WEBVTT
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Responsibility is unavoidable in leadership and influence.
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In all kinds of roles, from military officers to managing directors to airline controllers.
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What matters isn't whether it exists, but what it creates and where it travels.
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Responsibility creates emotional load.
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That load doesn't disappear, it shifts, and someone carries it.
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Welcome to carrying it when responsibility doesn't stop.
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That's what this podcast is interested in.
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Not how hard leadership is, but what responsibility creates.
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This conversation is about scale.
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What happens when responsibility moves through layers, countries, processes, and lots of people.
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Today I'm joined by Paul Alexander, VP and Managing Director of Nokia UK and Ireland, who has seen responsibility move through one of the world's oldest and largest technology organizations.
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Welcome, Paul.
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Thank you, Phil.
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Good to be here.
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Okay, let's dive straight in.
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You work, as I said, for Nokia.
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Nearly 100,000 employees.
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Massive, massive scale.
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What does responsibility look like in an organization of that size?
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That's a good question.
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And I've worked in small organizations and, as you say, in a big organization.
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Responsibility doesn't disappear, whether you're at the top or the bottom of a small or a large organization.
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As closer you get to the coalface, let's put it that way, the harder it is to own or to pass along, or frankly, sometimes to understand.
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So I think the challenge that I've seen in large organizations is that the senior guys, the execs, can make, you know, big statements, big strategies, set the direction of travel, paint the picture of the vision, etc.
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But actually that turning into concrete realities, outcomes, objectives at the front line, that needs a lot of interpretation.
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And you have to go through a lot of layers to actually get to that point where you're interpreting.
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This is where actually, let's call it middle management really comes into their own.
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It's interpreting the big vision and actually creating clear objectives and desired outcomes at the coalface.
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And actually, that that is essentially, in my view, the most important job of that kind of middle management function, sometimes overlooked, not really appreciated in all cases.
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But that is the fundamental challenge, interpreting that from the top to the bottom of the business.
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And when you get that disconnect, that's when you get dysfunctional companies and things start to go in the wrong direction.
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So there's a gap there.
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And in one of my earlier episodes, I talked about how responsibility changes over distance.
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Here we're talking about a very, very large distance between the top of the organization and that coal face.
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So there's multiple opportunities for things to change.
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Your chances of getting the right thing at the end, as was said at the beginning, are very, very slim.
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So where do things get distorted?
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And how do things get distorted?
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I think in a small organization, that responsibility is very visible.
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So you know who made the decision, who's affected by it, what the consequences, frankly, are.
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In a large organization, responsibility travels through layers: global, regional, country, functional, legal, commercial, operational.
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And as you say, that can be a bit of a game of, in a sense, people can put their nuance and their own spin on things.
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That message can get diluted, even frankly, quite radically change.
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So the handover at each layer, into each function, is a key responsibility of those individuals.
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So if you like the leadership challenge is to stop that scale becoming an excuse for that distance between the top and the bottom, that leadership job is really not to uh change the message, but to make the message relevant as you go to each N minus one of the through the business.
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And Simon Sinak is the master of this.
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And when he talks in his book about the why, right?
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So the why is the really, really important piece.
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So you you know, you can't say we're doing this.
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Here we go.
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First question is, well, why?
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You know, what does that mean for me?
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So the job really of the the management and each and and each person's responsibility in the business is to convert that into what is the what's the why?
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Why are we doing this?
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What's the outcome we're looking for?
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What's the consequence if we don't get this right?
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And that's not necessarily an individual consequence about a job loss, it's about a consequence about the performance of the business, for example, or the performance of that function within the business.
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So we can't use that distance as an excuse.
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It's really, again, it comes down to trying to not change the message, but make the message relevant at each layer in the business.
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So it's not just about re-amplifying what was said from the top again and again.
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It's about using your judgment at whatever layer in the organization you happen to be, and taking the bit of the message that is going to resonate most and then amplifying that and potentially downplaying some of the other elements that are the big strategy, as you talked about, that aren't as important or relevant at uh your layer.
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Yeah, absolutely, because the pressure changes shape as it moves down the business and down the organization.
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Essentially, what starts as a strategic ambition at a group level can quickly become quarterly target or a delivery challenge for a country or very personal workload issue for an individual manager or employee.
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So again, it's really, really important that the exec does paint the vision and indicate the direction of travel.
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And so that's something that we've I've seen in my own company now and much more recently.
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And in fact, it's having a very measured impact on the perception of Nokia from you know from the from the market.
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Our share price has nearly tripled over the last two or three years.
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And that's really because that vision has been explained clearly to the market.
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But that vision is a vision at a very high level.
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It's a vision at a thousand feet.
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You've still got to turn that into concrete actions and objectives at the coal face.
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And that isn't just continually giving the message about the vision and the direction of travel doesn't actually help you to achieve that.
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So it's really important that that's turned into measurable objectives set at the coalface.
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You said a perfect line there, which is definitely going to be one of the captions for the show.
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Pressure changes shape as it moves.
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That's been one of the main themes throughout this series so far.
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What shapes, what forms do you see it taking in large organizations like Nokia?
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Pressure, yeah.
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I suppose in in reality it takes a certain shape in consequence.
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Um, well, the consequence of us not getting this right is we may not be as successful.
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And if we're not successful, that may mean we have to further reduce headcount or cut costs or do various different things.
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But I think this is where you probably see some differences in behavior because in an organization like ours, and I'm sure many large organizations that have gone through acquisitions, they have a mix of cultures.
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The culture can be somewhat different at the top, again, than it is somewhere in the middle, somewhere, and then somewhere further down.
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So I think the shape of the message, if you like, is key.
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So tying that again to the consequences is important, but those consequences don't want to be well, if you don't get it right, this is your job on the line.
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Because that isn't ever a message that lands well.
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It you know, damages psychological safety.
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People start to retreat, they start to say uh that they're doing the right things when they may not be doing the right things, you get silent quitting, all sorts of things potentially.
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I'm a firm believer in creating the vision, selling the why, and taking people on the journey.
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Because if you don't do that, then you usually don't get the right outcomes.
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I think for me, it's that cause of consequence of not doing the right things and how you interpret that message and how you deliver that message is to how it can change, shape down the business dependent on culture and all that sort of thing.
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Um, what about how it travels?
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One of the earlier episodes in this series looked at patterns, and we got into a rather disgusting conversation about brown stuff rolling down the hill, um, which is a common phrase that we all talk about.
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In a flat, relatively small organization, that's easy to understand.
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There's one hill and everybody's on it.
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In a highly matrixed organization with a lot of employees, there's lots of hills.
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It's the mountain range, it's the Andes or the Alps.
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So how does it move around?
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Who feels it more than others?
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The the key challenge there is the matrix organization.
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There isn't a better way, in theory, of you know having a large organization than having a matrix.
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It just seems to be that whilst it's not a perfect kind of structure, it seems to be the common type of approach for large organizations.
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But the reality is you rarely have one person that owns everything.
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In fact, you don't.
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You can't.
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You have multiple people that own part of the problem.
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So in that scenario, you get people that will purely focus on the element of their part of the problem, but it's part of a machine.
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It's the one cog in the machine that makes the machine work.
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So the guys at the top have to have visibility of the full machine, and the guys that are driving it at a middle management layer have to have, you know, ownership of there.
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But they have to look left and right and see the other parts of the machine because if they don't do that, then they're probably things that will fall through the gaps.
