First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 7)
Preparation: It's the security blanket for facilitators with Sue Johnston
Leanne: Our guest today is very clear about what drives her in her work and it's all about making you better. This theme has played out through her career, previously as a nurse, and with her work in both the public and health sectors. Now she's an adviser, facilitator, and leadership coach, and her job title is both Executive Director and very useful person of the Artemis group. She is on the line, across the ditch in New Zealand. Welcome to the podcast Said Johnston.
Sue: Thank you so much Leanne. What a wonderful introduction.
Leanne: You're very welcome. I would sa,y every time I interview a guest on the show I hear that they've come from a range of backgrounds, and industries. Yours is in nursing and policy work, so I'm curious as to how you entered the world of facilitation.
Sue: I suspect I entered the world of facilitation in much the same way as other facilitators, and that's almost being pushed into it or it just happens. It's not like I said, "Right. I'm ready to be a facilitator now." I look back. You've made me reflect on -- So this is about 10 years ago now. In my reflection I can see that it started with things like running a project where we had a teleconference of people from around the country, and they needed someone to run the teleconference.
I don't know if you've ever experienced those sort of situations where there's lots of silence, and no one's really sure about how we managed the process of what we do, and I can see that that's where I cut my teeth if you like on facilitating. It was basically because I wanted an outcome from the meeting. I wanted a good outcome from the meeting, so I thought, "Well, I will lead this, and let's just get on with what the purpose of this, us getting together is." That's how it started really.
Leanne: Where did you look for sources or information on getting those outcomes on your teleconference? Yes, you're right, I have been on those phone calls where you put a question out, and no one really responds. I would love to know what strategies you have for that environment.
Sue: How did I learn? For a start, I learnt by experiencing both good and bad in person, and teleconference type meetings. I thought, "God. Why is the person doing it this way? Why don't they do it this way?" Then you say you see someone do it well. So you go, "That was good. I could try that it."
For a start, it was very much around just by example seeing how other people did it. At that stage I wasn't going, "Right. I'm going to be a facilitator." I wasn't naturally going to look for those sort of tools and techniques. I was still very much embedded in my analytical and my policy process environment. That was my key thing, and this was a sideline of how we get the work done. If that makes sense.
Leanne: That's interesting, because you mentioned in one of our earlier chats that you are a bit of an introvert, and so did going through this process give you some tools to be more confident to then make the step of running workshops in front of groups? How did you make that progress in small steps?
Sue: How I made the progress, I think it always takes whether you're an introvert or an extrovert a bit of courage to stand up, and say you're going to facilitate. For me I was very aware that I had to have my security blanket of preparation with me. I learnt how to -- If I was prepared, and I had thought through what I needed to be able to do in the meeting, that helped, and my key tool that I used every time I facilitated is that I spent time before the facilitation, quite a bit of time investing in understanding what my client needs in terms of the purpose of the day.
Once I'm clear with that I can manage whatever goes on in the meeting. There's a mental process for me. The more prepared I am, and the more I understand the purpose of the day, then the better it runs. I have to say in that process it's probably not a surprise to facilitators to discover that sometimes they want you to facilitate something, and they are not clear about the purpose of the day. They're not clear what they actually want. They just want something. By doing that process with them upfront, we get very clear about the purpose of the day, and I make it clear back in my proposal in my brief to them that this is the outcome you have said you want. This is the purpose of the day, and that's what I'll be aiming to give you. Is that right?
Once I have that, the introvert in me has a process, has a thing to put the whole day around, and that makes it so much easier for me.
Leanne: Yes. I have been in situations where I've been approached to run something, and they have said, "Hey, look, we just want a team day. We just want to get along better." What kind of questions do you ask to really dig down, and get to the root of the problem or what they're really wanting to achieve?
Sue: Very good question. If I see them in person, all the better, but if not, it's a phone call, and we start by saying -- I start with really big questions like, "Why do you want this day?" It's things like, "We've go to redo our strategy."Or, "We've got to get people together in a room, and we're a bit afraid of how they will, but they need to," or something along those lines. There is the types of questions I ask are, "Why do you want this day?", "Imagine it's the end of the day. What would make you think this day's being worth it?" I get them to imagine what it's like. I get them to imagine that, "Yes. This has been a good day." I say, "What has happened for you to feel that way?"
That's usually quite a good way of getting them to focus on what they want out of us, and therefore who they need in the room, and how much time we might need, and all those other sort of questions that we ask after that.
