Empowering a team in a changing climate

Julia: 00:00:00

A changing environment with huge amounts of uncertainty has become the norm, but have leadership styles adjusted to suit the context that they are now operating within?

Julia: 00:00:11

My guest this week has witnessed and been part of an industry-wide change that has created huge uncertainty for all stakeholders.

Julia: 00:00:20

And he has found that focusing on purpose and why we are here brings out the best people and ideas.

Julia: 00:00:28

You'd think that this would be fairly obvious and more commonplace, but when faced with uncertainty, often the human mind tries to cling to what is already known and tries to control people and ideas.

Julia: 00:00:41

I'm Julia Rebholz, welcome to Generative Leaders.

Simon: 00:00:48

I guess I'm, I'm sort of have a little bit of a history.

Simon: 00:00:51

It goes back a little way.

Simon: 00:00:53

Um, I've done a few things in my time.

Simon: 00:00:56

Um, back in history.

Simon: 00:00:57

I'm a, I'm a physicist with a, from an academic point of view, I'm an accountant by training, but by experience, um, I'm in the, I'm a power industry operator, uh, who's constructed and run power generating units of all different sorts.

Simon: 00:01:16

Um, sort of coal power stations, gas power stations, and in the last 10 years, renewable power stations.

Simon: 00:01:24

So that's on and offshore wind farms and biomass farms and also, um, networks.

Simon: 00:01:29

So interconnectors and those sort of things.

Julia: 00:01:32

Thank you Simon.

Julia: 00:01:33

So, what does generative leadership mean to you?

Simon: 00:01:38

Ge generative leadership is leadership which is driven through purpose.

Simon: 00:01:43

So rather than leadership driven through objective.

Simon: 00:01:46

So leadership by objective is, is by setting a clear outcome, be that a target measured by money or by specific outcome and delivery whereby you say to everyone in a team, this is what's important and this is what we're going to achieve, and that's what success is.

Simon: 00:02:06

Generatively the ship is not that it is by purpose, which is to explain in a broader sense why we are here.

Simon: 00:02:15

We are here for a reason of existence, to achieve something broader and greater than any individual specific target.

Simon: 00:02:26

And, and in doing that, what it doesn't do

Simon: 00:02:29

is deliver short-term immediate results.

Simon: 00:02:33

But what it does do is give everybody the opportunity to contribute in the way that's best for them to a broader big picture delivery.

Simon: 00:02:44

And, and, and why that's so significant is in a world of change, in a world of uncertainty where something is not clear, generative leadership is the strongest way in which to manage a business or manage an activity.

Simon: 00:03:02

And I had a specific example of that, and it is when I worked at, uh, Centrica and, uh, ran the power business, um, and we, we had, the gas fired power business, which is eight, eight gas fire power, uh, units.

Simon: 00:03:17

And, and the team there had been there for a long time.

Simon: 00:03:20

And it's a very traditional business.

Simon: 00:03:23

It's a very industrial business, which is sort of full of engineers really, and project managers.

Simon: 00:03:29

And it's very structured business.

Simon: 00:03:31

And, and in this, it's, you know, historically, if you were called, you fired up your, your, your, um, generator and you generated power for the country and you ran for a while and then you shut down when you weren't needed.

Simon: 00:03:44

And, and it went sort of almost militaristic in a way and, and very structured.

Simon: 00:03:49

And so it was simple.

Simon: 00:03:50

You, you were, your target was to be available when you were needed and make sure your power station operated appropriately.

Simon: 00:03:57

And so very engineering, maintenance orientated large capital spends to keep things running properly.

Simon: 00:04:03

And therefore it's a very, it was a very directive business.

Simon: 00:04:07

It was a very command and control business sort of historically.

Simon: 00:04:12

Um, during the time that I was, um, in charge of that business running that business, um, the, the economics of the business changed and actually the power stations weren't needed, and they were unprofitable.

Simon: 00:04:24

And it, the whole question about whether these business had a future was called into, uh, sort of was raised.

Simon: 00:04:32

And the issue there was that we had about 14 sort of senior leaders and then, um, 600 people in total.

Simon: 00:04:39

And I, and I had to kind of work out with my senior team, how do I deal with that?

Simon: 00:04:44

What do we do with this group of people who are used to being told exactly what to do and how to operate in a world where we had a really uncertain future about whether we'd even be operating in a year or two's time?

Simon: 00:04:55

And and what sort of model do you use and how do you sort of motivate people?

Simon: 00:04:59

And, and the way we sort of concluded the, the way to do it is we brought everyone together.

Simon: 00:05:03

We brought the 40 leaders together and we said, just gonna tell you the truth here, I don't know what the future looks like.

Simon: 00:05:11

I don't know whether we're gonna be in business in a couple of years time.

Simon: 00:05:16

What I do need you all to do is to operate our business really safely, properly and to provide motivation to our team to do the job the best they can, and help them through what's gonna be a very, very difficult time, and to really sort of give them the ownership of that in the way that was best for them, rather than be very directive in, in, in that.

