0:00

ismail fantastic to have you on this

0:02

episode of

0:03

leadership bites welcome i am very happy

0:06

to be here happy friday

0:08

indeed yes we've earned it i fail

0:11

we have so uh listen i know who you are

0:15

ismail and we've been having a little

0:17

chat before and

0:18

obviously i reached out to you and i've

0:20

done a little intro before the podcast

0:22

just to give people a line of sight but

0:24

just in your own words it'd be great to

0:26

hear who you are

0:27

and what you do and who you work with

0:29

and then we'll get into some some more

0:31

stuff about you

0:32

yeah well thanks for having me on the

0:35

show um

0:36

always fun to meet new people uh and

0:40

learn new things so who am i so i'm

0:43

actually um i'm currently in bolton

0:46

lancashire

0:47

uh and you'll know hopefully where that

0:48

is which is north west

0:50

of the united kingdom and that's

0:52

important for me because actually

0:54

this is where my folks landed as

0:56

immigrants from india

0:58

to work in the cotton mills right and uh

1:01

i don't know whether you know now but

1:03

most of the cotton mills are now in

1:04

india

1:05

and my parents still think he was

1:07

missiles

1:08

that he's been waiting on all the cotton

1:10

mills and over in actually northwest

1:12

india which is where he came from

1:13

so um second generation um

1:17

you know went to uh salford university

1:19

did a computer degree

1:20

uh in fact in the day where they were

1:22

teaching fortran and were using

1:24

these uh cards and um

1:27

we're too fairly for you guy but uh one

1:30

of the early

1:31

uh versions of the computer science

1:32

degree and then went into the

1:34

um technology consulting space

1:37

logica computer sciences accenture

1:41

um i guess the the key things i would

1:43

say is

1:44

um at the time like 10 years into my

1:47

career

1:48

i decided i was too technology focused

1:51

and

1:51

needed to become more business aware to

1:53

get ahead with my career and so did an

1:55

mba at manchester business school

1:57

and about the time that i finished my

1:58

mba it became very clear that technology

2:01

was going to be everything with the dot

2:03

com era

2:04

and then of course with the um

2:06

industrial for

2:07

fourth generation industrial revolution

2:09

and so on so i've

2:11

basically been on technology uh

2:13

implementation jobs or running big

2:16

p ls for accenture computer sciences i

2:19

decided to leave accenture

2:21

to go to a startup um and then

2:24

was a ceo for the uk for that startup

2:27

called capco

2:28

they then sent me to america for a

2:30

couple of years to new york

2:31

and we stayed there for 10

2:34

and in that time um after we sold the

2:37

company i joined ibm and ran

2:39

ibm global business services in north

2:42

america which is all the professional

2:43

services that are very

2:44

ibm do in north america fantastic role

2:47

and then a couple years ago i moved back

2:50

and you know i felt it was time to go

2:53

back home and see

2:54

what contribution i could personally

2:56

make

2:57

and as part of doing that i joined a

2:59

company which actually the work that we

3:01

do

3:01

affects half the uk population every

3:04

month so 35 million

3:05

uk citizens every month and from from a

3:08

board perspective the uk sports board

3:10

responsibility i have

3:12

of course is focused on creating an

3:16

environment for

3:17

athletes to prosper and succeed and at

3:20

the same time

3:22

create a feel-good factor for the rest

3:25

of the united kingdom

3:26

so here we are two years back into my

3:29

united kingdom

3:31

journey after my migration around the

3:33

world i guess

3:35

so i've got i've just got you linked up

3:37

linked in up

3:38

in front of me so i've got you as that

3:40

board member for uk sport

3:42

um i've got that board of governors for

3:44

the university of east london yeah

3:46

yeah as well yeah so that was

3:48

interesting i actually found a friend of

3:50

mine as i was coming back to the uk and

3:52

said look i think

3:53

i could do is getting some non-executive

3:56

responsibility and he happens to be

3:59

the chancellor for the university of

4:01

east london shabirandiri

4:03

and he said yeah you should you should

4:05

come do this um

4:06

it doesn't pay anything of course it's

4:09

uh in a

4:10

very um interesting

4:14

uh sector which is being disrupted

4:16

massively and of course this was before

4:17

coving but higher education was disrupted

4:19

massively and he said if you are good to

4:21

your word and you want to come back and

4:22

make an impact on society

4:24

then here you are in newham uh where

4:27

most of the students

4:28

are first generation in their families

4:30

going into higher education

4:32

and most of the students here are on

4:35

what would be considered as diverse

4:39

in terms of any sort of demographic so

4:41

yeah i've been doing that for about 18

4:43

months

4:45

and that chief the chief growth office

4:47

office i can't i've lost my teeth this

4:49

morning

4:49

chief growth officer with capita um

4:53

that bring that role to life for me as

4:54

well yeah i mean we decided i mean we

4:56

made the name up right and we made the

4:58

name up because we wanted the role to be

5:00

around sales and marketing i around

5:03

growth but be

5:04

more transformational rather than be run

5:07

a

5:07

function now of course i have to run the

5:09

function anyway and i'm responsible for

5:11

a a quota which happens to be north of

5:14

three billion pounds

5:15

but what we really wanted to uh get into

5:18

the organization was this growth mindset

5:21

uh and so you know we we sort of played

5:23

about with how we wanted to symbolically

5:25

land that so

5:26

for me it's about sales and marketing

5:28

actually my responsibility is also

5:30

around setting up a consulting business

5:32

for capita

5:33

and then the third part of that

5:34

responsibility is

5:36

helping define our market strategy okay

5:40

so that's a pretty broad brush

5:43

uh in in many respects and and before we

5:45

get into maybe some more detail and i

5:47

know there's a book that you have out that or

5:49

you i think co-authored and i also want

5:50

to talk about that as well

5:52

is that journey that somebody goes on

5:55

i always think is massively influential

5:58

on your thinking

5:59

and it's one of the reasons that i may

6:02

or may not

6:02

give greater credibility to what

6:04

somebody said

6:06

dependent on what i think has gone into

6:08

their opinion

6:10

so um it'd be great just to hear some of

6:13

your journey

6:14

from you know hey i came into the world

6:16

and

6:17

you're picking the moments that are

6:18

relevant maybe to us but just some of

6:20

that journey that said hey you know this is

6:22

how i got here these were some of the

6:24

ups the the

6:25

the plateaus and the downs but you know

6:27

and here i am today so it'd be great to

6:28

hear that

6:29

yeah yeah um

6:32

i mean i think one of the one of the

6:34

things as you talk about that guy that

6:35

comes

6:36

very clearly to me is i've never been

6:39

able to predict

6:40

and this this listen i'm going back 30

6:42

years now right i've never been able to

6:44

predict what i'm going to be doing

6:46

next year never and so as i started off

6:49

my career and i was uh

6:50

logical doing consulting and you know

6:53

you've got these great views of what

6:54

your career might look like one thing

6:56

becomes very clear

6:58

for me the things that made a difference

7:00

was having um

7:02

a level of agility in my thinking

7:05

and taking advantage of any opportunity

7:08

that came my way

7:09

so anything that was thrown at me that i

7:12

thought i could do i found interesting i

7:14

put my hand up and did it and that

7:16

includes living in

7:17

copenhagen for a couple of years big

7:20

projects out in singapore

7:22

almost always never 100 ready for the

7:25

role

7:27

but always feeling that i'll find my way

7:30

and make a success of it so the key

7:33

things for me

7:34

i would say is that

7:38

the things that i learn along the way if

7:41

you like is that um where i've taken a

7:45

risk

7:45

and the role has been high profile the

7:48

higher the profile the bigger the risk

7:51

of course the bigger the reward and in

7:54

uh if i give a couple of examples when i

7:56

moved for my

7:58

role from when i was at computer

8:00

sciences and

8:01

i moved to denmark actually to be a cio

8:04

for this company called

8:05

east asiatic company and they used to be

8:07

a client of ours

8:09

[Music]

