Dan Smith, Headland Consultancy & Dr Ben Shenoy, Pyschologist and Professor : How do we lead today in business?

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you
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A modern leader needs to sort of go, okay, well, I do need that kind of boldness and humility to say I don't have all the answers.
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But then government, business, society needs to create the kind of architecture and the place to have those conversations where there's a safe enough space to have what is a very difficult conversation.
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And business hasn't been great at that traditionally, nor has government actually, funnily enough, let alone business and government working in part We don't really have the environment where we can turn up, have what would basically be a conversation with a party which is an uncomfortable conversation to talk about the fact that we've only got part of the answer.
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Welcome to the One Question podcast.
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This series we're asking, how do we lead today?
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And today I'm delighted to be joined by Dan Smith, MD of Headland Consulting, and Ben Chenoy, author and professor.
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Gents, welcome.
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Thank you so much for joining me.
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Thank you
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for having us.
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It's nice.
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We've been talking about this for such a long time.
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It feels great to be here and getting into this, this notion of leadership and the sort of different definition.
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So let's kick off with your definition.
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How, Dan, do you define leadership today?
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And how has that perhaps evolved in times of uncertainty or post-pandemic?
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Or has there been a shift in your definition of leadership?
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Yeah, it's a massive question, isn't it?
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It is.
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It's a huge one.
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And I think leading a business or certainly a government these days is probably more complex than ever before.
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And it's very easy to say that and not give due thought to it.
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So Ben and I spend our time thinking about how has it actually changed to be a leader over the last say you say post pandemic i'd say in the last 20 years it's been huge kind of moments of evolution on that front um and where we like to think about it is actually the difference between what we call ego system thinking which is you know very much as it sounds starting with a business as an entity a leader who's very single-mindedly trying to deliver a strategy to saying to their employees in their workforce this is where we're going follow me all those things that you'd recognize as kind of traditional leadership now that's really important you know doing that well it's incredibly difficult if you're a modern ceo you get huge remuneration for being able to do that well because it's a very unique skill um but ego system is not enough you know obviously the world has huge demands if you think about the grand challenges as we call them of AI of climate change of food security of energy insecurity all of those things that face us today in the modern world it's just not enough and there is this kind of what we think is a kind of a dual way of leading these days so you have alongside your ecosystemic way of thinking your ecosystemic way of thinking now that is exactly as it sounds how do you as a leader imagine your business or your organization as just one small part of a much wider system which needs to be taken care of and where's the opportunity in there and this is not a kind of a thought which is anything other than actually very profit-minded as well how do you do the genuine unison of profit and purpose as it's been called over the years but do that in a way which recognizes the urgency and the severity of the challenge but actually actually allows you to rewire your organization to deliver on it that's really hard that's really really difficult and um we do think that is the kind of model can you go after competitive advantage, which is tied to your ego system, and also go after collaborative advantage, which is working with all the people and all the organizations and all the stakeholders in your wider world to not only rewire your organization for success, but actually make sure the entire ecosystem in which you operate and which you need to have impact is also going in that direction as well.
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And that for me is a fascinating challenge in modern leadership.
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Can you be these two things?
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Can you be egocentric and can you be ecocentric?
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And those that can do that, I think, are not only incredible people, but are probably the organisations which will prosper for the decades to come.
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Oh, I love that.
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The idea, I mean, it's so prevalent right now.
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The idea of leadership and service to ourselves.
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I mean, we're seeing this playing out in politics as a fantastic example.
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And then the notion of leadership and service to other people.
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And something that I talk a lot about is asking the sort of...
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the leaders of today if you will to hold two positions at the same time what's in it for me and my business and how do i ensure the mechanics of a business sustainability profitability can also sit within this wider space of together collaborative across all business and all industry understanding the impact we have on society which is a core sort of mission of one question we will be stronger um there is some significant tension there ben
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absolutely as dan Dan said, this is not easy.
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This is really tough.
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Let's connect it back to the grand challenges that Dan was talking about.
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AI, energy security, climate crisis, all of those things, right?
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Fundamental principle here is your response, your flexibility, your sophistication of leadership has to be at least match the complexity of the challenge you face.
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If you come up with a simple response, we're after profit, we're after just looking after ourselves in the face of these complex challenges.
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Over time, our chances are you'll fail.
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So we're saying, don't throw away that ego system.
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Don't throw away profit, right?
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If you throw away the profit, I'll give you an example.
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Unilever, you know, held up as an icon, Paul Polman, the living organization, the sustainable living plan.
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Look what's happened over the last month with new CEO Hein Schumacher, who is rowing back.
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So to earn the permission, to earn the permission to do all this lovely ecosystemic thing, you've got to make money.
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Conversely, if you just make money, At threat, eventually, is your license to operate.
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Look at the water companies in this country.
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Look at the oil and gas companies.
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Look at tobacco companies in the longer term about the business model for smoking versus vaping.
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All of those companies, they need to also have permission, this license to operate.
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If they just focus on money...
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to the extent of ignoring the wider society, at some point there's a threat.
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Look at, again, Telegram and X, right?
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What's happening with the social media platforms.
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Nike is another great example quite recently as well, isn't it?
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Leading from this sort of space of autonomy and maybe a sort of more top-down approach of leadership as opposed to top-down, bottom-up, which I think is the sort of ask today, isn't
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it?
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I think one really interesting question trend as well those organizations that have got their heads into the into the kind of that duality that the two ways of operating tend to be the ones where there's even be a moment where they've had to because you know publicly they've been held to account on something which has gone wrong or because there's been an external crisis which has been imposed on the organization certainly in the kind of privileged position that I sit when I see a CEO having to face into something that faces the organization which is really hurting the bottom line that's actually when the best response is the more ecocentric one that's when they tend to actually look beyond the borders of the organisation and the most successful responses to a corporate crisis are the ones where actually that kind of duality comes in.
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I'll give you an example.
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So we were lucky enough to work with Pret and Manger for the last five years or so.
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But unfortunately, when we first bumped into them, it's because the organisation was in crisis.
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They'd hit a situation, I'm sure people remember, it was all over the tabloids at the time, of a couple of customers having died from severe allergic reactions to their products.
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For an organisation which had built a brand on doing the right thing, that's an incredibly tough thing to absorb.
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But their response was amazing.
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Clive Slee, the CEO at the time, said, no, actually, I recognise that not only do we need to think about our organisation and how we start at home, but actually the wider system as well.
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How are we going to change things for the better so that the whole food-to-go market actually is a better place afterwards?
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And that was his starting place, a really broad response.
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And over the period of time after that crisis, he not only rewired his business to make sure that the labelling of all his products was done in a way which actually could be seen as best practice for other people in the sector but he also painted a picture for how his competitors could follow him and do the same thing.
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He got government involved in the response and there was a way of just looking at that problem which was incredibly humble which accepted the severity of the situation but actually what came out the other side was a sector which was actually better placed to deal with it in the future and for such instances to hopefully not not happen on a regular basis or ever again so you know it doesn't need to be something massive like climate change it can be something that is a bit more confined to kind of your organization where you see these changes but that that ability to think in a ecosystemic way when the pressure is really on is i think an an incredible example of modern leadership.
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If I can extend, just build on Dan's example of Pret a Manger.
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So you've got this crisis.
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Notice the response.
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Notice some of the characteristics of the response.
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We're going to sort out our own supply chain.
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That's job number one, right?
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You've got to sort out your own supply chain, be really transparent about ingredients, really clear on the communication, all of that stuff.
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Look what else they did.
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They hired the former head of the Food Regulation Authority to come in and vet how they did this.
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So an external party.
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They convened, and Dan will talk more, we'll both talk more about the convening power of the brand.
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They convened the sector, not just Pret, but their competitors to say, we We need to sort this out and notice that the companies drove the regulation, not the other way around.
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Right.
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So we can talk about the fact that sometimes the motivation doesn't come from government and regulators.
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It comes from the companies.
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Right.
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Companies can enact change.
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We don't always have to start with government.
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Right.
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Often the bedrock for innovation is these capitalist agents.
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Right.
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So they convene that.
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They pushed it through powers of parliament.
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They enacted a law, right?
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So really interesting around collaborating with the enemy.
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This idea of, we use this word collaboration, right?
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Collaborative advantage.
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Collaboration has been around for a long time, right?
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So we want to distinguish between conventional collaboration, which is great.
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We have a common goal.
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Let's collaborate.
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We're talking about stretch collaboration where we do not have a common goal.
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We're actually, our interests at odds.
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How do we work together?