Simon: 00:05:45

And it was a kind of a bit of a risk really.

Simon: 00:05:47

'cause it hadn't happened that way before.

Simon: 00:05:49

Previously everybody had just been given their targets and then sort of driven in a very directive way.

Simon: 00:05:55

And, and we ran that for about 18 months in that way.

Simon: 00:05:59

And it resulted in a number of those, um, we ended up with a number of those stations being closed and the residual of them being sold.

Simon: 00:06:07

So it did sort of, the business ended.

Simon: 00:06:09

The thing I'm really, really proud about is the performance of the business from a operational and safety point of view, in that remaining 18 months was the best it'd ever been across the life of that portfolio.

Simon: 00:06:22

And I and I, and I like to think I can't prove, but I like to think it's because we gave the responsibility and the ownership of leadership to that group in that way, and that's my demonstration of generative leadership.

Julia: 00:06:35

Brilliant.

Julia: 00:06:35

Thank you, Simon.

Julia: 00:06:36

And you know, it, it's so, it is so simple, isn't it?

Julia: 00:06:40

When you kind of boil it down to the key components that you shared there is you told people the truth.

Julia: 00:06:47

You gave them ownership over what they could do with that truth.

Julia: 00:06:52

Um, and then you created the space for them to perform at their, their best.

Julia: 00:06:58

it's kind of common sense really, isn't it?

Simon: 00:07:00

Well, what, so there's always an argument, isn't there, about, about being positive, always giving the positive side of the world, not being pessimistic and saying we're doomed, which is kind of was, you know, there was uncertainty and we might be doomed and, and if you consider losing your job.

Simon: 00:07:16

You know, being a kind of doom thing, you gotta be careful not to be that.

Simon: 00:07:21

But equally, you don't want to be sort of stupidly positively marketing and everything's gonna be great, the world's lovely.

Simon: 00:07:27

I'm gonna hide sort of bad news and treat you like a child.

Simon: 00:07:32

And, and so, you know, where do you draw the line?

Simon: 00:07:33

That's the, the challenge.

Simon: 00:07:35

But you know, I agree with the way you put that.

Simon: 00:07:37

You know, these are adults, you know, everybody's, nobody's stupid.

Simon: 00:07:41

You need to treat people properly and, and, and grown up and say, you know, everyone's got leadership in them.

Simon: 00:07:47

Just give them the opportunity to show it.

Julia: 00:07:49

And, and to me, I guess that's, that's what generative leadership means to me is kind of recognizing that everybody has leadership in them, and a leader's job is to help somebody see that in themselves and then give them the space to draw it out, um, such that they can see their own leadership in action.

Simon: 00:08:10

Yeah, it's, it's, there's a thing called, isn't it situational leadership?

Simon: 00:08:13

I think I've read.

Simon: 00:08:14

Um, and it's important to recognize that there are some circumstances where it's, not appropriate.

Simon: 00:08:21

Um, where you need to be far more directive.

Simon: 00:08:24

And, and, and the, the model I have, the, the theoretical model I have in my head is if you're in a room and it's burning, you don't wanna sit there and say to everybody, you know, have a big debate about what's the most, you know, what's the way of doing this thing.

Simon: 00:08:36

You want to get everybody out in a very directive way.

Simon: 00:08:39

You, you've got to choose, you know, the right, the right model for the right moment.

Simon: 00:08:43

But, but in a broader leadership sense, you know, giving people the scope to use the brains that everybody's had, everybody has is for sure the best way to do things.

Julia: 00:08:52

Yeah, and it's, I mean, you know, I, I don't mean to be glib, but you know.

Julia: 00:08:57

Sometimes when you're sitting in a burning building, it's not always the leader that says it's burning.

Julia: 00:09:03

We need to leave.

Simon: 00:09:05

It's true, it's true.

Simon: 00:09:06

I, it, it's also, um, actually, yeah.

Simon: 00:09:10

different leaders have different skills, don't they?

Simon: 00:09:12

Um, and the, you know, some leaders are not the ones that are, um, the immediate action people, the ones who are good in the firefight.

Simon: 00:09:20

You know, certain leaders are good in a firefight.

Simon: 00:09:22

Others are awful in a firefight, um, and you really wouldn't put them on the, you know, on the front line.

Simon: 00:09:27

You wanna put them way back.

Simon: 00:09:29

You wanna put them in the strategy box and let 'em do the big, deep thinking for the next five years, but not for the next 20 minutes.

Julia: 00:09:36

And, and so how would you say that you, how you've got to know your own leadership and what you are good at, and what you know, where you best thrive, and how you would describe that for other people?

Simon: 00:09:50

I, I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to go back a little bit and tell you something that still shocks and amuse me, amuses me from a long time ago.

Simon: 00:10:00

From about the age of 35, when at that age, I, I really had no idea about the concept of leadership or, or even more basic than that, I didn't even really appreciate that people had different thinking styles.

Simon: 00:10:18

And I didn't understand that information was received and translated differently by different people.