8:10

you know new language new geography new

8:14

role

8:15

but a transformational job to roll out

8:18

an infrastructure for the globe

8:20

in terms of their scope so a huge

8:22

opportunity to learn about all of these

8:24

new things

8:26

and i think that as if you go in with

8:28

and for me this is why the growth

8:29

mindset thing guy is so important

8:31

if you go in with an idea that a

8:34

the chances are you will succeed b

8:37

everybody will want to help you

8:39

to succeed and see nobody really fully

8:42

understands the question never mind

8:44

understand the answer if you

8:45

go in with that objective with that sort

8:47

of mindset

8:48

i think you're better positioned to

8:50

understand what needs doing

8:52

be agile in how you go about doing it

8:54

and

8:55

and be very prepared to change strategy

8:58

along the way

8:58

so you know i've had lots of those sorts

9:00

of instances where i've gone for

9:01

somewhere not really know what i'm doing

9:03

but it's a big opportunity

9:05

to go and make a difference the other

9:07

thing that i see

9:08

as part of my journey guy is you know

9:11

i'm

9:11

a second generation indian muslim from

9:15

bolton

9:16

and one of my driving forces was

9:20

just to want to fit in right and because

9:23

i

9:23

you know i am every single other that

9:25

you could probably describe

9:27

and yet i felt that i was as good as the

9:30

oxford cambridge lads coming out and

9:32

going joining accenture

9:34

but actually i was very different in

9:36

that sense

9:37

and for a long part of my career and you

9:39

know up to the point actually that i

9:41

joined accenture i would say

9:43

i didn't want to be known for my

9:45

otherness i wanted to be known for how

9:46

good i was or how good i wasn't

9:49

and as i for the people that i mentor

9:52

know as i keep telling them

9:55

that actually isn't my choice you will

9:57

be known for what

9:59

how people see you and perceive you

10:01

whether you like it or not

10:02

you're part of that gang and one of the

10:05

things that i would say

10:07

is this and i wish i had come to that

10:09

conclusion sooner in my career

10:11

and my life actually from a personal

10:13

perspective as well

10:15

the sooner i got comfortable with being

10:17

who i was

10:19

the more authentic i felt i could be

10:22

the more confident i could be and the

10:25

more successful i became

10:26

but it took me a long time to get there

10:30

and i think you know when you don't have

10:32

a role model that

10:34

looks like somebody like you or has the

10:37

sort of background that you have or have

10:38

the sort of

10:39

challenges that you've been through it's

10:41

very difficult i think

10:43

for somebody to tell you that actually

10:44

that is what might work

10:46

and so i think that's one of my one of

10:48

my lessons is around how do you get to

10:50

yourself

10:51

and your authenticity as soon as you can

10:54

in your career

10:55

and then i would say the third part of

10:57

my career that has defined me

10:59

is this this passion around anything

11:03

which is new and could change the world

11:06

and so you know i just happen to be in

11:09

this golden era where technology

11:11

is changing the world and from the time

11:15

that i worked as i said that you know

11:16

i i did my degree in computer science it

11:18

was just coming out

11:21

and you know every job that i've been in

11:24

and every project that i've been in

11:26

has changed the way the world lives and

11:28

works

11:29

and what an incredible opportunity to

11:31

look back and

11:32

say that you know the world changed and

11:34

i was part of that

11:36

and and that has really really given me

11:38

lots of energy and really really

11:40

inspired me to do

11:40

different things and i was reading this

11:42

book just i'll just finish on this guy

11:44

and

11:44

give you a chance to talk to finish this

11:47

book

11:47

um uh malcolm gladwell you probably

11:50

probably

11:50

read it outliers and he was talking

11:53

about you know

11:54

he was taking people like steve jobs

11:57

bill gates and you know how they became

11:59

successful and there was always

12:01

something that happened in their life

12:03

that would really give them

12:05

disproportionate advantage and with bill

12:08

gates

12:08

he actually had access to a mainframe

12:12

at washington university that he could

12:14

go and play on for 12 hours a day

12:16

he was you know you know the the man was

12:19

pretty

12:20

born in bolton that wouldn't have been

12:21

so accessible to him right exactly

12:22

exactly right right and that was the

12:24

time when mainframes were just coming on

12:26

but here the 16 year old kids could go

12:28

and play on that very different

12:29

environment

12:30

if you if you look at steve jobs he's

12:32

got the story where

12:33

um the the ceo of hewlett packard

12:37

sent him apart to play about with to

12:39

build a computer i mean you know this is

12:41

something that happened that are very

12:43

trigger for me what happened was and i i

12:46

i think

12:47

you know as i think about it of course

12:49

in hindsight with my dad bought me

12:52

bought me the bbc

12:55

computer if you remember when they came

12:57

out in the uh

13:01

do you remember them listen my very one

13:03

of my very first jobs was in tandy

13:05

selling

13:06

tandy computers and it wasn't ms-dos it

13:09

was tandidos

13:10

yeah yeah i'm older than i look and i

13:13

know exactly what you're talking about

13:15

i know so because i remember i'm looking

13:17

back on that and i only thought of that

13:19

after i read

13:20

that book that he was this man who was

13:22

doing night shifts in the cotton mill in

13:24

bolton

13:25

who happened to listen to his lad who

13:27

said that i think

13:28

i think i might like a computer who then

13:30

went on and you know these things were

13:32

pretty expensive and you

13:33

plug them into the back of the tv to be

13:35

able to work them to be able to work