Leanne: I guess you get that information, and over the 10 years of being a facilitator, do you have a bucket of resources or are certain models that you always lean on? Do you have any favorites?
Sue: I do have favorites. If they're wanting to do strategy, et cetera, I might go to is a strength based approach. In fact, all my facilitation is based on strength based work. In this case it's using Appreciative Inquiry. It's a usual strategy day. We'll say, "Let's look at our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats." In the strength based approach that becomes strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results. What that does, it takes their brain to a much better place to do the strategy, and the dreaming.
Without fail I have to say, the outcomes of the day, they love. They're surprised where they get to, the conversations that they have. Strength based approach would be definitely one, and that using Appreciative Inquiry. That's a big one for strategy.
Leanne: I've run some strengths workshops previously, and it's all about maximizing your potential, and really doubling down on what makes you unique and great. The feedback I sometimes get in those workshops is, "What do I do about my weaknesses?" Do you get that question a lot? What do you respond with?
Sue: [chuckles] That reminds me of a strategy day I did with with a board of a Tech company, and one of the members, even though I had requested that they put away their laptops and stuff continued to look at, and really wasn't engaging. We got to the part of the day where we were doing the aspirations, and it's all about giving them a future scenario, and saying, "Imagine that you're reading, that you've done this in the Financial Times. What does that look like, and what are your clients saying?" He just went, "It's saying that we're bankrupt, and we've gone under."
Leanne: Wow.
[laughter]
Sue: I went, "Okay." He is determined that we go there, and I said,"What happened for it to get to that point? What did you do? What did your company do?" I still made him go back, and think about what was happening in their world. What happened in their company to get to that point. That was a bit of a -- Some people would go, "Why aren't we doing it? If we don't understand our threats, and we don't understand this, we're not going to get there."
Actually, once you've got your aspirations, and you go to your results, and you have a look at what you need to stop doing, you'll identify your weaknesses. You'll say, "We can't carry on doing that in this way." It's a different way of getting there, and it keeps the brain in this lovely place of still going out to solve problems, and still being able to get the stuff out of the strategy there instead of going down holes. You have seen that right?
Leanne: Yes.
Sue: You've seen someone starts a, "Remember that time that that happened?" and everyone goes, "Yes." Suddenly they're off, and you're, "My goodness." It's not going to help them get to the purpose of the day which is to look at something new and different.
Leanne: That's a really great example. How do you steer them in the right direction if it does -- if there is a turning point in the room, and the mood changes? What do you do as a facilitator?
Sue: I call it. I notice it, so I just say, "I'm noticing that there is a bit of hesitancy in the room." If they've got a particular issue, I'll say, "Let's have a board." I use things like questions boards or holding pages. I can go and put their questions up there, because it's important to get it out and put it up there. Then I'll come back, and I'll say, "The purpose of the day is this. If we go there, I'm concerned we won't reach the purpose of the day," and then depending on the size of the group and who the client is there may be a follow up discussion just with the with one person, and saying, "You've got options here. What do you want to do with it?"
You can't ignore it. Otherwise it just just gets out of control.
Leanne: That's right. So you're recognizing it, and calling it at the time is probably a really great lesson learnt. If you ignore it, what can happen?
Sue: [chuckles] If you ignore it, and that has happened to me in early days, because I didn't have the confidence to do that. What happens is your day gets hijacked by some frustrated or angry individuals in the room who perhaps don't want to be there, or who perhaps are actually a bit afraid of what might happen. Don't trust the process for whatever reason or they have been made to come or whatever it is.
That can be hijacked, and you can end up having the sort of meeting which I've been a participant of which is that you don't achieve what you think you've come there, and and taken a day off work to to do, and that just ends up bwing frustrating to everybody.
Leanne: Absolutely. I guess the confidence to call it is a really important skill. In your observation what are some other really critical skills for facilitation?
Sue: The one that I mentioned earlier is to be able to think of the fact that you have -- it's not just the facilitation on the day. That you actually start the process, and get the purpose really clear at the start. I would say doing your preparation, and being clear about the purpose would be the thing that drives everything else.
Another key skill would be your ability to read what's going on in the room, and pick up the temperature. You'll know when you are having your -- If there's small group discussions, if there's not much noise coming as opposed to a lot of noise. You know what what's actually going on.
To react and change depending on what's going on. In my head I might have sorted what I think decisions might be in what order they might go, but then when the group comes together I may need to change the way that I do that. I still have exactly the same purpose clear in my head, but I may need to change the way that I do it. I may need to put bigger groups together or smaller groups together or mix them up or play some music or something.
