Hello. Welcome to the APM podcast,
brought to you by the chartered body for the project profession
in 2022. OPM is celebrating its 50th
Anniversary. So, throughout the year, the APM
podcast has been meeting some of the movers and shakers who have
shaped the project profession across the past few decades.
This episode C's Professor, atom bomb, Addison a p.m. chief
executive and conversation with the right honourable.
Justine Greening Justine served as an MP from 2005 to 2019
during her time in politics, she held positions, including
Secretary of State, for Education, Minister for women
and inequalities and Secretary of State for International
Development. And this podcast Adam and
Justine discuss, the definition of social Mobility status of
apprenticeships and we're project management fits into the
leveling up agenda. Justin also shares her
experiences as a co-founder of the social Mobility pledge
Campaign, which encourages organizations to be a force for
Good by putting social Mobility at the heart of their purpose.
Okay, welcome to the APM podcast.
I'm delighted to have dressed in green ink with me here today.
So good morning. Justine morning.
How are you Adam? I'm very well.
Thank you. Thank you for joining us today
and to talk about the very important themes of social
mobility and project success. Two of my favorite topics.
I'm really delighted that we were able to talk to you about
these important areas today and areas which I think are both
share something in common which is I think they're often
misunderstood or misrepresented out there in the The world.
So I'm hoping that one of the things we can do today is to is
to help people better understand both these things.
So let's start by talking about social mobility and I'd really
be interested. If you can tell us a bit about
what social Mobility actually is and why it's important, it's
about breaking the link between where you start in life and your
background and circumstances shaping where you end up.
So it's about freeing up Talent, really an hour.
Allowing people to kind of follow their path.
Whatever their potential is, irrespective of their background
and stuff. I'm really passionate about
social Mobility myself. I see myself as as a beneficiary
of social Mobility, as a young person, I came from a fairly
disadvantaged background in the northwest of England.
And I like to think I've done okay for myself.
And I had lots of opportunities, if you like not necessarily
handouts, but hand up, as I went through life, and various people
are different They just help me and when I talk to people about
that, sometimes they criticized the kind of social Mobility
element of how I've done and they said, well, Adam, you were
lucky. You were lucky that, you had
those opportunities. Those people who helped you at
that time, and they say, the problem with social Mobility is
it doesn't help. Everybody, only helps those who
happen to have those opportunities.
Would you say that's a fair criticism?
No. And I think in a way it just
underlines, that probably, for too long, we've got a bit hung
up on the semantics of social mobility.
And I used to have these debates a little bit in Parliament with
people on whether it was just about gifted and talented
people, getting to the very top and the reality is, it's much
more about saying this country needs to free up its Talent
base. And yes, getting doing well in
life. Shouldn't be about getting a
look. He break.
So now I'm talking about something that is much more, not
just a social thing, but an economic challenge that we've
got to address. I mean, often my experience,
having been on the other side of this and and being responsible
for recruiting people, is a really diverse workforces is
really important and actually gives you insights that you
wouldn't ordinarily have so given it an advantage to have a
diverse Workforce. Why wouldn't employers just do
this? Anyway, why do they need to be
convinced? Why do we need social Mobility
campaigns? Is it some kind of
misconception, existing, employers mines?
I don't know why. It doesn't happen anyway.
Well, it's a really good point and it's it's something that
I've thought a lot about. I mean, why do we have this as
the status quo because it does damage our economy?
And I think the answer is probably for the people who are
getting opportunities. It's fine.
And I also think it's Ali she can't see week, so Mobility.
So if you go into a boardroom and maybe there's any one woman
there, it's really obvious that there's an issue on gender.
Same on ethnicity. I think it's just been very
hidden. I also think it's sort of how
things have always been. So does that power of inertia?
But I do think now and I also think maybe in the past you can
say economically, it didn't matter as much as it does today.
But if you're in the century today where it's all about a
knowledge economy, it's all about Talent.
The technology world is very much about creativity and
lateral thinking and all of that, then it does become really
really important. So this issue of not getting the
most out of your human capital. Infrastructure becomes really
really important now and I think we need to see it alongside
physical infrastructure as being crucial to get right?
And and if we did get it right and you know, we had the
education system working perfectly and employers, we're
doing the right things with the job ever be done.
Would we ever kind of get to a point where social Mobility is
not needed anymore? Because actually employers are
doing the right things, everybody is getting the the
breaks in life that they deserve.
You know, those who work hard succeed and so on you get a lot
closer towards that. There's never probably going to
be perfect equality of opportunity.
Everyone. I have a different view about
What that really looks like in a sense in practice.