13:36

them

13:37

and for me that's you know as i look

13:39

back that was my trigger point because

13:40

it allowed me to

13:41

you know play with technology at quite a

13:44

young age engagement

13:45

it just happened yeah yeah

13:49

yeah yeah so you know a few things that

13:52

are thick out there let me pause there

13:54

no this is listen we've got to be really

13:56

careful because if i start talking

13:58

you'll go i thought i was invited on a

14:00

podcast

14:02

so i'm going to be careful about that

14:03

but i love those stories and i love

14:04

those trigger points

14:06

and i love those moments of if my dad

14:08

just hadn't brought me that computer i

14:09

mean maybe i'd have found my way

14:11

but maybe i i don't know i'd have gone

14:13

another way and ended up doing something

14:14

else right

14:15

i mean i there was another moment that i

14:17

remember with my parents i

14:18

um i was i was at accenture i was the

14:21

partner of the level two partner

14:23

huge responsibility i think i think at

14:25

that time there were three hundred

14:26

thousand people at accenture 180

14:28

people at level two so very senior i got

14:31

call from a head hunter who said look

14:32

we're doing a startup

14:34

you'd be great um and i was looking at

14:37

it

14:37

and um you know they wanted me to go to

14:41

the us

14:41

and there was about 100 people working

14:43

for me and i was going to move from

14:45

thousands of people to 100 but they

14:46

wanted me to go to the us as part of

14:48

this

14:48

i met the private equity guy that the

14:51

front the founder

14:52

and um and he said what's stopping you

14:55

joining us

14:57

and this guy by the way himself was an

15:00

indian immigrant into the usa and he

15:02

went with five dollar five dollars and

15:03

he's got one of the biggest pe firms in

15:05

the u.s now

15:06

and i said you know the risk of moving

15:09

from um

15:10

from accenture to the stator safety

15:13

yeah right i mean i've got the brand i

15:16

call anybody if you're from accenture

15:18

they'll take the call

15:19

you want me to join this company called

15:21

capco that nobody knows

15:24

and he said oh yeah you must be really

15:25

different from your dad

15:27

i said what what do you mean he said

15:29

well he moved to the uk with

15:31

i mean on his own right with no job he

15:33

didn't even know where he was

15:34

going when he landed in the uk

15:37

and i remember going telling that story

15:39

to my dad who couldn't stop laughing

15:40

because

15:41

you know he shamed me into taking the

15:43

job really

15:44

he knew he that was a guy that knew how

15:46

to pull a lever right yeah right

15:48

because he was sort of saying if you

15:49

really claim to be entrepreneurial

15:51

and believe in your leadership skill

15:53

sets so you better come and take on this

15:55

challenge

15:56

and that was actually a big moment for

15:58

me to go from

16:00

being behind the brand to go in and be

16:02

in your own brand

16:03

right and the people convincing people

16:05

to join you to work with you to pay you

16:08

to invest in you

16:09

because of your own ideas and your own

16:11

beliefs and what you can do

16:13

um and that triggered that you know

16:15

going to the startup of course was

16:17

was the golden moment in my career

16:19

because it also

16:20

gave us the opportunity to move to new

16:22

york uh all the kids moved to

16:23

new york um they all three of four kids

16:26

did their uh

16:28

well all their secondary education and

16:29

university education out there

16:32

and you know from for for a bunch of

16:34

bolton kids

16:35

um who used to go around queen's park to

16:38

then walk across central park to go to

16:40

school it was a bit it was a big thing

16:43

look at me now ma

16:46

i think that's defined them as well

16:48

actually

16:50

hilarious i love it i love stuff like

16:51

that and um

16:54

yeah so i mean during that process what

16:55

i'm hearing is that you know you've got

16:57

that

16:58

i mean you're curious obviously you know

17:02

innovation is something that obviously

17:03

means something to you having an impact

17:06

you know that that's something there as

17:08

well and and i love that

17:09

that kind of sense of yeah i've really

17:12

got to live up to my own self

17:14

definition here um yeah

17:18

i'm an entrepreneur but as long as it's

17:19

safe doesn't really work

17:21

you know and then the social impact of

17:24

that as well

17:24

because i think as i've got an older guy

17:27

um

17:29

i look around and i think about i mean i

17:32

mean i'm in bolton right i mean let's let's

17:33

let's be clear in bolton uh the

17:36

demographic is such that most

17:38

of the kids who are who are really

17:40

talented will not feel they can be

17:43

successful elsewhere right because they

17:45

don't have the role models they don't

17:46

have the networks

17:47

it's just a fact of where they are and i

17:49

feel that

17:50

people you know who've had this sort of

17:52

opportunity that i've had

17:54

have this amazing opportunity

17:57

to create an environment for

18:01

these different groups to be able to

18:05

become their real selves and in doing so

18:08

contribute to uk plc

18:10

in a way that we're just missing out on

18:12

at the moment

18:13

and so i really really feel at the

18:15

moment really feeling this

18:17

need to engage facilitate

18:20

open doors create platforms just because

18:23

of the opportunity and the platforms

18:24

that i have

18:26

and so the social impact and i've gotten

18:27

maybe a sign of my age actually

18:29

but it's becoming increasingly important

18:31

to me to be able to not only

18:33

go and prove what i can do and you know

18:37

and try and do great things

18:38

from a personal and business perspective

18:41

but also think about what impact that

18:42

has on the or what impact i can have

18:45

on the community that i've come from

18:49

and where does that come from you know

18:52

is that

18:53

