186. The Future of Leadership: Overmanaged, Under Led with Graham Wilson

💭 Ever wondered why traditional management styles are falling short in today’s fast-paced world?

Join us for an insightful episode featuring Graham Wilson, the Leadership Wizard and founder of Success Factory. Graham’s extraordinary journey from leaving school at 16 to serving in the military and transitioning to the corporate arena is nothing short of inspirational. We delve into the critical need for educational reform to foster leadership and emotional intelligence, citing Finland's progressive model as a beacon for change. Graham also shares his wisdom on the disconnect between our education system and the real world, where collaboration is paramount.

Tired of the reactive "hamster wheel" of operational chaos? We challenge you to rethink your leadership mindset with Graham's compelling insights. Discover why it's crucial to step back, review performance regularly, and align your vision and objectives to unify your teams. Learn how to balance functional expertise with strategic thinking, effective collaboration, and a values-driven approach to create a thriving organizational culture. Graham's powerful anecdotes will inspire you to foster clarity, empowerment, and autonomy within your teams.

Step into the realm of authentic leadership with Graham Wilson and explore the foundation of Success Factory. From a reflective moment on a beach in Anglesey to the concept of ikigai, Graham's journey underscores the importance of aligning passion, skills, and purpose. We discuss the significance of doing what you love and creating a life tailored to your desires. Graham also shares the inspirational message from his favorite book, "Wabizugi," about resilience. Tune in to gain actionable strategies for enhancing your leadership approach and driving growth and effectiveness in your leadership journey.

🌐 Connect with Graham:
• Website: https://www.grahamwilson.com/
https://www.thesuccessfactory.co.uk/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leadershipwizard/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leadership_wizard

📚 You can purchase Graham's books at Amazon:
• Leadership Laid Bare: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0993139000/
• The New Leadership Manifesto: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0993139019/
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C-Suite Strategies
Welcome to C-Suite Strategies, the podcast where we discuss the art of scaling businesses.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Rethinking Leadership for Modern Times
• 10:15 [Ad] C-Suite Strategies
• 11:03 (Cont.) Rethinking Leadership for Modern Times
• 13:32 Leadership Mindset Shift and Alignment
• 23:11 Empowering Leadership Through Mission Command
• 31:58 Leadership Clarity and Autonomy for Success
• 42:46 Embracing Authentic Leadership for Success
• 53:43 Creating Alignment for Personal Success
• 1:00:45 Leadership Reflections and Insights

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Graham Wilson. Graham is affectionately known as the leadership wizard, and he's also the founder of an organization called Successfactory that has bespoke programs for leadership and also is based on his handbook for leadership, called Leadership Laid Bare, and Graham's fundamental premise here is that our older styles of management do not suit a modern world, and that we are over managed and under LED. So we're going to unpack that a little bit today. Why is it that our former models are not working, and what we need to do differently as we evolve into a new model of leadership. So without any further ado. Graham, I'd love it if you would say hello to the audience, and what I'd love to know is something from your background, what inspired you to be so passionate about challenging the modern day definition of leadership?

Graham Wilsom: 1:01

Thanks Mick, yeah, I think that's a great question. I think what inspired me to do what I do, but I escaped school at 16, and think if I go back to when I was educated, it was a very strange experience for me, where you weren't allowed to collaborate. You know, collaboration was cheating. You had to work on your own, and you had to be brilliant at everything that you did, and pass all the exams. So I thought, I need to escape from this and have a look at the world in a different place. And I joined the military at 16, so I had a really good insight, really into what amazing leadership is all about, and the opportunity that that bought me, and what inspired me to do what I do now, re was the transition from the military to the corporate world, where I realized that a lot of the ideas and thoughts I learned in the military weren't being used in the corporate world, and the fact it was over managed under LED. And I thought, you know, it's not quite right, and at least have a look at that and think about is that the best way to get the best out of people. And clearly my thoughts were it wasn't. And I started really just thinking about, what difference could I make in the world, and if I could awaken possibility in people to deliver extraordinary results, then that's got to be a great thing to do from a purpose point of view. So that's really where I started success factoring. And the aim was really to challenge leaders and to start to think about the context they're actually in now, and think about is what they've been educated for, or have they been managed to pass the right way based on the context changing so much so that's what really inspired me, that was over 30 years ago now, and ever since then, we've been blessed to work with so many different amazing organizations around the world, and it's really great to have that dialog and discussion. And yeah, I'm not here to tell people how to lead I'm here to really get people to think about it and think about what's right in their world, so that difference that we can make and get people to realize the world is different than it was many years ago. And I think covid has probably accelerated that, I guess so that was really what inspired me to do what I do, really, and the fact that we can achieve so much more with a different style of leadership, which is around more humanistic approach, more connected, more trusting, more empowered and more autonomy.

Unknown: 3:23

Yeah, really good, Graham. There's a couple of things there I want to unpack. First of all, congratulations on your success. Well done. There was two interesting things there. And I'm going to tell say both of them, and then we'll unpack one at a time. This transition from how we're educated to what works in the real world is very interesting. And then this aspect around what you learnt about leadership in the military, which I think is quite often misunderstood by anyone that wasn't in the military.

Graham Wilsom: 3:50

Yeah.

Mick Spiers: 3:51

Let's start with the first one. You're dead. Right throughout our education system, we're taught that collaboration is cheating. When we get into the real world, we realize that collaboration is smart, and you don't even have to be the smartest person in the room to be the best leader. What do you think we need to do differently in the education system? Or do we have to change the education model to start introducing some kind of leadership, emotional intelligence, other skills during the formal education stage of our life.