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That's difficult.
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but potentially really productive and, dare I say it, profitable.
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I think it's sort of demanding to think differently.
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It's asking leaders to think differently, but it's also asking leaders to change their behaviour quite often.
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Yes.
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And it's asking you to do it within your organisation first.
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And I think that's actually, I mean, the point that you make, Ben, around policy I think is so important and we're going to come on to that.
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But I think to take that step back, this idea of in order to educate or have any influence or collaborate outside of your organization your organization has to have this sort of aligned understanding of what it means to lead and what those values look like now that actually a lot of people and there's so many conversations that one questions had and we've talked about this at length sort of together and individually I think The difficulty when it comes to internal is that actually quite often, to your point, it's moments of crisis, whether it's within your own organisation or it's this zeitgeist moment that happens within society where organisations sort of say, right, we've got to have a response to this.
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Quite often, rightly or wrongly, it's led through a marketing lens, the external certainly sort of articulation of it perhaps.
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And I think what this sort of leadership demands is actually that time to take a step back and say, we know this happened this is a moment of crisis but rushing to a knee-jerk
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solution
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doesn't obviously tend to sort of fare too well externally but more importantly it doesn't actually align internally because in order to really believe that set of values we have to go top down bottom up and we have to make sure that everybody within the organisation is aligned and that is for some organisations like turning a tanker
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yeah it's such a good point and one Something that we often reflect on is just, if you think about the visual language around an organisation, even there, there's a barrier to that happening.
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If you ask someone to draw an organisation, they go straight to the kind of block, line down, line management kind of hierarchy.
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The org chart just comes straight to your mind, right?
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And we actually are conditioned to think that way.
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We literally put on the page silos in the way of collaborative thinking within an organisation.
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You can't align unless, you know, Marketing has a great relationship with legal.
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It has a great relationship with the comms team.
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And all of these things come together to think about the risks and the opportunities.
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But that is so much easier said than done.
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And when you're trying to actually change strategy, change direction, to make that all come together and get people aligned is an incredible skill as a leader.
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It takes clarity of thought.
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It takes clarity of strategy.
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It takes clarity of communication.
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But it also takes the structures that are in there to actually not be structures in many ways, to be really loose.
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And again, easy to say really hard to do it's a bit like the visual language around growth we assume an upward curve and you're just going to keep going and you know many people have pulled that apart i think you know we need to get beyond the way that we think about the organization again coming back to the the ecosystem that's part of the challenge that we are saying to leaders is actually can you imagine your organization just as a small thing in a much wider thing not as the center of a universe where it's your job to impose on the world in which you want to go and have an impact and that's a very different mindset to be in
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i love that i love the i sort of love the idea that actually in order for us to be able to lead to a point of profitability which you know irrespective of everything else my argument is has always been for quite some time purpose doesn't sit as a different it doesn't sit outside your business and whether or not you like that word whether or not you subscribe to the ESG framework however you define it it is intrinsic to the business and I think what is so refreshing about that Dan is such a brilliant point is actually you have to almost have the system change And for a 300-year, 100-year, 50-year, 10-year-old business, that's incredibly difficult.
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And actually, sometimes just getting shareholder alignment is a huge challenge, let alone board alignment, let alone then manifesting Dan to the team.
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Let me say a couple of points just to build on what Dan said and what you're sort of talking about, Sarah.
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One, the old model of leadership, there's an evolutionary point here.
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There's a reason why it evolved.
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I mean, You go back to how we taught MBAs 10, 20 years ago.
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The job to be done for the last at least 100 years was to scale, right?
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And look at how marketing evolved, how communications evolved.
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It was very much push.
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And it was quite a simple world.
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It's like, here's the product.
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How do I get you to buy it, right?
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And if you look at most management techniques we teach, including leadership, it was about scaling.
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Guess what?
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It's increasingly about, oh, I don't even know what I'm aiming for.
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I don't know what the world's going to be like.
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Everything's changed.
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So the new model leaderships, responding to a different environment, right?
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And so all this stuff we're talking about is because scaling on its own is not enough.
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So that's the first point.
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The second
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point.
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Is it, sorry to interrupt you, just quickly, is it that it's not enough or is it that you actually can't scale unless you change how you lead?
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The biggest problem with these grand challenges, I would argue, is you are so convinced that you understand the problem that you solve the wrong problem.
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That is the biggest problem.
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Mark Twain, right?
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It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
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It's what you know for sure that just ain't so, right?
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It's our assumptions that typically kill us, right?
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And I can give you lots of stories about that, right?
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So one is this...
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I don't want to knock traditional leadership in a sense.
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We're saying you still need to make money.
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Otherwise, you know, it gives you permission to do this other stuff.
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Yeah, but those two things don't have to be at odds, do they?
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No.
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It's not about knocking one side or investing in another.
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It's actually about how do they align to serve the organisation, everybody within it and essentially the bottom line.
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So let's
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just examine some...
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It's worth understanding the sources of this inertia, why we...
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keep making the same mistakes, right?
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Some of them are structural.
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So Dan talked about org charts.
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If you look at actually most big organizations, there's a completely way of drawing the map, which is who talks to whom.
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It's actually not departments.
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It's loosely connected tribes.
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So it's a much more behavioral way of interpreting an organization.
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We never draw the organization like that, but that's actually how we are.
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We're tribal, right?
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So we'll talk about identity later, right?
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But I'm in marketing, Dan's in sales, and we hate each other, right?
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For example, right?
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So So that's one thing.
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And there's more of these structural barriers.
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But I want to talk about the individual.
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So just a couple of things about individuals as a psychologist.
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One, we're collections of habits, actually.
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So we have evolved great ways of learning and then we have a dominant response.
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So when you're under stress, you do more of what you're good at, which may be exactly the wrong response.
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Right.
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So this whole take a beat, slow down because the world's going crazy.
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It's really hard to do, actually.
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Right.
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Though it's actually the right thing to do.
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And then the final thing I want to say, we've been dancing around the edges of this idea of inconsistency, of doing two opposite things at the same time.
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And that shows up in a lot of ways.
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Our brains love consistency.
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inconsistency is really uncomfortable.
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And yet here we are sitting, Dan and I are sitting here saying, you've got to be inconsistent.
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The way you see these tensions play out, as you say, in the workplace day in, day out, we've just taken on seven graduates and their expectations of the workplace is wildly different from when I started.
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And I mean that in a very positive way.
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I have no problem with a higher level of demand on leadership at all.
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And that's just in a very modest organisation, about 200 people.
00:19:23.251 --> 00:19:28.017
But The way I like to see it is actually just through a simple way of viewing the world.
00:19:28.678 --> 00:19:30.358
Leadership is still about rolling the pitch.
00:19:30.740 --> 00:19:33.363
You know, you've still got to get out there, make it play to your advantage.
00:19:33.403 --> 00:19:36.405
That is incredibly difficult and commercial success lies there.
00:19:36.465 --> 00:19:38.528
But it's also about improving the pitch.
00:19:39.068 --> 00:19:41.171
You know, how do you make it more accessible to people?
00:19:41.230 --> 00:19:42.132
How do you make it a pitch?
00:19:42.152 --> 00:19:46.057
They want to come and play for a long time on to horribly extend the energy.
00:19:46.076 --> 00:20:54.227
But there doesn't need to be a a tension between improving the pitch and rolling the pitch they just need to come together and you need as a leader to see where those opportunities lie and that's how you can really lead these days I think is to be like well we're going over here we acknowledge what the wider system needs and bringing those things together with what you're trying to do that's where the magic really lies and I think the organisations that can do that will be very appealing to Gen Z and you know the next generation when they come through as well there is a demand that you know when they show up they look at what we've done and we have to take responsibility for that we have not dealt with climate change you know in many of the climate crisis is a crisis we are you know every year that goes by the only the only figure that really matters is you know the parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere and it's getting worse and it's accelerating and we do have to acknowledge some of these harder truths before we're going to go and solve them and if you can't have that conversation in the workplace and be honest with graduates who are trying to come in and have impact then you're probably not going to have a meeting of minds you're probably going to lose that talent So leading in that environment means acknowledging that, you know, absolutely, we've all got a small share of that responsibility.
00:20:54.607 --> 00:20:57.691
Even if you're running a small startup, you know, you want to attract the right talent.
00:20:57.711 --> 00:20:59.173
And that means going with your eyes open.
00:20:59.192 --> 00:21:01.895
That's the kind of conversations you've got to be willing to have.
00:21:02.556 --> 00:21:03.237
It's really interesting.