Simon: 00:10:24

And I was, I was, um, I was so pleased, although I didn't think at the time to be put on a, um, a leadership development course.

Simon: 00:10:33

Where I went through some real basic psychometrics and understanding to find out that just because I understood something in the way it was coming to me didn't mean that other people did understand it.

Simon: 00:10:44

And even if they did, it didn't mean they'd react in the same way that I did.

Simon: 00:10:49

And it was like, it was like a revelation to me.

Simon: 00:10:51

It was like a kind of road, road to Damascus kind of moment for me when that happened.

Simon: 00:10:56

And it was the start of the leadership journey.

Simon: 00:10:59

Because prior to that I was a, I think a very capable accountant who, as my coach described to me at the time, would always be sitting in the corner, sort of being valued by someone who's to cover their backs.

Simon: 00:11:13

But I would never be anything more because I didn't even understand how really people operated.

Simon: 00:11:19

Um, and that, and that was the start.

Simon: 00:11:21

That was the start.

Simon: 00:11:22

From that I started to get a bit more experience, a bit more understanding, and, uh, I, I, I, I started to have sort of teams around me initially, professional accounting teams.

Simon: 00:11:34

And that, I have to say in on reflection is very, very easy when you've got, if you're a professional and you've got other professionals working for you, it's broadly easy to manage those.

Simon: 00:11:42

And maybe it's a little bit tricky, but not really.

Simon: 00:11:45

Um, and but the first time I moved into become an operational, uh, manager, and that's with people who are really variable in their competence level, in their experience level, and also in their motivations why, why they come to work.

Simon: 00:12:01

That's where it really, you know, that's where I really started to learn about leadership, um, and having to vary what I thought was motivational with what motivated those people.

Simon: 00:12:14

And what have I found out?

Simon: 00:12:16

I'm gonna link it back really quite quickly to generative leadership, I think.

Simon: 00:12:20

I've really found out that I am not good in a firefight.

Simon: 00:12:25

I've, I've really found out that there are certain things that I'm quite good at.

Simon: 00:12:30

There's, there's a couple of things I'm really quite good at and there are so many things I'm poor at..

Simon: 00:12:35

and the, one of the things I'm good at is recognizing what I'm quite poor at.

Simon: 00:12:41

And, and because of that, one of the earliest things I do whenever I've managed to get a job is to look, to get people around me to help compensate for my weaknesses.

Simon: 00:12:53

Um, and I've been mediumly successful at that, because I know if I don't do that, I will fail.

Simon: 00:12:59

I'm quite structured, I'm quite organized and, structured.

Simon: 00:13:02

Um, and I can, I sort of, one of the things I'm quite good at is kind of looking forward and saying, how's that gonna work and how's that all gonna fit together?

Simon: 00:13:09

And if I can't see that clearly, I'm, I'm disturbed and I kind of stay on it until I can see the way and the, and, and the, and it clear.

Simon: 00:13:16

And that's quite helpful when you're trying to do a sort of 2, 3, 4, 5 year plan.

Simon: 00:13:21

But it is not very helpful if you're in the bo in, in the burning.

Simon: 00:13:25

In the burning moment.

Simon: 00:13:26

So I need someone around me who can deal with the immediate sort of challenge.

Simon: 00:13:31

I'm also, I, I'm not the person who can really do the, the inspiring speech in the moment.

Simon: 00:13:38

So I need someone, if I've got a, a, a reasonable sized team around me, I need someone who's the person who can inspire others, the, the one who can stand at the front and say, you know, the, uh, the, the kind of, it's time to charge.

Simon: 00:13:49

Come on, on everybody, let's go.

Simon: 00:13:50

And I, and I'm really someone on my team who can help, help do that for me.

Simon: 00:13:54

Um, and I'm quite good at, you know, I'm quite good at finding that person and at saying, will you, you know, can you, will you, will you be my right hand person to help me do that and please go?

Simon: 00:14:03

And, and giving them the space to do that.

Simon: 00:14:05

I can be a bit arsy at times, but what I'm not, is I'm really not sort of directive and I'm really not all for male.

Simon: 00:14:14

And I, and I struggle.

Simon: 00:14:16

I, I, I can just about do it when I have to, but I struggle if I'm in a, an environment that pushes me to do that.

Simon: 00:14:22

And I equally, I equally struggle if I'm on the receiving end of that.

Simon: 00:14:26

It's been kind of, when it's not worked well is when I've been on the recipient end of sort of alpha male kind of leadership styles.

Simon: 00:14:35

I've kind of, I've, I've survived it for a year or two and then had to move on 'cause it's just not quite me.

Julia: 00:14:41

And, how have you gone about learning these dimensions?

Julia: 00:14:45

'Cause you know, we have a view of ourselves and, um, and what we like, what we don't like.

Julia: 00:14:52

Um, but other people's views of us are quite different, um, and can give us other information into windows of ourselves that we just don't see.

Julia: 00:15:01

Um, so how, how would you kind of suggest other people who are, you know, starting off in their leadership journey or, you know, a kind of early on or midway through, um, that they start to, to have that understanding of themselves?