that's partly cultural guy or that's

18:55

partially you know or what

18:57

actually no it's not it's just me where

18:59

does that

19:01

give you that and that contribution and

19:04

that desire

19:05

to help it's a great question and i

19:08

think that um it comes a little bit

19:12

from my parents again

19:15

and the story here is that as we grow up

19:18

my father was the only guy in his

19:22

friends who spoke english so de facto he

19:26

became the community relations officer

19:29

and we i remember as we going up and

19:32

coming home from school and going to

19:34

school

19:34

there was always a bunch of people in

19:36

our house where

19:38

there was i remember our community

19:39

relations officer in bolton was this guy

19:41

called raymond halliwell who became a

19:43

great mate of my dad because my dad was

19:45

interpreting for him all the time

19:47

until a bunch of people coming in and

19:49

out of our house who were

19:50

different in the looking for help and i

19:53

think that's where

19:54

you know this idea of service was

19:56

something that was very much

19:58

uh implanted and then when i did my

20:01

career

20:02

uh uh but actually it was something as

20:05

part of me

20:06

realizing my authenticity i also i think

20:09

came to the conclusion that

20:10

that was a part of me that i wanted that

20:12

i wanted to be a part of me

20:14

i wanted to contribute to now i've heard

20:17

you say this

20:18

probably about four times now which is

20:20

that

20:22

comfort with self that realization of

20:25

your own self

20:26

that's that that's come out now

20:30

three or four times and i'm um i'm very

20:32

clear that when i do

20:34

work with execs which is what i do which

20:36

is why it's called leadership

20:37

it was leadership but leadership podcast

20:39

is this concept of leader of self

20:42

is there is a point that it's great if

20:45

you can have it on the way up

20:47

but there is a that's a beautiful thing

20:49

right if you get the wisdom early

20:51

you know we'll all we're all about that

20:53

but there is a point that

20:55

technically you know your job you get to

20:56

that point where you go of course every

20:58

day is a school day but in essence i

21:00

know the lay of the land i know how to

21:01

approach it

21:03

i know what i'm about so how do i

21:05

develop

21:07

and i'm not going to fundamentally learn

21:10

more about routers

21:12

or what whatever it is and i've come to

21:15

this point which is this well this

21:17

journey within yourself because the

21:21

experience of you will make the message

21:24

more engaging or palatable or trusted

21:28

and but that's how i talk but

21:30

everybody's trigger is different but i

21:32

wonder what's got you saying that and

21:34

referencing it

21:36

consistently through our conversation

21:38

yeah

21:39

well it came um it started

21:42

back in accenture where

21:47

um i was given the role of human capital

21:50

and diversity lead

21:52

and at the time i actually resented it

21:55

because here was the brown blog being

21:57

given the role

21:58

of the human capital and diversity the

22:00

token role

22:02

right and but actually looking back on

22:04

it who

22:05

and i it was lid after all who gave to

22:07

me who was the ceo for accenture at the

22:09

time

22:10

it was probably the biggest gift anybody

22:12

could have given to me

22:13

because it forced me to think about two

22:16

things

22:17

one is the business case around

22:20

people feeling engaged and a sense of

22:23

belonging

22:24

um and then

22:27

the second part of that role was people

22:30

strategy

22:31

which is what does the workforce of the

22:34

future look like

22:35

and in learning and enforcing myself to

22:37

think about both those things and being

22:39

the

22:40

uh spokesperson if you like for

22:42

accenture in the uk there were 13 of us

22:44

worldwide doing this role

22:46

it forced me to integra intellectualize

22:49

why

22:50

those two things were important so it

22:51

started at an intellectual

22:53

angle and then the more i thought of it

22:56

and more i got into it

22:58

i realized that actually i was not being

23:02

what i was talking about

23:04

right and that was my moment of

23:08

horror if you like that here you know i

23:11

was sort of working

23:12

and when i went to work i was somebody

23:14

else and when i came home i'm somebody

23:15

else and

23:16

trust me this is such a waste of energy

23:20

in doing that so that that was

23:23

sort of the pivotal moment i think when

23:26

that happened and

23:27

that continued because as i went from

23:29

accenture

23:31

to capco one of the things that i

23:34

felt we could really use to

23:37

engage uh hire people and keep them

23:41

who who who were hiring from a deloitte

23:43

and accenture and ey people with big

23:45

brands

23:46

was to say to them that you're going to

23:47

come to a culture

23:49

where you can be yourself at work think

23:52

about it so if you

23:53

you know when you're going to these big

23:55

firms who are world class

23:57

there is such a strong culture that

23:59

there's a little bit of you that you need to leave

24:01

you know outside the door you walk into

24:02

the office we want to create something

24:04

where you can bring all of yourself to

24:06

work

24:06

and it became a self-reinforcing thing

24:09

where we

24:10

brought these brilliant people in we saw

24:12

them flourish because they felt a sense

24:13

of belonging

24:15

the more we saw that the more we wanted

24:16

to do that and so it was a couple of

24:18

things there

24:19

guy that sort of got me to that point

24:22

but it was

24:22

a fairly harrowing journey i would say

24:26

to get there and you know putting the

24:28

mirror up

24:29

initially wasn't always easy

24:32

i'm i i'm smiling because i

24:36

it sounds like i'm doing a plug here but

24:37

i wrote a book called living brave

24:39

leadership

24:40

and it's about trust accountability

24:43

bravery connection and

24:44