Graham Wilsom: 4:25

I think certainly if I go back to my school and the teacher would ask a question, and if we needed answer, we'd all put our hand up, and then the teacher would tell us whether we're right or wrong. And obviously, if I turned around and had a conversation with my classmates, I'd have been told off and sent to the headmaster or headmistress and told he was cheating. So the other aspect, of course, is that the teacher was always the person with the font of all knowledge had the answers. And we we even organize our own organizations often that way, don't we, where we have subject matter experts in. Different departments heading up particular areas. So I think education does have a big play in our mindset and our behavioral choice, but I think we do need to challenge it. I know, for example, in Finland that have one of the best education systems in the world. They've they've stopped actually teaching subjects in isolation, they start to teach subjects across the board and see how they all interlink. And I think that's really interesting when you look at, say, academia, for example, and many of the MBAs are taught out there. Some are changing, by the way, but some are new world thinking, but a lot of them are still in the old world, where the strategy Professor comes on board and says, week one, strategy is the most important thing in any business. And then next module is a marketing professor comes on board and says, that's the most important thing. And then the finance professor comes on and it's all all done in isolation. So I think the more we can start to challenge the way that we're educated and start to see how it all links together, we talk a lot from a leadership point of view, where leaders move into, certainly into a senior leadership role, where they have to move away from what we call team two thinking, which is, you're heading up their function, into what we call team one thinking. And team one thinking is making decisions on what's best for the organization. And I always say, I always look at a senior team and say, Well, if I can walk into a senior team and not know what role they play, that's a great team, because they're having conversations based on what's what's best for the organization, not defending or fighting for their department. So I think, you know, going back to your question around education, I think we need to really get back to how teachers teach, how they're taught, and how they are educated, and getting them to think about things in perhaps a different way. And I know certainly I've seen in sort of primary schools in the UK where teachers are now actually getting groups together and giving the class a question to go work on. And I think that's a far better way. And I guess that that could be mirrored in leadership content. You know, leaders are often around asking the right questions and then getting the teams to work out. So I think if we, if we can start there, I think that will be a great, great way to introduce collaboration. Break down some of the silos in terms of subject matter, focusing on what individual children's strengths are as well, rather than what they can't do. I often talk about people chasing red dots in business, you know, the KPI scorecard, and they ignore all the green stuff and focus on the one red one. And that really comes from school as well, in terms of our school report, and you've been great at everything, apart from one subject, and we now need to have extra lessons on that one subject to bring us up to speed, rather than saying, Actually, you're really good at maths, let's focus on maths. So I think, I think those sort of, you know, changes would be incredible if we can do that. But you know, the work I can do, really, is to challenge that within organizations and and to start to get leaders to start to think differently, and, you know, let go of the past. I often say on our programs is, you know, that half the challenge really is around getting people to unlearn what they've learned, so that we can start to look at new ways of thinking.

Mick Spiers: 8:16

Are there so many things I want to unpack there, Graham, but I'll start with this. I feel that if you go into almost any organization as either a leadership consultant or it could be a business consultant, anything, and you go in or you might be a new leader that's joined an existing team, and you have that sit down with the CEO, and you're asking the CEO, what what changes would you like to see in this organization? I'm going to put money down that one of the words that are about to come out of the CEO's mouth are, Oh, I'd love to break down silos in this organization. Yeah, it seems universal. And then what I'm hearing from you, you is really interesting to and there's three C's that are coming to my mind. So collaboration, every everyone talks about that, but then what I'm hearing from you is connection, that when we're able to connect the dots and see the interdependencies between the moving parts, once we understand that connection, then we can co create. So absolutely, having a collaborative mindset to make sure it's not a team, to thinking your your term there, get into a collaborative mindset, then map it all out so you understand the connections, and then you can co create. How does that sit with you?

Graham Wilsom: 9:35

I think it's spot on, absolutely. And I think, you know, the at the senior level, what we need to do is to create that, that big picture, you know what? What does that big picture look like? One of the challenges I always ask senior executives is to, is to sit down for a moment and take a piece of paper and draw how their business works. And it's really fascinating when they when they do that, because they they find it really hard to. To actually do that. The other aspect I do as well is to get them to map out on a whiteboard all the programs have changed that they're trying to influence the moment. And it's very interesting when you watch their behavior, because they all list them departmentally. And it's really fascinating how, from a big picture point of view, we're trying to look at what's the connection across the business, and I think you can't do that unless there's clarity in the strategy. What's our what's our purpose, what's our offer, what's our vision, what are our values, and that big picture thinking often is missing, so it's really difficult then to connect it. But we also then, you know, we don't create this system that drives right behavior. I see, you know, so many CEOs go I need to, I need to sort of improve collaboration. I want to break down these silos, and yet, they'll still, you know, set individual objectives. They'll still reward people individually. They'll still have heads of in each department. And, yeah, there's lots of things in the system that can be tweaked and can be changed to start to drive the right behavior and right actions. I don't really believe you can tell people how to behave. You have to create a system in which people can join and want to join and really connect to the purpose. But then the system then drives the right behavior. So if I have I know, for example, individual and team objectives, or I'm rewarded individually and team based, then it starts to shift, shift my thinking and way of working. So there's lots of things we can do, and I think we just need to sort of stop. And I talk about, well, let me go back, actually. So one of the things that inspired me was, one of my hobbies is motor racing, and that came from my dad racing motorbikes and my uncle racing cars. And when I grew up, I used to help them out, and my mum wasn't keen on the motorbikes. It's far too dangerous. I got more into cars, and when I used to listen to my dad and my uncle talk on on a Sunday evening after being racing at different circuits in the UK and Europe, they talked about the race. And what was really interesting was, when you analyzed that pattern that started to come out of their conversation, the pattern was this, is that every time they lost a race was because they were going too fast. And that really resonated with me at the time. It confused me. And again, an eight year old. Yeah, it's all about, you know, throw full on flat out, you know, don't break. Don't need breaks. But actually, of course, you know, to be that athlete level, you need to know when to go fast, but you also need to know when to slow down. And it's normally when they hit a quarter too quick or whatever, that's when they spun off and lost their position, or whatever. So I learned from them, really, at a young age, that you can speed it up by slowing down. And I think that that is so relevant in today's world. I think quite often leaders are rushing around on what we call the hemisphere, I guess are they, and they're so reactive and so operational that once we get them to stop and think about things in their organization, you're thinking, Yeah, well, why do why do we do that? You know, it's that slowing down and taking a breath and reflecting, I think you mentioned before, and that that's often the catalyst. When people were like, yeah, actually, you know what, yeah. Why do we have those sort of types of meetings? Or, you know, why do we set individual objectives? Or, you know, why? Why are we still using annual appraisals, you know, all those sort of things, you know, you if you, if you were in a elite sports team, you wouldn't get to the end of the season, would you and go, How did we do? You know, it'd be constant performance, reviewing and conversation. So there's lots of things that that happening, and organizations think that habitual or have happened because they've happened, and they've always happened. Once you stop and speed up by something now, and you start to challenge some of these things that you realize, actually, that there's a lot of things in our gift that we can change.

