Once upon a time

In the fourth podcast in our 'Ordinary Extraordinary Leaders' podcast series, listen to Jill Quinn, CEO of Dementia Forward. She takes us on a leadership journey from a playground in Cornwall to her happy ever after at North Yorkshire's Dementia Forward. Share her love of leadership and aspirations for the future of VCSE leaders. 

Transcript

Ordinary Extraordinary Leaders podcasts: Once up on a time

Jill Quinn, CEO, Dementia Forward

[00:00:00] I'm Jill Quinn and I am CEO and founder of Dementia Forward, a regional charity in North Yorkshire, covering North Yorkshire and the city of York. I'm always amused by the fact that York is not considered as North Yorkshire, but it is in our book. I think when I think about leadership, it fascinates me now as an older person reflecting back that the signs are often there in very early days. And so I do go back to one particular occasion. 

I come from Cornwall, but I'd moved away because my father was in the navy and found myself suddenly back in Cornwall, but being treated like an outsider. That was really interesting to me because I was thoroughbred Cornish but there was this kind of like a mimic of a campaign going on in the playground; and it was that people who didn't come from Cornwall had to stay one side and people who were Cornish stayed the other. And I [00:01:00] was so cross, I think that's the best word, so absolutely furious about, not just for me, but for the other people who ended up in our little group who weren't allowed on the other side of the playground that I actually got quite motivated and I went and found teachers and I said it wasn't good enough and it wasn't fair and we needed to talk about it and I ended up eventually worming my way into a position of head girl simply because I was willing to speak out. And that was kind of the beginning of me realising that I had a bit of a problem with things that weren't fair there were two things there. One was moving house a lot had made me quite a confident person.

I was always the new girl, but I got used to being the new girl. And then secondly, that I had a bit of passion, I suppose. I didn't realise at the time, but now when I look back, it's been there all the time. And it's raised its head a lot because when I finally got into work I started, I always say I wasted a lot of my time in retail, but I suppose it's a good stomping ground is where I learned stuff like [00:02:00] health and safety and HR and, and all that dry stuff.

But very, very quickly found myself managing DIY superstores of all things - a very male environment. I'm a very short person. I used to go around in high heels trying to make a bit of an impact but I just realized that somebody else saw something in me that I didn't because I found myself in positions where the imposter syndrome was huge. ‘Why am I managing a DIY? This is ridiculous.’

And all these older men that I've got to manage. But nevertheless, I made quite a good fist of it actually. I do feel like I wasted that time because where the real fun started was when I left that to start my family and I realised I was in a village and there was nothing there for children.

So I started a toddler group. And then I realised my children were getting a bit older, so we needed a playgroup. So I went and did the qualification, I raised funds, I battled with the parish council, set up a [00:03:00] charity, and we started a playgroup in the village. And there was a kind of pattern forming really here.

I love that feeling of it's so powerful. The voluntary sector is such a powerful place to be. You can make things happen. From there, of course, kids grow up. I decided I would stay in the voluntary sector, so I left my playgroup for the school to run. And I went and joined a big national children's charity.

The only reason I'm not mentioning it, the name of that charity, is because this is the next pattern. If I found myself in a position where I couldn't sort stuff out, I either had to try and win, and if I couldn't win, I had to leave. And I've done that now, I realise, three or four times. I've done it four times.

Yeah. I didn't like what I was seeing. And I couldn't change it, so I had to go. So I left that, I worked for another charity, another national. I ended up working for a large national dementia charity and all was well. And then the same thing happened again.[00:04:00] I couldn't change it. It didn't fit with what I believed in.

I'm not saying I'm right all the time, but I just thought I could see a better way. And this is how Dementia Forward was born. And it's a rather beautiful story really - this is my once upon a time bit. Because I actually was going to leave because I was so angry. And I went in after the Christmas break and I always used to make my team sit down and do work related New Year's resolutions.

And so I had to share with them that my New Year's resolution was that in fact I was going to leave. And I wish we'd recorded the conversation because within about five minutes, somehow or other, the team I was sat with, seven of us, had decided, well, why, why don't we just do this ourselves? We know what we're doing, we know what's wrong, so therefore hopefully we can work out how to do it right.

