The Only Leadership Lesson You Need in 2026: Chris Hirst

0:00I've spent my career taking broken businesses and fixing them. If you're trying to hire really great people and you're not buying, you're selling. A key measure for me was how likely did I think this person would be attracting great talent to come and work for them.

0:15Chris Hirst:A character should be visible in silhouette. What are the attributes of a leader where you would go, that's a leader. Clarity, getting shit done, understanding of what their role in creating an effective culture. Chris, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. Yeah, pleasure. We always start the podcast off with a big open question. Wow, okay. So who are you and what problem do you solve? Oh God. I'm Chris Hurst. So I guess I spent my career running advertising agencies, little ones and big ones. Ultimately, I was a global CEO and I suppose I built my career on taking broken businesses and fixing them.

0:56that's i i guess was my um the pivotal change in my career was doing that um and then i went on and did more and more of that which is a very rewarding but pretty challenging way to make a living sometimes i used to think oh i wish somebody would just hire and just say we've got this business is pretty good uh do you want to just come and run it for a bit that never happened it's a we've got this business is not that great, Chris. Do you think you can fix it? And sometimes I said yes, and sometimes I said no. And I guess that's what I do now. I help people individually through my books and when I speak and doing podcasts and collectively in businesses, find growth, solve problems, and succeed.

1:48Chris Hirst:Okay, so let's say someone's picked this up. They're about to go and walk the dog or drive to work. Like, what symptoms might they be experiencing that make it worthwhile listening to the rest of the episode? The symptoms, that's a great question. Frustrated, stuck, ambitious, but can't see a way through. I think I'm really good at helping people, like I say, individually or collectively, see the wood for the trees. and that sounds sometimes I think I should make it sound more complicated what I do I sometimes like I'll give you an example I one of the businesses we ran we bought in fact and ran was a management consultancy a little boutique management consultancy and they were I mean they were a great business and I remember seeing one of their presentations once and it was a great presentation but there's a lot there was a lot of words in this presentation right um and i said yeah this is great guys but i mean i i think you can do this i mean isn't this and this the point uh and they went yeah yeah yeah but uh but that but the length is the point chris because we want another meeting and then another meeting and another meeting if we just go in and say it's these two things straight away we don't get another meeting um and so sometimes i think that's what i should do a bit more of make it sound a whole lot more complicated make it sound a whole lot more complicated and do a lot more oh yeah we we probably need six months to finish but i yeah i think the symptoms is symptoms are the symptoms are feeling stuck feeling frustrated uh feeling overwhelmed certainly from a career point of view you know i i think the people that get most out of listening to me or reading my books or whatever um are people who are ambitious but stuck so if i'm listening to this and i'm maybe a young graduate who's ambitious and i've applied for 50 jobs on indeed and i keep getting rejected i'm not hearing back how would you make me think about getting hired

4:07well I think the first is as it certainly as a graduate it has always been the case I think that it is to an extent a numbers game that doesn't make it easy if you've just had 50 applications and you've never heard back um but it is a numbers game and everybody has to play that so So there is an aspect of that to it. I think, though, there's an element of keeping doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of madness. So I think that you do have to go back and look at what it is you're saying about yourself, how you're presenting yourself, how you're presenting your experience, your qualifications, whatever it is, and just totally resetting that and trying some other stuff, some other ways of presenting yourself.

4:56talking about what you've achieved. I do think that more than ever, so more people going and doing further education is a good thing, right? But I do think that that often makes it harder to differentiate yourself. I mean, if the pool is bigger, there's more people and you are, it's harder to differentiate yourself simply if you're relying on qualifications because there's just a bigger pool. so I felt for quite a long time that actually work experience is disproportionately important in allowing you to stand out so certainly any work experience that you have it sort of doesn't matter too much what it is I mean if it is directly relevant to the thing you're applying for that helps but really what employers are looking for is somebody who they think is going to come in and be a success working for them.