Mick Spiers: 14:23

Yeah. I love it, Graham. There's many things I'm picking up there. I do like this less haste, more speed concept, to really slow down and pay attention to what's around us. If we're in firefighting mode every single day, we're never going to notice what's working and what's not working and what we need to do differently. That's very powerful. Then coming back to what you were saying before about the clarity of vision, is when we're going to start having people realize that there is an alignment of objective and getting people growing in the in the same direction. And then I was picking up there this concept. And here's a challenge for everyone listening. Could you answer Graham's question that he asked before, where he sits down with the CEO and says, Okay, map out what your business looks like, as in the flow of your business, how it's all connected, if you're a CEO listening to the show. Now, could you do that in your business if you're a functional team leader. Could you map it out for not just your internal team, but how your team connects into the rest of the machinery, and how these systems and processes work. And then the other thing you brought up there is about the values are your systems and behaviors and processes. This is congruent with the values that you got written on the office wall plaque, or are they actually polar opposite, and they're driving a completely different behavior? Really interesting, already. Graham, I want to ask a question then about what gets us stuck. So you spoke about this. Team Two, Team One. Mindset. Why do so many functional leaders? Sorry to say it, get stuck in Team Two thinking

Graham Wilsom: 16:07

That's what they're good at. You think, if you, if you think about how we get promoted in organizations, in the old command, control hierarchical structure, where you know you're good at your job, you get promoted. You're good at your job, you get promoted. You're good at a job, you get promoted. And then, you know, eventually, yeah, in the old world, that worked because, you know, the pace of change was so slow that, yeah, that's where appraisals came from. Because the person that's doing my job, now that I've been promoted from, I know how to do that job inside out, so I can appraise them. I can tell them whether they're doing it right or wrong. Because it hasn't changed, but in today's world, it's changed, so I can't do that anymore. So I think what happens is we get promoted because we were good at, yeah, we're a subject matter expert. We're the teacher, you know, we are the teacher in that supply chain or marketing or finance, whatever. So it's very hard then to make that shift into now, I've got to think about the whole organization. I see that a lot in consultancies, where you have people who strive to become a partner in their consultancy, and they're brilliant at their particular awards, a team or whatever, or whatever their special ism is, and then suddenly they become partner, and they got to look at the business as a whole and try and win business for the whole business. And all they're looking for is things that they know they can do. So there is a mindset shift, and it's bit like when you when you move it from an individual country to the team leader, that's a massive shift, isn't it? In your way of working to get your results through people? It's the same at a senior level, where you now need to think in a systematic way. You need to one of the questions I often ask senior teams is, just have interest. What are our values? And you can see them trying to picture the poster on the wall. And then the second question is, why do we have them? And after that's met with silence, because people have, haven't really stopped and thought about, well, why do we have values? And for me, that's part of shaping the culture, isn't it? Really is around, you know what? What's our principles? Our guiding principles are our decision making process that should guide our behavior. So, so there's lots of things there that, you know, we can start to think about. And so I think, I think what happens is that, go back to your question in terms of what makes it so hard is that, you know, I'm known for being the expert in in X, my functional expertise, and now I've got to operate in areas I don't know anything about. And I think a lot of leaders feel like they have to have the answers for everything, whereas actually what we need to do is have the ability to be able to think in a more strategic way. We need to be able to think in a more system way. And I think today's world leaders need to craft solutions. So how we collaborate, how we work together? We have to teach a lot of leaders how to collaborate, because they've never really learned how to do that collaboration, not just about software and stuff like that, about how you interact in meetings when you're connecting with people, and what tools and techniques you can use to have a robust discussion and conversation. So I think, I think that's probably the the answer is that I'm comfortable in my, my, my, my zone of genius. Now I'm out in an area where I don't really know anything about marketing or, you know, people, or whatever. That's, you know, that's what HR do. I don't know that either, but we're actually, we need to be thinking that way.

Mick Spiers: 19:25

Yeah. I love it, Graham, so I think you're spot on. By the way, there's lots of transitions that we make in our career, and typically what got us to where we are won't serve us well in, in where we're going in. In fact, it might be the very thing that holds us back, if we are the expert, if we are the expert in this field here, and we keep on drawing back to there, it might actually hold us back from being successful where we need to be now, and to stick up our head and look around in a system effect to understand the interdependencies of that machine. I'll call it a machine for one of a better term, a business is a machine, and it has to work all together. And if you don't understand those connection points, you're going to limit your effectiveness, Yeah.

Graham Wilsom: 20:12

It's always like moving away from machines and mechanical thinking into an organization organism, I guess, which is a more integrated or challenging. I think the other aspect which is interesting is when you see senior people leave organizations and they decide to become a consultant, or whatever they want to do in that world where their title is being removed, and you know, they're not a CEO anymore, and it's really fascinating, because quite a few of them really struggle. Because if you're the CEO. Or any, any C suite sort of title, you can walk into a room and people listen to you because you're the boss. When they, when you take that title away from people and put them in a different environment, they start to struggle. So I think there's lots of different skills that need to be developed as well. In terms of, from Alicia point of view, is, how do I connect with people? How do I influence people? How do I because at the end of the day, I think the only thing we're in control of our leaders is our behavior. The rest of it is about other people choosing whether they want to follow those or not. So how we use different sources of power, how we connect with people, how we build trust, are really key skills that quite often, if you've lived your life in a corporate world where you've progressed in a standardized way of working, where you are positional power is important, then you don't develop those skills. So again, certainly with the younger, younger generation coming through, they don't respect those titles anymore. Yeah, they want to, want to be led by someone who's purpose led, connected, compassionate, will connect to who they are as individuals. And I think that's really fascinating as well.