various other things and as i was

24:45

writing it i had a bit of an epiphany

24:49

which is bugger i'm not doing all of

24:51

this

24:53

as in intellectually of course i

24:54

understand it and

24:56

i'm even talking to people about it and

24:58

asking them to role model it

25:00

ah crap there was a gap between my

25:04

knowledge of what was right and then the

25:06

who i was being

25:08

so i wasn't a bad person doing bad

25:10

things but i was

25:12

i was a reasonable distance away

25:15

and one of the things i talk about in

25:16

the book is finding a lever for change

25:18

and one of mine has always been if i've

25:21

got two boys and if they

25:23

could see me on a live video stream and

25:26

they were with their friends i mean

25:27

they're eight and six but

25:28

if they you know were of an age would

25:30

they go oh that's my dad that is

25:33

would they go god

25:36

you know as in you preach this in the

25:37

house but that's not what you're doing

25:40

when it come push comes to shove and i

25:42

thought um

25:44

so if this was take your kid to work day

25:47

my little boy might not be proud of his

25:49

dad and that made me very emotional and

25:51

it's one of the levers that i apply to

25:53

myself but it's finding that lever or

25:54

you have

25:55

you might have the realization but what

25:58

then made you

25:59

do it because having the insight is one

26:02

thing oh

26:03

there is a gap there is a difference but

26:06

then

26:07

that's like saying i'm not fit

26:10

yeah okay but what would make you get

26:14

fit and so i wonder was there no it just

26:16

was instinctive the moment i made the

26:18

realization

26:19

off i was off and running or did you

26:21

have to go through that when you say

26:22

harrowing

26:23

i wonder how much of that was oh i'm

26:26

actually now gonna have to do something

26:27

about it

26:28

yeah so you know what was that that

26:30

shift from the intellectual realization

26:32

to the

26:32

actual activities around it yeah no i

26:35

think

26:35

i mean super super question because

26:39

there was i'd say there's a couple of

26:40

things firstly

26:42

forcing myself to do things

26:46

that i was telling other people to do

26:48

but i wasn't doing

26:49

is one example right so for example

26:52

i mean even now it's hard right so this

26:55

summer when all the

26:56

black lives matter uh thing flared

27:00

forcing myself to talk to our ceo and

27:03

our head of comms and saying

27:05

we need to get proactively

27:08

a point of view out without our

27:11

employees saying

27:12

i wonder what our point of view is of

27:13

the phone now that meant putting my head

27:15

above the parapet

27:17

recognizing that you know as a person of

27:20

color i was advocating

27:21

a position for people of color and i

27:24

should not be ashamed of that

27:26

you know that sort of thing and you know

27:30

and doing it in a way where i didn't

27:32

really have to do it

27:33

but i knew that if i was advocating that

27:35

this is how you should behave i needed

27:37

to do it

27:38

right so if i'm going to fulfill the

27:40

promise of what how

27:42

what i offer out yeah yeah i need to do

27:44

it right

27:45

or you know yesterday in fact we had

27:47

this lunch and learn

27:48

on islamophobia month and we had various

27:51

people saying this is my experience

27:53

and somebody asked me would you come and

27:54

talk and you know my my reaction

27:57

before i went to i would have said you

28:00

know if you can get somebody else i'd prefer if

28:02

you've got somebody else because here i

28:03

am

28:04

putting it all out there again right

28:07

and and i did actually i i did actually

28:09

do it but it's a

28:10

conscious it's not my natural style but

28:13

i need to do it to be able to

28:16

progress the objectives of creating an

28:18

environment where people feel safe and

28:20

people feel

28:21

that we're included in a sense of

28:22

belonging so there was there's a set of

28:24

activities that i don't

28:25

don't come natural to me but i have to

28:27

force myself to do it because

28:29

i have internalized that it is the right

28:31

thing for the

28:32

greater good but then the other thing is

28:36

um from my own personal environment when

28:40

i joined capco

28:41

i think it was probably the first time i

28:43

jumped because i joined a ceo so i could

28:45

create an environment in my image

28:47

and the image i wanted to create was

28:49

everybody felt

28:50

a sense of belonging they could be

28:52

themselves at work and so i could be

28:54

myself at work

28:55

it was the best time i've ever had in my

28:56

life because it wasn't it didn't feel

28:58

like going to work i mean you were with

29:00

your mates

29:01

you behaved what you know how you

29:03

thought you you could

29:05

and your mates would tell you when you

29:06

were out of line

29:08

right it was open transparent trusting

29:11

and so there was an energy of actually

29:14

living in that sort of space which

29:16

just reinforced that this is the right

29:17

thing to do if me as an employee feels

29:20

so much better coming into work on a

29:21

monday

29:22

in a place where i belong in a place

29:24

where i feel safe

29:25

in a place where there's good

29:26

communication why don't we create that

29:29

environment for everybody

29:30

because just think of the improvement in

29:33

productivity

29:34

and engagement that you'll get as a

29:35

result of that so there was a

29:37

it just felt the right thing to do and

29:40

that's the big

29:41

question for organizations very often

29:43

you know in these in smaller startups or

29:45

in those private equity based kind of

29:48

places you know you can there's such a

29:49

drive because

29:51

such a singular focus about we know what

29:53

we're here to do

29:55

i mean we all know what we're here to do

29:56

but we really know what we're here to do

29:58

because it's tighter the timelines are

30:00

shorter very often and

30:03

but once you shift into uh maybe from

30:06