Leanne: Just like a trigger point-
Sue: Yes.
Leanne: - to change the mood. When you run sessions you facilitate to a variety of different audiences, what do you actually change when it comes to pitching to a different type of audience? Do you change anything at all? Or is it just the way that you deliver the material? Does the material stay the same?
Sue: I do mix up the material. What doesn't change is the process to get to the purpose, and the outcome in terms of asking the questions that I ask like what do want out of the day? That remains the same. What I put together is customized for who's in the room, so if it's a group that know each other well, that's completely different from a group that don't get together or you've got a group of stakeholders who've never been together on their own before.
The types of things that I might do in that situation are different, and the way that I might design the day will be different than an in-house team, for example.
Leanne: I really like that you keep referring to the preparation, and I think you should write a blueprint on this. I would find it really useful.
Sue: I'm happy to share. After I have been to my initial meeting with with a client I do a note back to them, and I use the same template which talks about first of all what I do, and it makes very clear, because often, there's a lot of them invisible stuff that goes on for a facilitator in terms of preparation and design of the day. I make it very clear in what they're buying, and they're buying my preparation design and planning as well as the facilitation of the day, and follow up and potentially.
Then I outline in dot points what the current situation is, so what heard I repeat back to them, "This is the situation you're currently in. This is the outcome you want from the day, and the purpose. This is the number of people that will be in the room, and how long we've got, and this is my fee." They get a one page, two pages max back which I say, "I want you to check that I have got this right. Have I got this right in terms of your current situation, and what you want out of the day, and are you saying yes to this?"
That then leads into the the next part of the process which is the co-design of the work with them. I'm happy to share that. Happy to share that template.
Leanne: Yes, great, I would love to. Awesome. If you link it to your website we can pop a link on our show notes to that template.
Sue: Sure.
Leanne: Just the questions that you ask could be really useful. Talking about the group of stakeholders you mentioned before when we're talking about diverse audiences, and there is some people that are coming to these workshops, and they've never met each other before. How do you get them to start working together? Do you use a particular icebreaker? How much time do you give them to start talking and engaging in the workshop?
Sue: I don't know if you find this Leanne, but often my clients want a lot done in a short space of time.
Leanne: Yes. [chuckling] I think that's universal.
Sue: Yes. Whatever I can put, and whatever preparation I can do before they'll get in the room I will do. I will send things besides the agenda which I send to everybody before the meeting. I will send a note to people. If I think they're going to be particularly tricky, I will have conversations with people or I will give them the opportunity to talk with me or to the various participants in the room if that's what they need. They often don't. They just want to know what's going to happen in the day.
My agenda says, purpose of the day at the top. It then has an outcome for each session. What the result of each session is going to be? The timing for it, so they can see really clearly how it all relates back to the purpose. That helps before they come into the room. If they don't know each other, we can do something like just an introduction.
The particular icebreakers I use, I sometimes around clearing the space which is a neuroleadership one which is making sure everyone's brain is ready to come in so we talk about turning off the other apps that might be on. Actually going through, and talking about what those apps are that are open. In terms of I'm thinking about a paper I've got to get finished by the end of the day, I'm feeling nervous about that, but I'm willing to put that aside, so they they do this very quick process where they clear it.
For people that don't know each other at all, I sometimes use the different things that are in the room. Like the situation that we're in, so they might be if they're in a room that has lots of books I'll get them to pick a book that they think is the title of their life or something.
Leanne: Nice. I like that.
Sue: It just depends. Or if they were a song what would they be? It really depends again on the group. There's some groups that there's so much potential to turn it into a threat response to do anything like that. It's just about introducing them to the person next to them and that's it for a start.
Leanne: I know I've been in environments where the facilitator would say, "We are about to do an activity," and you can see people get a little bit anxious about, "What kind of icebreaker are we doing this time?" and [crosstalk]
Sue: yes.
Leanne: - those environments, so I think it is important to really recognize the characteristics of your group, the dynamics and which icebreaker, if you do use one will be most appropriate, and how came out or open up with each other?
