60. Gold medal to boardroom: The one olympic method I applied that turned my workforce elite | Adrian Moorhouse MBE

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. From the pool to the boardroom, the Olympic mindset behind winning in business. Today on All About Business, I'm joined by Adrian Morehouse, MBE, three-time Olympian, former managing director of Lane 4, and a leader in the world of high-performance culture.

0:44We'll explore how Adrian turned elite sporting principles into a successful business career, what it takes to build great teams, and how mindset drives growth. Well, today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome Adrian Morehouse to the studio. Adrian is an entrepreneur and an elite athlete. And I think you're the first person in our studio, Adrian, who can justifiably claim both those things. Adrian represented Great Britain in three Olympic Games as a swimmer in 1984 in Los Angeles, in 1988 in Seoul, Korea, and in 1992 in Barcelona in Spain. and Adrian you won a gold medal I'm still cheering I remember in the 100 meter breaststroke the 1988 sole olympics and you set a world record for breaststroke 100 meters in the 1989 European swimming championships since then I mean after it says here retiring but retiring for a sporty career at 28 yeah it was unlike you went on and co-founded a company that I know well called Lane four he did that in 1995 and became a highly respected leadership coaching and performance consultancy that you later sold to um Ernst & Young in 2021 so two amazing careers and I want to sort of have a chance to talk to you a bit about both and then we'll conclude with what you're up to right now fantastic yeah so thanks for coming in so let's start you know how did you become a swimmer how did that happen and where did you grow up why did you become a swimmer and Obviously a very good one.

2:20Yeah, but no longer an elite athlete. You've got an ex-elite athlete in the room. I think once you're an elite athlete, you're always an elite athlete. But I'm not sure. It all fades a bit, doesn't it? Anyway, but you're right. So I grew up in Bradford in West Yorkshire. Parents and one brother, younger brother. And I swam because, as a parent myself now, getting your kids to swim to save their lives when they fall in. Lots of canals, lots of rivers around Bradford area. and it was basically learn to swim we both went to learn to swim me and my brother and then once we could stay afloat and not drown the um the swimming teacher ran a swimming club as well and she said look if you fancy racing or you're learning butterfly and things like that then come along to the club so that difference between if you like learning to swim for save your life and then moving into a club was a natural one because it was the same lady that did both right so i said by the age of nine i was racing one length backstroke right okay in the eddell wharftale championships saved your life in more ways than one well well starting life yeah it was it was but interesting because my father was um he was a sort of a sports person but amateur soccer and cricket so sort of those traditional men's sports if you like but so swimming was about an anathema to him so when i started to say like i don't want to do the cricket thing i don't want to do the rugby thing i don't want to do football if i'm not that bothered about all those things i just want to get in the pool you went oh that's fair enough it's least it's a sport so he's quite happy about that right so you you told me and i think you've been open about this that you you went to the pool in part to get away from folk yeah i yeah so fast forward a little bit so it was secondary school didn't have such a great time 12 13 you know sort of bit of bullying and so for me to escape into swimming pool was quite a good thing you know to get get away from everybody get my head down for a couple of hours and also the other thing was as an independent school where you know the rugby teams cricket teams and being selected felt quite subjective you know the teacher I mean I probably wasn't very good.

4:15Do they have those lineups? Indeed and I'm the last person standing and you're not in anything so see you later. That's kind of bad for confidence. Exactly and I'm going to say it's okay well I'd rather be in a clean swimming pool anyway so rather than getting beat up on a dirty rugby pitch. So that's kind of my background. So I sort of escaped and I was more in control of my own destiny so I felt like being selected for something was very yeah as I say subjective whereas if I went in the swimming pool and won the race it'd go to pick me. it's a bit like being an entrepreneur interestingly you sort of yes master of your own destiny if you do well yeah and i think it's interesting because i think that there is a point where you have to and i've said this before to people where you have to flip from trying to do it all yourself so i knew at 13 14 and that whole drive was coming from a very personal desire and i wanted to do it for myself and prove to myself or other people and i think sometimes in entrepreneurship that's the same sort of thing you've got this drive but it's not until you realize you've got a and you need other people to work with you and and be part of that journey that you actually are the most successful so I did okay until I was about 20 it wasn't until I realized I needed to have the support of other specialists and other people as a swimmer as a swimmer yeah and then that transferred into business for me so so you say you did okay until about 20 what happened then you you got a team around you or yeah no so at the age of 20 I made my first olympics I mean there's lots of fast forwarding here so I went from the county champion through to went from learning to survive yeah you fell in the canal so you first olympic just like that it's lots of hard work and i was training in leeds at that point which is olympic club and and i think that i got to that point by my own great determination hard work and i had obviously had talent but i came fourth in those olympics and i was only 19 that's in los angeles los angeles yeah and um i mean you're understating it perhaps i mean you have to get up really early and train really hard and i mean it's an incredibly focused tough thing to do yeah yeah swimming is a commitment and i I noticed a lot less of sports now.

