Podcast: The High Performance
Published Date:
Fri, 14 Jul 2023 00:00:53 GMT
Duration:
46:53
Explicit:
False
Guests:
MP3 Audio:
Please note that the summary is generated based on the transcript and may not capture all the nuances or details discussed in the podcast episode.
This is the second episode of our new Leadership Series, sponsored by PwC, in which we will be diving deep into what it really takes to be a CEO.
Tessa Clarke is the co-founder and CEO of Olio, the free app that connects users with unwanted food (from households or local businesses) with neighbours living nearby who would like it. Tessa is driven by purpose, aiming to reduce food waste and tackle climate change. She shares with Jake and Damian why Olio was created, how to build a brand and stay resilient in the face of challenge and set backs. She also reveals her key recruitment tips.
They discuss what can be done at an individual level to care for the environment and why we should be sharing, rather than discarding.
Thank you to PwC for sponsoring this special CEO Series. PwC’s purpose is to build trust and solve important problems, and their global strategy - The New Equation - is bringing this to life for their clients, people and society. By combining technology with human ingenuity, passion and experience, PwC works with organisations to deliver more intelligent, sustained outcomes.
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**Summary of the Podcast Episode: Leadership Series with Tessa Clarke, Co-founder and CEO of Olio**
**Introduction:**
* Tessa Clarke, the co-founder and CEO of Olio, joins the podcast to discuss leadership, building a brand, resilience, and recruitment.
* Olio is a free app that connects users with unwanted food or household items with neighbors who would like them, reducing waste and tackling climate change.
**Key Points:**
1. **Defining High Performance:**
* Tessa believes in following one's gut instinct and intuition when making decisions.
* High performance is when individuals fulfill their full potential and the whole team's output exceeds the sum of its parts.
2. **Recruitment Tips:**
* Tessa emphasizes the importance of listening to one's gut when recruiting.
* She recommends asking open-ended questions to understand a candidate's values and motivations.
* Olio's company values are inclusivity, resourcefulness, ambition, and caring, and they recruit candidates who embody these values.
3. **Values and Upbringing:**
* Tessa's upbringing on a farm instilled in her the values of resilience, adaptability, creativity, and putting others first.
* She applies these values to her life and leadership style at Olio.
4. **Truth About Entrepreneurship:**
* Tessa shares the unfiltered truth about entrepreneurship, describing it as an emotionally exhausting and challenging journey.
* However, she emphasizes the transformative power of being in control of one's destiny and making a positive impact.
* Passion, resilience, and optimism are essential traits for successful entrepreneurs.
5. **Origin of Olio:**
* Tessa's idea for Olio came from a personal experience when she was forced to throw away uneaten food during a move.
* She realized the need for an app that would allow people to share spare food with their neighbors, reducing waste and promoting community.
6. **Addressing Shame and Community:**
* Tessa discusses the issue of shame associated with receiving charitable help and the importance of building community to reduce the need for charity.
* Olio aims to create a sense of community and mainstream sustainable living by allowing people to connect and share with each other.
7. **Examples of Community Impact:**
* Tessa shares the story of Terry, a rough sleeper who was able to furnish his new housing through connections made on Olio, highlighting the transformative impact of the app.
* Many Olio users report improved mental and financial well-being and the formation of new friendships through the platform.
8. **Scale of the Waste Problem:**
* Tessa sheds light on the global food waste crisis, with one-third of all food produced each year being discarded.
* This waste contributes to hunger, environmental degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions.
* Olio empowers individuals to take action by sharing their spare food and household items, reducing waste and promoting sustainability.
9. **Media Coverage of Important Issues:**
* Tessa expresses concern about the disparity between the prevalence of certain issues and their media coverage.
* She emphasizes the need for media to prioritize reporting on critical problems like food waste and climate change to raise awareness and drive action.
**Conclusion:**
* Tessa Clarke's leadership journey with Olio highlights the importance of purpose, community, and taking action to address global challenges.
* Olio's success demonstrates the power of technology and human connection in reducing waste, promoting sustainability, and building stronger communities.
In this episode, Tessa Clarke, co-founder and CEO of Olio, an app connecting users with unwanted food to neighbors who want it, shares her insights on leadership, sustainability, and creating a positive impact.
Tessa highlights the urgent need to address food waste and climate change, emphasizing that it's a global crisis requiring collective action. She stresses that the current economic system, focused solely on GDP growth, is unsustainable and incompatible with preserving the planet's resources.
Tessa advocates for a shift in the North Star metric from GDP growth to human fulfillment and quality of life, considering the impact on communities and the environment. She emphasizes the importance of diverse voices in decision-making, particularly those from marginalized groups, to bring forth innovative solutions.
Tessa emphasizes the power of small actions, encouraging individuals to challenge their employers, start their own projects, and make informed consumer choices. She highlights the significance of trust in building successful organizations, emphasizing authenticity, competence, and connection as key elements.
Tessa underscores the importance of finding one's unique problem to solve, believing that everyone can achieve exceptional performance when they discover their passion. She urges listeners to face the climate crisis, take action, and make a difference, even through small steps.
The episode concludes with a discussion on the need for diverse voices in leadership, challenging conventional norms, and embracing new ideas to address the environmental crisis. Tessa's message resonates with the hosts, who reflect on their own responsibilities and the impact they can make through their businesses.
[00:00.000 -> 00:06.080] Hey everyone, welcome along to episode two of our leadership series in association with
[00:06.080 -> 00:07.080] PWC.
[00:07.080 -> 00:11.700] We're really excited to partner with PWC once again to bring you conversations with
[00:11.700 -> 00:16.840] people who've done incredible things, who know incredible things, and have so many lessons
[00:16.840 -> 00:18.520] for you for your life.
[00:18.520 -> 00:22.880] Today we welcome someone who is not only a leader, but they are a leader with purpose.
[00:22.880 -> 00:30.800] We welcome to High Performance, the founder of Oleo, Tessa Clark. Now this is such a purpose-driven conversation because
[00:30.800 -> 00:35.160] Tessa is going to share with you the story of how the Oleo app was created, an app that
[00:35.160 -> 00:39.720] is all about us doing everything we can for the environment, about sharing, about less
[00:39.720 -> 00:44.480] waste, about caring for the most precious resource we have, which is the planet. But
[00:44.480 -> 00:46.620] she also talks about how to build a brand,
[00:46.620 -> 00:49.700] how to remain resilient in the face of setbacks
[00:49.700 -> 00:50.540] and knockbacks.
[00:50.540 -> 00:52.300] And in fact, she gave us a really cool tip
[00:52.300 -> 00:54.780] about what she does when she's recruiting.
[00:54.780 -> 00:57.460] And since this, actually on the High Performance Team,
[00:57.460 -> 00:59.840] we've been recruiting new members for our business,
[00:59.840 -> 01:02.860] and we've used the tip that Tessa gave us
[01:02.860 -> 01:04.980] for getting the right kind of people into the business.
[01:04.980 -> 01:05.320] So have a listen, and I'm sure you'll learn plenty. And we've used the tip that Tessa gave us for getting the right kind of people into the business.
[01:05.320 -> 01:08.660] So have a listen, and I'm sure you'll learn plenty.
[01:08.660 -> 01:12.640] As always, these conversations are designed to teach you as much as possible.
[01:12.640 -> 01:18.640] So take an hour and learn some great lessons from the founder of Oleo, Tessa Clark, on
[01:18.640 -> 01:24.240] episode two of our high performance PWC leadership series.
[01:24.240 -> 01:27.000] Enjoy.
[01:27.000 -> 01:30.840] Tessa, thank you so much for joining us on High Performance.
[01:30.840 -> 01:31.920] Thank you for having me.
[01:31.920 -> 01:34.680] What is your definition of high performance?