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And in a matrix organization, quite often things fall through the gaps.
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It's not clear who's really responsible for something.
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And if people aren't prepared to go above and beyond the job description, if you like, that's when things can start to go wrong.
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And in my own experience, by the way, uh, and you you've been a sales guy for a long time as well, Phil, right?
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You you've probably seen this.
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It's often the sales community that end up spotting the gaps and having to plug the gaps because right, we're at the sharp end.
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We see what we're trying to do.
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And let's play, let's be honest.
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What are we doing as a business?
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We're trying to create stuff and sell that to a customer.
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So we're right at the sharp end.
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We see what the customer wants.
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We're trying to shape something to give the customer what they want.
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If we can't get what we need from the business, we see the gap and we have to go and try and fix that and call that out.
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And that's kind of difficult.
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It takes a lot of time in any kind of large organization.
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And from my own personal experience, it's it's somehow sales that end up with the challenge.
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But at the same time, if you've got a sales culture and a sales-focused organization, the salespeople should be empowered to help solve that challenge.
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But again, that varies by company as well, right?
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There's an interesting thing there to dive into a little bit more.
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The the pressure and the responsibility can and are shared in larger organizations, but not necessarily proportionately.
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Classic example: salespeople carry the number, they live and die by the number.
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Do they feel more of the pressure even though they don't have the corresponding amount of responsibility?
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Yeah, look, that can happen.
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But of a bit of a disease of the larger organizations because there's so many more layers and then it's people from left to right, up and down.
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Having that ownership of something end-to-end is very difficult to do in that large organization.
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So I think people have their own uh challenges to solve at each layer in the business.
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But it's really important for that feedback loop to be there for senior management to really understand the challenges at the front end and not sort of somewhat gloss over it.
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And you know, you can see examples of good management, good leadership where people really communicate, they connect with the guys at the sharp end of the business, and they really take on board what the what the challenges they are and try to solve those.
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And then you see other leaders that maybe just almost step out of the way, as you say, as the proverbial brown stuff rolls down the hill, they go, Well, look, that's the message from the top.
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Good luck, guys.
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Yeah, that that that's not helpful.
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So I think that that kind of feedback loop is really fundamental to help fix some of those issues.
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So that could be described as firing pressure back.
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How have you seen in such a large organization that pressure can be diverted from where it may have landed or dissipated by potentially splitting it out and moving it into different places?
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It can kind of comes back a little bit to this kind of truth from the front line, if I can call it that.
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So in this larger organization, it's more likely that bad news is somehow softened as it moves upward.
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Scale can create abstraction from the issue.
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The bigger an organization becomes, the easier it becomes to manage through dashboards, processes, governance, et cetera.
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See the guys, and I'm looking at the dashboard, I'm I'm checking every day, you know, what the bookings are or what the orders are, or various other things.
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But that's kind of like a window on a vast universe, and it isn't always telling you the full story.
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So the more you have that kind of stuff, uh situation, the harder it becomes to see sort of lived experience in the front-end shop end of the business.
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People try to mitigate this through tools, systems, processes, calls, governance, all sorts of things.
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But in reality, the more you try to do that, the more you try to extract that information from the front line in an easy way that you can, like let's say a dashboard at the CXO level, the more you're tying people up in internal reporting and actually often preventing them from doing the job you really want them to do, which is be out there in front of customers selling stuff.
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The recipients of that information, the senior leaders who are using those dashboards, why do they view that as the window and not peer further into the window and realize there's a whole other landscape that was obscured?
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Companies are quite often very short-termist, in my experience.
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So you're only as good as the last quarter or the quarter you're in, and the next quarter is the most important quarter of your life.
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It it's actually a narrow view of life.
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So we, you know, a business might have an extremely good Q1, but they might have a really challenging Q3 coming up.
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And can the business really see that?
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What all companies try to do is to get visibility of your direction of travel, landing points, or are we in a plan to hit our objectives?
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But the further you are away from the front line, the more that you might be missing the reality.
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And it really relies on people or a cult a culture within a company to rely on transparency, honesty, and truth.
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Because if you don't, you could actually hit a wall without even realizing that wall's coming.
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That's part of the challenge.
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So for me, those dashboards that you know the CXO might look like on a daily basis and say, okay, we're we're booked what I'd expect us to have booked at this point in the process, or we're resolving these things, or we're managing those challenges.
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But I wonder sometimes if as we go through the layers of the business, people get better at reporting and governance and telling the right story.
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And I wonder sometimes if that's always the reality.
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But I guess to your point, can they see those issues at the top line?
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You can see general trends, sure.
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And if you if the if the pull from the business shows through all the CRM systems to the top, say, this is the number for the quarter, these are the upsides, these are the risks, these are all the various other things that we're trying to do as a business.
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Yes, at a thousand feet you can see if we're on track.
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But again, it tends to be a bit of a short-termist view.
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It's less about, okay, we might be okay this quarter or next quarter, but what about the quarter after that?
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What about the year after that?
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Are we building the pipeline?
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All those sorts of things that I think sometimes uh in a we can be short-termist from that point of view.
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The longer term signals are maybe not magnified or amplified as much.
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I talked about amplification of the right bits of the message as it travels down.
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Now we're kind of talking about amplifying the right bits of the message as it travels back up again.
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They're two very different things.
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Yes.
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Yes, they are two very different things.
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It it's probably a disease, a little bit of a large organization, that the the message that travels upwards may not always be the message that the guys should hear or is not always completely connected with reality.
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And I'm sure people at the sharp end of the coalface would say, yeah, but the guys at the top don't really understand the challenges we're facing at the coalface either.
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So I think that's where the disconnect can come in those big organizations.
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So it's really understanding the true challenges, the true true issues, and managing those and not just sort of looking at the general trend, uh, because that might hide some of the challenges you face.
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And by the way, it's different in each market, of course.
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You know, the US market is very different from the Europe markets, different from the APAC market, etc.
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They're will facing different challenges, be those geopolitical security, be that the operating environment, regulation, uh you name it, there are a bunch of different operating challenges in each market in each region.
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So, yeah, distilling that up into one small bowl of soup that you're isn't always going to give you the flavor of reality, if I can use a terrible analogy.
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Yeah, it's like you've gone all the way around the circle, but then you have to turn around and go all the way back around the circle again to the beginning.
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So you're almost doing double, which is increasing your surface area and your opportunity for things to get diluted or changed or lost.
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But when we talked about that message flowing down, one of the things you said was that's when middle management come into their own, and sometimes they're not respected enough for doing that.
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And that's really the core of their job is to take that message, and if they do that well, then the business functions.
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Do you think they're better at translating and amplifying on the way down than they are and translating and amplifying on the way up?
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In some ways, yeah, because the message tends to be distilled to s to sort of short sound bites, short objectives.
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But perhaps the the challenge sometimes is distilling the issues at the at the coalface into something that's really resolvable by executive management.
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That's a lot of complex stuff that you have to distill into something that's meaningful to them.
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So I think actually it is probably harder to get those issues folks.
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But I think in in an organization that really embraces openness and really tries to gather that kind of information through surveys, through regular connections, through executives going out and doing town halls, meeting people at the front line face to face, that that's really, really important that they do that because then they can stay a little bit more in touch with reality, feel the heat, if you like, from the guys that are really trying to do the job at the coalface.
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And that introduces the human side of things.
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We've talked a lot about processes and structures and governance, dashboards reporting, all of that kind of stuff.