6:10I mean, you see some of the sports and the effort you put in, but I was up about five o 'clock in the morning, most mornings every week before school. Dad would drive into the pool. I mean, not many teenagers are doing that. No, no, no. And I think it's about, but again, it's something that burns inside you. So I think I've talked to, and you've talked to lots of people, I guess, in situations of entrepreneurship or drive or achievement where there's something burning inside you that doesn't go out. And so you're prepared to put the work in. So that whole idea of people you say, oh, you must have made lots of sacrifices.

6:42But they're never sacrifices at all. They're all choices. I knew what I was choosing to do. I was choosing not to go to that party with those friends because I was going to swim because I wanted to win the Olympics at the age of 15. I was going, okay, that's where I'm off. So that's the thing that's burning inside. Where does that come from? What is that? Oh, I don't know. It's quite – because it's interesting. My brother has the same sort of thing because I know he's done quite well in business as well. So, and my father was a role model to us. So he left school at 14. We were always alive at that point, but worked his way through like in Bradford as a wool merchant and made his way and made it to a company director.

7:18And we saw him working hard and getting things, you know, achieving stuff. And so there was almost like this link between you work hard and you get on. So that sort of drive was there. But then I think my self-esteem was a bit lower when I was in my teens. And so finding something to feel good about mattered to me. And so I think that that drive, I was not a happy child. And so I think that finding something to make me a little bit happier was important. But then I've realized that achievement alone doesn't make you happy. So it's taken me a while. And I got that by the end of my swimming career.

7:59But it's a good distraction. in the quest for achievement. So you did really well in Los Angeles. You came fourth. Not well enough, obviously. I can see your expression. That's no good at all. No medal. No medal at all. Okay, you did really well. But then you needed to do better, obviously, as far inside you. So what did you do then? Recruit a team around you? The team came, almost like my coach, my swimming coach was very open-minded, very curious. And as a value, it's one of my strongest personal values. And I think I've learned that by being around people who have genuinely been interested in other people and what's a different way or a better way.

8:35So he was of that ilk. And after the 1984 Olympics, it was a case of, look, we need to look at nutrition, psychology, physiology, biomechanics. And this was very early days of that stuff. I mean, now there's a preponderance of specialists that can support athletes. But in those days, we had to go find them. went to go to Leeds University and find a nutritionist and working with somebody who could bring different types of tools to the party other than the swimming ones. It's okay, you can swim up and down. He can teach me how to do technique. And I can work hard. But ultimately, there's a far greater number of inputs that are required to be faster.

9:13So you mentioned nutrition and psychology, were the main ones? And then biomechanics. Biomechanics. Yeah, and then strength and conditioning. Strength and conditioning. Because in the hill days, you used to get some weights and try and get as strong as possible, lift as much as you can. But actually, that's not very good if you're swimming for two minutes in the water. Because whatever strength you've put on, you have to carry through the water. But if it's not useful, it's wasted. So you basically... You just want the muscles you need to be. Yes. And that's power. That's applied strength. And so really understanding the difference between just being strong and actually applying that strength over two minutes is a very different activity and somebody needs to help you work that out.

9:53And then how you then train for... And then interestingly, the dynamic between nutrition and physiology and strength and swimming because you need to eat a certain way and then if you're going to do that particular session in the swimming pool... How did they change your diet? I remember a moment when the nutritionist came to my house when my mum, a proud Yorkshire woman who was feeding her boys very well. And this nutritionist said, maybe you want to give them more pasta and more carbohydrates. So we were training so hard. I was burning off 8 ,000, 9 ,000 calories a day. So they're going, look.

