Interview Transcription Below
They say everything in life is created twice, first in our mind and then in reality. And I’m excited to bring with you here a growth strategist, Simon Lewis. How are you, Simon? Good morning. Nice to meet you. Same, same here, buddy. Simon has worked in advising the president of Emirates Group and the NATA on change and strategy between quite a significant period of time, 11, 11 years on, 11 years.

And today we’re here to just share some of the main ideas that have taken such a giant into where it is today. But more excitingly, can these principles be applied to your businesses so we can discover this together in Charlotte and Charlotte? SIMON Again, I said everything is created twice, first in someone’s mind. Then in reality, what are the elements of creating the future?

But what do we call that? Wow. Okay. I mean, I think in business it comes down to having a very clear vision of where you want to go and what you want to achieve. And that’s supported by a mission which refocuses where people are going to activate their contribution to achieve that vision. And then obviously a set of values which brings all those people together to work harmoniously, one hopes, but certainly develop a culture within the business that is and should be customer centric to the needs of their customers as well.

You know, but you said it’s music to my ears. And one of the things that I’ll mention here, you know what, Simon? I’ve been in many organizations where I walk into their offices and I can see vision and mission and values, but it’s not actually making things happen. You know, it’s not enough to just have it. How do we actually activate that in further so that it’s rooted within the organization?

So there’s two areas to focus on, and just one is on the leadership, and then it’s also on the people. All too often I’ve seen, you know, good solid statements being written for a vision, mission and values. And there’s a little bit of hype behind it. Everybody gets pumped. And then sort of after the opening ceremony, it all suddenly goes flat and loses momentum.

Absolutely. Let’s focus on the leadership first. So on the leadership, they’ve got to be behind them. They’ve got to be behind the vision mission values. If they’re not, you’ve got a weak link in the chain. And it doesn’t mean that that person needs to move on, but perhaps that person needs to be refocused on what is the direction the company’s going in and indeed where their contribution is going to make a difference.

Can you elaborate a bit more on that leadership? So if the leader is not fully in tune with the mission and vision and you know, a lot of the work I do is with sales leaders, right. And of course, you have the mission vision to be the number one X-Y-Z type of company of our kind in this part of the world, or to be the go to.

But then the leaders are in a way, forget about that mission and vision and more importantly, the values. And they just focus on results. So now they become sort of to say this, but they’re just looking at the numbers, not the people that are making the numbers come to life. Any any way, anything you can elaborate for us on?

What I find interesting is, you know, I study leadership models and, you know, the latest ones are transformation, authentic leadership, all of those types of things. Ultimately, they always return back to three key words that I was introduced to when I sort of took my first official class and leadership issue, which was that. So the Royal Military Academy scientists.

And those three words serve to lead. And I think all too often today, as leaders go up the organization, they often forget about the importance of serving to lead the people that they are responsible for. And they do get focused on the numbers they do, which is natural because they’re under a lot of pressure. Yet if they actually get the people around them and talk about the issues, talk about the challenges and listen to what those people are saying, often they’re coming straight from the front line and it’s like anything in a military operation, if you’ve got the up to date information on what’s happening on the front line, you’re better equipped to make decisions.

So likewise, in business, if you’re getting data and information from the front line, one, most people feel empowered that they’re listened to, feel important that. Exactly. Yes. And when they see that contribution actually being turned into action, then it’s actually becomes more powerful. But suffice to say that often leaders tend to operate at the senior level, who tend to operate at senior level because they’ve been there and they’ve done that and got the T-shirt, if you wish.

You’re listening to the front line, perhaps isn’t foremost on their agenda, and it’s perhaps listening to the pressure of the shareholders, listening to the pressure of the market. And of course, Newton’s Law of physics, to every action, there’s an opposite reaction. If you go down as a leader, you start sort of chastising your people, not working hard enough, not getting themselves in.

How are they going to respond? Well, they’re going to forget about the values and go to hell for the ticket sales. And ultimately that might she might get the sales in. But at what damage? What collateral? Well, you might have lost some customers along the way because once you made that sale today, they might not come back tomorrow.

Absolutely. You know, you got the the what and how what is can you get the sales to how is they are these behaviors, you know, are we being customer centric? Are we listening to customer needs? Are we aware of that existing need? But how about their future needs, which then can be fed back into the organization to to make corrective actions and bring new products, bring new ideas, all with the same objective to be number one.