Unknown: 21:48

Yeah, there's definitely a shift in that. And we are looking at a world where people do look for purpose led organizations and purpose led leaders, for sure, there's no doubt about that. Yeah, I think a key thing that you're touching on there is it can be a challenge to your ego and your very identity when you make these transitions, which can make it difficult to make the shift, and then the ability to let go of things that previously worked for you but will not serve you well now, so you can let Come new skills and new ways of working that might serve you better in your current role. Really interesting. I want to wind us all the way back, Graham to I started off saying that there were two chapters of your intro that I wanted to unpack. Let's get into the military side of this. And I'll say that I mentioned earlier that I think military style leadership is often misunderstood from the outside. It looks very authoritarian, almost dictatorial, etc. But you said that when you shifted from the military into the outside world, you noticed things that were good about military style leadership that were missing in the corporate world, tell us more about that.

Graham Wilsom: 23:01

Yeah, it's really fascinating. I guess most people, when you look at the movies and things like that, you see it as you know, the general atop telling people what to do, and it's very command control. And I think actually it's the opposite. I think in business, it's that way around, but in the military, they very quickly realized through through reflection and through the different contextual combat situations that we've been through is you can't use planning control, you know, you've got to use a different approach. And the essence, really is around what we call their mission command, which is, as a senior leader, you're sharing the mission. And the reason why, you know why we're doing what we're doing, and then you're empowering the team below you to to really, then work out how they're going to achieve that mission. And a number of factors that are important there. One is around. You can only do that when you've got people who are highly trained and highly skilled, you know. So you can't really empower people without direction, autonomy and support. So, so what was really interesting is that I think the military developed, you to a certain standard, so that seeing people know that when they only empower people, people have the skills and knowledge and capability and they've seen that, they know they've passed certain standards that they can work out in the ground. So, so the idea behind it is that classic, the people nearest the problem should solve it. If I'm back in the command center, I don't know really what's going on on the ground, even though we've got amazing problems now and satellite and video and drones and all that sort of stuff now, not in my day, but certainly now, we have a lot more information than we used to. You can't make decisions, and then, unless you're on the ground. And I always think about some of the sports teams we've worked with, and certainly one of the coaches we work with is international rugby coach, and he always talks about, you know, when I'm he was an ex international player, but now a coach, and he'd say, Look, when I'm on a sideline, I'm not the person getting bashed on the pitch, so I can't make those decisions. I'm sat there. I'm a nice patio, a suit and tie on sitting there watching what's going on. And certainly I can look at the big picture and the strategy sort of stuff. But, yeah, I need the players. You know, there's 15 players on the ground that need to be making decisions. They are the leaders. You know, I can coach them, get them to the pitch, but it's down to them to operate. And I think that's the same in the military that we did an awful lot of training, a lot of repetition, a lot of testing and trying out and improving what we do. There were lots of standards that were set that you had to be. Better than to pass to be able to operate effectively. So I think, I think in that environment where you as a senior leader, you are there, sharing the mission. So I guess you know, in a corporate world that will be your job as a senior leaders is around. I call it creating a high performance environment where success is inevitable, and you do that by awakening possibility of people to deliver extra results. That's about building people's confidence and developing them so that they do feel capable to execute. So when you do empowerment, it doesn't feel like that. You know, they're being dropped in a in a sort of a scary, sort of stretch zone or panic zone that they feel they're capable of achieving success. So so our job really is to share, you know, the purpose, the vision, the value proposition, the business model, the values, the ways of working, and then getting out of people's way. And it's about then getting them to sort of take ownership and work it out what their contribution is, but then coming up with plans, and then feeding those plans back to us, and then, and then start to then execute, and the leadership teams are there then to really support and enable, rather than to tell what to do. This is awesome, Graham. I'm going to play back a little bit of what I'm hearing. I'm hearing four really interesting chapters there. Okay, the the first one was around mission, right? So everyone understanding the mission. The second one was around competence. So there was a before someone was delegated, which is going to be the third one, you knew that they had the competence and skills to deal with the situations that were in front of them. Once they passed that test of Yep, you're good to go delegating the decision making to the lowest possible level or the closest to the action, is probably the better term. And then the fourth one is then the vision. Maybe there may be someone sitting up in the bleachers that can see things that others can't see from their perspective, but they're not the one that's down on the ground making the decision on the spot. And I hear, I hear this complaint a lot. We'll we'll hear an organization and listen to this carefully in the audience, you're going to instantly resonate with this, where a CEO has made a decision that they think is it's absolutely spot on. It might be a new HR policy, or something like that. And everyone turns around and goes, Oh, you're so far removed. You've got no idea. You've you're so far from the shop floor, you've forgotten what it's like to be here. Then I want to play on your rugby, uh, metaphor, because it really resonated with me. The rugby, the rugby coach, sitting in the stand, is not sitting there with a walkie talkie going, okay, to the fly half. Let's say okay, kick the ball now. Kick the ball now. Or Pass, pass. That doesn't happen. They're looking back and they they might be picking up things and going, oh, there's a weakness in the you know when, when there's a line out the the opposition right winger is is coming up too far in the field. They might see things and pass the messages down, but the instant decision making is the fly half, or is the scrum half, or is whoever's got the ball at the time? How does sit with you? Absolutely, yeah, yeah. I mean, I have to mention Yeah, when England be Australia and the World Cup in Australia? Have, yeah, the reason we did that, of course, is about so many leaders on the pitch. I guess, you know, I made a lucky drop goal. I don't know anyway, but I think, I think I think you're right. I think you know in terms of your leadership, you know, as senior leaders, we can see the bigger, bigger picture and the strategy stuff. And the problem is we get wrapped up in the in the day to day operational stuff, so often we miss some of the strategic stuff and maybe what the competition is doing. And you'll often talk to leaders say, so how much time do you spend getting outside your business and, you know, scanning the horizon and looking at what other organizations are doing? And it's very little, yeah, they're busy. They're busy doing their day to day sort of stuff. And so I guess what happens then is you get this sort of situation where your command, a command, is given from this, this the senior team, whatever. But then they start meddling, and they start getting involved, and they start messing around. And, you know, the people on the ground, there's a phrase that says, you know, in the military, is that the people, the person who has the knowledge, is in control. So if I'm in a firefight and I'm the senior person, but I can't see what the enemy's doing, then there's no point me being in control. It's a person who can see what the enemy's doing is in control, and they need to step up in that moment and get us out of trouble. So again, that all links into high performance team workings on it and care and trust and having each other's back and all that sort of stuff. But, but I think, yeah, I think that sort of level of decision making in organizations is true, and you think about the typical organization is if it's command and control, the implication. Is that the knowledge is at the top of the business, and what they do is they create the plans, and then they cascade it down, and then they require a reporting system that goes back up. And as we know, every time the plan goes down, every level it changes, and then every time the data goes up, it changes. So then what happens is the people at top are making decisions based on the wrong data. And that's why you get this. People on the ground going, Why have they made that decision that doesn't make sense? And there's loads of examples of that aren't there in history, certainly in, yeah, I think in military history, example, in Vietnam, I think within the first few weeks of Vietnam, I think the US have wiped out the whole of Asia, can't they, I think, in numbers wise, because everyone was adding a few more, and, yeah, they were then making decisions based on the wrong data. And I think the sad thing is that happens a lot, so for me, it's more, you know, why? Why do leaders need to check up? I mean, I have a big distaste for update meetings where, you know, leaders call meetings where everyone has to say what they've done. We should know that anyway, I shouldn't need to do that as a series of one to one. Start a team meeting. Let's, let's get together and solve some real problems together. So that, I think, I think from a from a leadership point of view, is that, you know, if we, if we frame this clarity and give people a decision making a framework. Often say to people, say, look, how do you make decisions in this business? And they don't, because they have to ask the person above them to make that decision, to ask the person above them, and that stage was too slow. And the reason is they haven't got clarity around why they exist, what we're here to do, and how should we do it, and if you have the why and the what and how in place, then you can make a decision, yeah, quite easily. Is, is what I'm about to do aligned to our values? Is it going to help us to achieve our purpose? You know? Is it going to take us a step further to our vision? Does it help us to achieve our KPIs and goals? Yeah, it does. Okay, I'm going to do it. I don't need to ask permission. And I think that's where, yeah, we need to get to in today's world is creating this empowerment where we have direction. We still need direction, but people have that autonomy, and I think that's where the standards and skills come in. Where you can't have autonomy unless you've got the skills and the knowledge and the ability to make decisions and then the leadership team there are there then to support and then help and enable.

