of stuff. Um, and to this day I still use the same system with with my clients on on the godly health method.

Doug Aitken 43:13

Wow, gosh. So and I'm thinking as especially about the cancer diagnosis. And most people, when they get a cancer diagnosis, again there'd be an element of freaking out, and then you know, just whatever you're told to do. Tell us tell us about your approach. How did your approach differ?

Elaine Godley 43:33

Okay, so um with a high D eye profile, um it's very uh it's very um what should I say? No, nobody puts baby in a corner, you know. People don't tell me what to do. They can give me advice and I'll take it um to a point, but you know, I I need to be in control, it's the high D thing, you know, need to be in control. So um the first two breast cancer, well, in fact, the first breast cancer was 2008. And I had a mastectomy reconstruction, I didn't know any different. When I look back now, I see this as a kind of rite of passage, so I can empathise with people that I've supported over the years on helping them to reverse serious illness and disease because I've been through it. Having said that, I wouldn't recommend that to anybody, knowing what I know now, because I didn't know then it's it's reversible, but so there we are. Then I then I had um another episode in 2011-2012, and even though I had a mastectomy, so there's a book on the internet called My Right Breast Used to Be My Stomach, which was the surgery I had, they took my stomach, tissue, muscle, skin, the whole bit, and formed a new breast, which I had at the uh you know, all done at the same time. And um then in about 18 months, two years later, I just intuitively, and remember high eyes are intuitive, I just knew something was wrong. I I couldn't explain it. There was no pain, no lumps, no nothing. And I asked my team at Oxford, would they just you know humour me and and test? So uh there was a grade three tumour in the sight of my mastectomy, and my my step my right breast came from my stomach, so go figure. They couldn't explain it. Wow, so that was that, and then I accepted a different form of treatment. I I did have a bit teeny bit of uh well no, I had a course of radiotherapy, which is why now my bones are so um prone to breaking. So I broke my ankle last year as well, my other uh my right ankle. So um, every everything you have, every interference with medical, um, I always try and help people to avoid medication and surgery and any form of biopsy or interference whatsoever, because every time your body is interfered with, it sends shock waves through through the body, and your cells, you know, even the language we we we talk to ourselves with, if we are negative uh mindset, then we bring on the negativity and our cells and our body pick it up. You you hear people you know talking to plants and you see plants that are really nice and thriving, and other plants that are miserable and sad and you know on their way out. Um, it's the way they're looked after. So the way we we look after ourselves is just so important, and looking after our inner health includes our mindset, really, really important. So you can have somebody who's um a profile of one sort, but if their self-esteem is low, that throws up other issues, which is why I've really um fortunate I've got all these health practitioners that I leos with, and I've written hundreds of articles on these these topics over the years. Um, so there's there's so much advice out there for everybody, and I'm so pleased we have the internet now. Um, there's no excuse for people um just kind of going along and not questioning things.

Did Elaines profile save her life?

Doug Aitken 46:52

Yeah, definitely. Um it's been a fascinating chat. I could go on forever here, but I'm conscious of the time. I'm just there's just one thing that's um uh in closing that and and maybe it's a bridge too far, but something you said just there made me think would someone with a different profile have approached the circumstances that you've approached in a totally different way? So what I'm getting what I'm getting at is did your profile save your life? Is that too much of a stretch or is that a fair assumption?

Elaine Godley 47:29

Yeah, well uh that's that's absolutely right. Um so the high S's and the high C's will have a completely different approach, and they're they're the hard work people, which is why I I choose these days to work with coaches so that I can guide them so that they can have the hard conversations with the people. I've done so many of them over the years. And uh the um with it with the mindset, I mean, some people will you know be queuing up for injection after injection and whatever, and think just because the doctor's giving them something, they they you know it's the right thing. Well, we've got the internet now, but there's lots of information out there that tells us otherwise. So being curious is is very, very important in this day and age. But the high S's and the C's, they will want to know the ins and outs, they will paralyse themselves on wanting to know the ins and outs of everything. Um, to the point where I've actually seen people kill themselves. They have waited so long to take action, they have literally died in the process, you know, in the meantime, which is why I haven't kept in contact with a lot of past clients, because I know some of them have died, um, which is which is very sad, too little, too late. Um, so again, that's why I bang on about prevention, and the easiest way to do that is by looking at your profile, understanding your profile. So I know I'm prone to taking on too much, no surprise when I when I burnt out and I've got stage four cancer. So even though I'm highly flexible, um by the way, most people, um especially in accountancy practices, are rarely adaptable more than about 15 or 20 percent. So when you get the high D's, again, this is a significant difference with the management teams and and the the team members, when you get the high D's um with a low S, so the lower the S, the higher the adaptability is. So they're 100 miles an hour people. So if you've got team members who are very um that their adaptability is very low, then you've got the management team, they expect everything done yesterday. Yeah, you know, it's it's not rocket science to see what's what happens, and then we've got the proof now with the profiling and the um the hair analysis and so on that helps people get out of trouble.

Closing message

Doug Aitken 49:39

Yeah. Wow. So if you had one message in closing for the leader of an accountancy firm, Elaine, someone who's managing a a senior team and a wider team of people, what would that message be to them?

Elaine Godley 49:55

Be aware of how their behaviour is affecting themselves, the their their team, their team members and their family. Because they don't know the impact, they don't realise many of them the the they don't realise the impact of their behaviour and they're insisting on wanting everything, you know, yesterday. They don't realise the impact that that has on everybody around them, their family, their children, you know, it it it it it it's a ripple effect. So be aware of your style, what your limitations are, what your triggers are, but also you know, congratulate yourself with all the positive things that that come from being a high D. As I say, there is no such thing as a bad profile, they're just different profiles, and we need to respect the differences and work together.

Doug Aitken 50:43

Yeah, fab. Elaine, thanks so much for joining us today. It's been a really interesting conversation. I've loved listening to you and some really interesting nuggets for the leaders of our accounting firms. Thanks so much for coming on. You're very welcome, thank you for the opportunity. You've just heard Elaine Godley of Disc Plus Academy talk about the importance of a people first approach in professional services and especially in relation to accountancy. A people first approach is one of the subjects taught in the Accountants Growth Academy. To find out more, go to remarkablepractice.com or follow the link in the show notes.

Paul Shrimpling 51:28

You'll find more valuable discussions with the leaders of ambitious accounting firms at humanishetumbers.online. You can also sign up to be notified each time a new podcast is made available. You're just about to hear a short excerpt from a podcast discussion with Tash Frangost from Hayes Mac. If you like what you hear and you want to go to the full podcast, go to your favourite podcast platform and hunt out humanize the numbers or go to humanisethenumbers.online.

Speaker 52:02

We've got then got career pathways. So we've kind of documented in most of the firm. We're still doing this in some of our smaller departments because it came out very strongly in our staff engagement survey in November that the departments had introduced these career pathways and the score from their teams on like, I know what I need to do to succeed in my career, I know what to do to get ahead. That was so much higher where it had been properly documented, like to get to the next level, these are the skills that we're looking for, not just from a technical perspective, which we'd mapped across the firm, but also from a soft skills perspective. And so because it's been so well received there, we're rolling it out to the other departments.