So it’s not about being number one today and that’s it. Number one is like a is a moving target. You might be number one today, but doesn’t mean you’re going to wake up and be number one tomorrow. And that’s what many leaders need to do. Remember, you mentioned something about how the entire journey started for you. So can you go back in time and tell us a little bit about this lead to serve?

So how did the first lead serve to lead? Yeah, Yeah. So, I mean, I started my professional career in the military at the age of 18. I went to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and I sort of remember on the very first day, you know, there was about 90 of us that made a company, a rifle company, effectively.

And we were ushered into this beautiful oak paneled room with wonderful pictures of the military up there and that sort of stuff. And we were all civilians, you know, some in suits. I’m in sports jackets, ties and in walked the company commander Major, and we all stood up. Now, as we entered that room, we got given a little red book, which is about the size of your notebook, a five size.

And on it was the cross, the scientist, and below it the words served to lead written in silver and Boston Silver. And the company commander, the major from the Gurkhas sort of stood up and said, Gentlemen, you know, congratulations on getting Sandhurst. You’re in the top ten percentile of the recruiting pool. And this was back in the eighties.

And, you know, please do not think that you’ve passed this course. Interesting. You’ve actually just started your learning and to help you. And when you find time’s difficult, you’ve got a book you’ve been issued with, you don’t have to give it back. It’s yours for life. And in it are anecdotes of leaders and of people who have been led not always in the military and civilian life as well.

Passing their comments and ideas and beliefs on use it wisely. And you know, I still have that book today. I still refer to it because it is about putting others before yourself in order that you can lead, Can you? Thank you so much for sharing. It’s very, very, very inspiring. And, you know, is there any one particular quote that helped bring that helped you in, bring about this, you know, sort of to lead or lead to serve?

Serve certainly lead. So thank you, servant leadership. Okay, Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. There’s one more, which actually is a JFK quote from 1962, which is the Cuban crisis. And he he said, you know, there are risks and problems to every process of action, but there are far less formal challenges of comfortable inaction supplement. In other words, that, you know, if you’re going to do something, there will be risks and problems.

But if you don’t do something, they’re going to be far greater consequences. And therefore, a, you know, one in the position of of being a leader, you’ve got to make that decision. You’ve got to go for it. But in the process, how you’ve reached that decision is crucial. And I think that, you know, in in conversations I’ve had with with many people who’ve asked me about the military experience, there’s a strong belief that it’s very autocratic and, you know, whatever the command is, you follow.

Nothing could be further from the truth. And you know, probably in the most challenging of of leadership roles in the infantry, where you dealing with, you know, and looking after the lives of 30 men. And whenever you go to an operation, yes, you’d go away and you’d figure out how you’re going to do it. But before you delivered it to your men, you’d get a corp was in charge around you and say, This is how I see it.

Now, have I missed anything? Is there any way where we can improve upon it, or are you all comfortable we can get in front of men and make it happen? And of course, invariably they come out. You know, Boss, you need to think about this. You need to think about that. Got that? Got that or no, I disagree because I think this is more important at the stage.

If you’re comfortable with that, you know, let’s crack on. If you’re not, we’re still going to crack on. But I’ve got the the agility to to change. If you if you see it happening and where you go and you know, one of the you know, last year was the 40th year of the Falklands War, which was, you know, a unique event in British military history.

And one of the real turning points that came out from that was that when in the infantry the guys got stuck in the lead as the platoon commanders actually had little effect, it was down to the corporals and the lance corporal of of on the ground directing and following through. And the same applies in business. Once you can get somebody with a powerful business title, ultimately it’s those people on the ground that are doing the sales to get into the money and getting the job done.

So how do you as a leader, get with those people? Well, you’ve got to get down to the frontline and you’ve got to be with them at some stage. And yeah, my boss is in did after he he was remarkably good at having a walk around once a week. He would just walk around. The offices didn’t have to.

So who’s that boss? That was a chap called Gary Chapman. Okay. And that’s the big the huge presence of Emirates Group Services and The Nata. So so just going down, talking with the troops and just seeing what’s going on. Yeah, just asking. Always approachable. And one of the things I will always remember when we when we kicked off the One Tonight program, which was a transformation program for the later, I called them out and said, Would you be willing to have a breakfast?