Unknown: 32:59

Yeah, really good. So this autonomy for sure, coming with the clarity that you spoke about, so everyone understands the rules of the game. Let's call it the competence and the skills are there, and then we can have this empowerment and trust. But what we shouldn't do that we immediately kill that trust if we empower someone and say, Yeah, off you go. And then 15 minutes later, we're checking in and going, how did you go? Kind of it's, yeah, there is a there is a little bit of that and and this cascading and then sending it back up the tree. We're losing time that the change, the story gets changed, so it's no longer accurate. And we're also losing time and we're no longer responsive. And guess what happens then? Well, then our customers get frustrated too, because they they're wanting action from your frontline team, and all of a sudden, five weeks have gone past, and the question I asked the team five weeks ago hasn't been answered, so it's also this responsiveness to the market as well.

Graham Wilsom: 34:01

I can give a really good example that where I was asked by a new sales director goes to business and he says, Graham said, I've got, I've got these salespeople working for me, not very good, because we're not hitting their sales targets. Can they come in and train them and so, well, yeah, I don't really know who they are, what they do. I think, can I, can I go out and visit them and meet them and talk to them and find out how it all works. Yeah, sure. So I went out with all the sales guys and canal really, really good, but I did notice we only went out on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. That's really interesting. I wonder why that is. I thought maybe it was just a customer base or whatever. But what I found out was this, is that none of them left home on Monday because the new sales director said, you need to write a weekly territory plan for that week to tell me where you're going. So they would spend Monday morning writing a plan, send it to him. He would then change it, and then they would then go out on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. To do the plan. On Friday, they had to write a report on what they've done that week. And I'm thinking that's interesting. So I thought I'm gonna have to be really brave here. And, you know, say it as it is. And so at the meeting with the service, right? They said, so what do you think of Graham? He said, they're not very good, are they? So I think they're brilliant. I said, the problems with you? He recomposed, well, what do you mean the problems with me? I said, Well, they're only selling three days a week. Why don't you enable them and get out their way and let them sell for five days a week? And this is what do you mean. So, well, no one goes out on Monday because they've been to write this report for you. So yeah, but I need to know what they're what they're doing. So well, why do you need to know what they're doing? Because they're really experienced people. And then why don't you need to report on the Friday? Well, I need to, well, actually, all. To make it surely, and we had this big debate and discussion eventually got to point where, yeah, that happened. And lo and behold, you know, they started selling more, you know, yeah, we did some team sessions with over a period of time, and we got to a great point. And but I don't think it happened. Does that happen? How many, how many meetings do your listeners have to attend that add no value. If you add that up over the year, one of our colleagues, of ours, he wrote a book about meetings. Will it be donuts? And it's like, can't remember exactly, but it's either five or six years of our working life that we're in meetings that had no value, thinking, Why? Why do we keep doing that? You know, we need to sort of change the way we we did exactly.

Unknown: 36:20

Yeah, really good. So we're getting into this concept around being over managed and under LED. The challenging question I'm going to ask you now, Graham, it's going to be people listening to this and almost having PTSD and going, Yeah, I'm living through that right now. They might be the leader themselves, or they've had a leader that's done this. Where does someone start if they want to go? Yep, enough is enough. It's time to rebalance and to flip the script and be under Managed over it. Or maybe that's not the right term, either. But you know what I mean? We rebalance?