5:57And having worked doing something previously, proving that you could turn up on time, proving that you're reliable, proving that you just got a bit of gumption, actually really cuts through. So try super dialing that up if you can. And when you think about maybe, it doesn't necessarily have to be Gen Z, but when we think about you're in your 20s, you're kind of climbing your career ladder. I think a lot of the time it's expectations so it might be my expectations for my first job or my second job are going to be this how how would you help maybe Gen Z or somebody that's navigating their career set their own expectations do you mean expectations in terms of what they might pay or what comes next or their career path or any a little bit of everything yeah anything think well i definitely think and this this is half an add to my previous answer and half an an answer to that question i think i think it's easier to get a job once you've already got a job so few people have straight line career paths right few people start at 22 or 23 or whatever it is and have a picture in their minds.

7:12I'm going to be the CEO of X in 15 years, or I'm going to start a business that does Y in 10 years. Most people have zigzag careers. So I would say the first thing in order to set, it's a good thing to have a goal. It's a very good thing to have a goal, but don't expect there to be a straight line between where you are today and achieving that goal. and I think be fairly broad in terms of the jobs you apply for I certainly was I think most people are because that just opens the aperture gives you more chance and also until you've started to do a job you don't know what it's going to be like anyway you might have a dream you know I know people that do all sorts of dream jobs people who are airline pilots and run you know global musical music companies and tv producers and things like that and some of them hate the bloody job you know so so so until you start to do something you're not going to really know whether it's going to be for you or not anyway so that's the first thing so be fairly broad and don't worry too much about about what the path between there and where you want to get to is the second is I think all all jobs all work if you put throw yourself into it and commit to it is a massive and invaluable learning experience I quite often meet people who will be trying to find jobs not just people at the start of their career by the way people made quite a long way through their career and they'll have a dream job in mind and and and they're frustrated because they can't land that dream job right now and they'll be doing other things in the meantime i had a coffee with a guy quite recently you know and he had he he was doing what many people would consider to be quite a exciting job right now but it wasn't his dream job and he was sort of you know half in half out you know it's not really what i want i'm spending all my time applying for all this stuff over here and yeah you know I'm paying the rent doing this and I said you this is a this is a rubbish way to run your career if you're gonna do something be all in at it because you will get you will learn so much from that job and the more skills you develop the more experience you develop the more uh the more likely you are to be interesting to the people who ultimately you want to hire you.

9:48Don't just waste one year, two year, three year, five year treading water in the hope that that magic door is going to open because that's just not how the world works. And also the chances are dream jobs. If it's a dream job for you, it's a dream job for thousands of people, millions of people. And very often people will say to me, yeah, but nobody's more passionate than me. And I'm like, yeah, but do you know what they are? There's thousands of passion only gets you so far. What people, everybody who's in that dream job is as passionate as you because they had to get it. They were born in that job.

10:21They had to get it in the first place themselves. So it's almost a hygiene factor. What they're looking for is skills and experience and many skills that are transferable. So build those. The more you build brilliant experience, get brilliant references, get brilliant things you can talk about that you've actually done that are useful to this company, the better you are at leadership, particularly the more senior you become and the more likely you are to get that job so um so if you've got a job if you're starting a job on monday whatever it is go all in and go and tell your boss you know go and see i mean probably on day one might be a bit much but but once you build a relationship with them you know you make it clear you know nobody nobody wants to do this better than me how can i do it brilliantly that's that question whatever it is do it brilliantly because doors are far more likely to open if you do that than if you just see it as a bit of judgery stepping stone.

11:17Eventually, I'll get to the thing I want. Well, you might not if you don't go for it.

11:23Chris Hirst:So our books are now open. If you are sat there wondering where your next sale is going to come from, wondering why your pipeline isn't full of meetings with qualified decision makers, look no further because the We Have a Meeting team has got you covered. Just go to www.wehaveameeting.com. Speaking of books, if you are looking to get better at sales, communication, and making more money, our book, Sales is Therapy, is available on Amazon now. Let's change the vantage point on the topic then. So a lot of leaders have been sat where you are and have said the number one thing I can never solve is the hiring problem.