With ten or 12 people from across the dinner to business and group services and just shoot the breeze, just talk about anything? And obviously, if you can’t talk about it, you can say it’s too confidential. You can say, but talk about it. I said love to amazing. And every month thereafter we got 12 people in who could file questions that Gary about the business, about his life, about where he wants and where he sees the not going.

And to qualify to get on that, you actually had to demonstrate how you using the dinner to families in your place of work. Really simple but very effective, quite inspiring, quite inspiring. Just the the openness of Gary jumping onto to that opportunity and I can imagine the the type of bond that now he’s having with multitudes of different people within the organization connect with the leader of that organization.

Basically, he is having his pulse, you know, his finger on the pulse, the people, what are they? What’s going on? But also that level of, I would say, two way communication between the people and that leader of that organization. You know, so let me let me ask you a question. A lot of time leaders get stuck in their own ways.

So this is maybe not it’s a little bit uncomfortable. I’m too busy for these things. But what do you say to that? Wow. Yeah, I think one of the the key aspects of a of an effective leader is that they’re always willing to learn. And you look at the way the generations are changing from X and Y to the current Z or I think or and here we tend to reach not fully know we we are on on top of it, but it gets back down to I think what you value.

And you know, we’ve all had friends who who’ve had, you know, challenges in their marriage and that sort of thing and, you know, the friends I’ve spoken to, I’ve always said return to the values that you first got married on. Wow. If they’ve gone, then fair enough. But if they’re still there, then there’s a glimmer of hope that you can return to those and work through the problem.

And I think the same applies for a leader in business. If a leader understands what he or she values and they’re still aligned with the business, but perhaps they’re not being employed as as often, then it’s that person’s responsibility to take a step back. That’s where the challenges, because sometimes it’s difficult. That’s where, you know, a friend, a coach, somebody can that she says, Hey, we’ll have a look at this.

Have you considered and just like a good sports coach, you know, it’s not about changing everything. It’s about changing a couple of parts of of of how they go about things to be really effective and suddenly things will actually progress a lot better. I find it interesting that, you know, often people don’t leaders don’t delegate enough. I think it’s important for them to be in the center of everything.

So what does that do for the business, for the people, for the. Well, I mean, for the development or lack of it for that’s for that matter. One, obviously there’s an unconscious sense that there’s a lack of trust, because if somebody doesn’t delegate, then they’re indicating that perhaps they don’t trust people to for the people who can see what needs to be done but are not being asked to get it done, they develop a lack of motivation and a frustration with the set up.

And invariably people can only tolerate that for so long before they give up the ghost. And so they write them off. And that’s where your attention problems come in. And in that process, of course, when you start to lose talent from the business so your culture gets diluted, know the vision of mission and the execution of that gets diluted because you’ve got to bring new people in and they’re going to take 3 to 6 months to figure it out, to kind of go go with the flow that’s all up and do all of that sort of thing.

So, you know, it is about the leader being able to serve others in order to be effective. How can he or she survives? Well, delegation is one one area. And actually, you know, delegation and empowerment go hand in hand. And so if as a leader, I’ve got a task and I am I’m absolutely genuine among the best person that can complete that task.

Not always. That’s right. But there is somebody that I do trust, somebody that I’d love to see perform that. So I’m going to give it to that person. And look, if they go off track a bit, I’m here to help them. I’m here to keep it on track. And that’s what Gary did for me. He actually sort of said, Come set up and run one after implement the one done after transformation.

And that was getting around all the business leaders and making sure it was all done. But if I was ever going off track, he would call me in and say, you know, let’s get back on track or I want you to do this. Which is his way of saying, Yeah, you need to go and do more of that.

And that was a real effective leadership style, but it certainly grew my awareness and capabilities in certain areas. And likewise, if leaders are having a challenge in one part of their business or one part of their area of responsibility, it may actually be the opportunity for somebody under the leadership to grow and bring them in under their wing, you know, problem, heart problem, shared, and then you can grow the business from there.