Graham Wilsom: 36:54

Yeah. So I think, to me, you've got to decode it. I think for me to be an effective leader, the first thing is you need to understand your context. So understanding the big picture, the strategy of the organization, understanding the context you're in. If I'm, for example, Siemens is a global client of ours, so if I'm leading a digital lab in Manchester, the UK, that's different than running a manufacturing site in Melbourne, for example. So understanding the context you're in is really, really important. Second thing then really, would be to really, be really clear about leading self around understanding who you are as a leader, understanding what your purpose is, understanding what you think you should be doing in your context, and how you operate your working routines. And often, when I'm coaching people, it's often down to little changes, like, you know, not not having your phone next to your bed and looking at emails every morning and then driving to work and telling people off for all the mistake. So it can be little, little subtle changes in your habits, so it can make a massive difference. So being really clear about yourself and being able to articulate that. I always say your leadership's about connection. So if you if you can't explain who you are as a person and what's important to you in the non negotiables and your drivers and values, then why would anyone want to connect with you? So being able to articulate who you are, I think, is really important. The second thing that is your success as a leader really is down to your team. So none of this works really, unless you can build a high performance team. So learn how to build a team really be clear about it doesn't happen by chance. It is a process. There are steps that need to be in place. The team needs to know the purpose. They need to connect with each other build trust. Need to be clear about their goals and values and principles and ways of working, and you need to set that up. And then you then need to stay in high performance for your team. And then once you've got a team in place, then you can then really start to create what I call a plan on the page, which is whatever part of the business you run, or business you run is, it's always a there's always a gap between where you are now and where you want to get to. If I have a sports team, you know, we want to we're number three in the league. We will be number one, you know. So what are the things we need to change to get there? So having a plan to be able to do that, I think, is really, really important. And then you got to then be able to communicate that plan with other people within the organization. And then you've got to be really clear about work. How do we align behind it? And then how do we review and reflect and create a way of working, or a cadence, really, that works within your business? I think when you start to make those changes, you know, I realize that end of the day, it's all about it's all about people. And you know, my successfully, it's not down to me, it's around the people I build around me and the people I develop. And I always talk about this, you know, how many, how many leaders have KPIs around confidence? You know, I really believe we I spent a lot of time in the military making sure that the teams were confident. You know, confident to operate in a jungle, confident to operate in a desert, confident to operate in the northern, Northern Europe or in the Arctic. And yeah, we would do that develop systems that would build people's confidence so that if something happened, we could drop them in at the drop of a hat, and they would be confident to operate. I mean, how many leaders actually sort of drive into work in the morning, or get the train into work, or walk into work and think about, yeah, if I built the confidence my team, yeah, are they really confident? Quite often, it's the opposite. We end up seeing people being micromanaged and their confidence being destroyed. And it's around how you then develop your team. And yeah, I always say, if you're in a corporate world, you can't be promoted unless you. Got a great team around you with a successor, so you will stay where you are unless you can develop the next person's can take over your role, so that you can then move to your next role. So there's lots of simple things we can do. It's not rocket science. I think that the first thing really is being being really clear about the context who you go as leader. Lead it. Create a way of leading in your way which is authentic. Build your team. And once you build the team, then it's enabling the team to create a plan and then execute. And often it's around building trust, isn't it? When you trust people, they'll surprise you and not talk about naive trust, yeah, the way I we talk about empowerment, again, you only empower people. They've got the skill and knowledge and capability to deliver otherwise, just a bit stupid, aren't you? Think about it that way. But if I build my team, yeah, and then just enable them, support them, remove the blockers, and that's when the magic happens.

Mick Spiers: 41:40

Yeah, really good, Graham. And I'm hearing a lot of elements around being a multiplier, essentially, that you're going to be successful through your team. And I think it's Zig Ziglar, famous saying the best way to be successful is to ensure the success of those around you, and by getting them out there and going so there were a lot of things I picked up there, though. It did start with self, when you described this leading self, role modeling the behaviors, building the team, building the confidence of the team, enabling the team, empowering the team, trusting the team. But it's a bit of a continuum. You also had that foresight there of knowing where you are today and where you want to be, and how are you going to get there? And I'm going to, I'm going to pick up another theme that I've noticed throughout this discussion, Graham, is that you ask, you're asking our audience, I'm going to say indirectly here, to ask themselves a lot of challenging questions. So in different parts of the story today, with the sales director that you're talking about, what, why do you need that report. Why do you need that plan? That weekly plan? What? What purpose is it serving?

Graham Wilsom: 42:46

Yeah.

Unknown: 42:46

Have I built the confidence of my team? These are all great questions that we should be asking ourselves. And if we're paying attention and we're self reflecting, we'll get better as a leader, day by day. And when we're better as a leader, we'll create the environment where other people can do their very best work, and then the results will come. How does that sit with you?

Graham Wilsom: 43:06

Absolutely, that's a great summary. Really, I think, yeah, just said when we key code it and we we pause moment and think about, what am I really here to do? Yeah, I'm not really here to check on people. Am I? I'm there to support and enable people. And I think once we start to make that shift, yeah, that mindset. And I think a lot of people get a little bit scared, don't they, and they sort of revert to type, don't they? And I need to know what that person's doing. Well, yeah, if I create the right environment with the right principles, and what is it working then, you know, I can manage by exception, which means you I can, I can do stuff like that I should do. Had an example of a project manager I was coaching where his boss said, select. So he's been really great, but for some reason, on for later, last couple of projects he's run, he hasn't been successful. And I say, Okay, well, let's, let's go have a chat with him. And I was always when I'm coaching, it's almost like the first few conversations I call what I call head coaching, where it's just technical stuff, and then you get down to the heart, I don't do the real stuff normally, the minds, normally, mindset and skill set, really, that sort of gets in the way and and what I was founding is a lovely guy, really positive, bought into the business, but absolutely burnt out. And what had happened, really is that he'd been running some smaller projects and had been really successful. And actually he was doing the projects, he was actually doing the work. And obviously he got rewarded with a bigger project and then a bigger project and a bigger project, he got to a point where it just wasn't possible for him to do all the work anymore. He had to have a team, but no one had really shown him how you to build a project team, and the opposite project team is different, like, because they're cross functional, and they don't report to you and all that stuff. And so the poor guy was just like, inundated with work, trying to do all the stuff himself, not being able to contact his stakeholders and do the strategy stuff and all the things he should be doing as a project manager on bigger projects. But once we, once we'd shared that, and started to show him that, yeah, his job was to get results from the people and his team, and his job was to get the team together and then get the team then to create the plan with him to then, for him to then, to then to enable that plan to happen. Suddenly his eyes lit up, and he's been really successful since. But so I think you know there are situations on there where you know some of these things happen without you, you being sort of aware of them, and it's not until you stop and think and reflect and think and hang on this. Yeah, that's. Lot, right? I need to think about this in a different way.