00:21:03.257 --> 00:21:05.479
And I want to come on to the individual lens of that.
00:21:05.539 --> 00:21:08.603
But just before I do, I think the point there.
00:21:08.643 --> 00:21:13.627
So for me, it's always quite, it's quite interesting because what with us, one question begets the next.
00:21:13.667 --> 00:21:19.413
So we ask one question, we explore the answers, we distill them and quite often, And that's how those sort of our next question will come.
00:21:19.453 --> 00:21:21.957
And that sort of sits at the top of the tree for the year.
00:21:21.977 --> 00:21:36.251
And so when we decided to ask, how do we lead today, which is very specific about where we are today, I didn't expect it to be this sort of global zeitgeist moment that we were leading into politically, economically, culturally.
00:21:36.673 --> 00:22:27.988
But I think what you say there, Dan, talks about actually, leadership as a word has evolved to the fact that it's no longer about one single powerful person those graduates that you've just taken on are leaders in their own right and their values of how they lead and probably how they define it are fundamentally different and last our last podcast series explored that notion of leadership through surfing as a community through street art as a form of leadership and influence and I think what you're saying there that actually when you bring those sorts of definitions which actually are incredibly positive and exciting and create massive opportunity into a a system like business, which is perhaps rooted in strategies and systems and ecosystems, that's where the tension actually sits for quite a lot of organisations.
00:22:28.627 --> 00:22:39.339
Which comes to your point, Ben, which is, and actually what, you know, just sort of riffing, I suppose, off what you just said, Dan, that actually, in order to have those difficult conversations, we have to look at the individual.
00:22:39.700 --> 00:22:43.503
And it's asking us to be a very different kind of leader today.
00:22:43.544 --> 00:22:54.076
It's asking us to perhaps step away from this notion of I have all the answers and say, I don't have all the answers, but maybe there's seven graduates in my business that have a answer.
00:22:55.178 --> 00:23:06.330
Is that sort of the cusp of the biggest challenge from your lens, Ben, from the sort of psychologist lens that actually we're asking very different things of people to think, not only behave, going back to my point?
00:23:07.011 --> 00:23:07.271
Both.
00:23:07.692 --> 00:23:09.795
And actually, it's really interesting.
00:23:09.875 --> 00:23:10.836
So a couple of things I'd say.
00:23:12.546 --> 00:23:16.311
So I'm a professor at a university, right?
00:23:16.332 --> 00:23:18.714
The assumption is I'm the expert.
00:23:19.615 --> 00:23:20.597
I know what's going to happen.
00:23:20.897 --> 00:23:21.679
I'm going to input.
00:23:21.699 --> 00:23:22.780
You have all the answers.
00:23:22.800 --> 00:23:23.741
I have all the answers.
00:23:23.782 --> 00:23:27.788
And these poor kids turn up expecting me to give them the tablets of stone.
00:23:28.308 --> 00:23:31.173
Honestly, I haven't got a clue, right?
00:23:31.374 --> 00:23:40.186
Because I'll tell you, there is a bunch of research, lots of research to show that we're no better than chance of predicting the future, right?
00:23:40.768 --> 00:23:45.767
Now, if I take that to heart, Who am I to say that's going to be the future?
00:23:46.186 --> 00:23:47.068
I have no idea.
00:23:47.670 --> 00:23:47.809
Right.
00:23:48.171 --> 00:23:54.101
So just stick in my little world and we can let's extrapolate this to leaders in general situations.
00:23:54.142 --> 00:23:54.281
Right.
00:23:54.582 --> 00:23:55.624
What should I be doing?
00:23:56.285 --> 00:24:00.051
Rather than imparting my tablets of stone, I'll say here's a hit.
00:24:00.152 --> 00:24:00.993
Let me change the metaphor.
00:24:01.034 --> 00:24:01.153
Right.
00:24:01.575 --> 00:24:02.757
Here's here's a watercolor.
00:24:03.037 --> 00:24:03.178
Right.
00:24:03.397 --> 00:24:04.220
I've done the sketch.
00:24:04.559 --> 00:24:07.345
Help me color it in because, you know, stuff that I don't.
00:24:08.162 --> 00:24:08.422
Right.
00:24:08.742 --> 00:24:12.048
Tell me about how you use generative AI, because frankly, you can teach me.
00:24:12.808 --> 00:24:12.970
Right.
00:24:13.309 --> 00:24:18.417
So that's a very different stance from I'm the professor.
00:24:18.458 --> 00:24:22.345
And you can go back to leaders in a business context.
00:24:22.404 --> 00:24:22.565
Right.
00:24:23.205 --> 00:24:26.471
Can you see how, you know, take down seven graduates?
00:24:26.550 --> 00:24:26.711
Right.
00:24:27.532 --> 00:24:34.765
This idea of, you know, and different companies doing stuff like reverse mentoring, getting the kids to teach us oldsters how to do stuff.
00:24:34.785 --> 00:24:34.944
Right.
00:24:35.778 --> 00:24:39.343
And it's a much more co-creative model.
00:24:40.124 --> 00:24:42.707
But notice, I have to let go.
00:24:42.728 --> 00:24:45.010
I have to be vulnerable.
00:24:45.731 --> 00:24:47.794
I have to show my weakness, right?
00:24:48.055 --> 00:24:50.538
And, you know, this is about saying, hey, I'm going to...
00:24:50.557 --> 00:24:53.102
The metaphor for vulnerability is, let me...
00:24:53.942 --> 00:24:54.443
Here's a knife.
00:24:55.023 --> 00:24:55.625
Don't stab me.
00:24:55.986 --> 00:24:57.207
I trust you not to stab me.
00:24:57.968 --> 00:25:00.612
I think there's a really important part where you do it.
00:25:00.652 --> 00:25:04.457
Let's take it well beyond to the bigger picture of actually bringing together...
00:25:05.122 --> 00:25:08.166
stakeholders beyond the confines of an organisation as well.
00:25:08.326 --> 00:25:20.326
So how do you lead when, as you say, everyone acknowledges that there are these grand challenges, but all you have in common is the idea that we do need to do something about them.
00:25:21.067 --> 00:25:48.282
I think a modern leader needs to sort of go, okay, well, I do need that kind of boldness of humility to say I don't have all the answers, but then government business society needs to create the kind of architecture and the place to have those conversations where there's a safe enough space to to have what is a very difficult conversation and Business hasn't been great at that traditionally, nor has government actually, funnily enough, let alone business and government working in partnership.
00:25:49.565 --> 00:25:59.335
We don't really have the environments where we can turn up, have what would basically be a conversation with a party, which is an uncomfortable conversation to talk about the fact that we've only got part of the answer.
00:25:59.375 --> 00:26:10.405
And that is something I think actually, if you bring it right up today, the Labour government is actually grappling with, and actually I think is being quite progressive with, it is saying to business, okay, look, these are our missions.
00:26:10.786 --> 00:26:12.708
You know, we've got our five missions.
00:26:13.327 --> 00:26:17.612
We're going to create the environment where we can have a more grown up conversation, acknowledging our strengths, our weaknesses.
00:26:17.771 --> 00:26:20.173
We need your investment, it is saying to business.
00:26:20.974 --> 00:26:26.859
We need you to show up with the skills, the workforce and literally the money to help us do this.
00:26:27.740 --> 00:26:29.501
But we're not going to try and impose it on you.
00:26:29.521 --> 00:26:33.726
We're going to have to actually have a conversation at the outset about what is give and what is take.
00:26:33.746 --> 00:26:35.928
And I think that's a real art of modern leadership as well.
00:26:36.228 --> 00:26:38.049
And not well beyond just government and business.
00:26:38.309 --> 00:26:44.345
What other stakeholders can help frame an environment where we can have these tougher conversations, talk about the grand challenge.
00:26:44.464 --> 00:26:46.152
Actually, regulators play a massive role.
00:26:46.512 --> 00:26:58.338
There's a really interesting trend at the moment, particularly in the UK, where regulators are basically saying to businesses, actually be what would be traditionally termed as anti-competitive.
00:26:58.538 --> 00:27:23.301
So on climate change, the CMA has said to supermarkets, the most cutthroat of competitive environment, of sectors where like 1% year on year sale change is the difference between success and failure for a leader through a traditional lens, actually, sit down with the competition, Audi, sit down with Lidl, Tescos, Sainsbury's, figure out how you can build supply chains, which actually allow us to lean into climate change and put the right behaviours into the system.
00:27:23.762 --> 00:27:28.586
Now, doing that while you're also trying to take market share from those people is a whole new world to operate on.
