 So hi everyone, my name is Julia, and I am seeking meaning. So I'm really, really delighted to be here, and I want to start a global conversation about the assumptions that we have between individuals and organisations. So I'm really, really hopeful that following today, you will continue and be the energy in that conversation. So how did I get to even wanting to have that conversation? I've been with Centrica for 14 years. My background is in strategy and M&A, and I now feel like I'm in a therapy session. I was working until four years ago in our North American business. I was the head of strategy for our business, and I came to the conclusion one Monday morning that we no longer had a sustainable business model. And I don't mean in the green sense. I mean in the sense of I had these wonderful charts, as all strategy people do. They just create amazing PowerPoints they don't think at all. And we had sales that looked like this. We had customers leaving us that looked like this. It was exactly the same line, and we had a cost base that looked like this. And, you know, you hadn't really had to have gone to business school to go, how long is that going to continue for? Wholesale prices were dropping through the floor. I'll give you a little bit of technical energy jargon now. It might help you with some of the conversations you have at home. You know, energy companies buy energy in advance, and before it's even been produced, and they set prices for the next five years. And in North America we had done that, and we had given price protection and security to millions of customers in the Northeast. And they were able to buy from their local utility provider at about 50% cheaper rate. That's a pretty big problem. And so I sat there with our management team and I said we have an unsustainable business. And they went, get what you're saying. But, you know, we just really want to go and buy more companies. And you're really good at that, so why don't we just do more of that? And I went, yeah, no, I don't think that's a good idea. I think we need to have a different relationship with customers. And they went, OK, well, go and do some research. So I went and did some research, and I found out that customers spend six minutes a year thinking about energy. They spent 13 hours a year on hold. So pretty tall order. And they kind of went, well, that's really interesting. We'll just do more M&A. And I went, OK, I need to leave this company. And I had my first mini-life crisis. So, luckily, someone still cared about me in the company. And they phoned and they said, look, we're doing this thing. We don't really know what it is, but we want to invest some money and some businesses. And generally, when we don't know what to do, we call you. And so would you come back and move your family from Houston to England and set up this thing that we don't really know what it is? And how long it will last for? And I went, yeah, that sounds great. You can see that my ability to feel that I could influence on North American business, I was willing to give up everything, not knowing what it was. So I started an impact investment fund, and that's a really grand title for basically saying I invest in start-up businesses who are trying to do two things. They're working in energy and they're also creating social change in the UK. So the first person I called is one of our later speakers, James Vakaro. And I said, so I've got this thing. I think you know how it works, can we talk about it? And he was very helpful and we made an investment together in a company that's refurbishing homes and they're working with ex-offenders to reduce re-offending rates. And that's been hugely successful. We're very, very proud to be part of Midlands Together, this amazing organisation. And I went on and I made six other investments and it fitted with my skillset and I was doing really amazing things and I was talking to really amazing people and it was really wonderful. And then somebody at Big Society Capital thought that this was pretty cool, that an energy company who's highly risk-averse and doesn't have any relationship with customers was doing something quite cool. So we got profiled at the World Economic Forum and my TV executive at the time said, so Julia, we gave you nothing and you've created this thing and you've got us profiled at the World Economic Forum. I haven't managed that in eight years and currently we're being investigated by the Competition Markets Authority and Ed Miliband just stood up and said he was going to freeze energy prices. So could you think about how you bring our purpose to life? And I was like, oh my God. Having then spent 18 months working with really cool people, I thought, oh my God, I've got to go back into this organisation and I wanted to reject it massively and I thought, purpose, God, organisational purpose, you know. Do these people really know anything about this? Do I know anything about this? So I turned to what a lot of people do. My nine-year-old, right? So this is Luke, he's nine. He's pretty normal. He plays football, he plays rugby. He hangs out with his friends and we were driving one day and he and I drive a lot to his football matches and his rugby matches and his judo competitions and so he says to me, so mummy, everyone's talking about money. Like money, money, money, money, money, money. I hear it all the time. What's the purpose of money? And I went, you know, I had that mum moment where I was like, we have 20 minutes left to go in the car. I probably should try and answer this. So I said, I said, well Luke, you know, the thing is is that in the olden days, you know, people would have eggs and other people would make jumpers and so, you