Unknown: 45:40

Yeah, love it. What I love about that story is the curiosity there, quite often will label someone as a poor performer, in this case, a former high performer that all of a sudden is struggling, but we'll label them and go, it's just not working anymore. But have the curiosity to go, well, what's the real challenge? And to be able to find what the real challenge was, and then little tweaks, and off you go, your high performers back, right? So, but to have that curiosity, to work out what the real challenge is, and it could be a limiting belief, or it could be, you know, something that's missing in that model, I want to add something that's another reflection of something you said a moment ago, Graham, that's also going to come with a little bit of self compassion for our audience. As you listen to this, I want to play on what you said about creating your own model of leadership that's authentically you. What I'm going to put to you is many of these behaviors that we're talking about are behaviors that we're mimicking the behavior of leaders before us. So because no one really come back to our education, all the way back to the start of this interview, no one really showed us what it was to be a leader early in our career. So what was our only reference point? It was to mimic the behavior of those before us, which is a hit and miss situation.

Graham Wilsom: 47:04

Yeah.

Mick Spiers: 47:04

Thoughts.

Graham Wilsom: 47:05

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, I think two things there. One is, obviously, you know, the world's different, and everyone would agree to me that that, yeah, the pace of change is so fast now it's it's hard to keep up with it. So, yeah, we hear about this VUCA world, don't we, and all this sort of volatility, uncertainty, all that sort of stuff. So I think, you know, if we're, if we're mimicking people from the, what I call the Old World, that context was completely different. If I think about my dad, who are a lot of respect for instead of not here, but lots of respect for him. He was a senior leader with Shell so really respect what he achieved, but he led in a completely different way that than that's required now. And and I think that's that's really important, is, so what is the context you're in? I think that's one thing. I think it was a golf that's talked about, it's about being you with skill. So I think sometimes people can use authenticity to behave badly. I would do that because of, no, you just behaving badly. You're choosing to behave badly. So I think, I think, you know, we still need skills to balance with that, but I think we don't spend enough time looking at our strengths and what we're really good at. But if I think I found it a lot easier in a more senior role than I did in a junior role, because I'm not a big fan of detail. I'm not a big fan of sort of standardized processes and operating processes, and that can I quite like, that conceptual thinking, like strategy is easy for me. I like that. I naturally think in a big picture way. And often think about that I was quite lucky to progress through my career and then start my own business 30 years ago. So had that ability to be able to progress. But often wonder how many people never made it to a senior role because they weren't a very good Junior manager, but actually they could be a really good Senior Manager, because that's their natural lateral style. So I think that I'm 63 this year, so I'm still learning stuff about myself. So I think that journey of self discovery and self awareness and playing to your strengths and really, really understanding what you're naturally gifted at and what's your zone of genius. I think if, if we do that, then you know, we're going to be successful. And it's really sort of, I look at some of the sports coaches that I talk to and teams you work with, and they talk about many years ago, what they used to do is they used to look at the best players in the world, and they would create a model about how they how they kick a ball, example, or how they did it. Then they would teach that to children. They don't do that anymore. What they do to it. Their kid is able to kick a ball, so they kick a ball, and they coach the child to kick a ball in the best way for them. And I think that's a great analogy, really, for what I think your leadership should look like in today's world. Is that, you know, the more we are ourselves, the easier it becomes. I think a lot of people become overwhelmed and stressed because they're trying to, trying to be someone they're not. We see a lot of that with, you know, sadly, in today's environment where women haven't got a level playing field, from a leadership point of view, clear in place, and a lot of women are trying to be someone they're not, and rather than being who they really are and bringing a real self to work, and when they do that, they're really successful. So I think, and as not just women may. As well. I think, I think the more we can do that, and the more we can create environments where people feel comfortable bringing their real self to work, I think it's getting better. I think a lot of lot of organizations are becoming a lot more intelligent, aren't they? Around valuing difference, celebrating difference, bringing diversity to play, making sure that people feel comfortable being who they are, but as long as they're doing that with skill, and it's not, you know, destroying sort of situation. So I think, I think that's, yeah, the secret isn't about, I think many success here, whether it's elite sport or whether it's leadership or any any business aspect, is the more you are yourself. My my grandfather, he ran the dock in Liverpool in the UK. And back in the day, it was like gang warfare, really, to be fair, it was pretty tough environment. And when he when he retired, he retired running the largest to Becca tobacco warehouse in the world, which is Stanley dock, which is now the Titanic hotel in Liverpool. And when he retired, I said to him, what's the most important thing you learned about leadership? And you know, he said, you know, for him, leadership was all about being real.

Mick Spiers: 51:54

Yeah, being real.

Graham Wilsom: 51:54

The more real you are, the more people will connect at you at the right level. If you're trying to be someone you're not, then people feel that they sort of see that as I know danger, or whatever it is, or something, something in our psyche that says horrible, not really sure about that person, whereas the more real you are. And yeah, that, you know, I think the word vulnerability hadn't been invented at my granddad's era, but I made mistakes, maybe, I think they used to call it interpersonal skills back then, didn't they, and all that sort of stuff, but, but those sort of, you know, human connections, because he, yeah, he had to lead, although he was the leader of the docs, you know, he had to get things done in a in a very interesting way. And it often wasn't the most senior person that he needed to go talk to. It was, yeah, the person who had the most influence, let's say, within the gangs that he had to sort of work with. So, so that real and that connects. The other day, at least, it's all about connection and conversation, isn't it?

Mick Spiers: 52:50

Yeah, spot on. And I like this word real, and I think we are getting better at allowing people to show up as their authentic self. But this world real is really powerful, because when we're real, we're relatable, and when we're relatable, we can build the connection that you're talking about, Graham, all right,

Graham Wilsom: 53:08

Yeah, absolutely.