10:27That's a lot of pasta. Well, it's a lot of cakes. And she said, no, not the cakes, but the pasta. So, yeah, so a bit of a shift to understanding and protein. And so really just we were educating. And as I say, my mom was a bit resistant at first, but then got with the program sort of thing. And she's great. And so we, yeah, we worked on that. So it becomes a part of your life. What if doing good was the smartest business move you'll ever make? I'm James Reid, CEO of Reid. In my new book, Karma Capitalism, I reveal how being a Philco, that's a company where at least 10 % of shares are owned by a charitable foundation, has become our business superpower.

11:10Companies like Lego, Ikea and Novo Nordisk share the same Philco identity. these businesses last longer inspire loyalty and make a bigger impact on society this book is part manifesto part practical guide karma capitalism is available now at karma capitalism.org being a good business is good business so when you went to your sole career yes what do you think your chances were of winning i felt good about them because i felt like you were well prepared by this team and by your preparation. And I'd had some good successes on the way. So I'd won the US Open, was in January. I just missed the world record in April, also in the States.

11:54I raced most of my rivals and I beat them all the way through. So I was going into the race as world number one. Right. So that brings its own pressures. It does. And yet I've been always very philosophical about these things. It's always good to be in the number one position because then people, because you're in it. he's yours this is what the mind training taught you in a sense absolutely it's good to be in the number one position because you're in it absolutely why would you want to be in any other position because everybody else wants to be in it whatever third or fourth what are you worrying about you're in it but you knew they were gunning for you you definitely knew you're after you but then it was a case then of delivering on your delivering that potential but the Olympics is a very interesting thing because you get literally once every four years you get a 15 minute window to do it and if you miss that window and you don't do it then these are the four years so that's the pressure it comes with it's okay knowing you're the best in the world but you have to deliver it at that time on that day in that swimming pool so the preparation to get you there has to be very precise indeed yeah and they do um you call it a taper so you basically the workload tapers down so you're trying to rest as much as you can but maintain that fitness and strength that you've got from all that hard training so you score super adaptation if you're interested super adaptation no i am interested that's why i'm asking this question so so so you had a great triumph in seoul career yeah that was good even you must be happy with that i was happy with that although i only won by 100th of a second it was a very tight margin yeah i was very tight margin well you thought it should have been more you're very hard on yourself so so then you then you went and competed again and you didn't win again indeed yeah well i mean what was that like I mean, I suppose we all in our careers, you know, we peak and then we go whatever the career is.

13:39But for a young athlete, this happens pretty fast. Yeah. And I guess hindsight is a good thing when you sort of look on your full career. And so for me, all the way through to 92. So 88, I won the Olympics. I broke the world record, 89, 90, 91. I was still world number one. So it's only the year before the Olympics I started to tail off. Now, I wanted a third go. I mean, it's amazing to have done. It's a great show. So yeah, to go to it and have a go. But I changed, I took a risk and I changed my preparation. I went to Australia and I was swimming very, very well through to May, June. And I thought this is going to work.

14:14But my final, you said that getting it right on the day, my final taper, I changed it and it kind of went wrong. And the week before, I kind of - Why did you do that? Because I wanted to blow the world record out of the water. It was my world record. I thought, well, I'm going to win the Olympics. You wanted to beat yourself. Yeah, yeah. Okay. We're getting the impression you're a very competitive person. Go out on the back. Well, I've turned it down. I'm very different now. Well, this is good. So you wanted to beat yourself, but you misjudged it in some way. I misjudged it. What happened? Came eighth.

14:41Came eighth. But that's a risky take. So you must have felt pretty sore about that at the time. I did. But interestingly, I've always been hindsight. And also, quite a few things happened to me in between 24 and 28 that caused me to be a little bit more reflective and philosophical about life and realize that swimming didn't really matter. It was one of my main rivals through my 18, 19, through to about 25, through to Seoul. Died at the age of 25. Oh, really? In a hit and run accident. In a hit and run accident? Yeah, yeah. So a guy called Victor Davis. And so facing into things that are bigger than going in a swimming pool and plodding them down for two lengths.