00:27:28.626 --> 00:27:31.489
But the regulators prompting that, that's progressive regulation.
00:27:31.970 --> 00:27:37.253
And I think that's the world that we're now entering is how as a business do you work with the regulator in that progressive way?
00:27:37.295 --> 00:27:38.295
How do you bring in government?
00:27:38.375 --> 00:27:41.817
How does the government set the framework for business to be brave enough to have those conversations?
00:27:42.318 --> 00:27:53.810
And no one's got all all the answers at the moment, but you are starting to see a shift in the way the world is operating, which is basically putting the emphasis on the leader of the organization to be, I haven't got all the answers.
00:27:54.131 --> 00:27:59.497
I'm going to create a business where we're willing to lean in a bit more and actually be part of the solution.
00:27:59.616 --> 00:28:07.806
And again, that sounds like kind of CSR cliche from 20 years ago, but the framework for that to happen now, you're starting to see in a much more meaningful way.
00:28:07.826 --> 00:28:09.326
And that's the reasons to be hopeful.
00:28:09.488 --> 00:28:13.352
You started talking about hope, Sarah, rightly, and that is the reason to be hopeful.
00:28:13.551 --> 00:28:16.496
architecture that we need you're starting to see evolve so
00:28:16.756 --> 00:28:40.814
yeah i think that is absolutely fundamental and there is somewhat kind of irony of this meta that actually this meta position that we're in in the systems in which we exist have such an outdated notion of leadership that when we're trying to evolve leadership within businesses or within society we're sort of sat in this kind of rock and a hard place in some respects.
00:28:40.894 --> 00:28:45.998
And I love the idea that actually business doesn't have to adopt policy.
00:28:46.199 --> 00:28:48.319
Business can inform shape policy.
00:28:48.359 --> 00:28:52.223
And actually quite often we had a conversation with Jess Phillips in 2020.
00:28:52.703 --> 00:28:54.465
So it was right in the height of the pandemic.
00:28:54.846 --> 00:29:01.451
And one of the points that she made was we actually want business to help us shape the policy under a Labour government.
00:29:01.991 --> 00:29:14.825
We actually want to invite business because we quite often business has far greater resource, is far quicker at being able to adopt things like this and has the real sort of, you know, frontline experience for want of a different word.
00:29:14.845 --> 00:29:30.182
So actually this sort of notion of being able to bring regulation alongside government, alongside business and look at actually what's in the best interest for business, the economy, policy and society is so exciting.
00:29:30.221 --> 00:29:33.045
If
00:29:33.204 --> 00:29:33.305
I may...
00:29:33.484 --> 00:29:34.326
No, Ben, please.
00:29:34.385 --> 00:29:36.208
Ben said something much more compelling than I would.
00:29:36.208 --> 00:29:40.213
I
00:29:40.233 --> 00:29:40.433
doubt that.
00:29:40.453 --> 00:29:40.693
I doubt that.
00:29:40.713 --> 00:29:59.340
So just to build a couple of points on what Dan said, notice the role, and Sarah, you said, touching on the same point, the role of a leader, in this case government, right, focus on the what, we're going in that direction, align around this, and now stop, shut up, let them get on with it.
00:29:59.981 --> 00:30:07.263
The distinction between what and how, between alignment and autonomy, right, we're back to contradictory goals.
00:30:07.785 --> 00:30:09.627
This theme keeps popping up.
00:30:10.107 --> 00:30:18.180
Another thing that Dan talked about, he's just talking now about Aldi and Lidl competing.
00:30:18.740 --> 00:30:21.904
Notice, I'm going to steal phrases from the negotiation literature.
00:30:22.526 --> 00:30:30.357
Notice the difference between we're going to create a bigger pie around saving the planet and now we're going to fight over the pie.
00:30:30.945 --> 00:30:31.186
Right.
00:30:31.568 --> 00:30:32.313
We've got to do both.
00:30:32.354 --> 00:30:35.169
We've got to collaborate and then fight, compete.
00:30:35.189 --> 00:30:35.349
Right.
00:30:36.289 --> 00:30:39.152
And psychologically, you have to be a little bit flexible to...
00:30:39.873 --> 00:30:41.914
It gets a little bit confusing to go, when am I fighting with Dan?
00:30:41.954 --> 00:30:43.856
When am I competing, you know, collaborating with him?
00:30:44.136 --> 00:30:47.500
And the role of government in that is really fascinating at the moment.
00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:50.402
One thing we've been thinking a lot about is conditionality.
00:30:50.442 --> 00:30:58.669
And you see that, again, in Labour's kind of mission-led government thinking, where, you know, you don't need hardwired regulation to provoke change.
00:30:58.709 --> 00:31:00.951
You can actually incentivise change, right?
00:31:01.050 --> 00:31:03.453
And change is obviously very difficult at a large scale.
00:31:03.473 --> 00:31:04.795
But if you can get the incentives right...
00:31:04.855 --> 00:31:07.720
So conditionality, to give you a good example, For example, you talked about the pandemic.
00:31:08.521 --> 00:31:13.032
Actually business in that instant was incentivized by government to do the right thing.
00:31:13.074 --> 00:31:18.223
You know, when it came to kind of small business loans, There was some conditionality around those loans.
00:31:18.243 --> 00:31:19.464
We will keep you afloat.
00:31:19.744 --> 00:31:21.665
If you do the following things, we will give you the money.
00:31:21.707 --> 00:31:23.667
And that led to a bit bigger outcome.
00:31:23.708 --> 00:31:30.634
And, you know, you look at the way that in the US, the CHIPS Act, for example, they've basically gone, we're going to throw a lot of money at you.
00:31:30.673 --> 00:31:31.234
That's fine.
00:31:31.255 --> 00:31:36.499
You can access these loans, these grants, these support, the workforce employee kind of incentive schemes.
00:31:36.940 --> 00:31:40.563
We will make that available to you on the condition that you do the following.
00:31:40.583 --> 00:31:46.448
And the following is obviously, you know, advance the manufacturing sector in the US with a mind on solving climate change.
00:31:46.448 --> 00:31:49.480
change of the mind on making the US a leader in AI.
00:31:50.561 --> 00:31:54.404
That's all well and good, obviously, when you've got lots of money to throw.
00:31:54.424 --> 00:31:57.008
We don't, in the UK, have a big public purse at the moment.
00:31:57.067 --> 00:31:59.710
So how can you do conditionality in the UK?
00:31:59.750 --> 00:32:05.835
If you're the government at the moment, how can you say to business, right, business leader, I need you to do the following.
00:32:05.954 --> 00:32:08.356
I'm going to create a tax incentive.
00:32:08.396 --> 00:32:13.142
I'm going to give you the right kind of loan if you deliver on X, Y, and Z in the future.
00:32:13.182 --> 00:32:23.907
Now, that, I think, is a really kind of sophisticated way of looking at the relationship between business and government to collaborate meaningfully so that you can start to solve some of society's bigger problems.
00:32:24.431 --> 00:32:28.982
Being profitable, giving business what it needs to succeed, and bringing it all together.
00:32:29.022 --> 00:32:36.630
And, you know, I guess that the difficult bit of conditionality is actually understanding what the conditions are that you need to create.
00:32:36.730 --> 00:32:45.376
And that again is, you know, a real modern facet of leadership is can I imagine a future where I know the conditions that we're going to need?
00:32:45.978 --> 00:32:49.401
Not necessarily the answer, but the conditions that we're going to need to succeed.
00:32:49.560 --> 00:32:59.030
And if you can get to that place as the leader of a business or a leader of a government, I think we'll be looking at people who genuinely come on to change things for the better but again easier said than done.
00:32:59.271 --> 00:33:31.090
Well it is but also again it comes back to we are not programmed to not feel like we have all the answers and I think that's such an important point because what you're asking is In order to be able to identify the conditions and not get caught in this sort of, as we've talked about before, this kind of knee-jerk reaction to a crisis or a zeitgeist moment, geopolitically, economically, whether it's through the climate crisis, actually being able to take a step back, which is what we talk about a lot, and look at what are the challenges and conditions?
00:33:31.111 --> 00:33:34.273
What are the societal forces that are going to impact my business?
00:33:34.453 --> 00:34:17.418
And how can I lean into that conversation, not necessarily having any answer or maybe having a answer and exploring that in a far more collaborative to your point and collective environment that for me is so exciting but to your point it's really really difficult and I like the sort of tangibility of a policy shift that you've talked about and I want to come on to I mean there's just so much that we could talk about we could be here until tomorrow but I do want to come on to a couple of things and we'll talk about hope because that is sort of of the moment I think so important but just before we do Let's talk about the sort of tangibility of some of this, because obviously, how do we lead is a very pointed question.