And so absolutely that to me this is it’s all in the the the concept of delegate not abdicate you know so delegation is an opportunity to grow to grow others to develop others is an opportunity to actually help people discover their true strengths. And I think you said something where if somebody sees what needs to be done and no one is doing it, no one is even asking them to to do something, then at the end they’re like, Well, why even bring it up?

You know, one of the lessons I learned at a very young age, I was in a meeting. I had my key staff around me and I would go around asking my corporals and sergeants, you know, what do you think? What do you think? Then I got to the one person and his name is Cristobal Perez. I love the guy.

He’s a very good friend. And he said to me something that I never forget at age 26 that changed my leadership style. So Ramez, what does it matter what I think? If at the end you’re going to do what’s in your mind? So very, very, very powerful statement. It made me realize. So when I give people a chance to listen, sorry to talk AM I really listening?

And there’s a very thin line there between you letting someone talk, but then actually people seeing that you’re taking their ideas and implementing them because as you said, they are the troops on the ground. They can see what’s going on. And unless I take very I took that information or their insights as a leader, I can end up making the wrong the wrong decision.

And to really close that loop, yeah, the leaders should go back and thank that person. Our amazing and that often doesn’t happen. So I can’t tell you the number of time I thank Cristobal if he’s listening to us right now Cristobal that one time you confronted me. I’m very thankful. That took a lot of courage and a lot of trust, knowing if there was no trust between me and you, you would have never spoke, spoke these words.

And it was that trust that maybe the leader instills within within his people. You know, I’m approachable. I want to listen, I care. And you know what? When, when, when things are busy, Yeah, I could I could have some blinders. So, yeah, I realize at the time I wasn’t a great listener and thank you. I’m forever thankful for that because that has has has always come back to serve me not just in my business world, but also in my in my family world.

So having build that trust with Cristobal goes back to something that I did naturally, which you then brought to me an analogy from the military. Tell me a bit more about this thing called a Is it a black book? Yeah. So we had that and we have black. Let’s see if we come up with more color. So, so, so one of the things that was instilled in your training at Sandhurst was that you need to understand your men need to understand your men.

Yeah. And what that meant was that you kept notes, positive notes, not negative notes, positive notes, things like where they’re from. Have they got brothers and sisters? Are they the oldest son of the youngest? What does mom and dad do? Where do they live? To sports and hobbies and interests and things like that. And the whole point of that was that when the soldier was having a morale issue or they’ve got a problem at home, you had a point of reference to perhaps open up the gates and let that soldier speak in a little bit more confidence and be more transparent.

And of course, in that process, when the soldier saw you being empathetic by actually sort of saying, yeah, you know, how my mom and dad, you know, because they live quite away from where where we’re based. And I’m just wondering if they’re affecting, you know, your your concerns about anything or you talked about a hobby or sport. It would break the ice and actually open that person up is not a difficult thing to do.

Now, you know, with with GDPR and all these walls that we’re putting about formation, that often becomes a challenge in today’s leadership. However, to be effective. And, you know, without going into personal lives too much, I still believe that you can you can open up by saying sort of how’s the family? Are they all okay? And have you actually got any concerns about the job and to whatever extent just that convert that that question opens up the individual and they will share information.

Yeah. Or they will tell you about maybe mom, dad, brother, sister, any personal scenarios, situations, goals, aspirations? I think you know, so so here we’re going back in the in the in the military let’s say environment you know so even in a war this is important. Now we are in business. It’s a business. What if you were to call it that way and isn’t performance affected by how a person feels?

Yeah, I look, I mean, I find it fascinating because, you know, I’ve seen organizations here are competencies and your performance is going to be measured on those. How often do you actually see the corporate values being reviewed in the performance review as a good one? Now, if you have corporate values and you set objectives, be them commercial or not, around those corporate values, what’s that going to do to the business?

I think the strongest competencies are those revolving around, you know, that bring up values element into that. The competency is the behavior and the behavior can easily be reflected on. We want to work in know where you would say care about others. Well, care about others can be customer centricity. For example. And is this showing up? Yeah. And look, I mean, it’s it’s a simple step to actually say, well, I’ve got my vision, I’ve got my mission and I’ve got my values.

Now, if I’m actually going to make sure those values are lived on a day to day basis in the workplace, it’s not about just describing the behavior and saying, this is what I’m expecting. It’s actually well, let’s actually associate that behavior with a particular activity. So if I’m going to do that, why don’t I go one step further and make that an objective?