[01:34.680 -> 01:40.520] Well, I think there are all sorts of metrics and frameworks and stuff about high performance,
[01:40.520 -> 01:45.340] but what I listen to is my guts and how high performance feels and I think for me
[01:45.620 -> 01:50.020] It's like sort of true love, you know it when you see it, right and you know it when you feel it
[01:50.060 -> 01:57.080] so for me high performance is when individuals are really fulfilling their full potential and
[01:57.980 -> 02:01.780] When you look at a team the whole is the greater than the sum of the parts
[02:02.100 -> 02:06.540] So, how do you learn to follow your gut because I don't know whether it comes with age, does
[02:06.540 -> 02:09.980] it come with experience, does it come with confidence?
[02:09.980 -> 02:14.360] So I think it's really, really, really important to follow your gut.
[02:14.360 -> 02:18.320] It is probably one of the most overlooked skills in the business world, but not just
[02:18.320 -> 02:20.080] the business world, kind of any world.
[02:20.080 -> 02:23.360] Like our gut has evolved over millions of years.
[02:23.360 -> 02:26.400] We're taking billions of data points at any one point in time.
[02:26.400 -> 02:33.280] So I listen to my gut very, very carefully when I'm making decisions, and I think that
[02:33.280 -> 02:38.280] it does require confidence, and that probably does come with age.
[02:38.280 -> 02:42.200] So yeah, I encourage people to lean into their gut as quickly as they can.
[02:42.200 -> 02:43.960] Will Barron Could you give us an example of when you've
[02:43.960 -> 02:46.500] done that, and, or maybe when you've not done
[02:46.500 -> 02:48.320] that and it hasn't worked out?
[02:48.320 -> 02:53.000] Well, I'll give you an example of what I see happening the whole time when people don't
[02:53.000 -> 02:56.680] listen to their guts and that is around recruitment.
[02:56.680 -> 03:00.760] So a lot of people when they're recruiting, they sort of recruit to a logo, they see someone's
[03:00.760 -> 03:03.960] CV and they say, oh, they've worked at this amazing place, that amazing place, that amazing
[03:03.960 -> 03:05.400] place, we should hire them. Even if their little spidey sense is saying, oh, they've worked at this amazing place, that amazing place, that amazing place.
[03:05.400 -> 03:06.400] We should hire them.
[03:06.400 -> 03:09.480] Even if their little spidey sense is saying, oh, there's something a bit off about this
[03:09.480 -> 03:11.520] person, I'm not quite 100% sure about it.
[03:11.520 -> 03:14.680] They tend to ignore that because they're blinded by the logos.
[03:14.680 -> 03:19.840] And I always say to people that recruitment is this real sort of mix of the art and the
[03:19.840 -> 03:25.560] science and it is really, really, really important not to ignore those red flags that your gut's giving you
[03:25.560 -> 03:32.200] when you're recruiting. And every single time I've ignored those red flags, it's ended up in a bit of
[03:32.200 -> 03:39.400] a disaster zone. So what are they then? What are the key attributes that you do look for when you
[03:39.400 -> 03:43.720] would recruit somebody? I think it's very hard to give a generic list. It's the same with performance.
[03:43.720 -> 03:46.400] I think it's actually very hard to generically define performance
[03:46.400 -> 03:50.760] because the reality is that someone who would work well at OLEO in the
[03:50.760 -> 03:54.080] organization that we're building or someone who perform well there might be
[03:54.080 -> 03:59.320] very different to someone who would perform well elsewhere. But in OLEO? But in
[03:59.320 -> 04:07.840] OLEO specifically, so we recruit religiously against our company values, and we've only got four, so they're
[04:07.840 -> 04:09.960] really simple, no excuse for anyone to forget them.
[04:09.960 -> 04:14.600] So, they're inclusive, resourceful, ambitious, and caring.
[04:14.600 -> 04:19.560] And so, we're really looking for people who kind of cut them and they bleed those values,
[04:19.560 -> 04:22.740] they really exemplify those values, not just at work, but actually in terms of who they
[04:22.740 -> 04:28.560] are as a human being. And if you kind of show up representing those values then chances
[04:28.560 -> 04:32.520] are you're going to perform really well in our environment. So we interviewed
[04:32.520 -> 04:37.040] Johnny Wilkinson on this podcast who said that one of his frustrations is you
[04:37.040 -> 04:41.880] go around any rugby club and you'll find the same values of unity, hard work,
[04:41.880 -> 04:46.460] teamwork, that every rugby club talks about it, the ones
[04:46.460 -> 04:49.600] that make the difference are the ones that actually live it. So I'm
[04:49.600 -> 04:54.540] interested in, if we go through the O'Leo company values, how do you see that
[04:54.540 -> 05:02.260] somebody cares? So I'm smiling because I often say that our company values are
[05:02.260 -> 05:08.520] not on any mouse mat, they're not on any mugs, and they're not on any posters on the wall, but they are in the heart and the soul of
[05:08.520 -> 05:12.280] every single person at the company.
[05:12.280 -> 05:18.720] And how I test for it is I actually start off my opening interview question is asking
[05:18.720 -> 05:24.000] people to kind of dial back to their childhood and really just talk to me about their childhood,
[05:24.000 -> 05:28.240] what kind of values they were brought up with, what lessons they learned from that experience.
[05:28.240 -> 05:34.440] And I find that you can very, very quickly learn a lot about people's attitude and mentality
[05:34.440 -> 05:35.720] to life around that.
[05:35.720 -> 05:39.600] And I tend to, rather than sort of walking through people's CV, because my role at ODIO
[05:39.600 -> 05:43.360] when I'm interviewing really is getting that culture fit bit right.
[05:43.360 -> 05:46.000] And so I don't often go to the CV at all.
[05:46.000 -> 05:49.000] I'll be asking far more bigger picture questions about,
[05:49.000 -> 05:52.000] you know, what is the role that luck has played in your life?
[05:52.000 -> 05:59.000] Or asking people to really reflect on when they could have done something better
[05:59.000 -> 06:01.000] and how they thought about that.
[06:01.000 -> 06:03.000] And if they were to lie on their deathbed,
[06:03.000 -> 06:08.200] what would they want to look back and to have achieved? And I think when you ask those much more open-ended questions,
[06:08.200 -> 06:13.160] you get a real flavour of the human being. To answer your question specifically about
[06:13.160 -> 06:19.040] caring, I don't tend to ask a specific question about that, although sometimes actually we
[06:19.040 -> 06:23.320] do in an earliest phase of the interview, we do ask people to give an example of a time
[06:23.320 -> 06:25.200] when they've been caring
[06:30.800 -> 06:36.400] and that's fascinating watching where people go. So sometimes people will talk about caring in a work environment but where I get quite excited when people open up about their life more broadly
[06:36.400 -> 06:45.860] and they can demonstrate that they're caring outside of work as well. So to turn one of your interview questions on you then, what was it in
[06:45.860 -> 06:53.400] your own childhood then that instilled the values in you? So I grew up on a farm
[06:53.400 -> 07:00.760] up in North Yorkshire, it was a very isolated rural existence and it's funny
[07:00.760 -> 07:04.060] because I spent most of my childhood being very embarrassed about my
[07:04.060 -> 07:10.020] upbringing because no one else was really from a farm and all the other kids were shopping and listening
[07:10.020 -> 07:15.360] to music and watching TV and I was outside with the cows and the pigs with my workforce
[07:15.360 -> 07:17.240] of two, which is my two younger brothers.
[07:17.240 -> 07:21.080] But through my upbringing I've realized actually that a lot of the skills I learned on the
[07:21.080 -> 07:25.360] farm have been invaluable for me as an entrepreneur today.
[07:25.360 -> 07:32.020] So specifically on a farm you have zero control over all the variables that are happening
[07:32.020 -> 07:33.020] in your life.
[07:33.020 -> 07:35.720] So you can't control the animals, you can't control the weather, you can't control the
[07:35.720 -> 07:39.480] price at which you sell your outputs at, you can't control the price at which you buy things
[07:39.480 -> 07:45.380] at and what that means is you just have to be amazing at problem solving.
[07:45.380 -> 07:48.040] You have to be super adaptable every single day.