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Ultimately, a company is a collection of people.
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And whether you've got a 10-man team or a hundred thousand-person team, the human side of that is really important.
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Far more important, in my view, than all the governance and structures and processes you can have.
00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:57.599
Because it's the human impact on an individual level in that environment that really is critical to a person and their well-being and their health and their outlook on life and their enjoyment and their fulfillment, all of those things.
00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:10.400
So, in a large organization, how do you encourage the recognition of that human impact in these things and not just become process and structure and robotic?
00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:17.039
I think that this comes down a little bit to what do you reward and celebrate as an organization.
00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:24.640
So sometimes organizations celebrate the people who save the day, the guys who bring in the big order at the last minute and various other things.
00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:34.160
Or, you know, large organizations often reward people who are best at navigating the complexity when sometimes the more valuable aspect of what they do is reducing complexity for others.
00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:42.720
The other thing I would say is if you're not careful, the organization starts to reward the appearance of control rather than the reality of leadership.
00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:45.680
So I think it it comes down to the environment.
00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:48.319
So this is where leadership is really, really important.
00:19:48.799 --> 00:20:01.039
Creating the right environment, creating a sense of psychological safety, ensuring that people are feel empowered and rewarded for speaking up, telling it how it is, calling the issues out.
00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:02.880
You don't need wallflowers.
00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:11.359
I I speak to the people who are challenging, even if they might do it always not in the right way, because you get useful information, you get useful insight.
00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:14.319
And I think that can be the issue, right?
00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:24.480
So I think creating the environment where people can speak up, they can express themselves, they feel psychologically safe in doing so, it is the right kind of culture.
00:20:24.640 --> 00:20:30.799
Because if you don't do that, you're up, you're really encouraging people to disguise the reality of a situation.
00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:34.319
And again, you know, companies can live or die on that kind of challenge.
00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:40.880
So one of the hypotheses that we tested earlier in the series was who makes the best leader?
00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:46.640
And you have your rock stars, those people who bring in the big order on the last day of the quarter who are celebrated.
00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:51.680
But you also have the people that very quietly go around making sure that everything is functioning.
00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:57.920
They are empathetic, they they're the ones that will hold the team together in the times of trouble.
00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:12.400
Um, one of my guests suggested that they actually would make much better future leaders for an organization, but because they do it quietly and unassumingly, they tend to get passed over for promotion.
00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:18.640
Do you see that similar trend happening in such a large organization?
00:21:19.359 --> 00:21:25.039
I think the challenge sometimes with large organizations is, you know, people feel responsible for a part.
00:21:25.119 --> 00:21:30.400
And therefore to have people go beyond, plug the gaps that we talked about earlier.
00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:39.519
You need that the special kind of person that's prepared to sort of say, Well, I know this is what I should be doing, but look, I see these issues here, and let me help, what can I do to sort of help plug the gap?
00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:44.400
Those are the people that are really valuable in any organization, especially a large organization.
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:55.759
And I can kind of know who those people are, and I call those the guys the seams of gold, you know, in in you know, when you're trying to mine those for those people in the business, those are the people you want to keep uh in, you know, close to you or close to your organization.
00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:59.759
So I think when an organization is looking at promoting them or bringing them on.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.839
Or moving them into new roles.
00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:05.759
Again, you've got to be careful what you're looking for, what you're rewarding.
00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:14.480
Because to go back to the analogy of the guy that brings in the big deal at the end of the quarter when he said it was two quarters away or was unlikely, there's no such thing as a good surprise.
00:22:14.640 --> 00:22:16.720
Surprises are not welcome, good or bad.
00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:19.200
It's actually managing expectations.
00:22:19.359 --> 00:22:27.839
And this is one of my stock phrases when I'm talking to teams when I'm coaching generally around leadership is one of the most important things a leader can do is manage expectations.
00:22:27.920 --> 00:22:33.279
And that isn't, no, that isn't filtering the information to only tell people what they need to know.
00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:36.720
Managing expectations is can you help me solve that problem?
00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:38.480
Immediate response, absolutely.
00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:41.680
I'll do what I can, I'll own it, give me two days and I'll come back to you.
00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:44.319
If you get an email and you look at it and it says, can you help me?
00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:46.640
And you go, I'll think about it for two days and then go back.
00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:48.720
You haven't managed anybody's expectations, right?
00:22:48.799 --> 00:22:51.440
You've just said, I'm ignoring you, or they have no idea.
00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:55.519
So I I'm a firm believer in that managing expectations piece.
00:22:55.599 --> 00:22:58.240
And I think that's a real fundamental job of leadership.
00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:01.039
But the other element of leadership is vision.
00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:06.640
You know, you have to be able to set out where we're going and why and bring people on the journey.
00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:09.759
Leadership isn't necessarily management, that's task-oriented.
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:17.920
Uh, and Karen Brady speaks brilliantly on that, and I think she's she's sort of somebody people should look to for the difference between management and leadership.
00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:27.680
But I think um, yeah, I think it's really important that we will reward the right behaviors and the people that go above and beyond, not the guys that just land something you weren't expecting.
00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:35.599
Those are the sort of behaviors that we need to reward, and those are the people we should be looking to promote in a business because those are the ones that will move the needle for you in the longer term.
00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:42.880
You talked there about emails and waiting two days and everybody's inbox explodes every single day.
00:23:43.039 --> 00:23:52.880
I think most people will admit that we send far too many emails, but nobody has yet figured out a way to make particularly large companies run without that volume of emails.
00:23:53.039 --> 00:23:56.960
And it's always very easy to say, oh, well, that's just how large organizations work.
00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:01.440
Is that ever an acceptable answer to these kinds of problems and questions?
00:24:01.759 --> 00:24:07.680
Emails in a large organization is a nice way of moving the problem onto the next person who has a partial responsibility.
00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:11.039
And this is one of the challenging symptoms of a large organization.
00:24:11.519 --> 00:24:15.519
Email is a fundamental thing that we're not going to be getting away from that anytime soon.
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.240
But should we replace that with meetings?
00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:27.680
That's also, you know, we've got too many meetings, and we really try to spend time figuring out how do we reduce the governance, reduce the cadence, and try to give me more people time back.
00:24:28.079 --> 00:24:31.359
But short, sharp emails, I think, can be useful.
00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:34.960
But I think it absolutely has to focus on on three things.
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:40.720
And I saw this earlier and I and I made a note of it, because you need to know what needs to be decided or what was decided.
00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:45.839
You need to know who owns it, and you need to uh be clear on when is it needed, when is it due.
00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:49.440
And those three things should guide everything in terms of that communication.
00:24:49.599 --> 00:24:59.279
If we can work around those sort of three things, then we can shorten that communication, get very focused on outcomes, and because outcomes are what we need to move the needle, right, move things forward.
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.720
And clarity, I think you used the word clarity there, is so important in that.
00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:08.400
Language and communication is a huge part of that clarity.
00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:11.599
Why say something in 10 words when you can say it in two?
00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:15.039
AI hasn't exactly helped us be more concise.
00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:31.200
And when you look at the reams of responses that you get in some of the tools and the flowery language that they put around things, do you think that extraneous use of language is another way of moving that responsibility and hiding from that responsibility?
00:25:31.519 --> 00:25:32.720
Yeah, in a sense, yeah.
00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:40.000
Because if you can't make a clear statement in one or two lines or a short paragraph, then maybe you don't understand the problem yourself.