Sue: That's true, and that brings me to the groups that I that I'm really lucky to facilitate for CQ; Collective Intelligence. What they do is they -- because they meet three times a year. They're from all different industries, ages, and stages in their world, and when someone new comes into their groups they do this really cool exercise where we get them to draw a line on a whiteboard with one end being the day they were born, and the other end being today, and then they basically put dots or lines above and below the line to highlight the key things in their life that have created who they are now. The things above the line are the positive things that have happened. The things below the line have been the tough stuff that has happened. That's a really nice way of doing us a succinct this is me, but that's in a group that there's -- they're building high trust, and they know that they get together in this high confidentiality. I wouldn't do that in one of my strategy days with a team that don't know each other.
Leanne: Can you tell us a little bit more about the CQ, your collective intelligence group that you have in New Zealand?
Sue: Yes, sure. Collective Intelligence have about 200 members, and teams of about eight or nine and see CQ's purpose is around growing the effectiveness of leaders, and using using diversity, and different ways of thinking about the will to get that. For example, we might put together --People in the group might be from a construction industry, the wine industry. They might be a C.E.O., they might be a new entrepreneur with a start up tick, and I think that's part of why the magic happens. What they do is they sometimes focus on someone's business, and that person will have a key question for their business that we'll all go in and facilitate -- our facilitator session around interviewing maybe their clients, maybe their business partner, people in their business. It might be about them personally as a leader, it might be about them as a person in terms of how they show up at work and at home. It can be anything.
It's the most wonderful landscape to facilitate, and because the people have already signed up for vulnerability. The members are all there because they want to know their blind spots. For me, it's just such a privilege to facilitate in that sort of group, I have to say.
Leanne: It sounds like a really great group, and I'm wondering if we have an equivalent over in Australia. I will have to look into it.
Sue: I'm not sure. I don't think so. CQ and the way that it operates that it keeps the groups going because some of them are in their five years or so. I don't think so. I think the closest would be mastermind groups.
Leanne: Yes. I've heard of that concept.I notice that you mentioned vulnerability when you were talking about CQ, and that you're also a Brene Brown certified Daring Way coach. Can you share with us what is does that actually mean? What do you cover in your workshops?
Sue: During work stuff it is as a huge part of what I bring to my work now either directly talking about it or what's [inaudible 00:22:59] the background for me. It's around understanding vulnerability and courage, looking at issues around authenticity, how shame shows up in our world, and I'm talking about the leaders in the leadership organizational development space. About professionalism and what stops us doing, and vulnerability which is about risk uncertainty, and emotional exposure, and how we deal with that it in a work environment.
My work is around those sorts of issues which is big.
Leanne: It's pretty deep.
Sue: Yes, it is.
Leanne: How did you -- I guess it is part of the certification. Do they teach you how to work with people that discover things for the first time in your workshop, and it's a bit of revelation, and they don't know what to do with that information? It could get quite heavy. I guess you're nursing experience would help then. How do you work with someone that's really just discovering -- It could be the shame or just information about them they didn't know before they walked into your room.
Sue: With care, and with understanding that I'm not working in a clinical environment with them. That it is not therapy, and so very much in the leadership space. It is around getting the concepts of what it means to them as leaders. In our certification process it's very much about us being very comfortable, and having gone through our own work to do the work, so it's very much about us understanding the concepts, and having a facilitation practice that we can put that into.
The facilitation training that you do to use Brene's research assumes that you have a practice already, and that you understand the issues around how to keep a group safe ,and work with them, work with leaders. In terms of how I deal with that, I use it in the same way. I wouldn't, for example, for effect, we've got another facilitator and I are doing a weekend workshop for women around authenticity and leadership and how they show up at work. We won't be going straight to shame. [laughter]
We won't be going there. We'll build up to that. The first things I'll be looking at are there values and trust? Then moving into how they show up at work, and talking about their arena at work, and the armor they need to take off, so there is this beautiful use of metaphor in Brene's work which people connect with.
Again, it's just in the way -- Well, I say just. It is in that you care for the person to get there, and make sure that they don't have a threat response, and then can contribute and participate in the work.
Leanne: I'm just curious, what if -- I don't know if you have run this workshop before, but I'm interested in hearing what are the barriers that you do see about people not being authentic in the workplace?
Sue: The authenticity place, we've all grown up, in fact we do it as facilitators. There will be identities that we want people to see [unintelligible 00:26:39] like we want to be seeing as a confident ,competent, can do it, take care of them facilitator. We want to [crosstalk] Yes. We want to be that. That is an identity we want to get . The unwanted identity is, I don't want them to see that I am peddling so hard under here. I don't want them to see that it's just been a shame trigger for me, and I'm wondering what the hell I do about that? They have got all this unwanted stuff.