00:34:17.458 --> 00:34:20.561
And actually, what can we do today, tomorrow, next month, next year?
00:34:20.581 --> 00:34:25.806
And the big challenge I'm seeing at the moment is this sort of short term, long term thinking.
00:34:25.847 --> 00:34:31.152
And I don't think we're going to have all the answers today as sort of like practice what we preach, shall we say.
00:34:31.673 --> 00:34:45.733
But I do think it is a real challenge for business, because I think on one hand, and for business leaders, we're under pressure to be able to adapt and innovate at a moment's notice, whether it's a cold shift, whether it's a political shift, whether it's innovation in AI.
00:34:46.530 --> 00:34:58.000
And there's sort of this overwhelming first to the finish line, this kind of we've got to be out saying something, we've got to have a response to a geopolitical issue, we've got to have a response to this, let's move fast.
00:34:58.840 --> 00:35:15.375
And actually, that is a great tension with what we now know, and probably have known for quite a long time that actually going back to our previous point, the sort of long term strategy, maybe the approach that Preta Monge took in that instance that you've talked about is actually, well, let's explore why this happened.
00:35:15.454 --> 00:35:18.018
Let's explore how the business feels about this?
00:35:18.418 --> 00:35:21.681
Was this siloed thinking, which is part of the reason it fell down?
00:35:21.981 --> 00:35:25.344
What's the economic impact to the business and to the industry?
00:35:25.786 --> 00:35:27.067
And that takes time.
00:35:27.106 --> 00:35:29.048
That is a long-term strategy.
00:35:29.088 --> 00:35:31.512
Now, that is a tension in itself.
00:35:32.092 --> 00:35:40.300
And then you add on the layer that also we exist in a world now where actually the tenure of any leader is becoming increasingly shorter and shorter.
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:40.360
So
00:35:40.882 --> 00:35:47.989
when you take on a role, you're very realistic about actually what changed can I feasibly make?
00:35:48.170 --> 00:35:50.271
What are the headline changes that I can make?
00:35:50.592 --> 00:35:54.956
What's the quiet internals change that's going to have massive impact, but no one's going to know I did it?
00:35:55.538 --> 00:35:59.242
And so I think, again, you know, we're sort of facing a lot of tension at the
00:35:59.262 --> 00:35:59.681
moment.
00:35:59.722 --> 00:36:00.463
Timeframes blow my mind.
00:36:00.503 --> 00:36:13.016
I mean, I'm not going to have much of a solution here, but just to add to kind of how I think we need to view these things, you know, I think leaders are expected to have judgment literally on the day of something breaking because of social media.
00:36:13.036 --> 00:36:20.764
I think investors demand that they show profitability and success within a two to three year time frame based on the average tenure of a CEO in this country.
00:36:21.385 --> 00:36:27.512
And I think governments obviously are based on a democratic cycle of five years, but they're not often given even that period of time.
00:36:27.532 --> 00:36:29.273
People talk about the first year being so important.
00:36:29.653 --> 00:36:36.661
And then you compare that to 2050 and net zero and the way that the world frames itself around those targets is obviously incredibly important.
00:36:37.001 --> 00:36:40.346
There is a breakdown in just time frames and how you square all of those things.
00:36:40.385 --> 00:36:51.036
How do you meet the demands of a public or a customer base that wants to hear from you today with investors who want to see a result in two or three years time with actually societies need to solve something over a 30-year period.
00:36:51.117 --> 00:36:52.539
And we have not squared those things.
00:36:52.798 --> 00:36:54.159
You know, we have not squared those things.
00:36:54.199 --> 00:36:56.302
So as I said, problem, not solution.
00:36:56.342 --> 00:37:02.349
But again, that's a question of modern leadership that I think CEOs really, really grapple with when I talk to them.
00:37:02.429 --> 00:37:06.012
They are minded to those different things, but it's so hard to get beyond the immediate.
00:37:06.233 --> 00:37:09.396
And that's where I think, you know, a real tension plays out.
00:37:09.717 --> 00:37:10.818
But that's also opportunity.
00:37:10.838 --> 00:37:30.302
I think that's what I find so interesting because I think we're used to marketing sits in this And supply chain sits in this lane and then CFO and actually what one answer maybe is moving to your point, I suppose, earlier on the conversation is moving away from the siloed thinking, Ben, you touched on this, to actually moving.
00:37:31.137 --> 00:37:34.481
in order to move quickly and slow down at the same time.
00:37:34.780 --> 00:37:37.322
Perhaps we just need more people in the conversation.
00:37:37.623 --> 00:37:43.969
I'll let Ben come in, but just to add to that, I mean, one way of looking at that is the ecosystem versus ecosystem breakdown.
00:37:44.510 --> 00:37:47.512
In ecosystem mode, you are minded to short-term results.
00:37:47.532 --> 00:37:50.894
You are trying to, you know, absolutely deliver on that kind of commercial strategy.
00:37:50.914 --> 00:37:53.677
In ecosystem mode, you have to take a long-term view.
00:37:54.077 --> 00:38:02.766
Systems don't change quickly, you know, but when they do change and there's a tipping point, the effect is dramatic, but you have to get and earn the right for that long-term change to kick in.
00:38:02.826 --> 00:38:24.748
So if you are a leader with that duality of, I know how I'm trying to take care of helping my ecosystem change to the benefit of myself and others, but I'm also really minded to the ecosystem and the demands of making sure that I'm delivering on my strategy, that my employees are happy, the more immediate things that we have to worry about, then I think you can start to build an overall approach which starts to square those timeframes.
00:38:24.809 --> 00:38:28.012
But again, are you afforded that time?
00:38:28.313 --> 00:38:30.936
How many leaders are really minded to 2050 at the moment?
00:38:31.056 --> 00:38:37.483
You have to ask yourself that question if you're getting pressure, if your share price is starting to get hit, how much time are you actually afforded?
00:38:37.563 --> 00:38:39.885
And again, the immediacy takes over.
00:38:39.925 --> 00:38:43.628
So it's, again, I keep saying it, easy to say, really hard to do.
00:38:43.750 --> 00:38:47.032
But you do see glimmers of hope, definitely, to come back to your point of hope.
00:38:47.534 --> 00:38:48.875
There's many of those out there.
00:38:49.275 --> 00:38:51.177
So let me add a couple of points.
00:38:51.237 --> 00:38:53.079
Let me first come with some hope.
00:38:53.860 --> 00:38:54.981
There is actually a way through this.
00:38:55.422 --> 00:39:01.007
And then let's talk about the hockey stick, the nature of how transformations happen.
00:39:01.007 --> 00:39:03.170
happen historically, have happened historically.
00:39:03.731 --> 00:39:11.965
So the first one, this horizon thing, psychologically, we're very good at focusing on one horizon at a time.
00:39:13.507 --> 00:39:17.853
And I'm going to add in a third one, short term, medium term, long term.
00:39:18.856 --> 00:39:23.483
And I work with organizations and I typically ask them, so which one's the hardest?
00:39:24.324 --> 00:39:27.068
The commonest answer is the medium term.
00:39:28.833 --> 00:39:31.898
They're really good at the short term because otherwise they'd be out of business.
00:39:33.500 --> 00:39:39.206
If we go on a nice off-site and we manage to switch off the phones and all that, we can dream about the future.
00:39:39.327 --> 00:39:43.492
Typically, no better than chance, but we're very good at thinking about, thinking we know the answer.
00:39:44.333 --> 00:39:49.157
The problem is the medium term because typically what happens is it syncs with their planning cycle.
00:39:50.099 --> 00:39:51.822
And the planning cycle is often...
00:39:52.481 --> 00:39:53.423
not that smart.
00:39:53.563 --> 00:39:57.070
It's 5% over last year or 10% over last year.
00:39:57.371 --> 00:40:01.239
It's not very intelligent about going, hang on, what's actually happening in our sector?
00:40:02.202 --> 00:40:03.103
What's changing?
00:40:03.583 --> 00:40:05.889
The assumption is it's just extrapolate from last year.
00:40:06.530 --> 00:40:14.114
So the way to square this, when I've seen organizations do it well, they take a bit of time.
00:40:14.516 --> 00:40:16.858
And it's really a small amount of time.
00:40:17.338 --> 00:40:18.298
It's an hour a week.