Now, if I achieve that objective, how would I enhance that objective? What? You know, you’ve got customer centricity, right? What’s the really advanced stage of customer centricity? Yeah. What does that look like compared to the basic one? I’m sure you’ll be able to. I thought that was the question, but I think it’s a rhetorical question I’m going to ask today.

Different levels of customer centricity. So today, you know, is is what you’re being is what you’re offering something that is a me to service. In other words, we are expected to pick up the phone or answer the phone when when you call for a you know, a customer service department yet is the interaction internally you’re going to be as friction free.

In other words, a lot of times the the the call center will have their hands tied because they can’t make certain decisions. And I reflect on my experience maybe working with that, but I can go back to see how flexible the operators or these agents are, how how autonomous things are, what they’re able to do to go. And maybe maneuver around the system, which gives me the the the user an experience that I’m not basically in the world, but I’m actually being talked to or talked with as a as a human being.

So we go back to that to that question is what you’re offering in me to service or I need to support or are you really thinking two steps ahead and giving the customer that wow experience, that wow factor or that even unexpected factor to to that extent, I’m, you know, when that customer service goes wrong, the business should be confident enough to have the values, its mission of vision play back to them.

Right. And if people are not willing to accept that, I think it’s supposedly incorporated and employed it, then where’s the problem?

Therefore, maybe the values are not being lived appropriately. And you know, how do you get those two? That’s most probably going back to leadership to actually sort of say, well, one of the leaders doing to ensure that the values are being lived and are they actually setting a standard and serving their people with the values To the extent that people understand, yeah, that person doesn’t employ that value.

Well, therefore, I will follow. Likewise. So there is a topic that I want to bring up here to you, Simon, where today people want to be customer centric. They want to be number one, and they, in a way ignore their number one resources and that’s their people. So from one sent from one side, there is a war on talent and a war on talent is everyone is looking for these qualified individuals.

And on the other side, organizations have this external goal, but their people aren’t being taken care of the right way from a salary, from a renumeration incentives and things like that. So I remember one of the things that I used to do when I was in the directories business, and this has been part of my my, my values is, you know, what’s what’s best for the individual.

How can I make the individual comfortable so that they can go out and perform? And that question is, you know, it surprises me. So, for example, let’s say somebody this is something I’ve had with one of my my other partners, Dr. Eli Daher, we were talking about, you know, let’s say that a sales professional is bringing in a million.

A million. There have more of a, you know, monthly sales. Okay. And if if you pay them 20% more than what they’re currently paid, what will that do for for that personal motivation, inspiration, perspiration, You know, would they be able to And plus, will that make them stop looking left and right to, you know, towards focusing more internally?

And the answer is yes. And if someone is getting paid maybe more in line with what the market is getting paid. So so can they bring better results? So let’s just say they bring 20% more more results, Right. That, you know, at a certain margin, let’s say I pay someone from 10,000, pay them 12,000, so that’s 20%. And they go from 1000000 to 1.2 at a 25% margin on some products and services.

What’s 25% off an extra 200,000? That’s 50,000. My investment for that was just spending 2000 more. So if you look at the ROI is is quite interesting any any comments on that although it’s it’s a real I think in the sales world where you’ve got definitive results the process comes a lot clearer. Yeah it’s performance based but when you’re you’re dealing with support elements like a finance team or an HR team, those sort of elements, how do you ensure that they get a fair pay rise when you’ve got the other complexity now of, you know, people preferring to work at home or having a mixed environment and then you’ve got the cost of obviously

maintaining an office which is only 50% full because people decided to work at home. Therefore, the retention strategies, well, if I can keep them there, keep productivity going, but it’s still costing me. So the salaries are can’t decrease the salaries to offset the. So you can see all these sort of complications. That’s just one example. There’s recent complications and continuous complications.

They’re going to be here for a while. So I think at the end of the day, it goes back to and this is something I’ve I’ve always been sort of passionate. I get the need for qualifications because that proves that you can deliver, you can learn and you can concentrate on, you know, organizing yourself to create an output, be an academic on the ground.