15:20It started to make me realize that I was trying something. Yes, impressive. It's hard and it's challenging. But on the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? so it gave me a sort of uh you had a different perspective i had a different perspective and i think that i've been thinking about i've thought about that not not much recently but about whether that changed my the dynamic of me in the pool but going for the risk and you know because i i knew what i was risking by changing my preparation but i genuinely thought you know what if it works it works if it doesn't it doesn't well that's very entrepreneurial as well you know so aiming high and trying something yeah and it doesn't it doesn't matter you try again or do something else exactly yeah failure is a signpost as we've been told on this podcast well for me yeah absolutely that's where i learned all my stuff when i failed so then so then you subsequently to your swimming career started a business that you called lane four now i think this has a meaning to swimmers yes why did you call it lane four adrian well it's um just a quick segue i had the four years after swimming i worked for the swimming association the government body is the director of talent development so i actually did four years planning the national talent strategy for swimming oh so you're helping bring in yeah so identifying talent develop and think about the plans so we weren't burning kids out so that got me into talent development which is why lane for as a talent human resources kind of consultancy came about so it's an easy segue when you know that middle bit yeah um but lane for i started with two well a sales friend a friend of mine who's a sales director and a couple of sports psychologists and it was one of the sports psychologists that threw that name into the hat when we're calling that names you know we were right we had some of the rubbish you know just sort of the general names like peak performance or you'd get go fast or whatever and then and then this guy said well how about we call it lane four well that's a good one because it's it is the lane that the fastest qualifier from all the prelims goes into so it's the favorites lane ultimately it's the it's the one where you're more likely to win and is that because it's you can see what's going on either side of you yeah I mean in the peripheral vision helpful because you've got three on one side four on the other side and again look I love being in the middle because you in the middle of it and you can see everybody and all but the old Victorian baths at Pools baths from been from Bradford we had Victorian baths the high side they were high-sided so the way he was used to hit the side in the middle a bit of pushback yeah and if you're in one in a he was a nightmare because it was like so name four is a little bit quieter right so but that didn't matter whether you're in the thick of but it's a better channel yeah right so you called it that and you began with a small group three of us yeah and how did you start how did you get business how did it begin um i think first of all we people believed in us it's really interesting finding one or two people so the sports psychologists were already working in the corporate world so they were moonlighting from loughborough university which is famous for sports yeah loughborough university great sport and the head of department, Graham, who started Lane 4 with me, had been phoned up by 3M in Loughborough, who had a division there.

18:20And the head, a guy called David Cook, actually, was thinking laterally. He's thinking, look, I've got some high performers in business. I've got some eight vice presidents running quite significant bits of the business. I think they're like elite athletes. They're high performers. I want to find out how they could be better at what they do. And so he rang the sports psychology department at Loughborough and said, I want the sports psychologists to come and talk to my vice presidents. And so Graham and went to talk to them and started to talk to them as if they were elite athletes with goals and pressures and trying to work in a team effectively and bringing to bear some of those techniques and tools that he taught people like me.

18:56And their performance improved significantly. I mean, hugely improved. And so David - So there's a lot I want to unpack here. Yeah. So it's very interesting. You brought psychologists from a university technology business and sports together. So it's a really interesting future. Well, yeah, 3M, a very innovative organization anyway. So they were looking for a differentiator, looking for something a little bit different. So they didn't want somebody like me. And David told me this. He said, I don't want somebody like you, the renter hero, coming to tell my guys your story and go, rah, rah, come on, you can do it.

19:28He said, I want to know what these guys taught you because I want them to teach my guys the same thing. Right. So what were the key things that you took to this team at 3M? A lot of stuff around, a lot of things around resilience. So, you know, the stuff that you can learn. So definitely between my Olympic Games, 84 and 88, I learned how to handle pressure. I learned how to focus better. I learned to be more resilient. I learned to, my self-belief, self-esteem and self-confidence fit together because they're different. And so some of the stuff around my individual performance, but also how to work in a team.

20:05So team dynamics. How do you get the best out of people where their skill set lies? And how do you have empathy and give and take within a team and create flow? So that sort of, if you like, individual and team dynamic stuff. And David was quite clear with me. He said, look, for the price, I could get you for an hour at lunchtime to talk to my guys and get these guys for a whole year. Because the price point was very different. On the speaker circuit. Well, I'd done a few speakings. I was doing the talent jobs. My main job was head of talent development. I asked every now and again to do the speech.