the speedboat to the oil tanker

30:08

you know when you go to that larger

30:10

entity

30:11

with that bigger spread and it's not

30:15

35 caffeine addicts in a room that all

30:17

know each other every day

30:19

you know pushing forward but we're

30:21

dispersed and we've got

30:22

different demographics different

30:25

the reality of pushing that into a wider

30:30

playing field i think that's that's

30:32

where it gets really interesting so

30:34

for me um and this is

30:38

it's gonna sound like a trick question

30:39

but it's not because i think you already

30:41

you know i'm not gonna ask you a trick

30:42

question

30:43

but when you're in that you know lucky

30:44

capita you know that large entity

30:48

um

30:50

do you feel that you really are able

30:54

to reach as far as you'd like to

30:58

and and one of the reasons that i joined

31:00

capita guy to be

31:01

totally transparent when i spoke with

31:03

john lewis who just

31:05

joined at the ceo one of his major

31:08

tenants was this

31:09

a business based on a purpose of

31:12

creating

31:13

better outcomes for all stakeholders and

31:16

all stakeholders meaning not just the

31:17

shareholders

31:18

but everybody you know your suppliers

31:20

your employees

31:22

um your partners and so on because that

31:25

for me

31:26

was um i guess a reflection of what

31:30

we're talking about here which is

31:32

there's a there's a big there's a better

31:34

way of doing this just than just be

31:36

razor focus on delivering this product

31:39

or this financial performance and so on

31:41

and john john sort of communicated it to

31:44

me

31:44

and then i saw the proof points in um

31:48

you know we appointed two employees onto

31:50

the board

31:51

yes first time you know in the uk 4250

31:55

forever since the 70s i think a lot of

31:58

interest from across um

32:00

across the uk and across the world in

32:01

doing that

32:03

and so you know so we are we are making

32:06

steps

32:07

uh in you know can you can you do it

32:09

large scale

32:11

and that's a great example of it you

32:14

know we we

32:15

implemented all sorts of procedures

32:17

around

32:19

how many partners that you have

32:22

part of your supply chain should be

32:24

small and medium enterprises

32:26

what are the and you know there's no

32:28

rules for that we made the rules

32:29

ourselves because that was a better

32:30

outcome for them

32:31

what are the payment profiles we want to

32:33

do for small enterprises i we want to

32:35

disproportionately pay them earlier

32:37

because it impacts them more than it

32:38

would impact the larger organizations

32:41

so right across the way we're working

32:43

we're sort of

32:44

rolling this out but as you can imagine

32:46

with an organization with 60 or 1000

32:50

it's it's these cultural change journeys

32:53

are you know they they they're

32:55

multi-year

32:56

shows right long-term aims and i think

33:01

we're part of the journey and i really

33:02

like i really like i just finished

33:04

reading the uh

33:05

the book from simon sinek you know the

33:07

infinite game

33:08

i really like that mindset which says

33:11

you know in this song if you want to

33:12

really run a

33:13

a a business on a purpose and he called

33:16

it a just

33:17

cause then this is about not

33:20

this is not something that you win or

33:22

lose

33:23

this is you you you wit you you play the

33:26

game to be

33:27

in the game and you're in the game for a

33:29

long period of time and the results will

33:31

be over a long period of time

33:33

rather than quarterly results rather

33:35

than we're going to win this particular

33:37

deal

33:38

and that's the sort of mindset that you

33:40

know we've seen but

33:42

we're part of the it's part of the

33:43

journey guy i mean a long way to go

33:46

but i like that and i like that i mean

33:49

everybody wants everything tomorrow and

33:51

and in a world where

33:52

you know very often you can have it

33:54

tomorrow um it's

33:56

it's hard to hold the narrative with a

33:58

lot of people saying

34:01

yeah you're not wrong but actually this

34:03

is the pace

34:05

and that's and that maybe that comes

34:07

down to the amount of trust that they

34:08

have in the individuals that are doing

34:10

it which is why i'm interested in

34:11

somebody's story

34:12

because if you tell me that i might go

34:14

well you would say that because you're

34:16

in a senior role

34:17

but hearing the story you've started to

34:18

just even share about yourself i

34:20

know you're more than i did half an hour

34:22

ago and i already have a sense of

34:25

i think i'd trust your request to be

34:27

patient more than i would have done 30

34:29

minutes ago because i know more of you

34:31

so i guess that's part of that you know

34:33

it's not the message well that's

34:35

that has to be part of it but also it's

34:37

do they trust who's delivering it

34:39

and that's that's got to be a big part

34:40

of it for sure

34:42

yeah no i think that is and i think that

34:44

increasingly and i'm sure you'll find

34:46

this guy

34:46

increasingly organizations if they want

34:49

to get top talent

34:51

i i i know i've talked to my mates at

34:53

accenture or ibm

34:54

and they used to get graduates and you

34:56

say to them

34:57

you know what are you looking for and

34:59

they say i want a career path to get to

35:00

partner

35:01

now they're saying i don't want to be a

35:03

partner i want to do great work

35:05

for great reasons so give me good good

35:07

gigs and so

35:08

this becomes increasingly a business

35:10

imperative it's not even a personal

35:12

belief system although it happens to be

35:14

even if i didn't believe it if i want

35:16

those top talent people i'm gonna have

35:17

to deliver this

35:18

you're gonna have to deliver it right

35:20

and and as you think about

35:22

um you know as you think for example you

35:24

think about how organizations are

35:25

getting through covid

35:27

i think the organizations that will