Mick Spiers: 53:09

Spot on. I've absolutely loved this conversation. It's been a gem. I could talk to you for hours, Graham, but I think we better let our audience, so I'd like to now bring us to our Rapid Round. So these are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. What's the one thing you know now? Graham Wilson, that you wish you knew when you were

Graham Wilsom: 53:30

Do what you love. Yeah. Do what you love. Yeah. So 20? I think when I started success factory, I was sat on a beach, actually, in the UK ash in Anglesey in north Wales, with a piece of paper in the middle of a piece of paper I wrote, living a wonderful life. And then this sort of like mind map started to come out of what the things that at that time for me were living a wonderful life, what that meant and what I should be doing. And it was like created this vision of how I want to lead my life, and then I said to myself, Okay, well, in order to achieve that, what must I do? And that's really where success factory came from, was that you know that clarity, so I think you know if you're doing what you love, and ikigai, I think the phrase on it where you know, you can get paid for doing the stuff you love, but also the stuff that that is the skill set for you, which is natural, you know, I think, I think, once you've got that, it just flows and be clear about your purpose. And my purpose is about awakening possibility and people to deliver extra results. So if I've had a, if I have a tough day, I can get into the as well. Yeah, have I got someone to think? Have I have I asked the right question, Have I got them to sort of challenge what they do? Then, if I have, it's a great day. And that's it, you know, so simplicity, do what you love, be clear about your purpose and and create a life that you want love. It. Don't fall into that trap of creating something that someone else wants.

Mick Spiers: 54:56

Yeah, really cool. The intersection between what you love, what you're good at, what you can be paid for, and then solving a problem that the world needs solve, or at least one other human being needs that service. And then, then, what's your favorite book?

Graham Wilsom: 55:13

Favorite book, apart from, apart from my own?

Mick Spiers: 55:18

Go ahead, I'll give you the last time.

Graham Wilsom: 55:21

Well, actually, there is a book which is my favorite book, and it's close to my heart. Actually, it's actually one that I wrote with my daughter. So my youngest daughter, Jenny, has cerebral palsy, so she's in a wheelchair. But yeah, she had a great life, and she. Was told she wouldn't be successful at school. She was really successful. Got all her exams, she went into sport, she played wheelchair basketball. She's married, she got a child so really successful in that, in that viewpoint, and has overcome lots of challenges in her life. So we wrote a book around resiliency, and in that book, it's actually called Wabasugi, because we couldn't call it the book of resilience, because Jenny wouldn't let me do that. Actually, that's boring. So what we're going to do, so at a time, we're doing a lot of stuff with Japanese companies around the Kintsugi concept around you can be broken, but you can be rebuilt to be something more beautiful. And wabasavi, which is around the world of acceptance and accepting who you are and things like that. So we create this word, wabazoogi, and we then create a model of resilience. So yeah, I know it's something that I wrote with Jenny, but it tells her story, very personal story, about her life and her challenges at school and, you know, being excluded all those sort of things about how she how she overcame that and has achieved success, and not without its ups and downs, but, but a great story there and then. We share lots of tools, techniques, but like leadership, labor, we share lots of techniques and tools for becoming more resilient. So I guess, from a personal point of view, my favorable, but if I, if I look at a book that I read recently, I quite, I quite like what I call airport books. And airport books are ones where you can take off the shelf and read it in 30 minutes before you fly books. And I read one the other day, quite a while ago now, it's called the gift, and it's by Spencer Johnson, who wrote, who moves my cheese and all that sort of stuff. American Great or great author. And on the on the front of it, as it has a box with a ribbon on it, and it says, like the present, the secret, secret of life, or whatever, I think it was on that anyway, I thought that's pretty cool. So I read it and I got to see anyone. I thought I didn't. I didn't really get that. What was, what's the gift about? I didn't, I didn't really get it at all. So I had to buy it. So I bought it, and I read it again on the plane, and, okay, I was going to Amsterdam or something like that. So about an hour and a half, two hours on the flight. And really what it was saying was this, this concept of, there's nothing really you can do about the past apart from learn from it. There's nothing really about the future you can do because it hasn't happened yet. But the secret to life is about being present. And that's that's for me, is what life's all about, is being in a moment, and it really resonates. That's probably my most simplest book. But, you know, real check around fact that, how often aren't we present, where we think about next, next, next when you know, it's all about connection, creating memories and actually being in the moment. You know, doing this session out of being in the moment and being in tune with each other is what it sort out, isn't? It doesn't matter what's happening world. It's about being in the moment. So that's my favorite book.

Mick Spiers: 58:49

Really powerful, Graham. I love it. What's your favorite quote?

Graham Wilsom: 58:53

Quote? Quote we were talking about before? Is it? What's my favorite? Is that it's hundreds, hundreds of quotes. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you one that I don't know whether I traded it, but spinning up by slowing down my quotes. It's, it sort of resonates with a lot of people. When we do our training programs go off and people go, you know what that, that one sentence you said about the story about your dad and your uncle, and you know when, when they lost the race, they're going too fast, and, yeah, I've been going too fast, and I've just realized that I need to know when to slow down, but also need to when slow speed up. So speeding up by slowing down is probably my favorite quote.

Unknown: 59:30

Yeah, really powerful and very much in line with our conversation today. Finally, there's going to be people listening to this, Graham who are enthralled by what you're saying. They may be caught in that very trap that we speak speak about, about over managed, under lead. How do people find you? If they'd like to know more about you, your books, your programs?

Graham Wilsom: 59:52

Yeah, probably the easiest way is onto the website. So there's a couple of our training website, which is the successfactory.co.uk, so on there will be all our corporate stuff, but there's a personal website, which is growinglesson.com and on there, there's a store, you know, and you're welcome to download lots of resources, free resources. There are some questionnaires that we we've developed through score app, that people look at their leadership style, resilience, meetings, teams. There's tons of stuff on there you can have a look at. But yeah, that's probably the best places to have a look at. And obviously, if they want to drop me an email, it's graham.wilson@successfactory.co.uk.

Unknown: 1:00:36

Brilliant. Thank you so much, Graham. I. Have absolutely adored this conversation. There's been so many gifts in this for our leaders to go away and think about things that they can immediately reflect on and immediately try in the way that they their whole mindset about the way that they approach their leadership. Thank you so much for the gift of your time with your presence here with us now, and for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us.

Graham Wilsom: 1:01:02

It's my pleasure. It's been fantastic. Thank you very much. Thanks for the opportunity.