00:25:40.240 --> 00:25:44.079
And they're really trying to pass it on to someone who can then explain it to you and pick up the issue.
00:25:44.319 --> 00:25:48.079
I think actually, for me, AI has the power to really help us in this regard.
00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:55.920
So you draft your email and you put it into A and you say, right, make that short, sharp with two or three absolute key messages that need to be driven home.
00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.000
So I think that's actually where AI can help us for those people who are a little verbose, and I think we all know them.
00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:08.640
Um, and the guys that we just want to sort of bat the ball along rather than sort of picking it up and actually really trying to understand what the issue is.
00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:12.559
And again, I think that's a key skill for anyone wanting to move into leadership.
00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:19.440
The shorter and sharper you can make your message, the clearer you become, the more likely you are to get promoted, in my opinion.
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:35.759
Those people who speak plainly, who have clarity, short communication, they're the kind of people that survive well in large systems, large companies, or is that generally across business that is true regardless of the size of the organization?
00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:44.000
I think SD is probably a truism across most organizations, but it's even more important, arguably, in a large organization.
00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:52.559
Because again, there's so much data, so much information, so many people with split responsibilities, the people that can really distill it down to the nub of an issue.
00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:54.720
And again, what do we need to do about it?
00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:57.200
Who owns it, and when do we need to get it done?
00:26:57.759 --> 00:27:01.119
Those are the most valuable people in the business, in my opinion.
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:10.960
All right, I'm gonna ask you one more question, Paul, as we're coming towards the end of this, which I think hopefully summarizes a lot of the stuff that we've talked about.
00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:21.680
When responsibility is spread across tens, hundreds, thousands of people, how do you stop it becoming nobody's responsibility?
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:29.119
Maybe let's try to distill it down to some sort of practical behaviors or practical things that I think people uh and organizations can do.
00:27:29.440 --> 00:27:32.400
We just talked about one, which is clarity of ownership.
00:27:32.559 --> 00:27:37.680
So who decides, who executes, who is consulted, who's uh who is accountable for the outcome.
00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:39.200
We really need to know that.
00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:44.720
And if it's not, you know, that should be the objective of every meeting to come out with those things clearly understood.
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:50.559
The other thing is that the executive part of the business needs to stay close to the customers and the frontline teams.
00:27:50.799 --> 00:28:05.119
One of the things I saw our new CEO do when he first joined the company is he spent three months talking to customers, one on one, not with three or four other people in the room, one on one to really get the truth of the challenge or the opportunity from customers.
00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:09.920
So really staying close to that and what needs to be done to be successful going forward is really, really important.
00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:14.799
Also, potentially ask what the process or the systems or the organization is hiding.
00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:18.960
I say that in a sense, you know, because again, we work up through the layers and we talked about that.
00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:24.319
If everyone says the process is working, well, ask where people are compensating for it.
00:28:24.480 --> 00:28:26.799
What's what's not coming out of the process.
00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:28.319
That's I think really important.
00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:36.079
We talked about protecting psychological safety so that people feel empowered in a safe environment to tell it like it is.
00:28:36.240 --> 00:28:37.200
That's really important.
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:40.880
And again, as part of that, we need to reward openness and honesty.
00:28:41.039 --> 00:28:51.839
So celebrating the people that bring those challenges or those resolutions or the issues to you and encouraging that within your team or your organization is really important.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:59.359
From that leadership point of view, as you go down through the layers, translating that global strategy into local meaning is really, really important.
00:28:59.519 --> 00:29:04.000
So the why at each n minus one level as you go through the business is really important.
00:29:04.079 --> 00:29:09.519
I think that message needs to become distilled and real as it gets, you know, goes through down through the business.
00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:11.200
Those are the things that I think are really important.
00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:23.680
That for me is the way that you resolve or try to mitigate the challenge of a large global organization with a matrix kind of structure, with people with part responsibility for a whole bunch of different things.
00:29:23.839 --> 00:29:34.720
If you can do those things, then I think you go a long way to solving the scale issue and making it feel more like a small company where you can tend to get these things done more easily.
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:36.000
Good stuff, Paul.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:36.799
Thank you very much.
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:45.119
It's good to highlight the people and the emotional side of things, but I also like finishing with those practical elements for people that are listening.
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:52.480
There is a takeaway that they can take, and whether they're a leader or working for a leader, and they can use that in their working life.
00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:55.759
So thank you very much for spending the time to talk with me today.
00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:57.039
Really enjoyed the conversation.
00:29:57.359 --> 00:29:58.079
And yeah, thank you.
00:29:58.640 --> 00:29:59.680
Thank you for thanks.
00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:07.519
Each episode of Carrying It supports organizations working to improve how responsibility and mental health are handled in real systems.
00:30:07.839 --> 00:30:09.200
Links are in the show notes.
00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:18.160
This conversation was about scale and how responsibility can become harder to feel when it is spread across layers, processes, and distance.
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:24.640
Large organizations are often designed to move forward quickly, but people usually aren't.
00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:15.599
Responsibility is unavoidable in leadership and influence.
00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:20.320
In all kinds of roles, from military officers to managing directors to airline controllers.
00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:24.960
What matters isn't whether it exists, but what it creates and where it travels.
00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:28.079
Responsibility creates emotional load.
00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:33.119
That load doesn't disappear, it shifts, and someone carries it.
00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:37.200
Welcome to carrying it when responsibility doesn't stop.
00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:39.679
That's what this podcast is interested in.
00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:43.679
Not how hard leadership is, but what responsibility creates.
00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:46.320
This conversation is about scale.
00:00:46.719 --> 00:00:53.280
What happens when responsibility moves through layers, countries, processes, and lots of people.
00:00:53.759 --> 00:01:05.120
Today I'm joined by Paul Alexander, VP and Managing Director of Nokia UK and Ireland, who has seen responsibility move through one of the world's oldest and largest technology organizations.
00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:06.640
Welcome, Paul.
00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:07.920
Thank you, Phil.
00:01:08.239 --> 00:01:08.959
Good to be here.
00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:11.760
Okay, let's dive straight in.
00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:14.319
You work, as I said, for Nokia.
00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:16.319
Nearly 100,000 employees.
00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:18.640
Massive, massive scale.
00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:24.000
What does responsibility look like in an organization of that size?
00:01:24.799 --> 00:01:25.680
That's a good question.
00:01:25.840 --> 00:01:29.760
And I've worked in small organizations and, as you say, in a big organization.
00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.640
Responsibility doesn't disappear, whether you're at the top or the bottom of a small or a large organization.
00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:44.239
As closer you get to the coalface, let's put it that way, the harder it is to own or to pass along, or frankly, sometimes to understand.
00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:58.319
So I think the challenge that I've seen in large organizations is that the senior guys, the execs, can make, you know, big statements, big strategies, set the direction of travel, paint the picture of the vision, etc.
00:01:58.799 --> 00:02:06.719
But actually that turning into concrete realities, outcomes, objectives at the front line, that needs a lot of interpretation.
00:02:06.799 --> 00:02:11.280
And you have to go through a lot of layers to actually get to that point where you're interpreting.
00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:15.439
This is where actually, let's call it middle management really comes into their own.
00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:23.840
It's interpreting the big vision and actually creating clear objectives and desired outcomes at the coalface.
00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:33.680
And actually, that that is essentially, in my view, the most important job of that kind of middle management function, sometimes overlooked, not really appreciated in all cases.