But I think you can get a lot further towards improving the
education system. So gaps, don't open up quite so
consistently during young a young person's life and I think
you can also get employees to think differently about where
they get their talent from and to, and to start measuring,
socioeconomic background as well.
So, I think you can actually get a very long way and, you know,
whether it's that, Or whether it's creating different routes
into opportunities, for example, technical education, and
apprenticeships. I just think there's actually
quite a lot of stuff we can get on with relatively quickly and
easily, that will probably make quite a big difference over the
longer term in your time is education.
Secretary obviously had an influence over their kind of
national system and insight into the system that other people,
you know, would never have. But did you feel that school
leavers? What, Often guided towards say
University at the expense of apprenticeships and particularly
now thinking about project management apprenticeships, but
also the kind of bigger picture. I think we were in a situation
where actually, there hasn't really been a good choice for
young people. So, I went to University and was
the first person in my family to do that, but I really wanted to
go to university, but I think if I'd had a slightly different way
of learning or interest, I I don't believe that the
vocational education routes open to people with good enough for
one of the things that we really focused on when I was at the DFE
was improving, those technical education route.
So I think you've almost got two challenges.
One is making sure there's a choice for young people that's
genuine and they're not having to somehow compromise on the
quality of their education. If they want to go down and more
vocational route, rather than a A more academic route.
I think the second thing though is then making sure they've got
the right information to make a good decision because actually
if you look across different socioeconomic backgrounds, there
are some say siglemic, backgrounds, where virtually all
the young people are going to add into, you know, University
education. So, I think if you're probably
one of the most privileged backgrounds in in the UK,
literally three quarters of Of those young people would head to
University and, you know, whether it's that challenge of
sequel, it can't possibly suit all of those young people or
conversely for people growing up in communities more like mine,
where, you know, not many people really went to University, those
people not thinking about it carefully enough and not
thinking about going on to higher education, and further
education, whether that's Technical vocational, I think
there's a lot to be done on just helping young people.
Work through those work through those choices.
So they don't just end up almost doing the social Norm of what
people like them normally do sure.
And and, and so you talk there about whether vocational roots
are good enough, I suppose and equipment and a genuine
alternative. Do you think we're there now, or
do you think apprenticeships are a genuine alternative?
Now, there's no doubt that apprenticeships are a genuine
alternative in. And, and for some young people,
there are really small alternative to getting a degree.
Agree. Because they'll mean, if you
already have a pretty good idea of what you want to do, where
you want to work, then actually, you can obviously learn and earn
at the same time and avoid having all of that student debt.
I think for someone like me, I hadn't really worked out.
What I wanted to do. I was really Keen to study
economics. Oh, I'd probably still do that
all over again. I think the key challenge is
we're not there yet on vocational education, by any
means. So that Pathway of, for example,
doing T levels needs, obviously huge amounts of work.
I think making sure the quality and the consistency of that
quality across apprenticeships is really important and it's
probably worth pointing out that billions of pounds of
apprenticeship. Levi gets handed back at the
moment treasury. So I think on the the broader
level of getting the most out of that investment, that could be
there to support more apprenticeships, we've got a
fair way. A to go on all of that but at
least we're now in a version of Britain where I think there's a
general acceptance that vocational and Technical
education has to really improve and I don't expect that
political debate to go away but I think it's a bit like The
Wider social Mobility debate. It's much more about how you do
it rather than whether you do it.
And I think that in itself has been a big step forward for us
all. Okay.
Thank you. Now, peep PWC did a bit of
research for as a couple Years ago, Justine and it was looking
at, kind of the size of the project profession, and the
value that it adds the economy and it came up with a figure of
150 billion, gross value added. So it's obviously an enormous
contributor to the economy. And therefore, in my mind, it
must have an important role to play around social mobility.
And you know what? We hear from government all the
time about leveling up so I suppose I'm interested to hear
from you. What part should project and the
project profession play in both of those areas.
And And also, what is that connection between social
mobility and leveling up? Are they the same thing that are
they different things. So, on the first thing, I think
it's a really interesting question because what's coming
out of all of the work I've been doing both while stores at the
DFE and since more overtly working with businesses on
driving leveling up is that fundamentally literally
managing? That project is probably one of
the biggest challenges because it's complex.
And so actually, In many respects, delivering it is all
about project management. And being able to stay on track,
mobilize people in the same direction have things done, when
they need to be done. There's a lot of it, that is,
there's a lot of it is about policy.