But also there’s one about attitude. And I think sometimes attitude is not taken into account when we’re looking at people’s performances. So let me go back to the salesman that you’ve just described. 50,000 for 2000 more. He’s generating 50,000. But that individual is leaving college. And your sales team and he’s not of of sliding everybody. Right.

Do you still want to employ. Probably not. But he’s just put you an increase. And so I think that’s where values go back and play. That’s where you realize, you know, is this is the way that the person is bringing this incremental in line with the way we want to be seen. Is he So it goes back to then sort of saying, okay, if I can’t sort of necessarily measure you by the amount of output that’s actually having an impact, but I can measure you by your employment or the values and you can give me clear examples of where you have employed that value and create the positive outcome.

Why should I not give you a pay rise on that? Correct. Just a thought. You know, I had once a HR professional. Ask me your ideas. Have you ever had someone that displays the values but then they don’t get results? And I was like, That’s impossible. Because if this is if you display the how you’re going to get the what and it’s only a matter of time until this actually starts happening.

So I’d say being clear on the behavior that, you know, on these values and the behaviors that are linked to these values is only a way of of actually prescribing your own recipe for success. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So this has been some fantastic insights for for our audiences today. And maybe to kind of top it off with just one last thing.

One last thing. So, of course, setting a direction. You know, we talk about where is north, where is north? They you have people that have the right values, the right behaviors, but what are they going with that? So what can you tell us about that? Yeah I look, I think they’re often referred as a North Star, which is, you know, anybody who’s into navigation, that’s the one point in the sky, which doesn’t change.

If you follow that, you’re going to be going north. So when you actually look at your business strategy, I had a real interesting discussion the other day with with a group of people who are saying, well, what’s the difference between an agile growth strategy and a standard business strategy? Because both should grow bring growth and I said, yeah, but you know, with an agile business strategy, what’s more, well, let’s start with a standard business strategy.

Often they’re protracted goals over 3 to 5 years, you know, and everybody’s working to those goals, whereas an Agile business strategy actually will take those goals down and chunk them down into smaller elements and distribute them around the people. And guess what? You’ve obviously got more involvement. You actually get more innovation and creativity because people involved say, Yeah, I know we’ve got to do that.

How about we go this way and that way? And of course that brings brings growth. And I think in today’s business, you know, if you actually don’t start thinking agile, it’s going to be a virus that if you don’t catch, you’re not going to survive. I think you’ve got to you got to think that, well, here’s here’s a challenge.

I’ll offer people, you know, don’t have a business strategy. Well, I’m not sure about this, no doubt. Okay. But let’s just assume people have that strategy. And in that strategy, they’ve got growth. Yeah. And that growth might be financially, it might be territorially, market wise, it might be with their operations, it might be enhancing their people’s capabilities, whatever it might be, you’re going to have growth.

So my challenge is, if you’ve got that growth, does your organization remain as is or is it going to be agile in getting that growth? So the question in a simple analogy is, you know, an oil tanker takes five miles to turn when it’s fully loaded, five miles, five miles or take five miles to turn. Yeah. When you go to the other extreme of a speedboat, which can almost turn on a somewhere in between is most probably not an effective business.

So the question is how agile is your business to cope with the inevitable change that are going to happen with technology, customer needs, economic climate? Have you actually built in agility or are you sticking to those long term goals of come what may, we’re going to hit them touch of the First World War stuff and go just go and take totally don’t care how many people it takes.

Just go and take territory and sometimes 100 meters for thousands of lives. So same in business. So to kind of to kind of wrap things up, I think this is a really great, great question today. Change is happening at a rapid, rapid rates. And today we got our different chatGPt where you can ask GPT almost anything and can give you a very live interesting, interesting insights and only from 2022.

Yeah, not current, only from 2022. Interesting outputs. So it’s actually learning from what has what has happened before. So of course that are there are some tools that can help source information and help. Let’s say answer questions. But what questions are you going to answer about the current status of your business and what are you going to put in place in order to take the business from where it is today to where it needs to be?

And are you going to have the right people, the right processes, the right technology, the right tools, and the way the right behaviors that actually get you there? Because the only one responsible for your success is you. And the way you lead, the way you manage, the way you set vision, mission, structure and and values and live by those values on a day to day basis is going to determine that ultimate destination.

You take your people with you. Great. So until next time, sell more, sell faster and profitably.