[07:48.040 -> 07:51.460] There's going to be something that you did not predict that morning that is going to
[07:51.460 -> 07:54.100] happen to you and you have to think on your feet, you have to solve it really fast, you
[07:54.100 -> 07:56.240] have to be super unflappable.
[07:56.240 -> 08:02.580] I think also you need to think very creatively and laterally about, you know, how am I going
[08:02.580 -> 08:05.240] to block up this space to stop these animals from
[08:05.240 -> 08:08.800] coming through here with these inadequate materials that I have to hand.
[08:08.800 -> 08:14.000] So you have to think very, very creatively, very laterally, and I think
[08:14.000 -> 08:19.320] resilience is another core factor. You know, on a farm it can be tipping it down
[08:19.320 -> 08:22.800] with rain, it can be minus 10 degrees, doesn't matter, you have to get outside,
[08:22.800 -> 08:28.360] you have to feed the animals, you have to look after them, and you always put the animals first, so I was very much
[08:28.360 -> 08:33.160] brought up with that, sort of animals first, humans second, and again I think that's just
[08:33.160 -> 08:38.720] a principle that I apply to my life, I try and put other people first and then follow
[08:38.720 -> 08:39.920] with myself after that.
[08:39.920 -> 08:44.200] I think it's a lovely comparison actually, as someone that also comes from a farming
[08:44.200 -> 08:47.760] family, comparing farming and entrepreneurship, it is very interesting and not something I'd
[08:47.760 -> 08:52.580] ever considered. A lot of people from the outside look at entrepreneurship as exciting
[08:52.580 -> 08:57.260] and dynamic and rewarding and you're in control of your own destiny and it's kind of the holy
[08:57.260 -> 09:00.800] grail for anyone that has a job, what do you want to be? I want to work for myself, be
[09:00.800 -> 09:08.080] an entrepreneur. Would you mind for a couple of minutes just telling us the truth, the unfiltered truth about entrepreneurship?
[09:08.080 -> 09:13.360] Heather So much of what you said is true. I often
[09:13.360 -> 09:16.560] say that I've had sort of three zero to one experiences in my life. One was meeting my
[09:16.560 -> 09:21.520] husband, one was having my kids and one was setting up my own business. It is transformative
[09:21.520 -> 09:27.840] being master of your own destiny. And that's incredible. It's also transformative
[09:27.840 -> 09:32.880] in our case doing work with purpose, waking up every single day knowing that what you are doing
[09:32.880 -> 09:47.360] is genuinely truly making a difference to communities, to the world. However, there's a big however, it is an emotionally exhausting, long, hard slog.
[09:47.360 -> 09:52.480] I often say it's not a sprint, it's a series of back to back marathons.
[09:52.480 -> 09:56.080] And at times it can feel like you sort of wake up, get punched in the face, go to bed,
[09:56.080 -> 09:59.560] wake up, get punched in the face, go to bed, and on it continues.
[09:59.840 -> 10:06.640] So I do think that to succeed in entrepreneurship, you've got to have oodles of resilience, you
[10:06.640 -> 10:11.500] will have heard that I'm sure the whole time, but I think you've also got to be a glass-half-full
[10:11.500 -> 10:12.560] type of person.
[10:12.560 -> 10:19.000] You've got to just have that optimistic outlook on that world, the belief that somehow you
[10:19.000 -> 10:26.080] can and you will make that happen, and linked to that you've got to have passion because at the end of the day
[10:26.080 -> 10:31.760] passion is infectious. We're all human beings and we get excited by the passion of other people and
[10:31.760 -> 10:37.520] you have to rely on that passion and that resilience to kind of get you through the dark days.
[10:37.520 -> 10:40.280] Toby So you've spoken about gut instincts,
[10:40.280 -> 10:45.680] now you're talking about passion as well, which leads us beautifully into discussing
[10:45.680 -> 10:46.680] Olio.
[10:46.680 -> 10:49.200] Would you mind sharing with us where the idea came from?
[10:49.200 -> 10:54.240] And maybe the very first time in your life that you had this idea, because quite often
[10:54.240 -> 10:58.680] we speak to people who go, well, I first thought about it here, and then 10 years later, I
[10:58.680 -> 11:01.280] finally got around to actually turning the dream into a reality.
[11:01.280 -> 11:03.680] Yeah, it's funny you should say that.
[11:03.680 -> 11:10.000] So I think it's really important to say that I had never imagined becoming an entrepreneur. To be honest, I spent most of my
[11:10.000 -> 11:16.400] life not even knowing what one of them is. I also, I did study for my MBA for two years at Stanford
[11:16.400 -> 11:21.360] Business School. I was in the heart of Silicon Valley and at no point did entrepreneurship feel
[11:21.360 -> 11:30.160] like it was for someone like me. And I feel really strongly about this because when I look back at who I am as a human being, it's kind of obvious
[11:30.160 -> 11:35.200] that I was going to become an entrepreneur. I'm someone who loves, you know, dissecting
[11:35.200 -> 11:39.600] stuff, approaching stuff from the first principles, challenging things that just make no sense
[11:39.600 -> 11:44.880] whatsoever. And yet I just completely written out entrepreneurship. And I've reflected on
[11:44.880 -> 11:45.920] that a lot, like how was I living in the middle of Silicon Valley for two years? And yet I just completely written out entrepreneurship and I've reflected on that a lot.
[11:45.920 -> 11:48.960] How was I living in the middle of Silicon Valley for two years and did I not think that
[11:48.960 -> 11:50.680] entrepreneurship was for someone like me?
[11:50.680 -> 11:57.440] And I think it's because there were no role models who looked or sounded like me.
[11:57.440 -> 11:59.680] And that's a real problem, which I'm super passionate about.
[11:59.680 -> 12:00.680] So sharing lots of different voices.
[12:00.680 -> 12:01.680] Matthew Feeney It was basically men.
[12:01.680 -> 12:04.440] Emma Watson Yeah, it was young men who perhaps had dropped
[12:04.440 -> 12:06.800] out of university, lived in hoodies,
[12:06.800 -> 12:13.840] and ate on ramen noodles. I think we've all sort of heard that. But even today, I listen to business
[12:13.840 -> 12:20.400] podcasts obsessively, and it's extremely rare to hear a female voice. So I think, obviously,
[12:20.400 -> 12:28.120] doing my little bit to try and change that. So entrepreneurship was something that did not feel like it was for me.
[12:28.120 -> 12:32.640] Having said that, I'd had a corporate career that had spanned about 15 years and for the
[12:32.640 -> 12:36.440] last couple of the years I had this growing entrepreneurial itch.
[12:36.440 -> 12:39.920] I felt, I asked myself that same question, how would you feel if you were to drop dead
[12:39.920 -> 12:43.760] tomorrow and I think, well, you've got a great CV, but that doesn't feel like enough.
[12:43.760 -> 12:45.840] I'm not proud of that.
[12:45.840 -> 12:50.760] I want to be on my deathbed and to look back at my life and genuinely be proud of the positive
[12:50.760 -> 12:51.840] impact that I have had.
[12:51.840 -> 12:54.160] I want to feel like I've contributed.
[12:54.160 -> 12:58.760] And I would find myself going to leadership events and listening to all these incredible
[12:58.760 -> 13:06.480] inspiring people speaking from the stage, and I'd be so inspired by them and their stories and then I'd stop and reflect
[13:06.480 -> 13:11.040] and realize that I was profoundly uninspired by myself and I just reached that point where I was
[13:11.040 -> 13:17.440] sick and tired of not being inspired by myself. So I was in an entrepreneurial mindset and
[13:17.440 -> 13:23.280] unfortunately I wasted a couple of years because I thought I didn't have an idea and I was sort of
[13:23.280 -> 13:29.240] wandering around hoping that an idea would land from the heavens. I've retrospectively realized that I was
[13:29.240 -> 13:32.080] going about it in totally the wrong way. What I should have been doing was
[13:32.080 -> 13:36.240] looking for a problem to solve and if I'd gone out into the world looking for
[13:36.240 -> 13:38.400] problems to solve that I was passionate about I would have got to
[13:38.400 -> 13:44.040] entrepreneurship an awful lot more quickly. So how did I arrive at OLEO? It
[13:44.040 -> 13:46.520] was through a seemingly inconsequential moment
[13:46.520 -> 13:50.480] in my life. It was about eight years ago now. I was living and working overseas and moving
[13:50.480 -> 13:56.080] back to the UK and on moving day, the removal men told me I had to throw away all of our
[13:56.080 -> 14:01.720] uneaten food. Now obviously the inner farmer's daughter in me said, no, I cannot possibly
[14:01.720 -> 14:06.720] put perfectly good food in the bin. So much the irritation of the packing
[14:06.720 -> 14:11.040] meant I stopped packing and instead bundled up my newborn baby and toddler at the time and I set
[14:11.040 -> 14:15.920] out onto the streets clutching this food hoping to give it to this lady who is normally always in
[14:15.920 -> 14:21.680] this one spot outside our local supermarket and for some reason she was not there that day.