Somewhere in between these identities there is us. The authentic Leanne that is the facilitator or, so in the room it's the same thing, whereas a leader it's the same thing. It's about recognizing what gets in the way of our authenticity, and sometimes it's those identities. Sometimes it's our own shame about what we are -- keeping us small and not wanting to show up. Sometimes it's the fact that we just don't have the capacity to deal with that uncertainty. We won't go there.
The types of conversations you can have with leaders are absolutely around that stuff. Getting them to reflect on and understand what is their own story around -- that gets in the way of their authenticity, be it shame, be it not wanting to put ourselves out there, wearing armor.
Leanne: I was reflecting on that right now, because even during this podcast, not this episode in particular, but when I first started out, I had come from listening to a podcast. Really professional ones where the interviewer had been doing it for decades, and I expected myself to swoon in, and be the same way. [chuckles] That's an identity I forced upon myself, but I think this is about keeping it real, and enjoying the conversation, and just learning from the people that I'm talking to. Keeping it real.
Sue: Yes, absolutely. The authentic Leanne.
Leanne: That's right, as someone who does stuff up, but can have a laugh.
Sue: Exactly right. I think that's exactly what for a first time facilitator is the toughest thing to do, but the authentic you is the one that you need to bring to the room. Whatever it takes as much as I'm talking about the prep, and whatever I do. Figure out for you what is the authentic facilitator.
The authentic Sue is different from the authentic Leanne in a way, but what we bring, and what we show up is the stuff that people will connect with.
Leanne: That's right, and different groups might take out different strengths from either of us as well.
Sue: Yes, absolutely.
Leanne: You mentioned the word threat as well quite a bit in our conversation. Does that link into David Rock's work, the SCARF theory?
Sue: Yes. That's the other part of my work, and that is around coaching. I'm a result certified coach with the NeuroLeadership Institute, and that's David Rock's research where he takes the latest neuroscience, and applies it to leadership and what that looks like, and what I love about that work, and how it fits with my daring way stuff is that there is actually quite a lot of common threads, but one has come from quite a sociological model, which is Brene's work, and the other has come from our brand. What he, and that work, points out is that if we go into a threat response, which we're much more wired to do, then we can't do the thinking and the problem solving, we can't use that part of our brain. It becomes a lot tougher to do.
He has this wonderful SCARF model, which I run through and make sure when I'm facilitating that I am addressing these things in the way that I design, and do the work. He points out that the five things that can lead to a threat response, status; people's status not being recognized, and for some people this is far more important than others. It can happen if something uncertain happens in the room. If you suddenly have someone going off on a tangent, or you suddenly change something from the agenda, for some people that will SCARF them, that will make them go into a -- I wasn't expecting that. My goodness, what else is going to happen?
Leanne: My gosh. I was in a boot camp yesterday just on that, and there's just this boot camp, 6:00 in the morning. We're assigned at our stations, and then the personal trainer is like, "Sorry, you're meant to be in group B. I stuffed up." She was really, "Hang on. I'm meant to be here. This was the station you assigned me," and I recognized that. I was like, "That's so interesting. She wants that certainty." She thought she was right, and then very simple mistake, but it did put her offside.
Sue: Absolutely, yes. As soon as it happens, we can't problem solve. We can't contribute in the same way that we could if we weren't SCARF'ed. Status and certainty. Te next one is autonomy. That I feel like I have some choice in the matter, that something that's important to me, I can make a decision about that. The way to bring that into a facilitation might be if the group have all the stuff they want to do, you might say, "You can choose between doing A or B. Would you like to do this in smaller groups or bigger groups?" That gives a sense of autonomy. There's still something they have a choice about.
The next one is relatedness, and that is that there is a sense that we are all in this together, and that I am part of this, and I'm not being isolated. If there's something going on in a group over here, and there's someone over here thinking, "I'm not participating in that. I don't feel like I'm part of that. I'm isolating." We can definitely go into a threat response around that.
The final one is F; fairness, and that is what's going on is fair. That's a pretty strong one for me, I have to say. If I think something's not fair, then I get a bit up in arms, and an example from yesterday actually is I've been watching a nurse's blog. I'm interested. There's a paid talk going on on the moment, and a couple of nurses had set up a Facebook page called Nurse Florence. The most wonderful nursing stories that come out. The nurses are telling these stories about their work, and they put up a thing yesterday to say that someone had been trying to shut them down, had gone onto Facebook and say this shouldn't -- that Nurse Florence wasn't an actual person, so they shouldn't have this website. The fairness thing in me is strong. That's just not right. These guys need to be able to tell their story, and it's important, and too bad for whoever is wanting to shut them down.