12:00Chris Hirst:I might be looking for a super skilled developer, but I'm trying to headhunt them or CEO to replace myself. the hiring problem seems to persist so where do you see people going wrong particularly in looking for those senior or specialist roles well it's it's a it's a paradox isn't it because we've just been talking about the frustration more than frustration you know that perhaps sometimes even desperation people people have particularly early in their careers trying to find a job and And yet at the same time, you go and talk to people who are hiring and they kind of share some of those frustrations.

12:37They can't find the right people. And I kind of imagine that jobs, pretty well any industry, it seems when you're on the outside of it, trying to get in, it seems like this big high wall. Right. And, you know, you know, there's a load of people the other side of the wall. But how do I get through it? And the amazing thing is once you do finally get through it, you get to the other side of the wall and you look around and you go, hang on a minute, these people are just people just like me. I mean, there's nothing particularly special about these people. Why was all a fuss about trying to get in?

13:13And I think that's a function of how difficult the hiring process is. You know, the people the other side of the wall sincerely do want to hire you. They do want to hire great, ambitious, motivated people, but it's just very difficult to choose who those right, in inverted commas, people are. And I don't think there is a clean, easy answer to that question. I must have indirectly hired thousands of people. I mean, I haven't done that personally, but in the companies that I run, and I personally must have hired, I don't know, hundreds of people, I guess. And I came to conclude that if out of every three people you hire, one exceeds expectations, one meets expectations and one doesn't meet expectations.

14:05If you achieve that as a hirer, you're doing well. You know, that's basically how in my experience. and um and so that's that's why i urge people not to spend take too long over hiring people i used to drive me mad uh how long sometimes the organizations i was responsible for would take to over hiring people and very often you will see companies you see all the time say we take hiring so seriously you know we do it very slowly we take three months to hire anybody and we and we have to meet a hundred people and they have to fill in all these questionnaires all this and it is just bullshit and there's no correlation between taking longer and improving that ratio i just described there's none at all there is none and yet there's an opportunity cost to you as the employer because if you have a need you're hiring somebody because you have a need you're not doing it the goodness of your heart you're hiring somebody because there's a gap there that you need somebody to come in and do and the longer it takes for you to fill that gap the bigger the longer the problem you have and also i think that there's another misunderstanding of the process, which is it amazes me how often employers misunderstand the power balance in the hiring process.

15:34So certainly once you're hiring people, let's say, you know, two, three, four, five years into their career, which is still pretty early in their career, right? I mean, once you're hiring people well into their career, the best people are the have lots of options i mean i think a great way of determining career success is your ability to create options for yourself and so if you're trying to hire really great people and of course theoretically that's what everybody's always trying to do um you're not buying you're selling you know you're you're if you say this you say somebody who's really great who's at the top of their game well you know yeah we quite like you but it's you know we're gonna take normally takes is about four months um because we're gonna go meet some other people and all this they're gonna be like yeah do you know what it's fine i'm out i've got i've got options you know i'm not here waiting for you you've got to sell to me and when you're you know and it's amazing how few uh hirers organizations cultures understand if you're trying to get great people you're selling not buying and you know no question and I think a great way when I would be when I would hire senior execs whether it be CEOs heads of department you know those kind of roles a key measure for me was how likely did I think this person would be attracting great talent to come and work for them can this can this person bring great talent with them because that's the key thing I need I don't just need one great person at the top of the department I need a great person is going to build a brilliant department.

17:16And that's going to mean retaining the great people we've already got and stealing other people's great people, frankly.

17:26Chris Hirst:So then how would you get, there'll be someone listening to that who thinks, okay, right, so maybe I need to reevaluate my hiring process. And the challenge would probably be then I want statesmen in my business, head of department. So I want people who are in long terms that are seeing the long-term vision of the business. Do you mean as a head of department? As like a head of department. Yeah, okay, yeah. So how do I then get them invested in the long-term vision if I'm shortening the interview stage? How do I incentivize that piece? Well, I'm not suggesting that you do it in a weekend. I'm suggesting that you meet somebody often enough, you spend enough time with somebody in the right way for you to form as rounded a view as possible of that person.