35:29

succeed afterwards

35:30

will be those who during covet treated

35:33

their people well

35:35

i think that will be a massive thing

35:36

going forward you know did they

35:39

did the organizations during covid

35:42

walk the talk because it was so easy

35:45

to send people home to you know um

35:49

lay people off to create environments

35:52

that weren't safe

35:53

all sorts of things that could have

35:54

happened and and now actually we get

35:56

into another generation another sort of

35:58

phase

35:59

of where you know mental well-being is

36:01

such a big issue

36:02

it'd be so easy for organization not to

36:04

pay attention to that

36:05

and i think i think this is just another

36:06

manifestation of the same thing right

36:08

which is

36:10

trust long-term outcomes and

36:13

making sure that you know the promises

36:15

you make to people

36:16

are delivered even if the organizations

36:19

are massive like other

36:21

so just before we move on to the next

36:23

phase i i reference that as delivering

36:25

the promise

36:26

because we we make a promise and we may

36:28

have made a promise to get you here

36:30

or we may be making a promise to try and

36:32

get you to stay

36:33

but we've got to deliver the promise and

36:36

people are very sensitive to hold on

36:39

that's what you said when when you tried

36:41

to get me to come or that's what you're

36:42

now saying

36:43

to try and make me stay i'm looking at

36:46

my

36:47

my make-believe calendar on my watch

36:49

here you know

36:50

that was a month ago you said that that

36:52

was two months ago you said that

36:54

people are very alert so

36:57

i'm also which is actually one of the

36:59

reasons that i was aware of who you were

37:01

anyway but it also then triggered me off

37:03

was

37:04

um a book from incremental to

37:07

exponential

37:09

i don't know if i've even said that

37:10

correctly but i'd love to hear

37:12

about the thinking that went into it and

37:15

what it means to you

37:16

and why i might want to read it and

37:18

maybe i'd want to pronounce it correctly

37:20

and if you could say you talk about it

37:23

yeah yeah no i mean so uh there's a

37:27

story here that goes back to 1992

37:30

actually so in 1992

37:32

um i did my first

37:36

startup and it was a company that was

37:39

set up by ibm and credit suisse

37:41

so 80 owned by them 20 by employees

37:44

and they did a cobalt generator

37:46

basically so you drew some pictures and

37:48

it

37:49

turned out cobalt and i happened to be

37:52

the second employee in europe this was

37:54

based in north carolina this business i

37:56

happened to be the second employee in

37:57

europe

37:58

and the cto the chief technology officer

38:01

with this guy called vivek

38:03

who had come out of credit suisse a

38:06

massive technology brain um who had

38:09

actually

38:10

built this cobalt generator so um

38:14

fast forward as we've gone through the

38:15

and so here the cto our sales technical

38:17

support

38:18

sales support in europe here with cto

38:20

and we rolled it out to

38:22

you know lloyd's bank robbing scotland

38:24

uh

38:25

dansko bank in denmark and so on small

38:28

startup environment lots of energy

38:30

i was there for about five years and we

38:32

stayed in touch me and vivek and vivek

38:34

did a

38:35

number of startups then he went into um

38:38

academia carnegie mellon harvard

38:41

and as we stayed in touch we had

38:43

differing

38:44

views on the world of disruption and

38:47

innovation

38:48

so i was having my career with csc and

38:51

accenture and ibm

38:53

and i was saying to him that actually

38:56

the winners in this world of creating

38:58

innovation is the big organizations and

39:00

he was saying you're smoking something

39:02

because the startups

39:04

of the world is where all of the

39:05

innovation will come from

39:07

and you know we we had this view until

39:10

at one stage in 2018 we were having this

39:13

conversation and he said i agree with

39:15

you

39:15

actually if there's a star if there's a

39:18

starting gun

39:19

and you've got a brand new startup with

39:21

the best talent and you've got

39:23

an existing organization and they both

39:25

went at it

39:26

if the existing organization got a few

39:29

things right

39:30

they would nail it and so we then

39:33

decided to

39:35

basically do research on that uh and i

39:37

was at ibm at the time and then moved to

39:38

capita and he

39:40

he's still at carnegie mellon in harvard

39:42

and we came at it from the academia

39:44

example and from

39:45

my examples of doing big disruptive

39:48

projects

39:49

in the canadian railways or united

39:52

states

39:53

uh ministry of defense or bank of

39:55

america

39:56

and he was doing it from you know what

39:58

he was doing with some of the government

39:59

work and so on

40:00

and we came up with loads of examples of

40:02

actually if you nail it

40:04

if you meet particular criteria as a

40:07

large organization

40:09

you can really nail what disruption

40:11

looks like and by the way

40:14

you know because of technology getting

40:16

faster

40:17

smaller and cheaper and the convergence

40:20

of lots of exponential things happening

40:22

at the same time

40:24

we're about to go through a golden age

40:26

of innovation

40:28

so whether you like it or not the amount

40:30

of change that we're going through right

40:32

now

40:32

is the least amount of change we'll go

40:34

through for the rest of our careers

40:36

and so we thought we'd write a book um

40:39

and he'd be he'd been telling me

40:40

this is his fifth or sixth book he's

40:41

been telling me to write a book forever

40:43

and uh in the end he said i'll tell you

40:45

what i'll write it with you

40:48

uh and and the the the best thing about

40:51

the book of course is

40:52

when the book was published and i gave

40:54

it to my mum it was the first time she

40:56

realized

40:57

or recognized what i did for a living

40:59

and i'm 55.