[14:22.720 -> 14:26.560] I shed a few tears of frustration that I'd gone to all this effing
[14:26.560 -> 14:32.960] effort on a super stressful day to try and share this food and had failed. So I turned back very
[14:32.960 -> 14:39.200] despondently to our apartment and then when the removed men weren't looking I smuggled the
[14:39.200 -> 14:43.840] non-perishable food into the bottom of my packing boxes and that was the moment where I just thought
[14:43.840 -> 14:48.400] Tessa this is getting ridiculous the lengths you're going to to avoid throwing food in the
[14:48.400 -> 14:53.680] bin. And I'd worked in the digital world for a decade at that point. I knew there was an app for
[14:53.680 -> 14:57.200] absolutely everything. And I couldn't believe there wasn't a simple app for me to be able to
[14:57.200 -> 15:03.520] give away my spare food to people living nearby who would like it. So that was the light bulb
[15:03.520 -> 15:10.680] moment for Olio and took me off on this crazy rollercoaster ride. Great story. It's brilliant and I'm
[15:10.680 -> 15:15.480] interested in a concept though when we were talking about giving away food and
[15:15.480 -> 15:20.520] the kind of narrative in the cost of living crisis that seems to be endemic
[15:20.520 -> 15:25.960] everywhere we look at the moment, is the topic of shame. Now you mentioned
[15:25.960 -> 15:30.240] that you felt ashamed being the farmer's daughter and the lifestyle that you
[15:30.240 -> 15:35.540] grew up in, but shame seems to be endemic everywhere when we talk about whether
[15:35.540 -> 15:40.380] it's people using food banks or we try and shame the supermarkets for the
[15:40.380 -> 15:52.560] prices they charge or the government for the lack of work that they're doing. I'm interested in how you've taken a topic that seems to revolve around shame and try to reduce
[15:52.560 -> 15:59.120] that and get people to see the value in it. Yeah, this is something we feel really very
[15:59.120 -> 16:03.920] strongly about. So if I kind of dial back and look at what's happened and how are we in this
[16:03.920 -> 16:08.320] situation, how have we got widespread waste, how have we got millions of people going hungry and
[16:08.320 -> 16:10.440] struggling to kind of get by.
[16:10.440 -> 16:15.800] I think one of the reasons we've ended up here is because we have allowed our communities
[16:15.800 -> 16:22.760] to be completely decimated and charities have had to spring up to fill that gap.
[16:22.760 -> 16:26.040] And unfortunately, all the research shows, and I'm sure you'll
[16:26.040 -> 16:32.160] know this as well as I do, is that people do feel an enormous amount of shame and stigma
[16:32.160 -> 16:38.640] when receiving help from charitable sources. But we have a view on the world which is that
[16:38.640 -> 16:46.920] actually if we had a lot more community, we wouldn't need so much of the charitable support.
[16:46.920 -> 16:52.600] And the beauty of OLEO is that we are connecting people in real life to give away things that
[16:52.600 -> 16:53.600] they don't want or need.
[16:53.600 -> 16:57.680] And I should stress it's not just food, you can give away other household items as well.
[16:57.680 -> 17:04.440] And the beauty of it is that we position OLEO very, very carefully as being a part of modern
[17:04.440 -> 17:06.440] mainstream everyday sustainable living. and Oleo very, very carefully as being a part of modern, mainstream, everyday, sustainable
[17:06.440 -> 17:12.080] living. This is absolutely about community and not about charity. And so everyone who
[17:12.080 -> 17:17.480] uses Oleo is as equal as everybody else. And then what ends up happening is people are
[17:17.480 -> 17:23.400] meeting across different socioeconomic backgrounds, different ages, different genders, different
[17:23.400 -> 17:29.120] ethnicities, and they start building connections. and they also start getting to know each other better,
[17:29.120 -> 17:33.120] getting to know different people's perspective, and a lot of people say that they have just
[17:33.920 -> 17:40.000] learned so much more about humanity and also just how good it feels to be part of a community,
[17:40.000 -> 17:44.800] to connect with someone else living nearby, thanks to their experience of sharing on Oleo.
[17:44.800 -> 17:49.800] So how has it happened then that we've allowed community to kind of disintegrate?
[17:49.800 -> 17:57.560] I think that part of what has happened is because so many people have moved, they've
[17:57.560 -> 18:01.480] kind of moved away from their families and from their communities for their careers.
[18:01.480 -> 18:08.480] Perhaps, so you know, if you just have to look here in the UK, it's not as bad now as it was when I was starting my career, but if you wanted
[18:08.480 -> 18:13.840] a career, you had to move to London. And so you just had these massively sort of transitory
[18:13.840 -> 18:18.400] populations and what we discovered if you look at sort of the problem of waste, for
[18:18.400 -> 18:22.500] example, and why is that happening, it's not because anyone enjoys throwing away food or
[18:22.500 -> 18:25.840] enjoys throwing away other household items, they do it because
[18:25.840 -> 18:29.440] they're no longer connected to their local community. They no longer have anyone to give
[18:29.440 -> 18:35.600] this stuff to. And so what we're trying to do is give people back an easy access to that local
[18:35.600 -> 18:42.400] community. So I love the idea of reframing a topic that like you say, shame or embarrassment,
[18:42.400 -> 18:46.180] or we try to create a fair culture of frightening
[18:46.180 -> 18:50.080] governments and supermarkets to do something about it. You've reframed it
[18:50.080 -> 18:55.480] which is about connections and relationships. What's been the most
[18:55.480 -> 19:01.440] powerful example that you've seen of these relationships that has reaffirmed
[19:01.440 -> 19:04.240] that instinct that you had on that moving day?
[19:04.240 -> 19:08.960] I've, I mean honestly so many but one that is very top of mind because we've got a forum
[19:08.960 -> 19:13.600] section in the Oleo app where people will go on there to share their experiences of
[19:14.800 -> 19:21.120] the Oleo magic, which is what they often call it, and there is someone on our forum, a guy called
[19:21.120 -> 19:25.760] Terry, who has been sharing with the community how he has been
[19:25.760 -> 19:31.040] rough sleeping for quite a long period of time, and he has recently been given settled
[19:31.040 -> 19:36.800] housing, and he was sharing how incredibly grateful he was that he had been able to completely
[19:36.800 -> 19:41.360] furnish that new housing, because he was given a house but nothing in it, and he'd been able
[19:41.360 -> 19:45.760] to completely furnish that thanks to his connections that
[19:45.760 -> 19:51.880] he had made with the local Oleo community. And that's just, you know, that's literally
[19:51.880 -> 19:57.000] life-changing for Terry, but not just for Terry, for the people that have met Terry,
[19:57.000 -> 20:02.920] who is just a wonderful character and human being, and he's just brought so much richness
[20:02.920 -> 20:05.440] into his neighbor's lives as well.