18:10but I suppose my argument in terms of the length of the process is that just dragging it out longer and organizations do do this they they and many organizations do it it's not like a rare thing you know you'll they'll be oh well you've got to go and meet such and such and such and such and HR gonna meet you now and you know they'll drag that process out and I don't think that improves the likelihood of them finding the right person is my argument i think there's a sweet spot i can't give you a time frame on it but there's a sweet spot between um just shooting from the hip and and taking way too long and i and i think but i think that's a reflection of this misunderstanding between buying and selling and quite often drawn out recruitment processes are about internal stakeholder management right they're about saying oh well you know john's got to meet them because You know, he likes to have a say on these things.

19:08And Jane's got to have a point of view. And you go, this is a messed up culture. Who's in charge? Who's making the decisions here? You've got to back each other to make smart decisions. If you don't trust each other to make smart decisions, then you've got a fundamental cultural challenge. And I think it plays into, in my opinion, it plays into this ability of organizations to make enough decisions promptly enough. And decision making is a key cultural metric. You know, are we a good, a prompt decision-making culture? There's this great thing, Colin Powell, who was the, you know, the U.S. general statesman guy.

19:46And he said, let me get this right. He said, with regard to decision-making, if you make a decision when you're less, don't make a decision if you're less than 30 % certain. but if you've waited until you're more than 70 percent certain you've waited too long and it's a really nice way of thinking about it and it says you've got to get used to living in this zone of relative uncertainty right um because a decision is uh is just a choice that we make when we're uncertain about the outcome okay if we're certain about the outcome it's not a decision is I mean, if you thought, well, if I go left, it's going to be brilliant.

20:29And if I go right, it's going to be a disaster. Nobody's, well, what shall I do? You know, you know what I mean? So it's not a decision. A decision is a choice you take when, by definition, we have a degree of uncertainty about the outcome. And I think hiring processes are a great example of that. And like I say, this misunderstanding of buying and selling between buyers and sellers, um and like great people understand that to hire other great people it's it's i have to attract them to me and also this idea that just spending longer on the process improves our chances of success i mean no way i don't think that's true at all now there's a slight variation on that which is for example all industries basically are like little villages right all industries everybody in the industry kind of knows everybody else right you you know the people at your competitors because people move around right so all industries once you're inside them they become like little villages and what what i think smart employers do is they build long-term relationships with people they'd like to like to hire into their organization i think that's rather different you know building a building that's almost that's a form of networking that's why i think networking is really important throughout our careers.

21:49It helps us progress. So, you know, we build relationships with people that ultimately might offer opportunity to us. But also networking allows us to build relationships with a pool of people who in time we might like to attract to come and work for us. And I think that's rather different than a formal hiring process. You know, I think smart, smart executives or smart people responsible for hiring have a finger on the pulse of who's who in the industry to an extent. And I certainly know in my case, for example, you know, I can think of people I've hired that I've tried at various points previously to hire.

22:40And for various reasons, the timing for both of us hasn't been right. You know, they said, well, yeah, we'd like to come and work. I can see why it's in my interest to come and work for you, Chris, but I can't see why it's in my interest because that job isn't the job that I'm excited about right now. But over the years, things change and suddenly the planets align. But I think that's slightly different. Let's stick with the networking theme then because networking can get a bit of a bad reputation. I know that I've been to networking events and I've been stuck in a room with older men trying to force a business card on me and trying to get me to buy a new website.

23:18And I'm like, I want to go home and do my partner. What do people get wrong about networking correctly? I think I feel like networking is I think there's two like big phobias that are probably not quite universal, but the most common business phobias. One is networking and the other is speaking in public. I think, you know, there's some stat, isn't there, that most people are less scared of death than they are standing speaking in front of a room of people. And I think networking is probably not quite as high on the list as that, but it's probably most people's second. We've all been there. You know, we've been that kind of you walk into the room, you don't know anybody.

24:01you end up standing next to the pot of coffee you know the pot where you have to push the top on the pump the the tepid coffee out of the frask it's horrendous um that said i did work with somebody once who said to me there's nothing that she enjoyed more than walking into a room of people she didn't know and i was like wow i mean that's that's a superpower because there's not many people fall into that camp i think what people get wrong is that that is your description is their experience and relationship to networking. I think networking isn't about selling things to people. That's the primary, my outtake from that.