41:00

right so i expected my whole life when

41:03

my mom said i still don't know what you

41:04

do

41:06

that's hilarious well whether or not she

41:09

read the book what she my son has got a

41:11

book

41:11

exactly that's exactly right he will be

41:14

he must be doing something right he's going to be

41:16

won't be reading it or understanding it

41:17

probably but he's got a book

41:20

that's exactly i think how my mom

41:21

reacted to it she went that's lovely

41:23

showed all the friends and family year

41:25

in have you read it oh no but i'm so

41:27

proud of you

41:31

so if um who's your audience

41:35

for that who who do you want we started

41:37

off actually

41:38

as um business leaders

41:41

in large enterprises so vivec goes

41:45

around i mean from from a client

41:46

perspective

41:47

i'm going around for example i was

41:49

talking to cabinet office last week

41:51

or other big organizations of

41:55

how can you manage innovation and

41:56

disruption the vet goes around doing the

41:58

same thing

41:59

as a consultant to governments and other

42:01

organizations so

42:03

it was it started off with this is what

42:04

we've learned this is what we should pick up

42:06

but what's becoming clear is that in

42:08

some countries and in india for example

42:10

it's just been published

42:11

i think i think they are looking to use

42:13

it as a academic texts

42:15

for some of the nba type of um

42:18

sort of demographic as well right okay

42:22

i mean i know when you say he's written

42:24

six books i i always

42:26

i had dave ulrich on um the podcast

42:28

who's the hr group and he's i think he's

42:30

over 30 books and i did end up sort of i

42:32

know and i just kind of went um

42:34

i sense dave that you might not have a

42:36

television because while i'm watching

42:38

while i'm watching friends you're

42:39

obviously writing a book

42:41

there are just some people that are

42:42

ahead of the game on those kind of

42:43

things so funny

42:45

somebody says six i go god damn it i've

42:48

got a long way to go

42:49

so um in terms of the future for you

42:53

when you kind of think of i mean i feel

42:56

this energy in you i feel this you know

42:57

while the challenge is there i'm

42:59

definitely going to get stuck into it and

43:01

you know we're going to announce that

43:02

you're leaving somewhere like that

43:04

but you know what what are you hoping

43:07

for maybe that's the question what are

43:08

you hoping

43:09

that the the challenges bring you and

43:12

you know if i speak to you in four or

43:13

five years what what what might i hear

43:16

yeah well i think it starts with this

43:19

view that i honestly believed about this

43:23

golden age of innovation

43:26

and i honestly believe it's going to be

43:28

for the good

43:29

so if you think about um i was reading

43:32

somewhere that if you think about the

43:34

first human genome

43:35

project cost 3 billion dollars took 15

43:38

years

43:39

and now you can get sequence the human

43:41

genome for less than 500

43:44

if you thought if you think about that

43:46

as the track of how accessible some of

43:48

this is of

43:49

you know the water salination projects

43:52

um

43:54

three 4g 5g available everywhere in the

43:56

world so everybody becomes part of the

43:58

community

43:59

um the technology and all of these

44:02

emerging themes coming to the fore

44:05

i think it's gonna be for the good now

44:08

in that environment

44:09

it does mean i think that every business

44:12

every

44:13

industry jobs gets disrupted

44:17

and in and we will create an

44:20

environment which will change the way

44:22

that we live and work

44:23

and so as i look back in five years time

44:25

when we talk again guy

44:27

i want to say that i was involved

44:30

in some of those things that changed the

44:32

way that we lived

44:33

and work and not an observer of it

44:36

and i think that's the opportunity for

44:38

everybody in the workforce

44:39

i think even the people who think their

44:41

jobs are going to be disrupted and we

44:43

did some research with this with london

44:44

business school

44:46

you know they have a great opportunity

44:48

to reskill to do

44:50

one of the new jobs that are going to

44:51

come around right i mean an uber driver

44:53

is a new job that never exists in data

44:55

science is a new job social media

44:56

monitor is a new

44:57

there's all sorts of things that are

44:59

going to be created

45:01

and i think you know it's going to be

45:02

fantastic to be engaged in some of that

45:05

disruption

45:05

across different industries

45:08

and i have a sense that you you will be

45:11

so i'm looking forward to

45:13

following you vicariously from from the

45:15

sidelines

45:16

so listen i'm alert to time and you know

45:19

i i have a sense that

45:20

you know i always i've said this now

45:21

about three times on my podcast which is

45:23

you know

45:23

with with the right um the right food in

45:26

front of us we could i could continue

45:27

this conversation and use

45:29

until you say guy you really must go now

45:31

so so

45:32

but i'm just going to thank you for just

45:34

taking the time out to have a

45:35

conversation i've

45:37

hugely enjoyed it so i'm just going to

45:39

ask you to stay on for a few moments

45:40

while i shut everything down

45:41

just on a personal note just thank you

45:43

so much for making that investment

45:44

really appreciated no brilliant i

45:46

enjoyed it as well as you said we could

45:48

have chatted for a long while yeah

45:50

maybe there'll be a number two but we'll

45:51

go from there yeah

45:53

yeah definitely definitely

46:03

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