00:40:18.619 --> 00:40:20.541
It's a couple of hours a month.
00:40:21.722 --> 00:40:24.403
You don't spend your whole life dreaming, right?
00:40:24.443 --> 00:40:25.425
You've got to run the business.
00:40:26.166 --> 00:40:34.132
But you tune your brain to the medium term and the long term so you are prepared for it when it happens.
00:40:34.773 --> 00:40:43.141
Actually, if you look at the mental weight of where attention goes, it should be 90% on the today because otherwise you'll go out of business.
00:40:43.862 --> 00:40:45.603
Maybe 95% of today.
00:40:46.625 --> 00:40:50.110
And that number goes slightly down as you go up the hierarchy.
00:40:50.389 --> 00:40:51.190
That's the first thing.
00:40:51.652 --> 00:40:57.559
So there is hope and there are ways of doing this which cater to the psychology of our poor brains.
00:40:58.340 --> 00:41:00.764
The second thing about the hockey stick is quite interesting.
00:41:01.684 --> 00:41:05.661
If you look at how transformations have happened in society in the past.
00:41:06.202 --> 00:41:14.175
Go back to gas lights to electric lights, go to railways, TVs, internet, right?
00:41:14.836 --> 00:41:18.382
Typically, and I'm going to paraphrase or misparaphrase Bill Gates, right?
00:41:18.461 --> 00:41:23.349
We overestimate change in the short run and we underestimate in the long run.
00:41:23.369 --> 00:41:26.434
What's actually happening is the change starts quite slowly and then it flips.
00:41:27.175 --> 00:41:29.619
And a couple of things happen when it flips.
00:41:30.181 --> 00:41:33.820
One, and this hasn't happened yet with some of these challenges yet, right?
00:41:34.302 --> 00:41:39.568
The biggest one is probably when self-interest aligns with collective interest, right?
00:41:40.030 --> 00:41:43.775
Ah, there's a way to make money from this climate stuff, right?
00:41:44.135 --> 00:41:46.579
Then suddenly, boof, right?
00:41:47.199 --> 00:41:49.663
That's one of the big changes, I would say.
00:41:51.085 --> 00:41:52.507
So those are the two characteristics.
00:41:52.867 --> 00:41:57.893
So the hope is, actually, you look at IPCC, one half degrees, the news isn't looking good, right?
00:41:58.295 --> 00:42:00.637
The hope is actually someone...
00:42:01.090 --> 00:42:05.134
or a group of people figure out a way to profit from this.
00:42:05.954 --> 00:42:09.956
so right so they make money while saving all of us yeah and you see
00:42:10.038 --> 00:42:42.007
that in obviously investment in solar it's heading in the right direction yeah there are many reasons to be hopeful on that front um it's the backward steps though that i think you know that you psychologically absorb you go on social media every day it feels like a backward step because you will see somebody sort of saying it's not working or we're not doing enough and you know of course there's an element of truth that there's never enough change when you're talking about facing into something as severe as the climate crisis but if you want to to your point, think hopefully, then there are some very rational data points that don't get presented enough to the world.
00:42:42.106 --> 00:42:45.610
And you have to retain hope, right?
00:42:45.650 --> 00:42:48.873
You know, as Ben says, 1.5 degrees is looking incredibly tough.
00:42:49.253 --> 00:42:52.016
We're not even having that conversation really as a society at the moment.
00:42:52.438 --> 00:42:55.581
And, you know, that's interesting in itself.
00:42:55.800 --> 00:43:00.365
But the polarisation of public debate makes hope quite difficult.
00:43:00.525 --> 00:43:02.148
And we have to be honest about that.
00:43:02.268 --> 00:44:11.898
I think that's the perfect kind of point to explore, because I do think talking of zeitgeist moments I don't know if hope can be a zeitgeist moment realistically but mixing metaphors perhaps but I do think it is really interesting and I've written about this a lot recently that we have spent so long so long looking at changes looking at how do we create change through a lens of fear climate crisis geopolitical issues politics you know over here we've seen the Brexit vote and the polarisation of that what's happening in America her and the fallout of that and almost this kind of advantage for some media or some social media and some groups of society and some policies and sort of political characters to sort of double down in this notion of actually if we breed more fear and scare more people we'll change things whether it's for the good or the bad is obviously very sort of dependent on how you feel and actually I think what we're seeing now is And again, it's playing out in politics, certainly in the US, is this shift to actually what we need more than anything is to feel like we belong, is to feel like we have a shared common goal that we're all fighting towards.
00:44:12.659 --> 00:44:21.077
And actually, I think I wonder, and I asked it this week, and we're asking it again, if actually we've undervalued or undermined the power of hope.
00:44:21.762 --> 00:44:26.012
for so long being British, this notion that hope is not a strategy.
00:44:26.052 --> 00:44:28.900
And I'm actually starting to wonder whether hope is a strategy.
00:44:29.161 --> 00:44:30.123
It's fascinating, right?
00:44:30.184 --> 00:44:35.376
And, you know, if you think about it through that political lens and political campaigning lens, hope...
00:44:36.001 --> 00:44:37.463
tends to be the change candidate.
00:44:37.844 --> 00:44:39.885
You know, you have to paint a very different picture of the future.
00:44:40.045 --> 00:44:42.608
And you say, come with me, be hopeful about things.
00:44:43.007 --> 00:44:46.411
And the incumbent is the one sort of saying, fear change.
00:44:47.771 --> 00:44:48.853
Ben's a psychologist, not me.
00:44:48.893 --> 00:44:55.219
But as I understand it, the human brain is wired to actually, obviously, stick with the status quo two out of three times.
00:44:55.378 --> 00:45:01.063
You only get one third of people actually wanting to take that change at any given moment.
00:45:01.184 --> 00:45:13.887
So that's possibly the reason why a more conservative mindset wins out in more elections than the change candidate does I'm sure electrostics might back that up but A hopeful strategy when it works, I think, really embeds.
00:45:13.907 --> 00:45:17.110
I think they're the things that you talk about systemic change and the need for transformation.
00:45:17.130 --> 00:45:25.237
If you can land a hopeful strategy and a hopeful message, I think it fundamentally begs a long-term answer as well.
00:45:25.538 --> 00:45:27.920
You think about the big moments of change in British politics.
00:45:28.561 --> 00:45:32.244
The ones that I always go to, Blair felt transformation or it felt like a year.
00:45:32.264 --> 00:45:33.505
And that was a big change ticket.
00:45:33.844 --> 00:45:36.668
I'm sure in the US, people would say the same about the Obama campaign.
00:45:36.987 --> 00:45:40.150
That's not to sort of say that the conservative campaigns have been getting it wrong at all.
00:45:40.391 --> 00:45:41.391
It's a very effective campaign.
00:45:41.391 --> 00:45:45.945
the most effective campaigning machine in the history of the world, the Conservative Party in this country.
00:45:46.789 --> 00:45:48.775
Mourning in America, Ronald Reagan.
00:45:48.956 --> 00:45:51.945
But I think if you try and translate that thinking into the business world...
00:45:52.385 --> 00:45:55.047
How many leaders go out there with long-term hope as a strategy?
00:45:55.068 --> 00:45:55.929
That's interesting.
00:45:55.949 --> 00:46:01.514
I think in an environment of, say, the investor room, you're not going in as a CEO to sell some big theory of hope.
00:46:01.554 --> 00:46:02.775
You've actually got to be modest, right?
00:46:02.795 --> 00:46:04.876
You've got to say, look, these are our expectations of growth.
00:46:04.896 --> 00:46:06.217
These are our expectations of profit.
00:46:06.557 --> 00:46:10.201
You don't want to come outside of those expectations the minute that you either get ahead or behind.
00:46:10.240 --> 00:46:12.262
You've got a very different set of dynamics to deal with.
00:46:12.643 --> 00:46:15.666
Obviously, it gets very difficult if you get behind those expectations.
00:46:16.527 --> 00:46:54.226
So, look, I would love to think that the world's going to be full of CEOs who have a huge hopeful change in gender I think it's more modest than that I think it's just a collective view of where we can go and businesses being able to latch onto that and say look here's a future that's worth having this is our contribution to it within our lanes is what we're going to do and here's a successful strategy that backs that up if we can get to that place then I think you know quality of debate in the public sphere could be more modest could be less less polarised but look big big hopeful change tickets are really hard to land and but when they do they're fantastic and tend to be the things that genuinely do change the world.