[20:05.440 -> 20:11.720] So that's kind of, I guess, the extreme end of things. But just in terms of more everyday
[20:11.720 -> 20:16.800] examples, people on Oleo are constantly kind of gifting one another things to say thank
[20:16.800 -> 20:22.400] you or sending handwritten cards or helping each other out mowing the lawn or whatever
[20:22.400 -> 20:29.280] it might be or lending people some cutlery or something like that. So it's just those sort of everyday moments of kindness that
[20:29.280 -> 20:34.400] are really powerful and also we've run some research recently and 40% of our communities
[20:34.400 -> 20:38.640] say that they've made friends through the Oleo app and if you think sort of nowadays how hard
[20:38.640 -> 20:45.400] it is to actually make friends that 40% of our community say that they've made friends is unbelievable,
[20:45.400 -> 20:54.100] and 66% say that sharing through Oleo has improved their mental health, and 75% say
[20:54.100 -> 20:56.980] that sharing has improved their financial well-being.
[20:56.980 -> 21:01.920] So I think Oleo is just a brilliant example of the fact that there's an awful lot of doom
[21:01.920 -> 21:03.940] and gloom in the world right now.
[21:03.940 -> 21:09.400] Every single day feels like a bad news day. But if we just reconnect people
[21:09.400 -> 21:15.300] with each other, empower people to take small actions, cumulatively that kind of
[21:15.300 -> 21:18.680] adds up, that has a snowball effect and actually it starts to be pretty
[21:18.680 -> 21:23.400] transformative when we have two-thirds of people who are on the app saying that
[21:23.400 -> 21:30.200] it's improved their mental health. And for people listening to this that, you know, aren't plugged in to the world in the
[21:30.200 -> 21:34.340] way that you are and they maybe think, well, there's not really a problem with people needing
[21:34.340 -> 21:38.780] to share food or share things they don't want. I mean, you would have done the research,
[21:38.780 -> 21:45.000] you would know the numbers. How big is this problem that OLEO is looking to solve?
[21:45.000 -> 21:49.080] So we are solving the problem of waste.
[21:49.080 -> 21:52.000] We started off solving the problem of food waste and now we're solving the problem of
[21:52.000 -> 21:53.000] waste more broadly.
[21:53.000 -> 21:57.160] And it is no exaggeration to say it is one of the largest problems facing humanity today
[21:57.160 -> 21:59.680] and it's sort of hidden in plain sight.
[21:59.680 -> 22:04.320] So if we just take food waste very quickly first, globally a third of all the food we
[22:04.320 -> 22:11.200] produce each year gets thrown away, which is worth over a trillion US dollars. Alongside that, we have 800 million
[22:11.200 -> 22:16.400] people who go to bed hungry every night, who could be fed on just one quarter of the food that we
[22:16.400 -> 22:21.680] waste in the Western world. And here in a country such as the UK, we have almost 10 million people
[22:21.680 -> 22:26.320] living in food poverty. In the US, we have about 50 million people living in food poverty in the US. We have about 50 million people living in food poverty.
[22:26.320 -> 22:30.600] So we've got widespread waste, widespread hunger, and then the environmental impact
[22:30.600 -> 22:32.720] of food waste is absolutely devastating.
[22:32.720 -> 22:37.160] So if it were to be a country, food waste would be the third largest source of greenhouse
[22:37.160 -> 22:40.240] gas emissions after the USA and China.
[22:40.240 -> 22:45.520] And that's because a land mass larger than China is used every single year to grow food that's
[22:45.520 -> 22:51.280] never eaten. So it's all pretty mind-boggling, but what's even more mind-boggling is that in
[22:51.280 -> 22:57.200] a country such as the UK, half of all food waste takes place in the home. So that means that kind
[22:57.200 -> 23:02.240] of half of that big problem that I've just described, that is within our means to actually,
[23:02.240 -> 23:05.860] we're half the problem, but if you flip it on its head it means we can be half the solution.
[23:05.860 -> 23:11.200] And that's what we want to do is empower everyday people to take 10 seconds to share their spare
[23:11.200 -> 23:12.700] instead of throw it away.
[23:12.700 -> 23:17.440] And then if you move on to kind of the waste problem more broadly, because we now connect
[23:17.440 -> 23:22.340] people not only to give away their spare food, but also their spare household items as well.
[23:22.340 -> 23:27.300] Globally households are throwing away 2 billion tons of waste
[23:27.300 -> 23:29.820] every single year, which is clearly mind-boggling.
[23:29.820 -> 23:32.380] Toby Cullen-And what would you categorise as waste?
[23:32.380 -> 23:35.940] Emma Waller-All the stuff that we're throwing in our bins and sending off to the tip.
[23:35.940 -> 23:36.940] Toby Cullen-Right, so.
[23:36.940 -> 23:42.500] Emma Waller-Yeah. And then that is sort of reflective of kind of a society that we live
[23:42.500 -> 23:46.240] in today, which is all about just buying, buying, buying stuff
[23:46.240 -> 23:50.560] brand new. We use it for a fraction of its useful life and then we toss it in the bin
[23:50.560 -> 23:54.280] and we're rinse washing, repeating on that. So there's a concept called Earth Overshoot
[23:54.280 -> 23:58.000] Day, which is the day in the year in which humanity has used all the resources that the
[23:58.000 -> 24:02.960] Earth can replenish in a year. And back in the early 70s, Earth Overshoot Day was the
[24:02.960 -> 24:08.000] end of December, so that means that humanity used in a year what the Earth could replenish in a year.
[24:08.000 -> 24:12.520] If you fast forward to last year, Earth Overshoot Day was the 28th of July.
[24:12.520 -> 24:19.760] So what that means is that every single thing, every single one of us, 8 billion people consumed
[24:19.760 -> 24:26.200] after the 28th of July last year was net-net depleted to the planet. So it's really, really clear
[24:26.200 -> 24:31.880] that we cannot continue with this model of consumption that we currently have, and we've
[24:31.880 -> 24:36.700] got to flip our mindsets, and we've got to be fully utilising the resources that already
[24:36.700 -> 24:40.680] exist in our local communities. So we want people, when they want something, to think,
[24:40.680 -> 24:44.000] I'm going to go to OLE, I'm going to go to my local community, and I will see what I
[24:44.000 -> 24:49.860] can get for free, or I can buy second- hand from my neighbours, what I can borrow or and eventually
[24:49.860 -> 24:52.700] kind of what I can rent.
[24:52.700 -> 24:57.060] The interesting thing from my perspective is what you've created is amazing and it's
[24:57.060 -> 24:59.340] solving a problem.
[24:59.340 -> 25:02.020] Why is the problem there in the first place?
[25:02.020 -> 25:05.240] Because I saw something interesting in the paper that I know I'm not
[25:05.240 -> 25:09.940] going to get this completely right but it was something like things that kill people
[25:09.940 -> 25:13.160] compared to what is reported as things that kill people.
[25:13.160 -> 25:20.160] So for example like a terror attack kills 0.001% of people in a year, terror attacks
[25:20.160 -> 25:30.720] account for 30% of the coverage of things that kill people. You know, plane crashes, it's even lower and it accounts for 15%. You know, in other words, the media is scaring
[25:30.720 -> 25:32.680] people or pointing people in a certain direction.
[25:32.680 -> 25:33.680] In the wrong direction.
[25:33.680 -> 25:34.680] In the wrong direction.
[25:34.680 -> 25:35.680] Yeah.
[25:35.680 -> 25:39.640] Right. Damien and I read lots of things, we go on the internet all the time, we've got
[25:39.640 -> 25:41.720] kids, we care about the future.
[25:41.720 -> 25:42.720] How are you not hearing about this?