know, people who needed eggs also needed jumpers and so they used to trade eggs for jumpers and then everybody would be really happy. But, you know, in the summer, people didn't need jumpers so someone really clever came up with this idea of money and he went, okay, okay, I get it. And he went, so what's the purpose of business? And I was like, well, you know, the thing is is that, you know, lots of people needed lots of jumpers and lots of people needed lots of eggs and so some really bright people decided, like, how do we get together and get all the eggs to all the people who need them and get the jumpers to all the people who need the jumpers and so they created companies and so really it's about helping people and so he looks at me and he says, so, let me get this right. Only as a nine-year-old can and I'm thinking, oh my God. He says, let me get this right. So basically what you're saying is money's not real and businesses are supposed to help people and I went, yeah. And he went, so why don't they? And I had this very small voice come up from within side of me and go, because they don't know how to. And at that point I decided that I had to really accept this challenge of bringing Centrica's purpose to life and so I went and sat with our group HR director who brought me back from America and I said, so this whole purpose thing, I'm not really sure I'm the best person to do this. I don't know what my own purpose is. I can't really explain money to my nine-year-old son and do you really want me to do this? And she looked at me and she said, what are you really good at? There's a theme emerging here. This small voice came up from within side of me and I went, I think 55 to 65-year-old white guys to see the world in a different way going, oh my God, where did that come from? And she went, yes, that is what you'll get out and that's why we've asked you to take this job because there's a bunch of 55 to 65-year-old white guys that need to see the world in a different way. So, purpose. Everyone's talking about purpose right now, yeah? It's the thing you see every company going, well, we have to have a purpose. We have to have a purpose. What's our purpose? It's the zeitgeist of the purpose. So, I have some really great people around me and I thought if I take this job to look at centricus purpose, I probably should figure out what my purpose is. So I thought, right, I need to go in a darkened room for a really, really long time to figure out what my purpose is and I'll do that for the next period of time. Anyway, so I met someone and they went, no, no, no, no, you don't do that. You know what your purpose is, just your rational brain won't let you know what it is. So I went, oh, okay. So they said I'm going to ask you some questions and I'm going to ask all of you the same questions right now. So I'm going to ask you five questions and I want you to answer each question. I'm going to give you a five-second warning and I just want you to speak the answer. Okay, so the first one's really easy. Who are you? Generally the answer is your name. Just, you know, that's the warm-up, right? So we're going to try this. Okay, so the first one, who are you? One, two, three, four, five, go. Great, fantastic. Okay, so the second question, little bit harder should be really easy. What do you love to do? Okay, one, two, three, four, five. Great, fantastic. So that thing that you love to do, who do you do it for, ready? One, two, three, four, five, go. And what does the people that you do it for want a need? Okay, one, two, three, four, five, go. It's getting a little bit quieter. It's a bit harder. Okay, and then what changes as a result of you doing that? Okay, one, two, three, four, five, go. Okay, so hopefully you all now have a purpose. In all seriousness though, you can keep thinking about those questions and they're really, really great questions to ask at dinner parties and just generally anyone you meet because it throws them because they never ask themselves those questions. So what is the purpose of a purpose? You know, this is something that I'm now doing in my work with the blueprint and the blueprint for those of you that haven't heard of it is working with organisations to help them uncover their purpose and then ask the really, really difficult questions about whether they're actually living up to that purpose or not. So the purpose of purpose is that it should be inspirational. It should reveal the human face. I'm going to get my notes over here because it's seven things, so I can only remember five. It should provide authentic connection. It should provide practical choices and be the legitimate voice that creates the dependence between business and society. And it should enable choices and it should make things easier but also enable you to make difficult choices because you can't be everything to everyone. And when you go back in the provenance of why businesses and the construct of business was created in the first place, you know, it wasn't about jumpers and eggs. It was about creating a mechanism to provide good things to society and to unlock the potential of people. And if businesses aren't doing that, they're not living their purpose. And so it should be thinking about all of the relationships that you have with your stakeholders, the result that you want with them that has a mutually beneficial outcome. And at the end of the day, people should be seeing a brand, walking past a building, using a service and saying, I'm really glad that that company does this for me. And that's the purpose of purpose. So there's some stuff that goes wrong, though. And the stuff that goes wrong is that we have assumptions about people. And we have