00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:38.719
But that is the fundamental challenge, interpreting that from the top to the bottom of the business.
00:02:44.479 --> 00:02:50.000
And when you get that disconnect, that's when you get dysfunctional companies and things start to go in the wrong direction.
00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:52.639
So there's a gap there.
00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:58.400
And in one of my earlier episodes, I talked about how responsibility changes over distance.
00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:04.479
Here we're talking about a very, very large distance between the top of the organization and that coal face.
00:03:04.879 --> 00:03:08.719
So there's multiple opportunities for things to change.
00:03:08.879 --> 00:03:13.840
Your chances of getting the right thing at the end, as was said at the beginning, are very, very slim.
00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:16.479
So where do things get distorted?
00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.120
And how do things get distorted?
00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:24.159
I think in a small organization, that responsibility is very visible.
00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:29.840
So you know who made the decision, who's affected by it, what the consequences, frankly, are.
00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:38.159
In a large organization, responsibility travels through layers: global, regional, country, functional, legal, commercial, operational.
00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:43.840
And as you say, that can be a bit of a game of, in a sense, people can put their nuance and their own spin on things.
00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:48.240
That message can get diluted, even frankly, quite radically change.
00:03:48.479 --> 00:03:55.759
So the handover at each layer, into each function, is a key responsibility of those individuals.
00:03:55.919 --> 00:04:12.960
So if you like the leadership challenge is to stop that scale becoming an excuse for that distance between the top and the bottom, that leadership job is really not to uh change the message, but to make the message relevant as you go to each N minus one of the through the business.
00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:14.719
And Simon Sinak is the master of this.
00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:17.199
And when he talks in his book about the why, right?
00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:20.000
So the why is the really, really important piece.
00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:22.079
So you you know, you can't say we're doing this.
00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:22.800
Here we go.
00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:24.079
First question is, well, why?
00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:25.120
You know, what does that mean for me?
00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:32.639
So the job really of the the management and each and and each person's responsibility in the business is to convert that into what is the what's the why?
00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:33.839
Why are we doing this?
00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:35.759
What's the outcome we're looking for?
00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:37.519
What's the consequence if we don't get this right?
00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:45.839
And that's not necessarily an individual consequence about a job loss, it's about a consequence about the performance of the business, for example, or the performance of that function within the business.
00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:48.480
So we can't use that distance as an excuse.
00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:56.319
It's really, again, it comes down to trying to not change the message, but make the message relevant at each layer in the business.
00:04:57.439 --> 00:05:04.000
So it's not just about re-amplifying what was said from the top again and again.
00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:24.720
It's about using your judgment at whatever layer in the organization you happen to be, and taking the bit of the message that is going to resonate most and then amplifying that and potentially downplaying some of the other elements that are the big strategy, as you talked about, that aren't as important or relevant at uh your layer.
00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:30.160
Yeah, absolutely, because the pressure changes shape as it moves down the business and down the organization.
00:05:30.399 --> 00:05:42.560
Essentially, what starts as a strategic ambition at a group level can quickly become quarterly target or a delivery challenge for a country or very personal workload issue for an individual manager or employee.
00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:49.439
So again, it's really, really important that the exec does paint the vision and indicate the direction of travel.
00:05:49.519 --> 00:05:53.680
And so that's something that we've I've seen in my own company now and much more recently.
00:05:53.759 --> 00:05:59.519
And in fact, it's having a very measured impact on the perception of Nokia from you know from the from the market.
00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:02.639
Our share price has nearly tripled over the last two or three years.
00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:06.879
And that's really because that vision has been explained clearly to the market.
00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:09.920
But that vision is a vision at a very high level.
00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:11.519
It's a vision at a thousand feet.
00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:16.000
You've still got to turn that into concrete actions and objectives at the coal face.
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:22.000
And that isn't just continually giving the message about the vision and the direction of travel doesn't actually help you to achieve that.
00:06:22.079 --> 00:06:25.839
So it's really important that that's turned into measurable objectives set at the coalface.
00:06:26.959 --> 00:06:31.920
You said a perfect line there, which is definitely going to be one of the captions for the show.
00:06:32.160 --> 00:06:34.160
Pressure changes shape as it moves.
00:06:34.319 --> 00:06:39.120
That's been one of the main themes throughout this series so far.
00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:46.319
What shapes, what forms do you see it taking in large organizations like Nokia?
00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:48.000
Pressure, yeah.
00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:52.079
I suppose in in reality it takes a certain shape in consequence.
00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:58.000
Um, well, the consequence of us not getting this right is we may not be as successful.
00:06:58.079 --> 00:07:04.480
And if we're not successful, that may mean we have to further reduce headcount or cut costs or do various different things.
00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:15.680
But I think this is where you probably see some differences in behavior because in an organization like ours, and I'm sure many large organizations that have gone through acquisitions, they have a mix of cultures.
00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:22.079
The culture can be somewhat different at the top, again, than it is somewhere in the middle, somewhere, and then somewhere further down.
00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:25.920
So I think the shape of the message, if you like, is key.
00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:34.800
So tying that again to the consequences is important, but those consequences don't want to be well, if you don't get it right, this is your job on the line.
00:07:34.879 --> 00:07:37.120
Because that isn't ever a message that lands well.
00:07:37.199 --> 00:07:39.360
It you know, damages psychological safety.
00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:47.199
People start to retreat, they start to say uh that they're doing the right things when they may not be doing the right things, you get silent quitting, all sorts of things potentially.
00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:53.600
I'm a firm believer in creating the vision, selling the why, and taking people on the journey.
00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:57.600
Because if you don't do that, then you usually don't get the right outcomes.
00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:09.040
I think for me, it's that cause of consequence of not doing the right things and how you interpret that message and how you deliver that message is to how it can change, shape down the business dependent on culture and all that sort of thing.
00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:12.639
Um, what about how it travels?
00:08:12.879 --> 00:08:25.120
One of the earlier episodes in this series looked at patterns, and we got into a rather disgusting conversation about brown stuff rolling down the hill, um, which is a common phrase that we all talk about.
00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:29.600
In a flat, relatively small organization, that's easy to understand.
00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:32.080
There's one hill and everybody's on it.
00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:37.279
In a highly matrixed organization with a lot of employees, there's lots of hills.
00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:40.159
It's the mountain range, it's the Andes or the Alps.
00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:41.360
So how does it move around?
00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:43.519
Who feels it more than others?
00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:46.879
The the key challenge there is the matrix organization.
00:08:47.039 --> 00:08:52.399
There isn't a better way, in theory, of you know having a large organization than having a matrix.
00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:58.399
It just seems to be that whilst it's not a perfect kind of structure, it seems to be the common type of approach for large organizations.
00:08:58.559 --> 00:09:02.399
But the reality is you rarely have one person that owns everything.
00:09:02.559 --> 00:09:03.440
In fact, you don't.
00:09:03.679 --> 00:09:04.399
You can't.
00:09:04.559 --> 00:09:07.519
You have multiple people that own part of the problem.
00:09:07.679 --> 00:09:14.720
So in that scenario, you get people that will purely focus on the element of their part of the problem, but it's part of a machine.
00:09:14.799 --> 00:09:17.360
It's the one cog in the machine that makes the machine work.
00:09:17.519 --> 00:09:25.200
So the guys at the top have to have visibility of the full machine, and the guys that are driving it at a middle management layer have to have, you know, ownership of there.