20:38And he said, look, that's going to do so much. It's going to inspire. But actually, I want these guys, I want my people to change for the better and learn some new things. And their KPIs, their performance went sky high. And he said, that's a great, you should get these guys into business. He told me, he said, you should start a business with these two. Well, I'm thinking, listening to you, and I'm sure other people listening will be thinking this too, is, well, I'd like to be more resilient. I'd like to be more focused. Give us some tips. That was a free advice. Well, how do you do this? Or does it take a year?

21:11What's the curriculum here? How do you become more resilient? Because clearly it's very important, as is focus. And you said getting into a flow state, which is particularly focus. Yes, focus, yeah. I mean, focus is interesting because there's practicing techniques which are looking at the internal narrative and the external. So what's externally going on around you that might distract you or cause you to pay a different attention. And what's internally, so what have you got in control of you around your thought process and patterns? So what you might listen for, what you might see, what you might be drawn to.

21:43It's a combination of the internal and external. So there's definitely work you can do on noticing what's shaping you and changing your point of view and the external, but then how you're reacting internally. Just being aware of that, I suppose. There's an awareness piece, yeah. Awareness and then doing something about it. But the pressure, handling pressure is a big one because there's a source of pressure on everybody. Identifying what that source is, but then understanding how it affects you and then having techniques to cope with the effects. So you sit in an Olympic final room. You sit half an hour before an Olympic final.

22:20You've got seven people with you. Well, you're there in your speedos. In your speedos. Well, you're track suit at that point. And they want to beat you and you want to beat them. And you've got to wait half an hour. And there's 18 ,000 people outside. You're all in the same room together. We're in the same room. Do you talk to each other? In a small room. some couple did some people put headphones on people walked around and just got very agitated and really so you've been about then you're into meditation then you're in meditative practice you're into breathing so what did you do in the room quiet quiet with meditation meditation yeah focus and what was playing in your headphones oh my headphones just like classical music actually right because i quite so you just sit there and listen to the music yeah and then replay and then the other thing is not to it's this thing about minimising what's about to happen so I could sit there and go it's the Olympic Games, I've got to win the Olympics, it's a gold medal but what I was thinking was actually none of that is currently in my control because I'm not in the pool yet so what's in my control, the next thing in my control is to walk out and get a good dive so my tape in my head was thinking about the technique and the practice of getting in the water then everything will flow from there rather than thinking it's the Olympic but then and also so you were sitting in the room visualising your dive into the pool and then the other thing was when I started to think about is the Olympics a big deal everybody in the world it's like no there's only 7 people to beat now I don't have to beat those billions of people I just beat most of them I just got to beat 7 and I've beaten him before and I know he's rubbish at the first bit I can beat him yeah that's because you were good but then then you're into self talk then aren't you then you're into I think it's an interesting so you're having a conversation with yourself Yeah, it's interesting with British people.

23:58That self-deprecation does undermine your confidence. Right. Oh, yeah, well, don't get above yourself. Well, actually, you need to walk out thinking you were the best in the world and you're about to win. You have to. Every day. Why not? Yeah, no, but as long as... I mean, I'm from a good family that kept your feet on the ground. Arrogance never came into it. So there's a difference between... Yeah, what's that? How do you manage that? Just, it's not... It's an internal thing, not an external thing. You don't have to go out and say, be cocky about it and go... That's usually hiding something, I think, that somebody is insecure.

24:29But if you are secure, it's inside. Right. You don't need to... So you're not perceived to be arrogant because you kind of just believe you're going to win. Or you're setting out to win. Yeah. And then if I fail, it's okay. Because I failed last time and I lived and I got over it. So my life will carry on. Yes. I mean, you didn't win every race, clearly. So when you didn't win, was that your take on it? That's just how it is today? You'd analyze what went well and what didn't go well. It's a lot of reviewing. Was that always in your control? Yeah, which bits were, which bits were. Yeah, because sometimes it was just a better swimmer maybe.