unconscious assumptions about people. And we can believe that people are self-interested and self-maximising. And I think most of you would agree that energy companies, you have that assumption about them. And we, just in the workshops, kind of prove that. But we can also have assumptions about people that they are self-interested, but they also seek meaning. And depending on our view of the world, we will get a different result, depending on the way that we approach conversations and the assumptions that we hold in our own minds around people. And so, when I go and talk to lots of academic professionals, which I now do in my work at the Blueprints, I talk to them about this notion of purpose. And I talk to them about this notion of measurement, because we're rational beings and we want to try and measure things. And so, with Centrica, I went back to the 1812 roots and history of the organisation. And we discovered that in the original mandate that was signed by the King at the time, that Centrica's purpose was to bring heat and light in the significant good of the people. Pretty good purpose. In 1812, that was great. People didn't have heating and lighting in their homes. They didn't have heating and lighting in their businesses. It's what stimulated the Industrial Revolution. Why we're sitting in this building right now? And energy has been the backbone to social progress and is the only sector that correlates directly with GDP of countries. So we all need it. But we don't want to have a relationship with it. And so, this is a really interesting conundrum for me. And I started to think about this with our board and looking at our strategy. And we very much looked at the fact that we were not on the side of the people that we served. We were not acting in the significant good of the people that we were serving. And they weren't sitting there saying, we're really glad that you're around. And so, that's a really hard thing to deal with. And, you know, the definition of love in the Harvard measurable form is when someone's willing to have a conversation with you to say, you know, I know this is your ideal and this is your value, but your behavior isn't consistent with that right now. And so, I have this conversation with my husband all the time. I run marathons. And, you know, I'll say to him, you know, I really have to run three times this week. I'll be out the schedule with my son and, you know, all this because I really have to run. And, you know, so I'll get home after a really long day and he'll say, so, enjoy your run. And I go, oh, no, I'm not going running. He's like, well, when are you going running? And I'm like, oh, I'll be fine. And he'll go, so, you remember that time when you tried to run the marathon without training and how much it hurt? And so, that's the definition of love in the measurable Harvard form, is having that conversation. And so, how do we start to have that conversation with organizations and businesses? You know, when we see people within those organizations saying these are my values, these are my purpose, and then acting and behaving in a totally different way, how do we share our love with them to reciprocate and have the hard and difficult conversation? This is a living bridge. And living bridges have been commonplace in India for the last 400 years. And the people in India decide that they want to have relationships across communities and they have done that for hundreds of years. And what they do is they cultivate and bring together different natural resources that ultimately end up growing in a different way because they nurture them and they guide them and they support them and they coach them. And our role as individuals working with organizations is a similar one. Organisations are the bridge between individuals and societal progress, providing goods and the potential of people. So how do we cultivate that? My own view is that we need to start thinking less about B2B and B2C and start thinking about H2H. So human to human. Every interaction we have with an organization, every interaction we have with a business is with a person. And so how do we start showing those people love and compassion? And so for me, in the end it's down to courage. It's down to courage of conviction about how much we care and how much change we want to see in the world. And I was very privileged last week to meet Brené Brown who I'm sure many of you are familiar with with her talks on vulnerability and shame. And her viewpoint is it's not the fact that we might fail it's the fact that we will fail and we have to have the courage to get back up again. And I think if I apply that to society we all have a responsibility to have courage to help people get back up again. And she talked about mindfulness and she said my view of mindfulness is you have people walking, walking, walking, walking. I see things, I can feel my legs, I can do this, I can do that, I can do the other. And she went and did her research at West Point and she said so this mindfulness thing keeps coming up and people say it's really really important and they said oh yeah we have that. It's called paying attention. And so if we pay attention to the relationships that we have and we're willing to have a conversation and be courageous I think we have the ability to change the world at an individual level, at an organisational level and a societal level. So go start a global conversation about the assumptions of people and I ask each of you to take one action from today to think about your own assumptions about the next company that you engage with. Just have a conversation with yourself about it and see if you get a different result. Thank you so much for listening.