00:09:25.279 --> 00:09:31.519
But they have to look left and right and see the other parts of the machine because if they don't do that, then they're probably things that will fall through the gaps.
00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:35.759
And in a matrix organization, quite often things fall through the gaps.
00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:38.720
It's not clear who's really responsible for something.
00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:44.960
And if people aren't prepared to go above and beyond the job description, if you like, that's when things can start to go wrong.
00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:50.240
And in my own experience, by the way, uh, and you you've been a sales guy for a long time as well, Phil, right?
00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:51.360
You you've probably seen this.
00:09:51.440 --> 00:09:57.519
It's often the sales community that end up spotting the gaps and having to plug the gaps because right, we're at the sharp end.
00:09:57.679 --> 00:09:58.960
We see what we're trying to do.
00:09:59.039 --> 00:10:00.159
And let's play, let's be honest.
00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:01.279
What are we doing as a business?
00:10:01.440 --> 00:10:03.759
We're trying to create stuff and sell that to a customer.
00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:05.279
So we're right at the sharp end.
00:10:05.360 --> 00:10:06.320
We see what the customer wants.
00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:08.639
We're trying to shape something to give the customer what they want.
00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:13.360
If we can't get what we need from the business, we see the gap and we have to go and try and fix that and call that out.
00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:14.799
And that's kind of difficult.
00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:18.480
It takes a lot of time in any kind of large organization.
00:10:18.559 --> 00:10:23.759
And from my own personal experience, it's it's somehow sales that end up with the challenge.
00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:30.960
But at the same time, if you've got a sales culture and a sales-focused organization, the salespeople should be empowered to help solve that challenge.
00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:33.440
But again, that varies by company as well, right?
00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:37.279
There's an interesting thing there to dive into a little bit more.
00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:44.879
The the pressure and the responsibility can and are shared in larger organizations, but not necessarily proportionately.
00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:50.639
Classic example: salespeople carry the number, they live and die by the number.
00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:57.600
Do they feel more of the pressure even though they don't have the corresponding amount of responsibility?
00:10:58.080 --> 00:10:59.200
Yeah, look, that can happen.
00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:06.159
But of a bit of a disease of the larger organizations because there's so many more layers and then it's people from left to right, up and down.
00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:11.039
Having that ownership of something end-to-end is very difficult to do in that large organization.
00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:18.000
So I think people have their own uh challenges to solve at each layer in the business.
00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:28.080
But it's really important for that feedback loop to be there for senior management to really understand the challenges at the front end and not sort of somewhat gloss over it.
00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:39.840
And you know, you can see examples of good management, good leadership where people really communicate, they connect with the guys at the sharp end of the business, and they really take on board what the what the challenges they are and try to solve those.
00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:47.840
And then you see other leaders that maybe just almost step out of the way, as you say, as the proverbial brown stuff rolls down the hill, they go, Well, look, that's the message from the top.
00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:48.720
Good luck, guys.
00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:50.320
Yeah, that that that's not helpful.
00:11:50.399 --> 00:11:54.879
So I think that that kind of feedback loop is really fundamental to help fix some of those issues.
00:11:55.200 --> 00:11:58.399
So that could be described as firing pressure back.
00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:12.080
How have you seen in such a large organization that pressure can be diverted from where it may have landed or dissipated by potentially splitting it out and moving it into different places?
00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:18.159
It can kind of comes back a little bit to this kind of truth from the front line, if I can call it that.
00:12:18.399 --> 00:12:24.000
So in this larger organization, it's more likely that bad news is somehow softened as it moves upward.
00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:27.039
Scale can create abstraction from the issue.
00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:33.360
The bigger an organization becomes, the easier it becomes to manage through dashboards, processes, governance, et cetera.
00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:39.679
See the guys, and I'm looking at the dashboard, I'm I'm checking every day, you know, what the bookings are or what the orders are, or various other things.
00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:45.679
But that's kind of like a window on a vast universe, and it isn't always telling you the full story.
00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:55.200
So the more you have that kind of stuff, uh situation, the harder it becomes to see sort of lived experience in the front-end shop end of the business.
00:12:55.440 --> 00:13:01.279
People try to mitigate this through tools, systems, processes, calls, governance, all sorts of things.
00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:21.279
But in reality, the more you try to do that, the more you try to extract that information from the front line in an easy way that you can, like let's say a dashboard at the CXO level, the more you're tying people up in internal reporting and actually often preventing them from doing the job you really want them to do, which is be out there in front of customers selling stuff.
00:13:21.679 --> 00:13:34.879
The recipients of that information, the senior leaders who are using those dashboards, why do they view that as the window and not peer further into the window and realize there's a whole other landscape that was obscured?
00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:39.120
Companies are quite often very short-termist, in my experience.
00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:45.440
So you're only as good as the last quarter or the quarter you're in, and the next quarter is the most important quarter of your life.
00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:48.159
It it's actually a narrow view of life.
00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:54.399
So we, you know, a business might have an extremely good Q1, but they might have a really challenging Q3 coming up.
00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:56.480
And can the business really see that?
00:13:56.720 --> 00:14:04.799
What all companies try to do is to get visibility of your direction of travel, landing points, or are we in a plan to hit our objectives?
00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:12.320
But the further you are away from the front line, the more that you might be missing the reality.
00:14:12.799 --> 00:14:19.679
And it really relies on people or a cult a culture within a company to rely on transparency, honesty, and truth.
00:14:19.759 --> 00:14:24.720
Because if you don't, you could actually hit a wall without even realizing that wall's coming.
00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:26.000
That's part of the challenge.
00:14:26.159 --> 00:14:38.720
So for me, those dashboards that you know the CXO might look like on a daily basis and say, okay, we're we're booked what I'd expect us to have booked at this point in the process, or we're resolving these things, or we're managing those challenges.
00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:47.679
But I wonder sometimes if as we go through the layers of the business, people get better at reporting and governance and telling the right story.
00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:50.799
And I wonder sometimes if that's always the reality.
00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:54.000
But I guess to your point, can they see those issues at the top line?
00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:55.519
You can see general trends, sure.
00:14:55.679 --> 00:15:06.080
And if you if the if the pull from the business shows through all the CRM systems to the top, say, this is the number for the quarter, these are the upsides, these are the risks, these are all the various other things that we're trying to do as a business.
00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:09.279
Yes, at a thousand feet you can see if we're on track.
00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:12.159
But again, it tends to be a bit of a short-termist view.
00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:17.200
It's less about, okay, we might be okay this quarter or next quarter, but what about the quarter after that?
00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:18.159
What about the year after that?
00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:19.279
Are we building the pipeline?
00:15:19.519 --> 00:15:24.879
All those sorts of things that I think sometimes uh in a we can be short-termist from that point of view.
00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:31.279
The longer term signals are maybe not magnified or amplified as much.
00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:36.480
I talked about amplification of the right bits of the message as it travels down.
00:15:36.799 --> 00:15:42.080
Now we're kind of talking about amplifying the right bits of the message as it travels back up again.
00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:44.240
They're two very different things.
00:15:44.879 --> 00:15:45.360
Yes.
00:15:45.600 --> 00:15:47.360
Yes, they are two very different things.
00:15:47.600 --> 00:16:01.440
It it's probably a disease, a little bit of a large organization, that the the message that travels upwards may not always be the message that the guys should hear or is not always completely connected with reality.