In terms of a facilitator in SCARF, keeping people away from a threat response is making sure when you design and run the day, that you are acknowledging each of those things and in fact, moving them into a reward state where they will use their brain. Giving them a lot of positives about working together, and making decisions, and that they're bringing knowledge to the room, for example, will acknowledge their status. It's not just about the threat response, and not getting there. It's also about acknowledging that to keep them in their lovely moving toward space.
Leanne: How do you find out which -- out of the S-C-A-R-F, how do you find out which ones the strongest for you? Is there an assessment, or do you -- because I was listening to what you were saying, and I think I'm autonomy, but is there a quiz that we can do? How do you figure it out?
Sue: I know in my coaching notes there is a -- in what I use with my coach clients, there is a SCARF, "Let's Think about it" model. It's pretty simple in terms of just going through and defining which each of them are, and you going, "I can see that in me, and I'm more this, but status is not a big one for me, but it can be sometimes. It's a great one to reflect on, and also then to notice when you have been SCARF-ed. Like, "I can see that there's an autonomy thing here. I need to have some choice. I can see that I've been SCARF-ed."
Leanne: Or consult. I'm going to start thinking about that this week. See where things trigger me. You've mentioned Brene Brown and David Rock. Are there any other books or resources that you could recommend to someone that's starting their facilitation journey?
Sue: I sure can. There is a book that I found once I moved from just occasionally running meetings or teleconferences, and someone actually asked me to facilitate, and I had that word connected with whatever I was going to do. I found a book called Facilitation Secrets. It's by an American guy called Michael Wilkenson, and it was like, "Oh my goodness, this is just the best." The thing that I still carry from that book that I learned very early was getting clear about the purpose of the day, and then using a lot of meta communication through the day to make people clear where you are in that purpose. You're saying, "We've just done session one. The purpose of that session was this. It ties into that. We're now moving to this part. The purpose of this, and how it attaches to the bigger purpose," to give people confidence. Again, it comes to SCARF doesn't it? A certainty around where they are and what happens. That book there for me was a bit of a game changer in terms of giving me the tools to make this rather shy, introvert, feel that I could confidently step forward. It was pretty important to me in those early days.
Leanne: It's probably a bit of a dog eared version at the moment, or have you-- [crosstalk] the latest version?
Sue: No, it's an old version, and it's just covered in -- I've got so many of those sticky things sticking out the side, those tabs. There's too many, really. [laughs] There's just so many of those little tabs in the book.
Leanne: [unintelligible 00:37:31] highlight. Well, we'll have to link to that book in the show notes. Hopefully it's still out, and being published. Maybe one day I'll get to interview the author of that book if it was so influential.
Sue: Wouldn't that be great? I think it would definitely be out there, because he has a company called, I think it's called Leadership Strategies. They have a website, and they offer courses, and I know they offer courses in Australia. Definitely there's an opportunity to use his work.
Leanne: We'll check it out. It's been so wonderful hearing from you today about your journey, the models that you use, the vulnerability, SCARF, books that you recommend, and really all leading back to how you prepare for your workshops in terms of the questions that you use, and finding out what the purpose is. Finally, where can people find you if they'd like to hear more from you?
Sue: Look, can I just say thank you Leanne for the opportunity to talk with you?
Leanne: You're very welcome.
Sue: The fact that I had to reflect, and think about what had been going on. If people want to find me, I'm on LinkedIn, and I have a website, which is artemisgroup.co.nzd in New Zealand, and I'm on Twitter, although I'm a pretty bad tweeter. LinkedIn is a pretty good way to find me.
Leanne: Awesome, and just a quick question. Final question. Why did you decide on the name Artemis?
Sue: Because I'm into a very -- from about 15 years ago, I was very much into goddesses. I thought woman should be -- all women are goddesses, even if they don't know it. I wanted a goddess name for my company, and I chose Artemis, because she is a warrior goddess, but she's also known as a nurturer. She's got a tough, can get out there and do the work, but she's also a nurturer of plants and animals, and she's the sort of patron goddess of midwifery.
Leanne: Perfect. That's sounds exactly like you. [laughter]
Sue: Yes.
Leanne: What a perfect match. Look, Sue, thanks so much again.
Sue: You're welcome. Thanks Leanne.