Simon: 00:15:16

This is a really hard thing I think to do.

Simon: 00:15:20

You have to ask people, and you have to ask people to give you an honest answer, which means you have to ask people that you have a reasonable confidence can give you an honest answer.

Simon: 00:15:32

And that's really hard.

Simon: 00:15:34

'Cause quite a few people will give you an answer, but they will temper it with the relationship they have with you.

Simon: 00:15:40

And, and that's really quite complex, but that's what you have to do.

Simon: 00:15:45

Um, I, I went through at least four of, yeah, probably four times, 360 feedback sessions in different businesses and they were structured.

Simon: 00:15:54

Um, and, you know, the first time was so uncomfortable, boy was that uncomfortable.

Simon: 00:15:59

And, and I didn't recognize what I was being told at all.

Simon: 00:16:01

And I thought I was just being persecuted and, and maybe even managed outta the business.

Simon: 00:16:06

Um, and it took me two or three days before I started going, well, maybe if enough people are telling me that, maybe there's something in it then, uh, to going, Yeah, actually that's true and it's me that's got the problem.

Simon: 00:16:15

It's the, you know, it's a perception thing that I've got a blank spot on.

Simon: 00:16:19

But, but you need that and, and you have to ask for it, and you have to encourage other people to, to be honest.

Simon: 00:16:24

That's the way I either formally or informally to go about asking people for it.

Simon: 00:16:29

Other than the harsh way where you find that things don't happen in the way that you thought they were gonna happen or you're not getting the business that you thought sort of seemed to be going your way if you are trying to sell business or you're not getting promoted when you thought, you know, it was a dead cert, you were gonna get promoted.

Simon: 00:16:44

'Cause they are the ways, you are getting feedback that tell you you are not as, you know, things aren't operating the way you were.

Simon: 00:16:50

But they're the harsh moments that make you feel really bad.

Simon: 00:16:53

Before that, it's by asking people feedback as to how and why you're operating where we are.

Julia: 00:16:59

having similarly been through that, uh, feedback process and, um, you know, the first time that you go through it, we were having, I was having a discussion last night about, you know, the merits of anonymized feedback versus direct feedback and people's ability to be honest when it's direct feedback because they are tempering with that relationship, but when it's anonymized feedback, people get obsessed with, well, who was it that gave me that feedback?

Simon: 00:17:28

I, I mean, it's, it's hurt.

Simon: 00:17:29

It comes across as hurtful, doesn't it?

Simon: 00:17:31

It can be hurtful if you're, if you're a sensitive soul as I am, and I think many of us are.

Simon: 00:17:38

Partly you think, well, it's not true.

Simon: 00:17:40

And partly you think, well, why didn't you, why, why do you have to wait to be asked that?

Simon: 00:17:43

Why didn't you just tell me that anyway?

Simon: 00:17:45

And, um, you know, why do you tell why, why this is so harsh?

Simon: 00:17:49

Why, why didn't you tell me that in a nice way?

Simon: 00:17:52

And, and there are all these things, you know, that kind of human emotions that bubble up.

Simon: 00:17:56

Um, you, you and I have had this conversation about, I, I spent three years in Switzerland and the Swiss don't have the same UK sensitivity about giving feedback.

Simon: 00:18:07

It's far more just simple, logical, and, and it's not harsh, it's just factual.

Simon: 00:18:12

And I initially that I, I tell you this story, it's, um, two months in, um, in, in my, in my job in Switzerland, which was for, uh, in a private equity company.

Simon: 00:18:23

My boss said to me in front of about 20 colleagues, um, he said, uh, just going around the table of a, of a feedback or sort of weekly catch up, he said, oh, and Simon, the, the thing that you did then, and that was really bad, wasn't it?

Simon: 00:18:36

And it just kind of stopped.

Simon: 00:18:38

And I acted to him and said, sorry?

Simon: 00:18:39

He said, you know what you did then that was really poor.

Simon: 00:18:41

That was just really poor.

Simon: 00:18:42

Let's just agree it's really poor.

Simon: 00:18:43

And then he just moved on.

Simon: 00:18:45

And, and I was sort of devastated because I'd never had such instant, clear, sharp feedback from in a group that hardly knew.

Simon: 00:18:53

And, uh, and I came to realize there was nothing personal about it.

Simon: 00:18:56

It wasn't like being nasty or anything.

Simon: 00:18:58

He was just being factual in the way he saw it.

Simon: 00:19:00

And that I came to become, I think, stronger from what that experience in Switzerland.

Simon: 00:19:05

Because I now give that feedback?

Simon: 00:19:07

and I try and be careful in the UK now particularly, but I give it in a far clearer way like that.

Simon: 00:19:12

And it, and, and once you've, once you do that, it comes very fast and easier and quicker and more efficient.

Simon: 00:19:17

If somebody says something like that, you go, okay, I'm, I, I don't take offense to it at all.

Simon: 00:19:21

I see that's the way you see it, so I only need to absorb it and I can work with it.

