The key to creating an effective team is to create effective leadership. Effective leadership is created through listening, learning, and valuing the experiences of others as well as yourself.
Sedulo is a financial services consultancy based in Manchester with offices across the UK. Alongside their traditional work, the firm also organises and coordinates a variety of initiatives like their charity Christmas Toy Appeal and monthly leadership ‘Be the Standard’ events.
Sedulo’s ‘Be the Standard’ events attract “some of the world’s best in business and sport”, inviting individuals to talk about their careers, how they achieved their success, and what they’ve learned over the years in order to become the best version of themselves.
Among those attending the event in May were Tony and Gavin – two members of the CEL team.
They heard from Jo Fairley (Co-founder of Green & Black’s), Jay Roper (Senior coaching advisor at UK Sport), and David McDowall (COO & President of BrewDog).
Read about June’s Be the Standard event.
Reflecting on the event, here’s what they had to say:
“I thought the event was hosted extremely well, with a great reception. There was a healthy breakfast to help us start the day. The first speaker was the owner of Green and Black’s, Jo Fairley – she’s just sold her share of the company for £100m. Her top tips were about loving your brand and underpinning your core values.” – Tony Charnley
“I thought it was interesting what Jo said about the importance of client testimonials in customer-facing jobs which is something we’re are at the forefront of in relation to client reviews at CEL.” – Gavin Spruin
“The second speaker was Jay Roper, who is the lead coaching advisor for Team GB Olympics. His talk focused on the science and studies behind leadership. I thought this was really interesting as a former army warrant officer and backs up a lot of our leadership strategies at CEL Solicitors.” – Tony
“Both Jo and David McDowell discussed how they ensured as a company they maintained their values despite growing exponentially. David, in particular, discussed BrewDog’s recent poor publicity but then said they used this as a learning opportunity to see where they went wrong and then worked on new ideas to get back on track.” – Gavin
“David was the last speaker of the day. He talked about how to keep staff happy, how to keep morale up, and how to incentivise feeling part of the business. It was extremely interesting.“ – Tony
Speaking on a previous ‘Be the Standard’ event hosted by Sedulo, Tom Blanchfield said: “The event I went to was centred around facing adversity in life and business, and how businesses should create key pillars for the infrastructure. There was also a workshop for people troubleshooting the issues of work-life balance from an owner’s point of view. They spoke about the pillars being the people in the company, as well as the policies, the rules, the ethos and the values.”