And if you like that philosophy, but there's a massive part of
this that is just very, very practical delivery on the
ground. And we've got what seems to be
were talking on the morning that we're about to see who's going
to win the leadership of the conservative party, because It's
prime minister but you know let's trust is talked about
delivery delivery delivery and for me that's where project
management comes into this. And certainly during my time in
government, I felt that often the Civil Service put a huge
store on policy development, but actually delivery and project
management was not seen quite in the same light and I think it
needs to be if we're going to deliver social mobility, and
then your question about, About social mobility and leveling up.
Well, I mean, that's what I was talking about on semantics
really, when we were using, leveling up at the DFE in a
sense. I'd come up with that phrase for
us because I felt people at the time didn't really know what a
social Mobility meant and it felt a bit think tanky.
And so although I was very, very familiar with it.
And within academic circles that was a familiarity, I wanted to
use a phrase that people could instinctively have a sense of
what it would mean for them. And I think they did under
themes. We seen that, they have got an
instinctive sense, probably of what leveling up means, but
whether you Social Mobility leveling up equality of
opportunity, it is all the same thing.
It's about having a Level Playing Field when it comes to
opportunity and what you need to do to make sure that happens.
Okay? So it was really interesting
that because you've delved into the area of project delivery
within the kind of government machine.
If you like, do you think politicians and civil servants
know enough about the project profession and the value it can
add to their careers, not even remotely enough?
No, it's Social, because you've got to bear in mind for our
democratic system. You know, it worked by having
people elected and they are, as it were lay people, they
probably got a special ISM in some kind of very they worked in
before Parliament, but then they're put into running
departments and so, you know, you can end up with a teacher
running the face, you can end up with an accountant running the
DFE, that's me but actually You know, often the challenges, you
are literally running those departments.
And yet I was lucky in the sense that I had worked in some bigger
larger organizations as a finance person.
I guess if you're in finance or project management you've
probably relatively numerator and you know what you're looking
for in terms of how to check if things are on track and what
management information you'd need.
And I think there's a bit of a gap there.
Definitely, for politicians on the not.
Some bolts of their own skill set in order to be successful.
And then, I think what I was saying earlier was I guess
within the Civil Service, the the sort of sexy part of civil
service has been all the policy development when actually
increasingly it really needs to shift to be much more who's
great at delivering projects on the ground successfully because
there's no point having the best policy in the world.
If you can't deliver it, then it won't come to anything.
Well, quite and And I think it's really good now that, you know,
we have the infrastructure and projects Authority, they're
obviously I think a real Catalyst actually, I think
they've been very successful in Shifting the, the dial on some
of the area's you've just talked about, but as always with any
kind of big system, there will be leaders and followers.
And my senses. There are some government
departments who are Miles Ahead of the curve here and really
flying the flag for project delivery and policy delivery I
suppose. Yeah.
I think that's, I think that's right.
It's interesting because it's always tough innocence.
Getting that project evaluation and it's plugging up risks and
challenges because obviously, that means more work needs to be
done in a very practical way but at the same time it's absolutely
valuable. If you're if you're a sexy state
for flagging up to you where you need to focus your time, I mean
if you're going to be successful you don't want to be focusing on
things that are all going brilliantly.
You need a system that focuses you in on things promptly when
they're going off-track arguably.
Before they've gone. Wrong.
And that's what that project delivery were really focused on.
I think one area where it could do much, much more is probably
education. So, I think the risk of all of
that is also that it's done, but it's kind of done separate in a
way to the politics, may be, it has to be, but if you could get
that feedback loop working a bit more from an education and
development perspective, I think for ministers, you know, that
would probably be A really smart thing to do that would make it
even more. Valuable sure.
We've got some, a p.m. members, of course, who will be in some
of those departments, which are a bit behind the curve, if you
like, but they're really passionate and they want to do a
good job, but they're perhaps it in a fighting against the tide
in the system. What advice would you give to
them in terms of how they could help to shift the dial within
their own Department? I think, I think it's having the
consistent approach across departments on On project
development and delivery and, and speaking with one voice.
So, for example, I think the government Finance organization
across government, had increasingly, learn to work,
collectively and did work. Collectively on what good look
like, what? Good process look like, how to
develop business cases. And, you know, it might all
sound a bit Bonkers. You know, of course, you'd
expect government and civil service departments, to develop
strong business cases. That isn't always the case.
And as you said, Adams, some departments are better than
others. I would actually say the best is
best business cases I had were, when I was at the department for
International Development, maybe because there was so much
scrutiny on every single penny of spend actually, that had led
to the department. Really kicking the tires on
absolutely everything before it was ever signed off by contrast
when I went into education. You know, much less business
case development per se. But a real need for it.