00:46:54.565 --> 00:46:54.887
I
00:46:54.927 --> 00:47:14.166
wonder when we're talking about hope, because I agree completely, and it's a wonderful romantic notion, isn't it, to lean into, but I do wonder whether the lens from a business perspective, which I've been thinking about a lot, is actually just hope at home, which sounds so clichéd that I'm going to kick myself for saying that later.
00:47:14.186 --> 00:47:14.608
It alliterates, it
00:47:14.648 --> 00:47:14.867
must be
00:47:14.887 --> 00:47:16.230
good.
00:47:16.250 --> 00:47:44.505
But I wonder if actually it's just a sort of leadership model within your own organisation that isn't necessarily about grand statements or big moves or big change but it's actually just if we're all here because we believe in the same set of values and we believe that in in making money we can make a difference they're not it's not and but it's alongside and it's aligned What could the impact be of that, maybe?
00:47:44.724 --> 00:47:48.092
So that's a sort of hypothetical rhetorical question.
00:47:48.112 --> 00:47:57.090
Let me introduce a little bit of psychology on this, something from research, and then let's pivot to what does that mean, what do you do as a leader, right?
00:47:57.110 --> 00:47:58.614
So the psychology of this is interesting.
00:47:59.355 --> 00:48:00.177
Dan, you're right.
00:48:00.961 --> 00:48:05.027
The human brain pays more attention to negative information than positive information.
00:48:05.949 --> 00:48:06.329
You see that?
00:48:06.371 --> 00:48:07.913
As a journalist, you'll know this.
00:48:07.952 --> 00:48:10.637
And there's good reason for it.
00:48:11.018 --> 00:48:14.382
Negative information affects your survival more than positive ones.
00:48:15.425 --> 00:48:16.166
Let's flip it around.
00:48:18.148 --> 00:48:21.393
Let me point you to two studies which are interesting.
00:48:22.195 --> 00:48:23.998
One, there's a whole bunch of research.
00:48:24.038 --> 00:48:25.780
I'll point out one study where...
00:48:27.266 --> 00:48:34.362
People who have an explanation of what's going on in the world are systematically happier, right?
00:48:35.784 --> 00:48:36.447
Event happens.
00:48:36.507 --> 00:48:37.769
It's good event or bad event.
00:48:37.969 --> 00:48:45.367
If you have an explanation for the event, right, good event or bad event, you are systematically happier, right?
00:48:45.407 --> 00:48:46.128
So one...
00:48:46.722 --> 00:48:48.083
the most stunning data.
00:48:48.443 --> 00:48:50.204
This is across 30 countries, right?
00:48:50.744 --> 00:48:54.708
Religious people are happier than agnostics or atheists.
00:48:55.389 --> 00:49:02.054
And the explanation is whether you have an earthquake or something, something good or something bad happens, you have an explanation
00:49:02.114 --> 00:49:02.416
for it.
00:49:02.436 --> 00:49:02.936
Because you have a reason.
00:49:03.416 --> 00:49:03.617
Right?
00:49:04.257 --> 00:49:05.577
So that's one thing, right?
00:49:06.219 --> 00:49:15.626
Second study, Wendy Mendez at UC San Diego, University of California, San Diego, has been doing studies on how do we respond to threats versus challenges?
00:49:15.666 --> 00:49:17.789
So what she does is she gets participants in a room.
00:49:18.510 --> 00:49:20.112
Half of them, she gives them a threat.
00:49:20.132 --> 00:49:21.353
She primes them for threat.
00:49:21.733 --> 00:49:23.376
Half of them, she primes them for opportunity.
00:49:23.697 --> 00:49:25.920
She gives them the same really difficult problem.
00:49:26.541 --> 00:49:36.012
What she finds reliably is that if you're threatened, you give up easier, faster, and you're basically less happy.
00:49:36.773 --> 00:49:39.476
So both you feel worse and you perform worse.
00:49:40.418 --> 00:49:46.206
If you're framed for opportunity, the same problem, you will persist, you're more likely to solve it, and you feel better.
00:49:47.266 --> 00:49:50.650
Now, let's pivot to what does that mean for you as a leader?
00:49:51.112 --> 00:49:53.074
One, there are two aspects.
00:49:53.094 --> 00:49:54.797
There are lots of dual aspects here.
00:49:55.277 --> 00:49:57.702
One, your job as a leader is to manage work.
00:49:57.762 --> 00:49:59.063
That's sort of like table stakes.
00:49:59.405 --> 00:50:01.527
Your job is to manage the work of the people around you.
00:50:01.788 --> 00:50:02.009
Fine.
00:50:03.170 --> 00:50:06.996
The other aspect, which is a lot less obvious, is your job is to manage meaning.
00:50:08.458 --> 00:50:10.221
What are we doing here?
00:50:10.818 --> 00:50:37.425
what event happens chat gpt's launched climate says right what does it mean for us right simplify it simplify it and interpret it and you don't have to impose a meaning you can say let's talk about this what the hell does this mean we co-create it right so you can be democratic about it as well but this idea of managing meaning is really important and take some mental space, right?
00:50:37.905 --> 00:50:38.788
Very cheap as well, though.
00:50:41.032 --> 00:50:48.846
Now, so notice here, I need you as a leader to be really humble because you don't know what the future brings.
00:50:49.766 --> 00:50:55.376
And you need to be really confident at the same time because your people looking to you going, boss, tell me what's going on.
00:50:55.777 --> 00:50:58.099
Because I'm confused and worried and scared.
00:50:58.460 --> 00:51:00.001
Holding two positions at the same time.
00:51:00.121 --> 00:51:00.882
Holding two positions.
00:51:00.943 --> 00:51:02.965
Lots of variety here, right?
00:51:03.646 --> 00:51:03.726
Yeah.
00:51:03.746 --> 00:51:07.869
And then to your point about strategy, I love the hope at home.
00:51:08.429 --> 00:51:13.735
I would say there should be, your strategy has at least two strands.
00:51:13.775 --> 00:51:17.259
There's a cognitive strand, which is this is what we do.
00:51:17.559 --> 00:51:18.780
Here's the space in the market.
00:51:19.101 --> 00:51:20.242
This is how we make profit.
00:51:21.822 --> 00:51:28.945
There's an affective or emotional strand, which is we might call it purpose, but I don't have to, but it's strategy to me, right?
00:51:29.746 --> 00:51:37.721
This is how our people feel and this is how it gives us competitive advantage because of how they feel, right?
00:51:38.202 --> 00:51:39.965
So that is an under...
00:51:40.418 --> 00:51:45.983
appreciated aspect of strategy to me that is as strategic as this is how we make money
00:51:46.784 --> 00:52:32.824
i love the notion in a such a polarized space which i know is something that you you both are exploring a lot in the next few months in such an uncertain space right now politically economically this idea of finding meaning and not only is that as a business and the opportunity that that creates but also as as an individual actually how if we are in existing in a polarized space you know in our workforces let alone anywhere else right um being able to sort of attach meaning to all these different things and these different challenges that are happening um the micro and the macro yeah actually i find really reassuring um okay so I can't believe how quickly time flies in these conversations.
00:52:32.864 --> 00:52:33.945
There's never enough time.
00:52:34.105 --> 00:52:46.115
But I suppose to kind of sum up a little bit in a sort of tangible takeaway, again, this alliteration, I'm on fire today.
00:52:46.315 --> 00:53:20.068
The tangible takeaway for leaders, the sort of how do we lead today, the sort of things that someone who's listening to their CEO, say, a graduate can kind of walk away tomorrow and go into work and think, actually, that's something I can implement today is that something like for example finding meaning how does that manifest itself is it about collaborating and actually walking over to a different part of the business and saying we we never actually talk about some of the projects that we're working on maybe we could because that would give us that meaning i don't know what i'd love to hear from both of you about maybe some of those more tangible
00:53:20.108 --> 00:53:30.661
yeah i think that last point is really fascinating that i kind of a review of an organization being having very honest review of do we actually allow collaboration to happen.
00:53:30.681 --> 00:53:41.273
Ben and I spend far too long together thinking about this idea of collaboration and how it can drive genuine change and be a very progressive idea.
00:53:41.313 --> 00:53:45.398
But it's really hard to give oxygen to that.
00:53:45.699 --> 00:53:48.282
And organisations, they do fight it quite often.
00:53:48.322 --> 00:53:58.434
And I think one thing I would really sort of really love people to take away is that your organization probably has a value like collaboration within its values.
00:53:58.474 --> 00:54:07.168
It's a very common one to reach for, but really ask yourself the question, particularly if you're a leader of that business, is my workforce genuinely collaborative?