And the idea of Dementia Forward was born. And I love telling this story because it, a lot of it is quite [00:05:00] personal. So, for instance, my youngest son at the time was 16 and he designed the logo. The colours, yellow and green came about because we all seven of the team who decided to hand their notice in all together went on a lovely walk in the countryside and it was the spring and the daffodils were out. We were talking about our branding and we ended up with yellow and green and that has stuck. Passed that to my son, he made the logo. My brother who lives in Chelmsford was into marketing. He started to draw up all the leaflets.

It became a little bit of a family affair. But those other six people were quite amazing because we all took a risk. You know, we had mortgages and families and husbands and wives who probably thought we were bonkers. But we did it. So that was in 2012. And the vision was to have a fluffy charity in the Harrogate district, something we could really contain, really have richness to it, a lot of depth to it.

So that was the [00:06:00] plan, but here we go again. It's just this thing, this sort of, like somebody else realises you've got something that you don't know you've got. And people were looking in on Dementia Forward, and were asking us why we were only doing it in Harrogate. And we basically had come up with a model that really worked.

So, then the contract that I had negotiated with this other national charity came up for grabs. But we were realistic enough to know we couldn't do the whole of North Yorkshire in one go. And we took it piecemeal until two or three years in we realised, no, actually we can do this. And it was up for grabs again.

So we took the whole of North Yorkshire. And North Yorkshire is huge but we've never looked back. And a lot of the reasons for the success of our charity is because we have been innovative. Because we set our stall out to say we would never be 100 percent contract funded. I've watched that happen in larger organisations.

And I think you can lose [00:07:00] your flair. And your innovation if you are stuck to a rigid service delivery. So we kept it 50/50. We attracted lots of lovely support and we grew. And we now have a team of over 60 staff, more importantly over 250 volunteers, and a model that really works. And it didn't stop there, there was a turning point for me as a leader.

When finally instead of sort of thinking, this is weird how people think I can be a leader, we won the King's Fund Impact Award and I found myself in London and they really look after you at the King's Fund. I felt like we were treated like royalty. I went down with one colleague. We were there for the awards ceremony and we started to get some leadership training and it was so inspiring. But also I did sit there thinking: Oh, yeah, I do that. Oh, yeah No, that's what I do. And I think it's a personality trait. That's what I've [00:08:00] decided that if you have it in you then you have to be a leader and therefore if you can't lead then you do have to walk and in my situation it meant that I had to start a charity because I could see the light and I couldn't, the box I fit in, I suppose, is leadership.

I built a fabulous team. I have to start thinking about future proofing. I'm in my 60s now. Properly retirement age next year. So I won't be retiring next year, but need to give it some thought. So I built a brilliant team around me, but I called them the management team. And then as part of the award, we got some fabulous training.

And the first thing that happened in one of those training sessions was the guy from Kings Fund said, “You're not a management team at all. You are actually a leadership team. And you need to start thinking about the job titles and the roles of this group of people that I see in front of me.” And he was absolutely right.

[00:09:00] So we've carved up all the responsibilities as a charity. And now it is an absolute joy to watch other people becoming leaders and moving into their leadership roles. So I never knew what leadership really meant until fairly recently, even though possibly I've been doing it since I was in the school playground, which is quite interesting.

And now, in my wise older years, I look in and I see other leaders and I love that. I love the idea that there are other leaders around me that I can hopefully inspire in the same way that I've been inspired. So yeah Dementia Forward, I think, will live way past my time. I hope it'll always be a North Yorkshire charity.

I don't want it to turn into what I didn't particularly enjoy. Because I think the model works. I love that local for local approach. And I think that's where all the commitment and support comes from. So, [00:10:00] that's me. That was my once upon a time story. But there is something I want to say. Before I sign off and that is reflecting back on the fact that I feel like I wasted a lot of years in in retail and then arriving in this comfy place where I really feel at home in the voluntary sector.

I'd like to think that when I am retired, I talk a lot about retirement at the moment, and I'm sat by the fire with my feet up, that there are lots of other people entering the voluntary sector and keeping it alive. And of course there will be, but what I'd really love is if we took it just that little bit more seriously at school age level, nobody ever suggested that there could be a career in the voluntary sector, and there's such a place for really inspired, innovative leaders in the voluntary sector that can do really good stuff. 

So yeah, a little call to action amongst our peer group. Maybe that's what we should be doing. Maybe we should be really encouraging careers talks on how you [00:11:00] can enter the voluntary sector and have a really lovely career doing all that lovely stuff.

So that's, that would be my happy ever after. When I'm sat retired, looking back in knowing that.

Thank you for listening. This is me Jill Quinn signing off and listening to the next one.