Inspiring interviews with Women in Marketing: Sally Bibb

Sally is the founder of and a director at Engaging Minds, an author and public speaker. Her specialisms are transforming organisations, customer service, employee engagement and organisational change. Engaging Minds works in private companies, hospitals and prisons and clients include Starbucks, the AA, Cunard, EY, HMCTS (Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service), the NHS, the Scottish Government and Sodexo Justice Services.

She has worked in a variety of fields, starting in the telecomms sector for BT and Cable and Wireless to became a director at The Economist Group before starting Engaging Minds. She has written and co-authored eight books, the latest of which is The Strengths Workbook: An eight-week programme to discover your strengths.

In our interview, we talked about how anger can create something positive, how prejudices can give you strength, and her interest in the debate about capitalism and whether GDP is the right measure.

WHAT LED YOU TO WHERE YOU ARE NOW?

I’ve always been interested in people and their stories. Looking back, every job I’ve ever done has had a strong element of ‘people’. I’m also interested in how you tackle injustices and things that are wrong with organisations, as well as boosting the things that are right. When people are not treated properly. I always aim to make a positive difference in organisations.

YOU TALK ABOUT ‘GETTING YOUR GOAT’. ANGER CAN BE A POSITIVE FORCE FOR CHANGE. IS IT ABOUT TIME OWMEN GOT ANGRIER?

It’s something that women aren’t supposed to be. But when things are wrong and unjust, that can create anger, and anger can create something positive and that in turn can create more energy. You see it in politics, you see it everywhere. When men get angry, people seem to accept it. When women get angry, they get trolled. It’s a stark contrast. I hope that the #MeToo movement will be a force for good, but the unconscious stereotypes of what men and women should be are so deep. It definitely has the potential to be a big movement in history for equality because it is bringing things out in the open and creating a much-needed challenge.

WHAT HAVE BEEN THE CHALLENGES YOU’VE FACED IN YOUR CAREER?

In the early days, as I was establishing myself, it was to do with assumptions about a quiet, working-class girl. I once found a note in my HR file from a manager to my boss about a promotion I’d just got which said something lie, ‘She’s too quiet, she won’t be able to stand the challenge.” Thankfully, my boss backed me up, and I was very successful in the job.

When I got the job at The Economist, my boss said one of the reasons she brought me in was because, “You’ve got the common touch.” I was being compared to private school/Oxbridge educated people and she saw the positive in that. None of those prejudices made me angry – they gave me strength, made me more determined, more resilient. You have to have a tough skin. I didn’t want to be put in a box.

As a woman, I’m uncomfortable about blowing my own trumpet. A lot of men don’t have that problem. Social media is very interesting. When I post on social media, I sometimes think, “My god, does this sound like awful showing off?” But how do you learn if the women you admire don’t blow their own trumpets? I think to be a role model in an active way is important; you need to talk about what matters to you and what you’ve achieved, and recognise that it will benefit others.