25:07Yeah, exactly. I mean, but there's something about reviewing the process. I'm a big believer in all the inputs. It's the input that creates the output. so what was I doing in the preparation room before what was I doing on my diet what was I doing with my nutrition what was I doing all those things are in my control rate myself sure the result that guy might have beat me on the day but don't get hung up on that look at all the process where can you improve the process so you took these ideas or these thoughts into the world of business yes did you have to change it much I mean so how did you approach it the two things about business for me were the product and the offer and the way I would lead the business so the product and the offer was the psychology of performance and that was individual team organization we'll get those guys to create dynamic consulting package or development packages that would work for the buyer the client but for me as a leader thinking about how lane four create was created I thought to myself okay if I'm the swimmer here I'm a managing director I don't know everything about everything so as I did with swimming with my nutritionist psychologist physiologist i got okay um legal it hr um strategy finance get the best people and then so then you find oh that's my board so i've got i've got a board of experts who are very very good at what they do my job is not to do their job for them is to release their talent in a team and so i that really absolutely came from swimming so when i really good team around you absolutely who are better than you that was the first thing yeah nutritionist is miles better at nutrition than me the psychology better at psychology than me but the the contribution to the whole and that's exactly in the same in business make everybody have everybody feel that their contribution is critical it's valid and it is and then so the entrepreneur thing is quite interesting i've seen a lot of entrepreneurs try and do it all themselves and i that journey in swimming from being the kid through to the olympic athlete that knew how to really work with a team of people and give up stuff and listen and be curious and apply and try and learn from the application.

27:17So that running the business was one thing. And then because these psychologists were very, very good, letting them loose on creating great product that fit the marketplace. So what would be examples of the product that you would be selling at that time? So early days, and you say, why did everybody give us a go? They were curious about us, obviously. But once they got over the fact it wasn't me trying to give them a talk, but actually I wanted these psychologists to work with them. and once they experienced it then the word of mouth became very strong um we didn't mark it for five years i wanted to make sure we had some strong case studies where the client said this is really working for us so the what would be the problem that you would be called in to help solve so it could be a high it could be team it could be the top team an executive team or it could be team development so how it's quite senior people could be yeah we've got senior people quite early on um although you you get mid managers or groups of people how do they team well how do people actually work well in a team that's the individual dynamic and the team dynamic um i mean laterally what sort of intervention would you have delivered for that this this i think the skills a lot of skill set was on facilitating conversations and bringing skills into the room so new skills to learn some different people doing things differently here's a way a methodology of doing something try this i'll give you an example we work with some call center managers with BT actually and one of their big metrics around handling calls right first time in the call centre and this because we always ask the client what the metric is because I want to win a race and swim a time what's the metric what you're trying to achieve so we want to handle these calls better to handle them at 70 % right first time so what's gonna be a good number well 80 % would be a good number so you work with the call centre managers to talk about handling pressure setting effective goals how are they goal setting how are they causing pressure within the team how are they responding um and give them some technique some tools here's a framework that i could have learned around goal setting give them a facilitate a conversation between them say how would you apply this to your call center and how might it affect your call center operatives to achieve a better number we did that for about a month and their numbers went from 72 to 91 in a month right first time so their behavior changed because the skills they were learning and using and they were applied but nothing to do with sport this yeah the sport was a nice hook because you know that's what i'm wondering it doesn't sound like it but it's a hook because you i remember you in the door well it is but then i'll give you an example the call center was quite interesting because they were bt had chris hoy as um an ambassador right so what we said was so can we use chris so he came on and talked for 10 minutes about handling pressure as a cyclist then the sports psychology said here's a technique chris has learned here's what he did and then one of us would facilitate a conversation with a call center guy and said, can you see how you would use that in your call center?

30:08So inspiration, the tool, the application. And so then, so you're hooking them with the support. Can you remember what that tool was? That particular one was goal setting. That particular one was around, everyone was focusing on the performance number. Businesses, we all go on about the number. We've got to do 50 million, got to do this number. But actually, it's the outcome and the process that matter. So why are you doing that number? what's that going to give you? Why would somebody, an 18-year-old, not 21-year-old in a call centre care about that number? Give them more meaning in the number?

30:38And then the process, what's their role? Why is their role important to achieve that particular outcome? So getting to reframe the way they were talking about goals rather than here's number, here's number, here's number. So the goal would be theirs? It's owned by the individual. They see how they fit into it and why it matters. And so very often people are very lazy in business with goals. Yes, that's interesting. Yeah, there's a headline number, but people don't really know what's my part in this. What's my part and also what's it going to do for us? And that's why lots of people now, different generations, are asking for more meaningful work.