24:42Networking is just about building, it's just about building relationships with people elsewhere in your industry. That's how I see it. And by the way, I'm a shit network. I am. And I've had to manage my own demons in terms of that walking into a room full of people I don't know. And that kind of imposter syndrome and all that stuff that runs through all of our heads. Not quite everybody's, but many people's heads. And I felt that even as a global CEO. So it's not about the title. It's all about the shit in our heads, right? But I think it's about reframing how we think about networking. It's a terrible word.

25:19I mean, that doesn't help. I think people should think about it as how useful and important it is to our careers to build relationships with other people. I mean, it's as simple as that. It doesn't have to be big rooms of people with lanyards on them. So, for example, the easiest place to start is within the company that you work at the moment. We tend to be in teams. And we were talking before we started about people working from home. I think one of the challenges is working from home is I think it makes it harder to build relationships with people who aren't literally the people you work with every day.

25:57You know, I mean, it would be weird, wouldn't it? Not weird, but it would be relatively unusual to fix a Zoom call with somebody else in your company who you never worked with and you had no reason to other than to just have a chat. But it wouldn't so much be weird to have a coffee with them or, you know, if you're having a pint after work, does that end up talking to them, you know, in the pub? And so I think the first thing is to build relationships beyond your immediate colleagues within your team, and certainly build relationships with people that go beyond the transactional. So an obvious example would be with your boss's boss, for example.

26:38I mean, it's not about going behind somebody's back. It's just about being in meetings, perhaps where that person is in the meeting, building relationships and being known by your boss's peers. I mean, these are very common and very sensible and very useful relationships to have because for you to get promoted, people don't make we just talked about decision making people don't make decisions about promotions for example in isolation people talk to other people right and what they and they want validation for the decisions they're going to take so if they go and say to their boss or they go and say to their colleague oh you know chris is great i'm thinking of promoting if that person says i've absolutely no idea who chris is then it doesn't it doesn't stymie that decision but it doesn't add much to it does it whereas if they go oh yeah i was in a meeting at the end of the day yeah he's great i really rate him yeah brilliant and it those little things make a really add up so in building relationships internally matters and building relationships externally and i do think sometimes that does it that to do it well let's say i think sometimes that does involve walking into rooms of people that perhaps you don't know but in the in the reality it's not quite as terrifying as it seems i mean in my book indispensable you know i have a chapter about Here's some, you know, relatively easy, relatively pain-free ways of just overcoming some of that networkophobia, let's say.

28:10But, you know, it really matters because very few people stay in the same job for their whole career these days. I mean, a vanishingly small number. And if you have relationships with people in other organizations within your industry and outside of your industry, it just improves your chances of getting hired and it improves your chances of hiring great people in turn. So sticking with that, I think relationships, it sounds like relationships are going to be a key driver in probably like my next question. But we were doing some research in terms of what are the top questions that employees are searching on the Internet.

28:45What seems to come up a lot is how do I negotiate a promotion and how do I negotiate a pay rise? Where would you take that?

28:58So obviously the two, there's a sort of Venn diagram, isn't there, where there's quite a big overlap between the two.

29:08So let's pretend they're completely separate questions. Promotion is, to my mind, far and away the most significant question of the two, because typically the way you justify a pay rise, I mean, I'm not talking about inflation-related pay rises, I'm talking about a pay rise that's going to make a meaningful difference to your life in some shape or form, that typically will only come with increased responsibility. You've either already been given the responsibility and you have to then negotiate the rise or somebody says, okay, yeah, in return for the rise, but you've got to take on a bigger task in some shape or form, which typically is a promotion so first of all you have to ask for it the second is you particularly with with promotions you have to be clear that you're doing first of you know you have to be clear that you're doing a great job of the job you're already doing I mean if you're not doing a great job of the job you're doing you're never going to get promoted so I do think the first point is you have to understand in your own mind are you are you clear what success looks like in that job so there's that there's I have to be clear I'm doing a great job now and you also I think have to be clear what the criteria are if that makes sense for the job you're asking for and at least be clear in your own mind yes I believe that I'm doing at least enough of that to allow me to stretch up and and do it so there's why am I doing a great job now am I clear what the criteria are next and then i think you've just got to build you've got to build your case and i would say make three points you know whatever your three key points for why i should be doing that job right more than three is too many less than three isn't enough um i mean if it's if it's four five doesn't matter but you know three's a three's a manageable number um and and that's quite important because i think all difficult conversations the key to difficult conversations is preparation The key is to build your case in your own mind.