[25:42.720 -> 25:46.840] Neither of us know this and I would imagine almost everyone listening to this podcast doesn't know this either. They
[25:46.840 -> 25:52.020] don't, no. Have you looked at why and how that's happening? So obviously I've thought
[25:52.020 -> 25:57.300] about this a lot because I can remember so vividly when we first founded OLEO, I had
[25:57.300 -> 26:01.020] that experience with looking at potentially having to throw away some food and I thought
[26:01.020 -> 26:09.040] I'll do some research to find out if there's a problem here or not. And I was absolutely stunned and horrified and I could not believe that it wasn't on the front
[26:09.040 -> 26:14.640] cover of every single newspaper that problem that I outlined, in particular given that we've got
[26:14.640 -> 26:20.000] another two billion people joining the planet by 2050 and to feed us all we need to increase global
[26:20.000 -> 26:27.360] food production by 50 percent and today we don't know how we're going to achieve that. And I do not know
[26:27.360 -> 26:35.760] why this is not being talked about and being written about. I think that perhaps people don't
[26:35.760 -> 26:41.680] understand why food waste is such a problem because it is quite counterintuitive. So food is seen as a
[26:41.680 -> 26:46.400] very natural, organic thing, so it's really hard to understand why
[26:46.400 -> 26:50.760] food waste is such a big problem from an environmental perspective.
[26:50.760 -> 26:55.320] Similarly, if you look at where food waste is taking place, most people would assume
[26:55.320 -> 26:57.360] it's the supermarkets.
[26:57.360 -> 27:02.320] But actually, half of all food waste takes place in the home, and only 2% of all food
[27:02.320 -> 27:04.320] waste is generated at a store level.
[27:04.320 -> 27:05.280] And that's just a simple
[27:05.280 -> 27:10.400] maths game. There's 28 million households in the UK throwing away roughly 20% of the weekly shop
[27:10.400 -> 27:14.880] in comparison to 10 or 15,000 supermarkets throwing away half a percent to one percent.
[27:15.520 -> 27:22.880] So it's very counterintuitive certainly in the area of food waste and then with regards to
[27:27.120 -> 27:32.600] of food waste. And then with regards to the problem of waste more broadly, this is not being discussed because to discuss it would require us to challenge
[27:32.600 -> 27:37.200] the fundamentals of the economic system that prevails right now. And quite
[27:37.200 -> 27:41.880] frankly no one has the courage to do that. I say no one. There are some
[27:41.880 -> 27:45.760] incredible voices who are pointing out the absurdity of the
[27:45.760 -> 27:51.600] fact that we have a system where the North Star metric, the thing that everyone is optimising for,
[27:51.600 -> 27:55.360] governments optimise for, that filters down through businesses, that filters down to us
[27:55.360 -> 28:00.880] because we're told to consume and play our part, the North Star metric for humanity is increasing
[28:00.880 -> 28:08.120] GDP growth. And infinite GDP growth on a planet with finite resources, by very
[28:08.120 -> 28:13.880] definition is not a long-term strategy. And as I've already pointed out with Earth Overshoot
[28:13.880 -> 28:21.120] Day, we are way exceeding the boundaries of the current planet that we have. So the message
[28:21.120 -> 28:26.080] that I have to everybody who's listening is one, it's a climate emergency.
[28:26.080 -> 28:29.600] It's no longer something that we're talking about that might be impacting our children
[28:29.600 -> 28:30.880] or grandchildren.
[28:30.880 -> 28:33.800] It's going to affect pretty much every single person that's listening to this podcast in
[28:33.800 -> 28:35.440] their lifetime.
[28:35.440 -> 28:39.000] And so we all need to kind of get involved and figure out how we can play a part.
[28:39.000 -> 28:44.520] And then secondly, the sustainability revolution that is going to happen, whether we like it
[28:44.520 -> 28:48.960] or not, is going to make the digital revolution look like a walk in the park. It really
[28:48.960 -> 28:53.320] is. We've got to reinvent everything about our society and our systems and
[28:53.320 -> 28:56.480] our ways of operating and we've got a handful of years to do it. How does that
[28:56.480 -> 29:01.920] even start if the entire capitalist Western mindset is the total antithesis
[29:01.920 -> 29:06.560] of this? I can't, I'm scared, I can't even sort of see the art, you know what I mean?
[29:06.560 -> 29:27.240] Well, shall I tell you how itizations, right, and we all know that
[29:27.240 -> 29:34.600] gender is on a spectrum, but I kind of think back to evolution, and there are lots of,
[29:34.600 -> 29:41.720] I guess, stereotypically male characteristics that require you to go out and hunt and extract
[29:41.720 -> 29:47.120] and come back and deliver, and generally, the women were kind of tending the hearth,
[29:47.120 -> 29:49.200] managing the resources, thinking very carefully
[29:49.200 -> 29:51.720] about the impact on community, not wasting things,
[29:51.720 -> 29:54.000] making sure that things went a long way.
[29:54.000 -> 29:56.520] And I think that female voice about,
[29:56.520 -> 29:58.520] well, how do we deal with waste?
[29:58.520 -> 30:01.600] How do we manage our resources effectively?
[30:01.600 -> 30:04.040] How do we think about the impact
[30:04.040 -> 30:05.680] that this activity is having on our community?
[30:05.680 -> 30:10.480] Well those voices have not been heard in the boardrooms for the past 50 years. And so all
[30:10.480 -> 30:16.520] we've heard is growth at all costs, profit at all costs, and there's been close to zero
[30:16.520 -> 30:42.000] consideration for the climate or communities. If we allow those diverse voices into the room, and not just women, you know, this is people who are from, you know, multiple kind of ethnic backgrounds, people from different socioeconomic classes, the people who are at the coalface of feeling the worst effects of untrammeled capitalism, then the solution lies with those people.
[30:42.000 -> 30:46.500] So what would you see to replace GDPR then as our North Star
[30:46.500 -> 30:51.940] metric? There are many people who are experts in this field and I am not one
[30:51.940 -> 31:00.220] of them but for sure I would be you know why do we all exist to have a happy
[31:00.220 -> 31:11.080] hopefully fulfilling life right so I would have thought that we should be optimizing for human fulfillment and the improvement of the quality of life of
[31:11.080 -> 31:16.240] our citizens. And there are a whole bunch of metrics that you can use to look at
[31:16.240 -> 31:21.000] the quality of life of your citizens and also you would want to make sure that
[31:21.000 -> 31:25.400] you are living within the means of the resources that you have at your disposal.
[31:25.400 -> 31:30.000] The guy who invented GDP quite famously said,
[31:30.000 -> 31:33.900] whatever you do, do not use this metric by itself.
[31:33.900 -> 31:37.100] And unfortunately, we have all collectively ignored his warning
[31:37.100 -> 31:41.300] and have just focused on just GDP growth,
[31:41.300 -> 31:45.600] and it's taking humanity over a cliff edge right now. Do you remember a few
[31:45.600 -> 31:52.440] years ago when David Cameron introduced like some happiness index for the country and like
[31:52.440 -> 31:59.720] the cynicism, the mockery, the like the belittlement of that process. Yeah. Sort of meant that very
[31:59.720 -> 32:06.400] rarely do you ever hear that used again. So how how would you overcome the cynicism of
[32:06.400 -> 32:10.360] those people that are that wedded to the current system when they hear things
[32:10.360 -> 32:15.760] like human fulfillment, this all sounds like blue sky thinking, it's great in
[32:15.760 -> 32:20.760] theory but not in reality. How would you address that? I mean the reality is you
[32:20.760 -> 32:32.400] know and I can't speak with any real credibility to the political system just to be completely fair, but I do feel, just as a regular citizen of the country, I do feel
[32:32.400 -> 32:40.000] that our politicians do not take the citizens on a journey. They don't sort of share the
[32:40.000 -> 32:45.920] truth with us all. And certainly in my experience, I say when I'm leading OLEO actually we've
[32:45.920 -> 32:50.940] really built the business in collaboration with our community and so just yesterday for
[32:50.940 -> 32:56.240] example we did a webinar with our community really sharing with them some of the challenges
[32:56.240 -> 32:57.760] that we face as a business.