31:08What's the meaning? What's the point in doing this? Okay, we might do 50 million, but so what? Yeah, what's our purpose here? Why are we doing this? What's the point of business? Well, that's a very good question. So you grew this consultancy successfully over a 25-year period, huh? We did. And as you have experienced, the world of work in the last 25 years has been ups and downs. We certainly have. 2008 was a big one. Yeah, I can remember them well. 2008 was a big one, yeah. So what happened to you then? Was that an existential danger to you? Yeah, it was. We stretched quite a bit. So we had a couple of global, well, quite a few global clients.

31:42And we were working in 20 different countries, 20 different languages. We opened an office in New Jersey. We had clients in Manhattan and New Jersey. And we put eight people in there. And we had an office in Melbourne serving Australasia and Singapore and KL. And we stretched on two continents. all the consultants that we had was going do one at a time we went to because the client wanted to do both you had a particular client yeah and took us very global and then in the end it was 2008 so the costs outweighed the revenue so you had to close those offices close both offices yeah but that's the benefit I think of being small and entrepreneurial is we could make those decisions together and we made them very quickly because it was UK business was fine actually in the 2008 period yeah just about but they were we knew that they would hemorrhage money if we just kept the two offices open so closed them so it was an interesting time making our first redundancies and letting people go difficult but very difficult because we despite everything I'm saying about the golfing it's a very heart-based business because if you work in human you know human cafe you're working with people everything we do is to engage and enable people who are working work I want people to have a better day at work that's why I do what I do what's good to here yeah so do we i mean that's why we do what we're doing actually improving lives through work is our purpose so how big did the company become we were about 25 million about 250 people full-time and about 300 associates around uk and the world and we yeah so it was and it was pre covid was going okay and then but a lot of our work was face-to-face and covid we went yeah and then you made the decision to exit yeah so how did that come about what was the we were partnering we were one of our big strategies was to create partnerships with some of the well big four consultancies that could take us into larger programs because at that point we were doing a lot of transformation and change change work so how do you how do you help an organization go through a big transformation project how do you take the leaders and the organizations through it at a human level so how do you you know you might want to change a system or you might want to change a particular strategy but how does the 30 ,000 people you employ do that and want to do that so we were doing a lot of consulting work in that space and we realized that piggybacking one of the big four would help us get into the largest get the clients we could work with yeah and we started working with we working with kpmg at one point for strategically and then we got a big piece of work with civil service and then we started working with ey on a piece for the met police in london when chris the dick was a commissioner leading for London so an EY with a prime because there's what sort of work you were doing for them the police yeah it was it was leadership and it was all about it's everything that we're seeing of the boil being lanced now right so it's everything we're seeing which is addressing I mean Chris did it as a commissioner I thought was awesome and just wanting to change the culture the dynamic of everything that had been reported on and still has been reported on but to try and help all those leaders do it better so you were supporting the support yeah and helping them with conversations and training developing and but so we ey were prime and had had the main contract but we were the specialist that did the leadership work um all the way from desk sergeant to commissioner and it was um very rewarding very challenging work and it was during that time that ey said look we've got a partnership you working pretty much underneath our model do you want to join right that's pre-covid and we went no no that changed then after covid right your negotiating position was somewhat weakened i guess retired right we're some friends to climb a mountain with and so we joined yeah yeah so well that that was an incredible journey and and since then now you've sort of gone portfolio and sort of full disclosure i should mention that you i'm very pleased to say this joined Reid as a non-executive director earlier this year which we're delighted by but you've got a sort of more portfolio career now and you do a lot of mentoring with entrepreneurs yeah that's right I'm really interested in that yeah so I've yeah and I'm very proud to be part of the Reid family as well James so thank you for inviting me so yeah doing that and so I'm working with a small learning development company called Fieri so I'm helping them with their strategy helping them grow and that's sort of in the tent if you like But then I've got two or three other leaders of organizations, smaller organizations, who are wanting to shape their business and grow and achieve.