Simon: 00:19:25

But in the UK particularly, we struggle with that.

Simon: 00:19:28

Um, I think in the US actually we, I, you know, my experience of work in the US which is reasonable, it's a very similar thing.

Simon: 00:19:35

It's difficult to deal with feedback like that, and you have to be far more sensitive with it.

Julia: 00:19:39

Yeah.

Julia: 00:19:39

And I think it comes back to what you said earlier of, you know, we are just not taught that people think differently to us and that they're gonna have a different perspective and a different, um, opinion.

Julia: 00:19:50

And I, I remember, uh, early on in, in, in my career, and I was working in the US and I actually had a, an ex-military boss, and he was incredibly direct with his feedback.

Julia: 00:20:04

And none of it was personal, but for the, for about the first six weeks I took it really personally.

Julia: 00:20:09

You know, he's saying I'm doing a bad job.

Julia: 00:20:11

I'm not competent, I'm not this, I'm not that, I'm not the other.

Julia: 00:20:15

But I don't remember what it was, but I just had this moment of realizing.

Julia: 00:20:20

No, we, we can make this better collectively.

Julia: 00:20:25

And the more I took it in that spirit of, you know, how, how does this input make this product better or this, um, you know, this presentation that we were doing or this strategy that we were doing, how does it make it better?

Julia: 00:20:42

And then when I started to then.

Julia: 00:20:44

Uh, kind of almost see that for myself as well, like somebody giving me feedback is saying they care about me enough to wanna help me be better, then, you know, I should listen and stop and not take it personally.

Julia: 00:21:00

But I think there's this barrier of just, you know, is that kind of, I'm not good enough, you don't like me narrative that gets in the way of No, no, no.

Julia: 00:21:11

This is about how, how do we learn?

Julia: 00:21:13

How do we get better?

Simon: 00:21:14

I, I, I mean, that's the key thing is that you don't like me.

Simon: 00:21:17

And, and, and you.

Simon: 00:21:18

If, if you can move that you don't, or you like me or you don't like me, if you totally disconnect that, then, then you're in the winning, then you're in the winning place, which has nothing to do with liking or disliking it factually, like, I like you, what you did there, that's good.

Simon: 00:21:31

Do more of that.

Simon: 00:21:33

You need to do more of this because what you did there didn't work and, and that, that's, that's the way to do it.

Simon: 00:21:39

I actually, I love that model.

Simon: 00:21:41

I, I do it, I do it often now, when I, when we have meetings and I'm, I'm sort of running meetings, I'll say, you know, at the end of the meeting, let's do a what worked well, let's have more of it, and what will we do differently next time?

Simon: 00:21:52

And, and I, but write it down and then we'll review it next time at the next meeting.

Simon: 00:21:56

And it's quite simple and it's quite impersonal, but it's very actionable.

Simon: 00:22:00

And you can do it on a personal level or you can do it on a collective level.

Simon: 00:22:03

And it, it's kind of, it.

Simon: 00:22:04

helps it, it really helps improve stuff, personally and and collectively,

Julia: 00:22:07

Exactly.

Julia: 00:22:08

And my, my, my slight tweak to that, that I do on a regular basis is I say, what did I really, what did we really like about what we just did, and what would make it even better next time?

Julia: 00:22:20

Because I think that if you kind of start with what you liked, it takes us out of kind of going, oh, I didn't like that.

Julia: 00:22:26

I didn't like that.

Julia: 00:22:27

That was shit.

Julia: 00:22:27

The, the, the, the, the, you know, and kind of picking it apart.

Julia: 00:22:33

But, you know, that's, that's how human beings are designed.

Julia: 00:22:36

You know, we are problem solving machines and so we tend to focus on all of the negative and disregard any of the things that went well.

Simon: 00:22:46

Except for those marketeers, you cer certain people have this innate marketeering about them and I've come across quite a few of them and I think they're, it is an amazing skill to have where they're just always positive and it's always gonna be great.

Simon: 00:23:00

Whatever they do is always gonna be great.

Simon: 00:23:02

You know, they need, they need control around them, but it's just awesome to be around those people.

Simon: 00:23:07

And you, you, you just love to be around them 'cause they always carry you forward.

Simon: 00:23:10

But there are few and far between, I think.

Julia: 00:23:12

Well, one thing I did wanna touch on, Simon, is, you know, you started your career in the fossil fuel industry, um, and you, you had a realization at some point that you wanted to switch away from that.

Julia: 00:23:25

Can you, can you talk about that, what that was like for you?

Julia: 00:23:28

What happened?

Simon: 00:23:29

So I can, but it, it's, do, do you know, it's, it's a, partly it's not, it wasn't within my control, as in, as in it sort of morphed as much as I made a deliberate decision.

Simon: 00:23:40

And I, and I want to tell you, that because I, I don't want to come across like an eco warrior.

Simon: 00:23:45

Uh, whilst I kind of think I am substantially there now, I don't, I, I don't want to come across like that.

Simon: 00:23:51

And in fact, I, I want to tell you, this alternative story first, which is, I was, I was running two coal power stations and a gas fire power station for ED Air, which collectively produced about 6% of the UK's uh, electricity.