00:54:07.710 --> 00:54:08.690
Are we genuinely collaborative?
00:54:08.710 --> 00:54:10.494
Do we sit in the outside world as well?
00:54:10.514 --> 00:54:12.436
Do we collaborate with third parties meaningfully?
00:54:12.476 --> 00:54:15.039
Because so much collaboration is really light touch.
00:54:15.159 --> 00:54:17.762
It's kind of, you know, I acknowledge your point of view.
00:54:17.822 --> 00:54:21.809
I've kind of heard you, but I haven't really taken it on board and I'm not actually willing to cede ground.
00:54:21.849 --> 00:54:23.150
That's not actually collaboration.
00:54:23.190 --> 00:54:26.976
That's a conversation that's engaging in the kind of terrible kind of PR language.
00:54:27.536 --> 00:54:32.942
And we would say, yeah, you know, actually think about the difference between engaging and convening.
00:54:33.643 --> 00:54:37.628
Brands, businesses, leaders all have the ability to convene people.
00:54:37.668 --> 00:54:39.048
And that's where you find meaning.
00:54:39.068 --> 00:54:50.280
When you are in a room, possibly with people who don't have the same views as you, probably is, you know, in a room with people who don't have the same views as you, actually getting to an outcome which you're all happy with is some of the most rewarding work you would do.
00:54:50.360 --> 00:54:56.989
And that might be to solve a really simple day-to-day task, but it might actually be to solve one of the grand challenges that we're talking about in a really meaningful way.
00:54:57.028 --> 00:54:59.947
That's where you'll find great things in your job.
00:54:59.987 --> 00:55:01.929
That's where you'll get a really good corporate strategy.
00:55:01.949 --> 00:55:04.411
That's where as a leader, you'll start to see people really engaging.
00:55:04.650 --> 00:55:06.492
You know, when you stand up, it will resonate with them.
00:55:06.672 --> 00:55:20.925
So the one takeaway for me is be bold enough to do what I think the kind of terminology is called stretch collaboration, which is showing up with humility, not having the answers, but knowing the direction of travel you want to go in and working with people to, you know, come up with the solution.
00:55:20.985 --> 00:55:22.987
And, you know, that's bite size over time.
00:55:23.007 --> 00:55:27.030
It's macro when you do a big planning strategy, you know, and everything in between.
00:55:27.070 --> 00:55:56.922
So, yeah, think about are you actually being true to some of these values that we talk about are they just you know words on a mirror somewhere that people are meant to read or are they actually embedded in the way that you show up at work I always find when I'm struggling at work to find that meaning I will just get together with a group of people that I love having a conversation with and also a group of people who I know I'm going to disagree with and kick around an idea something that's important to the future of our organization or one of our clients and that always adds up to some of the best work as well so this
00:55:56.961 --> 00:56:35.269
is why we're going so well Dan because we have this shared agreement that the more that you converse the more that you communicate the more that you are willing to have the conversation the more opportunity you create I mean it's the sort of ethos of one question and arguably what we're doing today as part of this podcast you know every episode tells a story and if you're willing not to necessarily just listen to the one about marketing or the one about politics but actually broaden your thinking and it is hard because I think for a lot of people this notion of actually sort of pausing and actually looking at how can I better understand my challenge along with people that I might not necessarily agree with in order to find a new set of answers.
00:56:35.831 --> 00:56:36.773
So, Ben, what's your...?
00:56:36.813 --> 00:56:40.762
Thank you, Sarah, and thank you for this lovely discussion.
00:56:40.882 --> 00:56:42.985
It's been so stimulating, certainly for me.
00:56:44.865 --> 00:56:49.833
If we start with these grand and less grand challenges, let's call them messes, right?
00:56:49.853 --> 00:56:51.215
Because they are messy problems.
00:56:51.737 --> 00:56:52.739
They are.
00:56:53.239 --> 00:56:55.963
They have a number of characteristics which have implications for leadership.
00:56:56.184 --> 00:56:58.347
One, we don't know what's next, right?
00:56:58.728 --> 00:56:59.951
So what's the implication for leadership?
00:57:00.972 --> 00:57:08.893
Be humble at the same time as being confident and saying, This is what I think this means.
00:57:09.233 --> 00:57:11.016
So J.
00:57:11.155 --> 00:57:13.920
Abrams said, people are suddenly begging to be led.
00:57:14.820 --> 00:57:16.103
Fill the vacuum, right?
00:57:16.362 --> 00:57:17.985
Help them interpret what's going on.
00:57:18.146 --> 00:57:19.126
It doesn't have to be right.
00:57:19.648 --> 00:57:21.590
It just has to be meaningful, right?
00:57:21.670 --> 00:57:22.972
We want meaning, right?
00:57:24.014 --> 00:57:31.605
The second one, increasingly you'll see with all of these messes, we've got contradictory goals, right?
00:57:31.804 --> 00:57:34.469
Profit and purpose, short-term, long-term, whatever it is, right?
00:57:36.322 --> 00:57:39.634
Don't just jump to the, ah, I'm going to go just down this.
00:57:39.693 --> 00:57:45.476
This whole idea of a repertoire of being able to balance opposing goals and flip between the two.
00:57:46.786 --> 00:57:49.628
Once you start thinking about it, you'll see them all over the place.
00:57:49.949 --> 00:57:54.192
Can I also ask, Ben, sorry to interrupt, but just quickly, can you also see them as the same goal?
00:57:54.632 --> 00:58:01.378
Is it actually sometimes helpful to find that, I mean, I sort of, you know, wear a T-shirt that says profit and purpose are the same thing.
00:58:02.318 --> 00:58:02.420
I
00:58:03.280 --> 00:58:04.380
would say it slightly differently.
00:58:04.420 --> 00:58:10.867
I see them as two different goals, but the way to transcend them, to embrace them, is actually to look for the interconnections between them.
00:58:11.588 --> 00:58:14.570
I mean, that's far more articulate than what I said.
00:58:14.610 --> 00:58:16.652
So go back to your chemistry...
00:58:16.751 --> 00:58:18.894
GCSE, or if you're as old as me, O-level.
00:58:20.056 --> 00:58:21.659
You know the idea of dynamic equilibrium?
00:58:22.800 --> 00:58:22.880
Yeah.
00:58:22.900 --> 00:58:27.626
The reactions are running in the same direction, in two opposite directions at the same time.
00:58:28.467 --> 00:58:31.251
So profit drives purpose and purpose drives profit.
00:58:31.972 --> 00:58:32.492
What does that mean?
00:58:33.315 --> 00:58:35.356
There are more and more examples that are coming out.
00:58:35.858 --> 00:58:44.108
Third one, increasingly with these messes, you and I, or Dan and me, will have different opinions or different interpretations of the same thing.
00:58:45.313 --> 00:58:51.563
The humility, the balance between when should I advocate and say, this is what I believe versus when should I inquire?
00:58:52.244 --> 00:58:56.891
Because again, we're not talking about polarization today, but let me just throw in one other nugget.
00:58:57.211 --> 00:59:02.699
Polarization, actually, it's driven more by your identity than by the issue.
00:59:02.981 --> 00:59:08.309
If you look at the research, it's driven much more by the group you belong to than any particular issue.
00:59:08.329 --> 00:59:09.751
It comes back to that sense of belonging.
00:59:09.971 --> 00:59:16.780
And if, therefore, I'm going to have a conversation with you about, and we're polarized, I should actually not start with the issue.
00:59:17.262 --> 00:59:23.007
I should start with a way of finding out some common identity between us, however different we are.
00:59:24.289 --> 00:59:25.451
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
00:59:25.550 --> 00:59:29.135
And that's going to be, we're going to call that the B to this conversation.
00:59:29.536 --> 00:59:31.097
That's going to be a follow up, everybody.
00:59:31.137 --> 00:59:33.260
And you're going to come back and we're going to do part two.
00:59:35.043 --> 00:59:37.505
Gents, thank you so much for joining me today.
00:59:37.525 --> 00:59:38.527
Thank you for having us.
00:59:38.646 --> 00:59:43.152
I mean, it's suffice to say that we could be sat here for another hour or so and still not be finished.
00:59:43.192 --> 00:59:44.373
But I've so appreciated this.
00:59:44.574 --> 00:59:45.534
Absolutely insightful.
00:59:45.554 --> 00:59:46.695
So thank you very much.
00:59:47.036 --> 00:59:51.422
Thank you.
00:59:52.001 --> 00:59:54.224
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00:59:54.244 --> 01:00:08.121
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