00:16:01.679 --> 00:16:09.200
And I'm sure people at the sharp end of the coalface would say, yeah, but the guys at the top don't really understand the challenges we're facing at the coalface either.
00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:12.720
So I think that's where the disconnect can come in those big organizations.
00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:24.960
So it's really understanding the true challenges, the true true issues, and managing those and not just sort of looking at the general trend, uh, because that might hide some of the challenges you face.
00:16:25.039 --> 00:16:27.200
And by the way, it's different in each market, of course.
00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:31.840
You know, the US market is very different from the Europe markets, different from the APAC market, etc.
00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:43.360
They're will facing different challenges, be those geopolitical security, be that the operating environment, regulation, uh you name it, there are a bunch of different operating challenges in each market in each region.
00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:52.480
So, yeah, distilling that up into one small bowl of soup that you're isn't always going to give you the flavor of reality, if I can use a terrible analogy.
00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:59.519
Yeah, it's like you've gone all the way around the circle, but then you have to turn around and go all the way back around the circle again to the beginning.
00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:07.359
So you're almost doing double, which is increasing your surface area and your opportunity for things to get diluted or changed or lost.
00:17:07.519 --> 00:17:17.119
But when we talked about that message flowing down, one of the things you said was that's when middle management come into their own, and sometimes they're not respected enough for doing that.
00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:23.200
And that's really the core of their job is to take that message, and if they do that well, then the business functions.
00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:29.680
Do you think they're better at translating and amplifying on the way down than they are and translating and amplifying on the way up?
00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:37.680
In some ways, yeah, because the message tends to be distilled to s to sort of short sound bites, short objectives.
00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:47.359
But perhaps the the challenge sometimes is distilling the issues at the at the coalface into something that's really resolvable by executive management.
00:17:47.519 --> 00:17:51.440
That's a lot of complex stuff that you have to distill into something that's meaningful to them.
00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:54.880
So I think actually it is probably harder to get those issues folks.
00:17:55.039 --> 00:18:18.319
But I think in in an organization that really embraces openness and really tries to gather that kind of information through surveys, through regular connections, through executives going out and doing town halls, meeting people at the front line face to face, that that's really, really important that they do that because then they can stay a little bit more in touch with reality, feel the heat, if you like, from the guys that are really trying to do the job at the coalface.
00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:22.160
And that introduces the human side of things.
00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:28.240
We've talked a lot about processes and structures and governance, dashboards reporting, all of that kind of stuff.
00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:30.880
Ultimately, a company is a collection of people.
00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:38.240
And whether you've got a 10-man team or a hundred thousand-person team, the human side of that is really important.
00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:43.279
Far more important, in my view, than all the governance and structures and processes you can have.
00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:57.599
Because it's the human impact on an individual level in that environment that really is critical to a person and their well-being and their health and their outlook on life and their enjoyment and their fulfillment, all of those things.
00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:10.400
So, in a large organization, how do you encourage the recognition of that human impact in these things and not just become process and structure and robotic?
00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:17.039
I think that this comes down a little bit to what do you reward and celebrate as an organization.
00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:24.640
So sometimes organizations celebrate the people who save the day, the guys who bring in the big order at the last minute and various other things.
00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:34.160
Or, you know, large organizations often reward people who are best at navigating the complexity when sometimes the more valuable aspect of what they do is reducing complexity for others.
00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:42.720
The other thing I would say is if you're not careful, the organization starts to reward the appearance of control rather than the reality of leadership.
00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:45.680
So I think it it comes down to the environment.
00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:48.319
So this is where leadership is really, really important.
00:19:48.799 --> 00:20:01.039
Creating the right environment, creating a sense of psychological safety, ensuring that people are feel empowered and rewarded for speaking up, telling it how it is, calling the issues out.
00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:02.880
You don't need wallflowers.
00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:11.359
I I speak to the people who are challenging, even if they might do it always not in the right way, because you get useful information, you get useful insight.
00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:14.319
And I think that can be the issue, right?
00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:24.480
So I think creating the environment where people can speak up, they can express themselves, they feel psychologically safe in doing so, it is the right kind of culture.
00:20:24.640 --> 00:20:30.799
Because if you don't do that, you're up, you're really encouraging people to disguise the reality of a situation.
00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:34.319
And again, you know, companies can live or die on that kind of challenge.
00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:40.880
So one of the hypotheses that we tested earlier in the series was who makes the best leader?
00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:46.640
And you have your rock stars, those people who bring in the big order on the last day of the quarter who are celebrated.
00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:51.680
But you also have the people that very quietly go around making sure that everything is functioning.
00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:57.920
They are empathetic, they they're the ones that will hold the team together in the times of trouble.
00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:12.400
Um, one of my guests suggested that they actually would make much better future leaders for an organization, but because they do it quietly and unassumingly, they tend to get passed over for promotion.
00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:18.640
Do you see that similar trend happening in such a large organization?
00:21:19.359 --> 00:21:25.039
I think the challenge sometimes with large organizations is, you know, people feel responsible for a part.
00:21:25.119 --> 00:21:30.400
And therefore to have people go beyond, plug the gaps that we talked about earlier.
00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:39.519
You need that the special kind of person that's prepared to sort of say, Well, I know this is what I should be doing, but look, I see these issues here, and let me help, what can I do to sort of help plug the gap?
00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:44.400
Those are the people that are really valuable in any organization, especially a large organization.
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:55.759
And I can kind of know who those people are, and I call those the guys the seams of gold, you know, in in you know, when you're trying to mine those for those people in the business, those are the people you want to keep uh in, you know, close to you or close to your organization.
00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:59.759
So I think when an organization is looking at promoting them or bringing them on.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.839
Or moving them into new roles.
00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:05.759
Again, you've got to be careful what you're looking for, what you're rewarding.
00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:14.480
Because to go back to the analogy of the guy that brings in the big deal at the end of the quarter when he said it was two quarters away or was unlikely, there's no such thing as a good surprise.
00:22:14.640 --> 00:22:16.720
Surprises are not welcome, good or bad.
00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:19.200
It's actually managing expectations.
00:22:19.359 --> 00:22:27.839
And this is one of my stock phrases when I'm talking to teams when I'm coaching generally around leadership is one of the most important things a leader can do is manage expectations.
00:22:27.920 --> 00:22:33.279
And that isn't, no, that isn't filtering the information to only tell people what they need to know.
00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:36.720
Managing expectations is can you help me solve that problem?
00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:38.480
Immediate response, absolutely.
00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:41.680
I'll do what I can, I'll own it, give me two days and I'll come back to you.
00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:44.319
If you get an email and you look at it and it says, can you help me?
00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:46.640
And you go, I'll think about it for two days and then go back.
00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:48.720
You haven't managed anybody's expectations, right?
00:22:48.799 --> 00:22:51.440
You've just said, I'm ignoring you, or they have no idea.
00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:55.519
So I I'm a firm believer in that managing expectations piece.
00:22:55.599 --> 00:22:58.240
And I think that's a real fundamental job of leadership.
00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:01.039
But the other element of leadership is vision.
00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:06.640
You know, you have to be able to set out where we're going and why and bring people on the journey.
00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:09.759
Leadership isn't necessarily management, that's task-oriented.
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:17.920
Uh, and Karen Brady speaks brilliantly on that, and I think she's she's sort of somebody people should look to for the difference between management and leadership.