Simon: 00:24:05

And uh, and I used to get quite some grief from sort of people locally when I'd get home.

Simon: 00:24:12

And they'd say, you know, you are running these coal power stations, you're burning coal.

Simon: 00:24:16

Isn't that really bad for the world?

Simon: 00:24:18

And, and, and I sort of, it's not very nice when you do a job and then people come and say, you're doing it, you know, it's bad what you do.

Julia: 00:24:24

You were taking it personally, Simon?

Simon: 00:24:26

Well, I was taking it personally.

Simon: 00:24:27

I was, 'cause I do take these things personally.

Simon: 00:24:30

And, and I'd, you'd sit in the pub and I kind of, after a while I, initially I tried to defend myself inappropriately, I think.

Simon: 00:24:36

And, and I eventually, I got to this point and I'd say, I am, I know I am burning coal and it's putting CO2 in the air.

Simon: 00:24:43

And it's pretty clear that that's, um, helping climate change, which is heading for a disaster for the human race.

Simon: 00:24:49

So, yes.

Simon: 00:24:51

Do you want me to turn the coal stations off is the question I'd ask.

Simon: 00:24:55

And they'd look at me and I'd say, because that will mean that the lights would go out in the pub and we won't be able to have the beer here.

Simon: 00:25:02

And that's, you know, if, if that's what you want, that's fine, but what, what I don't want you to do is put the, like, the onus on me that it's, I'm the problem when you are the consumer and yeah, it's all my problem.

Simon: 00:25:12

And, and that's the way I kind of defend myself in those days.

Simon: 00:25:15

This is, I'm, I'm talking 20 years ago now about that, and I'm just telling you that because, you know, if I did that today, I think I would be at the bad end of the scale and seen as a very evil person.

Simon: 00:25:24

That was then.

Simon: 00:25:25

So, so I joined Centrica and we had a small renewables fleet and we had a gas fired power station fleet, and the renewables grew and the gas station fleet, you know, sh shut down.

Simon: 00:25:36

And so it, it wasn't my deliberate decision to do that, but I just sort of morphed into doing more and more renewables.

Simon: 00:25:43

And, and it just became clear to me as I got more, more knowledgeable about the argument, it became clear to me that the, the arguments about zero CO2 generation versus the arguments about generation that delivers, you know, CO2 into the environment, it's so clear that I cannot justify, I just cannot justify supporting generation that fossil fuel generation anymore in things that I do.

Simon: 00:26:09

Uh, it, it's just wrong.

Simon: 00:26:11

Um, and so, you know, for the rest of my Centrica career, it was, it was renewables.

Simon: 00:26:16

And then since then, I joined, uh, an infrastructure, um, investment company in Switzerland and, and it was all clean fuel.

Simon: 00:26:24

And, and then ever since then I've, I've, I've got a put a plural career and you know, it, it's all non-fossil fuel.

Simon: 00:26:30

It, it's all renewables.

Simon: 00:26:32

Um, and, and so this is why I'm careful.

Simon: 00:26:34

I'm not saying I'm a big eco warrior, it's just.

Simon: 00:26:37

It's taken time to go through and demonstrate that I know we need power.

Simon: 00:26:42

We need our power for our way of life.

Simon: 00:26:44

I'm really clear now that it needs to be clean power, um, and, and not fossil fuel generated power if the human race has a, a possibility of a survival.

Simon: 00:26:54

And, uh, you know, I have two sons.

Simon: 00:26:55

You know, I'm, I, I will be gone, I suspect before the disaster happens.

Simon: 00:26:58

I have two sons I'm more concerned about, you know, they, they may not, they may still be here when it happens.

Simon: 00:27:04

So as much as I can make a contribution to it, I wish to.

Julia: 00:27:06

And that's, that's really great, Simon, and thank you for, for sharing that.

Julia: 00:27:10

And you know what's.

Julia: 00:27:12

What's really interesting for us to kind of maybe explore a little bit is you've been on that journey as an executive in a large energy firm.

Julia: 00:27:23

Uh, you know, you've come to that conclusion, but like you said, it took time.

Julia: 00:27:28

And we've got, you know, we've got a whole industry that's now lobbying against a transition away from fossil fuels.

Julia: 00:27:35

We've just seen what's come out in COP 28.

Julia: 00:27:38

It's a bit of a damp squib for people wanting to protect their own financial security over the long-term success of the human race.

Julia: 00:27:50

How do you think we influence these people to stop investing in fossil fuels to make that transition in a much faster way than maybe the 20 years it took you?

Simon: 00:28:02

I had the a, a, a more, very specific opposite thought the other day.

Simon: 00:28:07

I do one of those quizzes every morning, uh, like the word quizzes and the geography quizzes.

Simon: 00:28:12

There's one called Tradle.

Simon: 00:28:14

I dunno if you've come across this one, but what you do is you, you give them facts about exports, uh, you're given the shape of a country and it's exports and you have to guess what country it is.