Because if you're going to compete, for example, with the
department for transport on investment saying, pupil
referral units and you want that investment and you're making the
case, it should go into that rather than fixing more
potholes. Then you do need a business case
approach, that's really bolted down and it's what I always
expected to see as a finance person.
I mean if you don't have that business case and this is what
Really didn't in differed, you haven't really ever got that
parameter that that kind of game plan against which to then
compare progress and you know it's absolutely crucial.
If you're going to have strong project management that the
project itself is obviously suspect up.
Well at the very, very beginning.
Absolutely. And of course, people and
personalities. You can't take them away from
projects. In fact, I think there's a lot
of value but I can also insert some challenges as well.
One of the things. Zai.
See a lot and probably the general public.
See a lot is what we might think of as pet projects, particularly
from ministers, where they come in and they've got particular
things that they want to achieve it.
I mean, is there a challenge in government of trying to secure
backing for the for the right projects rather than the pet
projects if you like yes. And and that comes down to just
good evidence and consistent processes.
So the challenge is probably also, the because that
investment process is so driven by treasury, you end up with,
you know, some moments in the year when our Chancellor might
want, you know, an extra announcement on maths or
something because that's what they want to do.
And they might have a particular amount of money to be able to
invest in maths. And so your work, the danger is
you end up with a strategy where you work Looking back from that
rather than in that case saying, well what are we trying to
accomplish on closing gaps and maths.
How big is that Gap? What does that investment need?
And then that's the strategy. So you end up with sometimes
back to front processes in a way that that really isn't helpful
and then of course as you say Adam, you know people do get
very wedded to their pet project, sometimes they can be
extremely large pet project and And the risk is that means you
don't look at it, clear-sighted lie.
Luckily. In the way that the regular
rotation and ministers across briefs me, there's always
somebody fresh coming in to look at projects.
They be too often but there is a you know you've got to just be
conscious of the risk and then and then try and make sure it
doesn't dominate. You thinking I always felt good
coming in with a new pet project.
Hopefully this is well I've ever done.
The Civil Civil Service have an important role to play here.
I think in driving the consistency.
But anyway, look, we've talked about social mobility and I'd
like to talk about the social Mobility pledge because this is
something. I know you've given your
personal backing to and you're really passionate about and I'll
be employers listening to this leaders of organizations and
corporates that we work with listening to this.
You won't know a lot about, maybe the social Mobility
pledge, maybe some of them involved, but I wonder if you
could tell us a bit about what it is, why you decided to get
involved? So, what you would say to those
corporates, who are thinking about getting more involved with
making the pledge, so the social Mobility pledge was was a big
push that I launched after I left government, I felt that
there wasn't enough focus on the role that businesses can play in
connecting people up with opportunity.
I think it's pretty obvious to me because that was my career,
it had been in the private sector but I Really felt that we
needed to drive more businesses to think more strategically
about the impact their many, many opportunities can make.
So that was the social Mobility pledge, and it was asking them
to get into schools to talk about careers because I think,
if you don't know about opportunities, it's very hard to
aim for them. I was asking them to open up
their doors, particularly on things like work experience,
because I think you might be interested in something, but if
you can't try it out, Out. Then again it's really hard to
make good decisions. And also the reality is Adam
that most people or many, many work experience opportunities
are organized by brilliant parents for their kids, but if
you're going to crack social Mobility, then you've got to
have a much more consistent approach and that means having
more work experience on offer. So that was the second part and
doing apprenticeships as well. And then the third part was
Recruitment and it was saying having hopefully inspired young
people on careers that they might have with your company.
Having given them the chance to walk through the door ideally
and really roll the sleeves up and experience what that looks
like. Then you want to make sure that
that step into your company doesn't have inadvertent
barriers. That means your screening out
people before they've even had the chance to shine.
So we've got on with all of that and at the core of it is this
group of Really Innovative employers that we've called the
purpose Coalition. And these are the ones that did
all of that. And then basically were on the
phone saying, right? What's next?
And there was so much Innovation that came out of all the social
Mobility pledge work, there's about 700 plus organizations
part of it. Now that we just really wanted
to find a way to share all of that.
So rather than lots of businesses, Reinventing the
wheel on how to be more open and diverse individually we thought
Thought the best thing would be to bring them together and
that's the that's the purpose Coalition, but actually it's
ended up not just being companies in the private sector.
We've Ended up with universities who are part of it NHS.
Trusts we've got councils, who are part of it.
So, actually, it's become a really fantastic ecosystem of
very different Employers in a way all talking about what
they're doing on social mobility and sharing their ideas.
