Episode 19
Leading by listening
Effective leadership requires understanding that not everyone thinks like you and has the same perception of a situation. Effective leaders listen, communicate clearly, and ensure the message is consistently understood and aligned throughout their organisation.
Slowing down to plan, communicate, and involve key stakeholders can help drive successful change and avoid inconsistencies. Trust, genuine passion, and embracing diversity are also crucial elements in leading a business and achieving desired outcomes.
Alastair MacDonald is a retired CEO who spent over six years as the CEO of Syneos Health, which grew from a 300 person organisation to over 30,000. He is now an operating partner with GHO Capital and works as a chairman for various companies. Alastair is a widely experienced leader with insights into creating change that serves society.
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Transcript
As a leader of any organization working with people, one of the
Speaker:greatest challenges is bringing out the best in the people around you.
Speaker:My Guest this week has been the CEO of a global healthcare organization
Speaker:and now operates as a board chair.
Speaker:The realization he wishes he had had sooner in his career is that everyone
Speaker:is living in their own reality.
Speaker:The sooner you discover this fact, you listen more, ask better questions.
Speaker:Generate higher performance.
Speaker:I'm Julia Rebholz, welcome to Generative Leaders.
Speaker:So, Alastair McDonald, I, uh.
Speaker:I am a retired CEO.
Speaker:Um, spent six years, uh, just a little over six years with Syneos Health,
Speaker:INC Research Syneos Health as CEO.
Speaker:Nasdaq listed.
Speaker:Uh, spent 20 years there in total.
Speaker:Um, prior to that.
Speaker:I worked in the pharmaceutical industry mostly, uh, in manufacturing,
Speaker:production consulting, then ended up in a tiny CRO called INC and we grew
Speaker:up to Syneos Health over 20 years.
Speaker:Then after retirement joined, I really retired from executive life, um, of
Speaker:traveling across the, uh, pond and uh, that kind of stuff, but now work with GHO
Speaker:Capital and a few other private equity houses to, uh, as an operating partner.
Speaker:Um, so working as chairman for a couple of companies, non-exec
Speaker:director and that kind of thing.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Well, thanks so much for being part of this conversation today.
Speaker:And you know, this podcast really is about, um, leadership, and, um,
Speaker:how do you lead a business to really make change that serves society.
Speaker:And obviously in, in the growth trajectory that you had and in the chair roles
Speaker:that you are doing at the moment, you are, you are doing a lot of that.
Speaker:And so it'd be great to hear some of your insights, learnings,
Speaker:experiences around that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I heard a quote the other day that captaincy is given to you and
Speaker:leadership is situational, right?
Speaker:So, and you, you don't need to be the captain to be a leader.
Speaker:And I, I used to try and explain that to my son when we were playing,
Speaker:when he was playing football, things like that, that, you know, you don't,
Speaker:you don't need the on band to lead.
Speaker:And I, and I think it takes a while to understand that concept for people.
Speaker:Uh, you know, people get anointed to VP or you know, divisional president
Speaker:or CEO and that kind of thing, and it takes 'em a while to understand
Speaker:what leadership is and how it kind of reflects from you onto other people.
Speaker:Um, you know, with Syneos we had 30,000 people around the world and.
Speaker:I think you can have, you have to have multiple leadership styles to
Speaker:match the multitude of people who, um, are being led who have different
Speaker:ways to receive that leadership right?
Speaker:And they respond in different ways.
Speaker:So back way, way back in my career when I worked for Superga, we were given a
Speaker:book called the One Minute Manager, which I, I, I can't remember why it's called
Speaker:the One Minute Manager, by the way, but I think it takes about a minute to read
Speaker:the book, but it's a tiny, tiny book.
Speaker:But it, it, it really preached different strokes of different folks.
Speaker:And I think that that was something that I latched onto.
Speaker:And as I grew throughout all the organizations I worked for, I really
Speaker:used that and learned a lot from them.
Speaker:And kind develop the end of my career.
Speaker:I, I gave a talk at a school here in the UK where, where my kids were,
Speaker:and a girl in the audience asked me at the end, you know, in the, in
Speaker:the q and a session, what's the one thing that I know now that I did that
Speaker:I wished I'd known when I started?
Speaker:And I said to her, it's that, you know, not everybody is like me.
Speaker:You know, not everybody sees a situation like I do, sees the
Speaker:potential in a situation or a threat in a situation the way that I do.
Speaker:Some people don't perceive threat, you know, or risk at all or at all well.
Speaker:Um, you know, maybe they go on to be Formula one drivers
Speaker:or fighter pilots, I dunno.
Speaker:But you know that you have different perceptions, the different
Speaker:perceptions of a situation create a different feeling, and that feeling
Speaker:creates a different response.
Speaker:And I do wish I'd known that from day one.
Speaker:I learned things along the way painfully, you know, I remember the CEO of mine
Speaker:who was an ex Lieutenant Colonel, I think in the, in the US military.
Speaker:We went into a meeting and as we went in, he said, I'm going to ask a
Speaker:question shortly after this meeting starts, and I know you know the answer,
Speaker:but I don't want to hear your answer.
Speaker:I want to hear from other people because we need to see who else can lead
Speaker:different parts of the organization.
Speaker:It's basically telling me to shut my mouth and, and listen a bit
Speaker:more, which my grandfather used to tell me all the time as well.
Speaker:But learning those, learning how to get the best out of people in different
Speaker:situations and the fact that half the time the answer is in the room, but the
Speaker:person with the answer doesn't wanna say because they have a different perception
Speaker:of themselves or the situation, et cetera.
Speaker:And then learning to get that, get that information out, people at
Speaker:the right time, or giving them the confidence to do that themselves.