Simon: 00:28:26

And this country, I think it was about 48% of it is exporting either petroleum products or gas gaseous products.

Simon: 00:28:36

48% of it's is export.

Simon: 00:28:39

Uh, and it, it was one of the African countries, I, I, I won't mention which one.

Simon: 00:28:43

And I sat there and thought, if you are, if you're that country and you're involved in the fossil fuel discussion and the, and the discussion is we want to end all of that, and you're talking about almost half of your, your, your exports going to zero, that's such a significant immediate reduction in your economic capability.

Simon: 00:29:06

Unless you're right there, right now, gonna talk about how you're doing some major transition planning in the short term, you're gonna fight like hell, probably, because your ability to see the long term is not going to, you know, you're not gonna see that compared to surviving in the next two or three years.

Simon: 00:29:23

And it just really highlighted more than ever to me, the challenge that we've got.

Simon: 00:29:28

Uh, what, what's your, what's your, um, you know, what's the answer?

Simon: 00:29:31

You know, I don't really know.

Simon: 00:29:34

I don't, I don't know.

Simon: 00:29:35

When, when I see the fires, when I see the floods, when I've seen even locally, we had floods last year, and when I see the houses being flooded, I sit there and think, when the water's at the door, I remember what I should really be doing.

Simon: 00:29:53

But when they're not there, and it's not, I'm not, it's not in my face, I kind of sort of forget it.

Simon: 00:29:59

And I guess it needs to be as, as almost emotionally and personally impacting to make that judgment.

Simon: 00:30:07

Because talking about 20 and 30 years down the line is just too far away, I think for most people to be impacted in their decision making.

Simon: 00:30:16

And that sounds sad and short, my short, short term, but I think that's the truth of the human race.

Simon: 00:30:22

So something needs to happen to make it feel more immediate than that that is happening.

Simon: 00:30:28

But I, I don't know.

Simon: 00:30:29

It's a tough one, Julia, and I don't know the

Julia: 00:30:31

No, it is, it is really tough.

Julia: 00:30:33

And you know, I sort of, my sort of feeling on it is that the only way it will change is if we stop.

Julia: 00:30:40

Putting the money in to fuel it literally.

Julia: 00:30:42

And you know, obviously you are working in private equity.

Julia: 00:30:45

I'm working in private equity.

Julia: 00:30:47

You know, we are both trying to get that money to move in a different direction.

Julia: 00:30:51

And the more money that starts moving in that different direction, you know, accepting that our economic system isn't gonna change much overnight, it sort of feels like, you know, if you stop giving the money to actually burn the fuel then perhaps that, um, that actually does something.

Julia: 00:31:09

But it, you know, it's, it requires a, a mindset change from a banking system perspective, from a government perspective to, you know, stop subsidizing all of these things that will, eventually, potentially kill off the human race.

Simon: 00:31:25

So I, I agree with you and incrementally I.

Simon: 00:31:28

It is happening, isn't it?

Simon: 00:31:30

But it feels like such a slow process.

Simon: 00:31:34

I know, I know a few people that went to COP 28 this year, and they were all a little bit excited about it, and I was partly thinking I'd be bored senseless.

Simon: 00:31:43

I'd be board senseless to sit there and you know, these different groups and they're gonna be going, blah, blah, blah.

Simon: 00:31:48

And then I thought, am I, am I Greta?

Simon: 00:31:50

Am I, am I starting to become a Greta, 'cause, 'cause, I can understand her going, what's the point?

Simon: 00:31:55

You know?

Simon: 00:31:56

What's the point in two weeks of people all going, you know, uh, chatting away and, and actually at the end of it, you go, yeah, yeah, you know, we've made a really marginal minor change, but we'll all talk about it like it's a really big thing.

Simon: 00:32:08

And, and I, it will happen at that rate, but will it happen before it's all too late?

Simon: 00:32:13

You know, it's a real questionable thing at that speed.

Simon: 00:32:16

I suppose if a really major country has a huge, um, climate event, then we'll wake up, won't we?

Simon: 00:32:23

We'll all wake up,

Julia: 00:32:24

I don't know.

Julia: 00:32:25

I mean, you know, we've got, we've had the war in Ukraine.

Julia: 00:32:27

We don't hear about that anymore.

Julia: 00:32:29

Now we've got the war in, in Israel that is keeping all of the, all of the headlines.

Julia: 00:32:35

But at the same time, you know, it's sort of back to your, to your earlier point of sitting in the pub and saying, you know, do we want all of this turned off?

Julia: 00:32:42

And I was watching the, the movie on Netflix, I don't know if you've seen it, calling called Leave the World Behind, which is all about a cyber attack.

Julia: 00:32:51

And, you know, it was, it was kind of the end of it, you were sort of left going, well, maybe we've already all all left the world behind because we're so interested in these fictional characters and distractions rather than each other and having that connection that, you know, maybe Mother Nature is just saying, I'm just gonna eradicate these parasites because they're destroying it and they don't really care.

Simon: 00:33:16

And they don't care.