[32:57.760 -> 33:05.700] We were extremely open and explicit in a way that I think 99 out of 100 businesses would not be. And they
[33:05.700 -> 33:11.040] understood it, they got it, they really really engaged with it and they're going
[33:11.040 -> 33:15.120] to help us co-create the way forwards and I think there is just a lack of
[33:15.120 -> 33:20.040] respect really I think from the politicians to us as citizens and as
[33:20.040 -> 33:24.560] voters. I don't think we're nearly sufficiently kind of up to speed on the
[33:24.560 -> 33:25.800] reality of the
[33:25.800 -> 33:31.320] challenges that we face. And I think you need specific examples and it can't just be with
[33:31.320 -> 33:36.700] something like reorienting your North Star metric, can't just be one of 25 initiatives
[33:36.700 -> 33:44.280] that you're launching, it has to be the initiative that you are launching. And yeah, and there
[33:44.280 -> 33:45.160] needs to be a serious national
[33:45.160 -> 33:49.120] conversation about that. What you're talking about there is trust, trust with
[33:49.120 -> 33:53.760] your the people, the trust with the businesses, trust with the people using
[33:53.760 -> 33:56.680] the app. I know Damian wants to talk to you about the trust trifecta which you
[33:56.680 -> 33:59.860] will in about two seconds time but I need to dive in beforehand just to wrap
[33:59.860 -> 34:06.340] up where we've taken this conversation which is the crisis. Which I was not expecting by the way.
[34:06.340 -> 34:10.520] It's been fascinating but there's a crisis in front of us.
[34:10.520 -> 34:11.020] Yes.
[34:11.020 -> 34:16.440] Oleo is one of the ways of helping but probably you'd even admit not solving
[34:16.440 -> 34:19.720] this problem because it's so huge you know there are things that have to
[34:19.720 -> 34:25.320] happen at the very top of government and like with the advent of business with people
[34:25.320 -> 34:29.040] being educated better with social media allowing people to get information that
[34:29.040 -> 34:32.080] previously was denied to them because I think you know again going back to those
[34:32.080 -> 34:35.480] boardrooms in the 70s I think you're right but I also think the people in
[34:35.480 -> 34:38.520] those boardrooms weren't told the truth were there they weren't given the
[34:38.520 -> 34:42.960] information to make the correct decisions now we do have that
[34:42.960 -> 34:45.240] information particularly if we look for it.
[34:45.240 -> 34:50.900] So are you, you said that you have to be an optimist to be an entrepreneur. Are you optimistic
[34:50.900 -> 34:54.560] or pessimistic about our future on this planet?
[34:54.560 -> 34:59.800] When I look at all the data and when I kind of go super deep about our reality, when I
[34:59.800 -> 35:06.840] listen to the scientists and what they're saying, I'm not at all optimistic. However,
[35:06.840 -> 35:14.560] I can't live in that space and I'll kind of die fighting. So every single day I'm getting
[35:14.560 -> 35:23.280] up trying to do my bit to help solve this. What gives me hope is a very, very simple
[35:23.280 -> 35:26.260] philosophy, which is that it was billions
[35:26.260 -> 35:32.440] of small actions that caused this mess in the first place, and so by the same logic,
[35:32.440 -> 35:35.000] billions of small actions can help get us out of it.
[35:35.000 -> 35:41.200] And it doesn't require these big, grandiose actions.
[35:41.200 -> 35:45.760] It just requires tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then millions of people
[35:46.320 -> 35:51.680] challenging their employer about their business model and how they operate, or even quitting, or
[35:52.560 -> 35:58.560] proactively setting up their own projects. And I think we have so much more power than we think.
[35:59.120 -> 36:05.440] We're referred to as consumers, right? Which really infuriates me because I think we're all so much more
[36:05.440 -> 36:12.800] than consumers. Actually, if we identified as citizens, then I think we'd think a lot
[36:12.800 -> 36:17.600] differently about our agency and the role that we have to play. And the fact of the matter is
[36:17.600 -> 36:22.640] that governments and businesses are enormously powerful, but they are not taking nearly enough
[36:22.640 -> 36:25.520] action on the timescales that we need. And
[36:25.520 -> 36:30.680] given that that's our reality, then we as individuals have got to start sort of taking
[36:30.680 -> 36:32.680] the power that we've got and making a difference.
[36:32.680 -> 36:36.400] Toby When we're looking at the success of Oleo,
[36:36.400 -> 36:41.480] what we saw was that you were a business that seems to have addressed that small word with
[36:41.480 -> 36:47.840] huge implications, trust. And there's that famous phrase in from the Harvard Business Review of the trust
[36:47.840 -> 36:50.880] trifecta that says, for trust to exist you've got to have a
[36:50.880 -> 36:54.000] level of competence to be able to do what you say you'll do.
[36:54.000 -> 36:57.040] You've got to be authentic that there's no
[36:57.040 -> 37:01.200] hidden side people have to believe what they see is what they get.
[37:01.200 -> 37:04.160] But then the third element is about connection,
[37:04.160 -> 37:09.040] bringing people together to achieve that common aim and what the Trust Traffic says, you get
[37:09.040 -> 37:13.280] those three right, trust happens as a consequence and Olio seems to have
[37:13.280 -> 37:17.760] nailed that and I'm interested if you tell us a little bit more around those
[37:17.760 -> 37:22.640] three areas and why they're important, what's the order of importance if you
[37:22.640 -> 37:31.000] would recognize it and how people can utilize the same three principles. So remind me again, authentic, authentic, competent,
[37:31.000 -> 37:38.120] competent and connection. Connection, so for authentic and for us that's the one
[37:38.120 -> 37:43.240] we lead with because that's our mission we have such a strong and clear mission
[37:43.240 -> 37:45.800] and the reason why we have
[37:45.800 -> 37:50.480] a community of 7 million people, we've got 85,000 volunteers who are
[37:50.480 -> 37:53.880] collecting and redistributing food, 50,000 ambassadors who are spreading the word
[37:53.880 -> 37:58.280] about OLEO, they're all doing that because they believe in our mission and
[37:58.280 -> 38:02.920] that's because we have taken the time to explain to them what our mission is and
[38:02.920 -> 38:05.040] why it's important.
[38:05.040 -> 38:11.600] Then in terms of competence, well I guess this is the high performance topic that you
[38:11.600 -> 38:16.960] guys talk about a lot and that's extremely important and I guess myself and the team
[38:16.960 -> 38:21.080] are just collectively every single day trying to show up and be competent or ideally a bit
[38:21.080 -> 38:27.520] better than competent. And then the third one which is the connection
[38:27.520 -> 38:35.440] piece, again I imagine that is one that is often underestimated but that is incredibly powerful
[38:35.440 -> 38:46.220] because trust is a multiplier. It's almost like a chemical reaction that takes place when you have that connection between multiple
[38:46.220 -> 38:53.240] people happening between one another, up, down, across. And that is certainly something
[38:53.240 -> 38:59.960] we have got a very high degree of connection at OLEO, but even that comes back to the mission.
[38:59.960 -> 39:08.880] The reason why we have such a strong connection is because we all share that same mission and as I touched on earlier on the same values and so if you have a
[39:08.880 -> 39:12.120] group of people who share the same mission they show up with the same
[39:12.120 -> 39:16.520] values by definition you're going to have a really really high trust
[39:16.520 -> 39:20.080] environment. Because we interviewed the organizational psychologist Adam Grant
[39:20.080 -> 39:24.040] on this who was the author of a paper that said for the leader of an
[39:24.040 -> 39:29.200] organization you almost have to repeat your point ten times before somebody at
[39:29.200 -> 39:33.760] another level of the organization has even heard it once. So I'm
[39:33.760 -> 39:39.280] interested for you as a leader that's trying to build trust, how much of it is
[39:39.280 -> 39:45.360] about just the repetition of the same message, the same mission, the same values. And how do you stop yourself
[39:45.360 -> 39:55.280] getting bored with that? So I think repetition is really, really important, but just as important
[39:55.280 -> 40:02.080] in my experience, this is just my personal leadership style, is transparency. And I am
[40:02.080 -> 40:07.340] extremely transparent with the team and as a company we're extremely transparent
[40:07.340 -> 40:13.460] with our community and I think that that is also critical for trust and for building those
[40:13.460 -> 40:14.460] relationships.
[40:14.460 -> 40:15.460] Will Barron Brilliant.