31:18And then you've got to ask for it. Now, and I think it's okay if you feel sometimes people find that difficult. I mean, if they weren't difficult, there wouldn't be difficult conversations. So it's okay to take that bullet point into that bullet pointed list into the meeting with you if you want to. If that helps you stay on track as to your points. Now, I think the key part really is what happens next. It's one thing asking for it, but then what happens next? often either with pay rises or promotions i would say most commonly your boss will say leave it with me i mean that that would be the most common response it's not often that somebody will say it does happen but it's not often somebody's going to go oh you beat me to it yeah he he you just slide the chips across the day yeah yeah sorry the pilot cat in fact here you go leave it with me and I think that's fine because people just want to buy themselves a little bit of time to think what they won't say to you is very commonly it might not entirely be their decision very few bosses will admit that unless they're trying to sneak out of something people only say it's not my decision when they're trying to make an excuse I would have promoted you but somebody said you couldn't that's sometimes an excuse people use but typically people will say give me time um i think it is reason i think that's a reasonable response and i think it is also reasonable for you to say can we agree some sort of time frame over when that will happen you know because the worst the worst situation is you build up your courage you go and have the difficult and this applies i think to difficult conversations with your boss of all sorts the worst thing that happens is they say yeah leave it with me and but it's kind of open-ended you know you just then a week passes and two weeks pass and three weeks pass and you think when's you know when's i don't want to be too but i'll piss them off but when and i think that that happens a lot in business people just people don't like conflict people don't like to say no people don't have difficult conversations they just kick things into the grass and it is the most frustrating experience so i think it's reasonable in that conversation to say what what okay great go away think about it shall i put a meeting in in two weeks time so in some ways for in many of those type of how do i get a promotion how do i get a pay rise conversation the most important thing is to accept that it's unlikely to happen in one meeting but make sure you have some sort of agree mutually agreed deadline for the next conversation i honestly think that's probably the best outcome so agree that put it in and and follow up whatever has been agreed or not agreed or talked about even if it's just this is my case for why i want to rise a promotion just pop it in a short email great thanks for your time really appreciate it here's blah blah blah why i'm just you know let's see you in two weeks or whatever it is and put that make sure that meeting goes in let's say you get to that meeting and they go no if they get if you get to that meeting and they go yes hey happy days we don't need to talk about this anymore uh if they say no and again that's their prerogative they're entitled to say no um and i think what's important then is to get some feedback i think i think the important thing with conversations about our careers is they're not binary you know it's it's an ongoing process and okay nobody likes to hear no nobody likes you know no, you're not getting a pay raise, no, you're not getting promoted.

34:51But then ask what, not why in a confrontational way, but for feedback about, okay, what can I do? What am I not doing right now that would mean, that has stopped you? What more can I do? What are the criteria, the feedback, the development, the whatever it is that I need in order to get there? And ask them for help in doing that. So see it as, if it's no, don't just see it as no, closed door, that's it move away that's that's again a terrible outcome and i think it's a terrible outcome for everybody um and not too terrible outcome is well at least i now understand what it is i need to do in order to get there and it might be that you hear that feedback and you go bollocks i don't agree with that this is bullshit in which case you at least know where you stand and you might have to think well i'm going to go and look for a job somewhere else but just know without any structure around it is useless.

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36:22Chris Hirst:dot io touch on leadership um so we were talking before me and jack before you got here about you got matt croning the simpsons yeah yeah yeah he's got a thing where he says a character should be visible in silhouette right so you should know who the character is oh yeah yeah from the silhouette So if we were thinking about a leader, what are the attributes of a leader that you would go, I can spot straight away that's a leader? What are the attributes of their silhouette that make them a leader? Okay. Clarity.

37:00Getting shit done.