Simon: 00:33:17

And they don't care.

Simon: 00:33:18

I, I'm rather partial to the film The Day After Tomorrow, which came out about 20 years ago, which, which shows a huge shift in climate, and the whole of the Northern Hemisphere gets frozen out in New Ice Age.

Simon: 00:33:28

So it destroys the US and it destroys Northern Europe.

Simon: 00:33:31

And uh, and, and and the, the residual of the US it's a US film, the residual of the US people who survive have to sort of traipse down to Mexico and a and a beholden to the Mexicans who kindly let them move in.

Simon: 00:33:44

And um, and it just shows you a rewriting of the world order.

Simon: 00:33:47

And, and I, what I like about that is it just starts to show you the fundamental change that could take place if we're not careful.

Simon: 00:33:55

It's quite helpful to watch that.

Simon: 00:33:56

I dunno if you've seen that.

Simon: 00:33:57

It's helpful to watch that 'cause it sort of shows you the scale of what could happen.

Simon: 00:34:03

But still that doesn't really make much difference.

Simon: 00:34:05

And I remember talking, I was in, um, I was in EDF at the time and I remember talking to a couple of people about that.

Simon: 00:34:10

I said, yeah, it's just fiction.

Simon: 00:34:11

You know the times.

Simon: 00:34:12

Yeah, it's just a piece of Hollywood and, and I, you know, that's, that's what word, that's the challenge.

Julia: 00:34:17

Yeah.

Julia: 00:34:17

And, and, and maybe it is this movement, you know, I mean, you and I based saw the movement in Centrica of 30,000 people kind of going Yeah, we don't wanna do this anymore.

Julia: 00:34:28

We wanna do renewables, and, and kind of voting with their feet, both as employees staying and saying, this is what we're interested in and, and, uh, with their, you know, feet in.

Julia: 00:34:41

I don't wanna work for a company that does these things anymore when decisions go in in a different way.

Julia: 00:34:46

So, well, Simon, thank you so much for having this conversation and, um, it's been provocative, uh, to say the least.

Julia: 00:34:56

So I'm hoping that the listeners will, um, take something out of this.

Julia: 00:35:01

Um, you said earlier you are in a plural career.

Julia: 00:35:03

Um, if people wanna get hold of you, what are interested in you, um, talking to them about their business?

Julia: 00:35:09

How can they get hold of you?

Simon: 00:35:10

Probably LinkedIn's the best.

Julia: 00:35:12

Fantastic.

Julia: 00:35:13

And is there any final thoughts that you'd like to share with, with the listeners?

Julia: 00:35:17

Any advice that you might have?

Simon: 00:35:19

Uh, I think of all the leadership things, uh, the, the, the, the most important thing is to keep things really short.

Simon: 00:35:27

I love the Stephen Covey Seven Habits of the Most in, Most Influential and Important People.

Simon: 00:35:32

And the one I love the most is seek first to understand and then to be understood.

Julia: 00:35:38

Wonderful.

Julia: 00:35:39

Well, thank you Simon as always, and um, look forward to our next conversation.

Simon: 00:35:45

Julia, thank you very much.

Julia: 00:35:51

It was such a fascinating conversation with Simon and so much that I took away from it.

Julia: 00:35:59

The first thing that really stayed with me was having a clarity of purpose in your leadership.

Julia: 00:36:07

Why are we here?

Julia: 00:36:08

What are we trying to do together?

Julia: 00:36:11

And then creating space for every individual to contribute their unique skills, experience, ideas to that bigger picture, rather than focusing on individual objectives and targets.

Julia: 00:36:28

I wonder what would happen if we did more of that.

Julia: 00:36:31

The second piece was really understanding other people's thinking styles and that they're likely to be very different from yours.

Julia: 00:36:41

This has been one of my biggest learnings like Simon over my career is how something can just look so obvious to you and completely crazy to someone else looking at the same thing at the same time.

Julia: 00:37:00

It's fascinating.

Julia: 00:37:03

The third area was giving and receiving feedback.

Julia: 00:37:07

There can be discomfort in giving people feedback and receiving feedback.

Julia: 00:37:15

And there's been times in my career when people have given me feedback that was really, really uncomfortable.

Julia: 00:37:23

And I've grown the most from that feedback when I was willing to sit with it long enough for this discomfort to pass and to see that someone cared about me enough to help me grow.

Julia: 00:37:39

And if you can start seeing that more and more, then the discomfort tends to fall away much more quickly.

Julia: 00:37:48

And then the last piece that I would leave you with is what do you think about fossil fuels and the challenge of moving to alternative energy solutions, and humanity's ability to do that?

Julia: 00:38:05

It's a big question with not a lot of answers and something that we all need to grapple with.

Julia: 00:38:13

Thank you for listening.

Julia: 00:38:15

And if you found this episode useful, please do go ahead and share it with others.

Julia: 00:38:21

You can do that at generativeleaders.co, or on any of the podcast platforms that you listen to.

Julia: 00:38:30

I look forward to seeing you next time on Generative Leaders.