36:20And so helping them, having regular conversations, catch-ups, listening to their strategy, their choices, but trying to be the best of mentors, which is not a know-it-all, but somebody who actually asks questions and is curious and tries to hear what they actually want to find out about rather than me spray-painting them with my wisdom. So you've got three? I've got about four. and then every now and again How often do you talk to them? It depends on the phase sometimes it's once every six weeks sometimes it's every day It depends So they're getting good value from you It depends what's going on I don't charge for it You don't charge for it?

36:57So there are people who I want to succeed because I'm in that altruistic phase But they're still getting good value from you whether you charge for it or not Hopefully it's good Sometimes Sometimes. It's just a call. So what does it take to be a good mentor, do you think? So I think I was touching on it a little bit there. So for me, mentoring and coaching are a little bit different. So if you're a mentor, you've trod the path before possibly and you've got things to offer. But the coaching style would be to say to the person, what do you actually want to hear? Rather than go, oh, I've done it all before.

37:30I'll tell you what you need to hear. But actually, I think a good mentor waits and listens and is curious and really, really understands the gaps and what the person is looking for um i've been on a panel before where there's had three people with experience and people in the audience asking questions and you just get the feeling that it's a bit of a showcase of somebody to say how good they are what they've achieved it's a mean if you're on the panel yeah and for me it's more about look what would you what's behind that question because they'll ask a question so what's behind the question what is it you're really asking and what you what you're concerned about and then it's okay here's ask more questions back and then say okay i've had an experience similar would you like me to share the experience yeah that'd be great thank you or yeah maybe not that one but something different it gives them a chance to sort of really hone in where you where you're giving that particular advice because i think advice comes with mentoring but so you are you referring to your business experience quite a lot here or your knowledge of psychology there's a bit of both actually it could be any it could be it could be leadership experience having being in the seat as you are you know being in the seat of a manager of a small growing business um but it might be awesome the psychology i've learned because i i was very lucky i think because the product of my business helped me run my business better using it on myself was critical because we were learning this stuff to share with our clients but also we could use it on ourselves and that was the real benefit yes you said earlier that you felt you're a curious person by nature so what did you learn about leadership that you used on yourself what were the sort of takeaways there um you can't force people to do stuff you can't force people to do stuff you can try and manipulate it with money but it's strange that reward only takes you so far so there is some part of that but then the main bit is it's the it's the heart you've got to engage people's hearts you've got leadership for me is having people understand what's happening, where you're trying to take the organization, but then also talk about why it matters and why might it matter to them and engage them in what's the story of the organization and then help them with the tools to be able to do something about it.

39:40And so for me, it was more about stories. It was more about painting a picture of what could be, being honest and realistic about what it was and what's happening, and then listening to different groups of people. You know, just because you're on the board and you've got a position doesn't mean that you know everything. In fact, you probably don't. Understanding what's really happening in the organization is fundamental. I think that's really interesting. I think about business, I completely concur. But what I've observed, interestingly, you go to a business conference, if a politician is speaking, they'll come in, do their speech, then leave.

40:16They don't listen to anyone else. Is that a shame? That's interesting. I think it is a weakness in our sort of way politics works. Yeah. Because you learn so much from listening to the other people. No, I agree. And it's not really organized to do that somehow. No. Especially if you're in government. And I think that leads to less effective leadership. No, absolutely. Yeah, you've got to be in touch. Because if you have a strategy or have a plan, it's not going to survive contact with the enemy, unless you actually understand what's happening when it's in contact. yeah makes sense the enemy in this case being other people yeah whatever yeah so you're trying to sort of influence yeah yeah so plans only take you so far as what you're saying absolutely and those plans need to be tested refined with people who are actually going to enact them yes so i believe in the full transparency organization pretty much i've been in some organization i'm quite surprised about how little how much they want to keep quiet and so what you can share that that that can be shared well they don't want to tell them what like their financial situation.

41:24Yeah, bits and pieces of it. There were certain parts because they were worried what people might think about it. Well, people talk about it anyway. Well, it's very hard for things to be concealed now because there seems to be full transparency with the internet seems to have delivered that. I've been treating people like adults, right? Treating people like you're not their parent because there's a lot of, in business, I think there's a lot of staging where you get a title and you decide you want to act like a parent and therefore all the kids are the ones running the company. Oh, you've observed this?