00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:27.680
But I think um, yeah, I think it's really important that we will reward the right behaviors and the people that go above and beyond, not the guys that just land something you weren't expecting.
00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:35.599
Those are the sort of behaviors that we need to reward, and those are the people we should be looking to promote in a business because those are the ones that will move the needle for you in the longer term.
00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:42.880
You talked there about emails and waiting two days and everybody's inbox explodes every single day.
00:23:43.039 --> 00:23:52.880
I think most people will admit that we send far too many emails, but nobody has yet figured out a way to make particularly large companies run without that volume of emails.
00:23:53.039 --> 00:23:56.960
And it's always very easy to say, oh, well, that's just how large organizations work.
00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:01.440
Is that ever an acceptable answer to these kinds of problems and questions?
00:24:01.759 --> 00:24:07.680
Emails in a large organization is a nice way of moving the problem onto the next person who has a partial responsibility.
00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:11.039
And this is one of the challenging symptoms of a large organization.
00:24:11.519 --> 00:24:15.519
Email is a fundamental thing that we're not going to be getting away from that anytime soon.
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.240
But should we replace that with meetings?
00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:27.680
That's also, you know, we've got too many meetings, and we really try to spend time figuring out how do we reduce the governance, reduce the cadence, and try to give me more people time back.
00:24:28.079 --> 00:24:31.359
But short, sharp emails, I think, can be useful.
00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:34.960
But I think it absolutely has to focus on on three things.
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:40.720
And I saw this earlier and I and I made a note of it, because you need to know what needs to be decided or what was decided.
00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:45.839
You need to know who owns it, and you need to uh be clear on when is it needed, when is it due.
00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:49.440
And those three things should guide everything in terms of that communication.
00:24:49.599 --> 00:24:59.279
If we can work around those sort of three things, then we can shorten that communication, get very focused on outcomes, and because outcomes are what we need to move the needle, right, move things forward.
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.720
And clarity, I think you used the word clarity there, is so important in that.
00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:08.400
Language and communication is a huge part of that clarity.
00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:11.599
Why say something in 10 words when you can say it in two?
00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:15.039
AI hasn't exactly helped us be more concise.
00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:31.200
And when you look at the reams of responses that you get in some of the tools and the flowery language that they put around things, do you think that extraneous use of language is another way of moving that responsibility and hiding from that responsibility?
00:25:31.519 --> 00:25:32.720
Yeah, in a sense, yeah.
00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:40.000
Because if you can't make a clear statement in one or two lines or a short paragraph, then maybe you don't understand the problem yourself.
00:25:40.240 --> 00:25:44.079
And they're really trying to pass it on to someone who can then explain it to you and pick up the issue.
00:25:44.319 --> 00:25:48.079
I think actually, for me, AI has the power to really help us in this regard.
00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:55.920
So you draft your email and you put it into A and you say, right, make that short, sharp with two or three absolute key messages that need to be driven home.
00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.000
So I think that's actually where AI can help us for those people who are a little verbose, and I think we all know them.
00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:08.640
Um, and the guys that we just want to sort of bat the ball along rather than sort of picking it up and actually really trying to understand what the issue is.
00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:12.559
And again, I think that's a key skill for anyone wanting to move into leadership.
00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:19.440
The shorter and sharper you can make your message, the clearer you become, the more likely you are to get promoted, in my opinion.
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:35.759
Those people who speak plainly, who have clarity, short communication, they're the kind of people that survive well in large systems, large companies, or is that generally across business that is true regardless of the size of the organization?
00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:44.000
I think SD is probably a truism across most organizations, but it's even more important, arguably, in a large organization.
00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:52.559
Because again, there's so much data, so much information, so many people with split responsibilities, the people that can really distill it down to the nub of an issue.
00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:54.720
And again, what do we need to do about it?
00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:57.200
Who owns it, and when do we need to get it done?
00:26:57.759 --> 00:27:01.119
Those are the most valuable people in the business, in my opinion.
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:10.960
All right, I'm gonna ask you one more question, Paul, as we're coming towards the end of this, which I think hopefully summarizes a lot of the stuff that we've talked about.
00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:21.680
When responsibility is spread across tens, hundreds, thousands of people, how do you stop it becoming nobody's responsibility?
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:29.119
Maybe let's try to distill it down to some sort of practical behaviors or practical things that I think people uh and organizations can do.
00:27:29.440 --> 00:27:32.400
We just talked about one, which is clarity of ownership.
00:27:32.559 --> 00:27:37.680
So who decides, who executes, who is consulted, who's uh who is accountable for the outcome.
00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:39.200
We really need to know that.
00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:44.720
And if it's not, you know, that should be the objective of every meeting to come out with those things clearly understood.
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:50.559
The other thing is that the executive part of the business needs to stay close to the customers and the frontline teams.
00:27:50.799 --> 00:28:05.119
One of the things I saw our new CEO do when he first joined the company is he spent three months talking to customers, one on one, not with three or four other people in the room, one on one to really get the truth of the challenge or the opportunity from customers.
00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:09.920
So really staying close to that and what needs to be done to be successful going forward is really, really important.
00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:14.799
Also, potentially ask what the process or the systems or the organization is hiding.
00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:18.960
I say that in a sense, you know, because again, we work up through the layers and we talked about that.
00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:24.319
If everyone says the process is working, well, ask where people are compensating for it.
00:28:24.480 --> 00:28:26.799
What's what's not coming out of the process.
00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:28.319
That's I think really important.
00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:36.079
We talked about protecting psychological safety so that people feel empowered in a safe environment to tell it like it is.
00:28:36.240 --> 00:28:37.200
That's really important.
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:40.880
And again, as part of that, we need to reward openness and honesty.
00:28:41.039 --> 00:28:51.839
So celebrating the people that bring those challenges or those resolutions or the issues to you and encouraging that within your team or your organization is really important.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:59.359
From that leadership point of view, as you go down through the layers, translating that global strategy into local meaning is really, really important.
00:28:59.519 --> 00:29:04.000
So the why at each n minus one level as you go through the business is really important.
00:29:04.079 --> 00:29:09.519
I think that message needs to become distilled and real as it gets, you know, goes through down through the business.
00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:11.200
Those are the things that I think are really important.
00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:23.680
That for me is the way that you resolve or try to mitigate the challenge of a large global organization with a matrix kind of structure, with people with part responsibility for a whole bunch of different things.
00:29:23.839 --> 00:29:34.720
If you can do those things, then I think you go a long way to solving the scale issue and making it feel more like a small company where you can tend to get these things done more easily.
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:36.000
Good stuff, Paul.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:36.799
Thank you very much.
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:45.119
It's good to highlight the people and the emotional side of things, but I also like finishing with those practical elements for people that are listening.
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:52.480
There is a takeaway that they can take, and whether they're a leader or working for a leader, and they can use that in their working life.
00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:55.759
So thank you very much for spending the time to talk with me today.
00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:57.039
Really enjoyed the conversation.
00:29:57.359 --> 00:29:58.079
And yeah, thank you.
00:29:58.640 --> 00:29:59.680
Thank you for thanks.
00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:07.519
Each episode of Carrying It supports organizations working to improve how responsibility and mental health are handled in real systems.
00:30:07.839 --> 00:30:09.200
Links are in the show notes.
00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:18.160
This conversation was about scale and how responsibility can become harder to feel when it is spread across layers, processes, and distance.
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:24.640
Large organizations are often designed to move forward quickly, but people usually aren't.