That sounds fantastic. And I know that it's something.
That's a p.m. is looking harder to make sure we can make the
pledge ourselves. And I would definitely encourage
anybody listening to this to, to have a look at that.
Is there a, is there a website that people should go to
traveler? Yeah, if you go on social
Mobility pledge dot org, or if you go on purpose, Dash
Coalition.com, then you can find out all about it.
And, of course, I think, right now as a country was sort of
head This cost of living Challenge and in a sense, it's
the flip side of weak social Mobility.
The people going to be on the front line of that cost of
living challenge at the people for whom.
Almost certainly getting opportunities, has been a lot
harder for lots of different reasons.
So, I genuinely think that employers can play a massive
role on, not just helping steer their their own employees, their
customers, their communities, through the cost of living
challenge. I also think Think if they're
willing to say, right, let's look at our opportunities from a
socio-economic perspective, I think they can have a huge
impact on longer-term. Social mobility, and really
breaking that cycle once and for all excellent.
And it's really what you were saying about work experience and
parents. My parents were Foster carers
and they arranged for me to because I want to be an
accountant. Their range from me to do my
work experience at Liverpool Social Services finance
department at the financial year.
Our end. It was an experience.
Definitely. I will not forget, but that
probably for another time and I just have one final question.
If, if I'm a Justine and that's about about equality and
diversity, and particularly thinking about women who are
considering a career in projects.
And the reason I'm going to want to ask about this, is that the
project profession traditionally has been seen as associated with
construction infrastructure Telecom.
Um's think, probably unfairly seen as associated with those
professions because I think it's pan sector.
It's genuinely every single sector.
But clearly, that means, the starting point means it is
disproportionately male-dominated as a profession,
and certainly a p.m. we want to do any everything we can to help
address that. So, I'm just interested in your
view on what more you think. A p.m. can do other,
professional bodies can do, but also government itself with the
power that it's got an influence, their to God.
So I think it's a really important question.
And what's been quite interesting.
Doing all the social Mobility work is that often the leaders
that I've come across, who will probably running the most
Innovative companies. There probably is an over
representation of women. Compared to what you see, more
widely say across the ftse, 100, Etc.
So I do think there's there's something around the skill set
required for outstanding project management.
Whatever sector that in probably, absolutely is one that
should be opened both genders obviously.
And how you shift it? I think is a combination.
It's around. Definitely enabling everyone to
find out what project management really means and really entails.
And if you like the the broad, Spectrum of sectors.
You can do it in and I think the second is Role Models,
definitely, and I think the third is then, you know,
companies, really perhaps tilting where they put their
effort on Recruitment and all of that to really bear in mind.
They absolutely want to make sure they they reach out to
women. It's not about as it were
positive discrimination. Particularly it's really around
saying actually You know, mixed teams of people, we know take
better decisions and that is on every single level.
So the better, the mix, you know, the not only better
retention, better decisions better Recruitment and that
absolutely includes women. So I think that there's a link
between being strong, all social mobility and socio-economic
background and diverse on that and being an organization that
can pull that through and these other areas of diversity, See
that people are already working on.
I think they all come together and I think you can learn across
all of them. So it'll be interesting whether
that's proven in the future. But my gut instinct is, is they
are all inextricably linked. But the gender piece is really,
really important and especially at the moment, you know, you see
some sectors, really finding it hard to recruit purely because
they've been male-dominated and if you're any fishing in half
the talent pool, then, yeah. You're Hocking have a problem,
winning the war for talent. So all these things probably
have never mattered more than they do now.
I couldn't agree more trusting. Well, thank you very much for
coming on today p.m. podcast. I really appreciated that and I
think I'll listen to really going to benefit from from from
the wisdom that you shared and I hope they will all be encouraged
to sign up to the social Mobility pledge.
Certainly, as I say p.m., we'll be looking at that.
My sense is that the project profession has a really
important role to play in Social Mobility, but actually, I think
what we're hearing today as well.
Is that social Mobility can add huge value to a Active project
delivery as well. So I think it's a it's a win-win
so Justine. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Adam. And good luck with all of all of
the work, I completely agree. It's crucial.
If we're going to crack social Mobility, you have to improve
project management. Thanks to Justin for taking time
out to join Adam in conversation and to you for listening to this
podcast. Don't forget that.
You can find out more about the social Mobility pledge at Social
Mobility pledged org. If you have any comments
feedback or suggestions contact us at a p.m. podcast at think
publishing .co.uk, this podcast has been brought to you by APM
the childhood body for the project profession.
For more information visit to a p.m. dot-org but UK