[40:15.460 -> 40:18.880] We always end our interviews with some quick fire questions and the first one is the three
[40:18.880 -> 40:23.400] non-negotiable behaviors that you and the people around you at OLEO should buy into?
[40:23.400 -> 40:26.080] Emma Wall Well I won't use our company values, that's cheating.
[40:26.080 -> 40:27.080] It is cheating.
[40:27.080 -> 40:33.960] That's also four, so I will go for honest, humble and curious.
[40:33.960 -> 40:38.120] What advice would you give to a teenage Tess just starting out?
[40:38.120 -> 40:46.400] I would say to her, all the things that you think that make you weird and different and an outsider,
[40:46.400 -> 40:49.320] they're going to be your superpower when you grow older.
[40:49.320 -> 40:53.600] What is your biggest strength? What is your greatest weakness?
[40:53.600 -> 41:10.840] Greatest strength? I'm extremely passionate. I do what I think is the right thing, always, even if it comes at enormous personal cost.
[41:10.840 -> 41:14.680] And I really value clear communications.
[41:14.680 -> 41:17.960] And the weakness?
[41:17.960 -> 41:22.040] Something I'm struggling with right now is I have an extremely thin skin.
[41:22.040 -> 41:23.040] I am very sensitive.
[41:23.040 -> 41:24.040] I'm a people pleaser.
[41:24.040 -> 41:32.880] I want everybody to be happy all the time. And that's really, really difficult and I can
[41:32.880 -> 41:36.480] sometimes just take things far too personally.
[41:36.480 -> 41:39.480] How important is legacy to you?
[41:39.480 -> 41:49.720] I think legacy is extremely powerful and through trying to understand behavior change and how we get people to change their behaviors,
[41:49.720 -> 41:59.760] the research that I have seen shows that if you can appeal to people's desire to create a positive legacy for themselves, you can encourage them to change their behaviors.
[41:59.760 -> 42:10.860] And so specifically, when it comes to kind of what I'm doing, which is trying to solve the climate crisis and build stronger communities, I think that legacy is quite important to
[42:10.860 -> 42:11.860] a lot of people.
[42:11.860 -> 42:17.040] A lot of people are motivated to think, I want to feel like I had a positive impact
[42:17.040 -> 42:21.440] on the world, on my local community, on my family.
[42:21.440 -> 42:26.640] And the final question for the high performanceperformance listeners and viewers to this episode who
[42:27.040 -> 42:33.260] No doubt like Demian I will feel as scared as we feel educated. I think after the past hours
[42:33.720 -> 42:39.340] Conversation. What would you like to leave ringing in our ears? What is your final message? I guess for a high-performance life
[42:40.960 -> 42:42.960] For a high-performance life
[42:43.240 -> 42:48.900] You need to find your problem in the world that you are uniquely
[42:48.900 -> 42:51.420] well placed to solve.
[42:51.420 -> 42:56.640] I believe that everybody can be not just a high performer, an exceptional performer when
[42:56.640 -> 42:58.400] they find their thing.
[42:58.400 -> 43:04.540] But too often, we don't do that hard work of introspection and really figuring out what
[43:04.540 -> 43:05.840] is it that we are really
[43:05.840 -> 43:07.840] truly passionate about.
[43:07.840 -> 43:11.560] Toby Teyser, you scared me.
[43:11.560 -> 43:16.120] You've educated me and I think the people listening to this conversation will feel exactly
[43:16.120 -> 43:17.120] the same way.
[43:17.120 -> 43:22.080] There is an emergency right before our very eyes and it's an emergency that we are not
[43:22.080 -> 43:29.080] allowed to see because it clearly causes too many problems for too many people, too high up the food chain. So for you to come on
[43:29.080 -> 43:33.240] this podcast and share your amazing mission, share your entrepreneurial
[43:33.240 -> 43:37.240] mindset, share the threat in front of us, I think is really powerful and thank you
[43:37.240 -> 43:43.760] very much. Great, thank you. Damien. Jake. I meant it when I said that that was
[43:43.760 -> 43:45.320] scary and it actually is scary
[43:45.320 -> 43:49.640] and I feel stupid for not knowing the things that Tessa spoke about and I feel
[43:49.640 -> 43:54.540] that all of us should. Yeah I agree I feel a similar emotion but I'd go back
[43:54.540 -> 43:59.020] to Dr. Pippa Grange with us that when we feel scared we need to see it, face it
[43:59.020 -> 44:02.960] and replace it and I think that's what Tess is doing there she's helping us
[44:02.960 -> 44:09.200] understand that we have to first of all acknowledge that we're facing a climate crisis, then we have to
[44:09.200 -> 44:15.020] face it and say well and I think what can we do, how can I play my part and she
[44:15.020 -> 44:20.040] said in the rap after we'd finished there was that people often think that
[44:20.040 -> 44:24.540] you have to be perfect to be able to take action, that you have to be a vegan
[44:24.540 -> 44:25.540] when she's saying well
[44:25.540 -> 44:27.380] No, just put your meat consumption down
[44:27.380 -> 44:31.480] You don't not have it not every pair of clothes you have has to be second hand
[44:31.620 -> 44:37.000] But we can all do make small steps. So then replace the narrative that we're currently facing
[44:37.220 -> 44:40.960] Yeah, I think it's um, I think it's a really worthwhile conversation
[44:40.960 -> 44:43.260] I'm really glad we've had it and I hope that you know
[44:43.260 -> 44:46.100] Cuz I know a lot of people come to high performance because they want to be entrepreneurial
[44:46.100 -> 44:49.200] I want to set up their own business. They want to change the world. They want to make some money
[44:49.200 -> 44:50.840] You can do all that
[44:50.840 -> 44:54.180] But it's not gonna be much use if there's no world to worry about at the end of it
[44:54.180 -> 44:58.720] So, you know, I'm even listening from you know, with my whisper group head. I'm thinking well, I've got
[44:59.260 -> 45:01.080] 300 staff at that business
[45:01.080 -> 45:06.860] How much food are they throwing away every month and what would the OLEO app do for Whisper if we passed it around the team and everyone? You're
[45:06.860 -> 45:10.680] saying with high performance, you know, get it out there. Just get people making
[45:10.680 -> 45:14.060] a difference. But I'd pick up for you with Whisper, like one of the things that
[45:14.060 -> 45:18.260] I know you do that Tess described was, you do have diverse voices in the room.
[45:18.260 -> 45:22.380] People that are challenging that narrative and I think once we start to just
[45:22.380 -> 45:27.240] introduce these topics and hopefully for people listening to this that might be the start of it in their
[45:27.240 -> 45:32.120] world, we start to be open to new ideas and to challenge some of these old
[45:32.120 -> 45:36.440] conventions that we've allowed to grow up around us. I really enjoyed it mate. Me
[45:36.440 -> 45:41.680] too, thank you. So there we go that brings us to the end of this conversation with
[45:41.680 -> 45:49.000] Tessa Clark. I hope that you learned a lot from that. And actually, as soon as that was over, I went home, downloaded the Olio app, and
[45:49.000 -> 45:53.800] I think it's like, I've got two young children, so they are really plugged into environmental
[45:53.800 -> 45:59.580] issues. But I was kind of embarrassed, actually, as a man in his mid-forties, not knowing many
[45:59.580 -> 46:03.000] of the things that Tessa spoke about. Of course, we all know we're living through an environmental
[46:03.000 -> 46:09.040] crisis at the moment, but the depth of it, the scale of it and how preventable it feels when you speak
[46:09.040 -> 46:14.560] to Tessa is kind of sobering, really. And I really hope that not only have you learned a lot about
[46:14.560 -> 46:18.960] your life and maybe your business, your career and your passions, but I also hope that this has
[46:18.960 -> 46:23.520] opened your eyes to the world we're living in at the moment and the fact that, as Tessa says,
[46:23.520 -> 46:26.000] all of us can be the ones that make a difference.
[46:26.000 -> 46:51.360] Thank you so much for listening and we've got another fascinating episode coming your way in a week's time as we continue this leadership series brought to you by High Performance and PwC. Bye!