Speaker:You know, all key learnings along the way for me.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:And I think you've got to, if you're the leader of something, you've
Speaker:got to have the passion for it.
Speaker:So I think now being a leader of an organization, there are so many things to
Speaker:deal with and you know, there's obviously the business dynamics, but also all the
Speaker:personal dynamics and the social dynamics around business and so on and so forth.
Speaker:You've got to be very agile, but you've also got to be very thoughtful
Speaker:while you're doing that, because you can spring from one thing to
Speaker:the next and offend people quite quickly and easily along the way.
Speaker:And you've gotta really think about that now.
Speaker:You have to think about that whole sphere of influence of how your
Speaker:style comes across, you know?
Speaker:And I think it's, I think that's a real challenge now for, for leaders who
Speaker:are who, particularly if they're not genuinely thinking through the situation.
Speaker:You know, it, in our organizations, we've, we've put together kind of commitments
Speaker:to climate action and climate change.
Speaker:And if you don't believe in it, it's very hard to explain it
Speaker:as, as to why you're doing it.
Speaker:And that is very hard to explain that to investors as well as
Speaker:the people in the organization.
Speaker:Um, same with kind of the social, um, elements of, of work.
Speaker:You know, why, why would you set up a culture that, where
Speaker:anybody can be, what they're like?
Speaker:We at Seynos, we created what we call the total self culture.
Speaker:We told people We don't care what you want to be.
Speaker:Well, we do, we care, but we don't care how you express it.
Speaker:If you want to come to work, and be whoever you want to be.
Speaker:So just be a total self and just express that we, we embrace that diversity.
Speaker:'Cause if you build a company with 30,000 people and they're all the same and
Speaker:they all think the same, you won't have a 30,000 person company for very long.
Speaker:'Cause that lack of diversity creates no innovation.
Speaker:And if everybody thought like me, we would not have a business at all.
Speaker:So, you know, it's, I think it's a huge challenge to do that.
Speaker:And as organizations get bigger, your leadership chart style has to change.
Speaker:You have to lead through influence, and you have to lead.
Speaker:Your leadership needs to come through the leadership of others.
Speaker:So you're leading leaders rather than leading followers, and that has to cascade
Speaker:down and that that can be quite difficult.
Speaker:Gosh, you've covered so much in that, in that, in that opening, um, that,
Speaker:you know, I'm sure we could spend the next kind of three hours digesting, you
Speaker:know, each of, each of those pieces.
Speaker:But I guess that the key things that sort of stood out for me were, you
Speaker:know, having that realization that other people don't think like you, other people
Speaker:don't have the same perception of you.
Speaker:And so, um, that listening piece of, well, how do people really see the world?
Speaker:Um, what, what is it that drives them?
Speaker:What is it that's important to them?
Speaker:What is it that, you know, as a leader, really understanding that, um, and
Speaker:spending the time to be thoughtful, to listen to, to, to really understand
Speaker:what that person is about, it's almost like if you see that as a fact.
Speaker:It's not, it's not something you have to believe.
Speaker:It's just a truth in life.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Um, then it kind of makes sense that you would build a count by culture
Speaker:that allows for those 30,000 different perceptions that you would, you
Speaker:know, kind of go, well, you're gonna express yourself in a different way.
Speaker:And I don't wanna mute you from, from doing that.
Speaker:'Cause it, it's what makes sense given that as a, as a fact.
Speaker:Um, and as you started with that, as the, the one thing that you wish that
Speaker:you, um, had, had known, you know, if you're starting from that basis, what
Speaker:are the things that you think it kind of leads to naturally as a result?
Speaker:Well, that's, uh, that's quite a hard question to answer actually.
Speaker:I think, um, one thing that did change with me over the years was that did talk
Speaker:a lot less and I listened a lot more.
Speaker:Um, probably, But trying to understand your kind of leadership group within
Speaker:a company, particularly a big company, and how you link that to information
Speaker:that can be absorbed by, you know, understood and absorbed by people.
Speaker:Uh, somebody I used to work with used to tell me.
Speaker:I used to get really frustrated with people not kind of picking up
Speaker:what we were trying to put down.
Speaker:And a lady always who I work with, used to tell me, remember, you have been
Speaker:working on this day in, day out for weeks, so you understand it inside out.
Speaker:The people you're trying to communicate this to I've only just heard it,
Speaker:or maybe I've heard it twice.
Speaker:So until you've told them it seven times in relatively decent detail, they're
Speaker:just not going to respond to it at all.
Speaker:So there's a lot of groundwork that has to be covered before you get to the
Speaker:point of, okay, I've kind of laid out the strategy or the tactics that we're
Speaker:gonna do around this deal or around this, where we're going with this division,
Speaker:or as a whole, and then you start to get that information back from them.
Speaker:They've absorbed it.
Speaker:And again, going back to kind of thinking about all these different
Speaker:kind of phenotypes within leadership teams, how deep does that go?
Speaker:How are they absorbing the information?
Speaker:It's very important to kind of skip a level and check underneath
Speaker:that the information you told to people you're leading is the same
Speaker:information that's cascaded down.
Speaker:And then that's, I thought, or I became to believe was the really important
Speaker:period in a change or in, you know, communications leadership was, once they'd
Speaker:absorbed that information and had time to think about it, then the response.
Speaker:So the first couple of responses from the first few times you've, people have seen a
Speaker:change, I used to almost just discard it.
Speaker:It would create like a really wide funnel of responses.
Speaker:And then as people understand it more, the funnel naturally narrows.
Speaker:So you get a couple of versions of, of, of where it's going.
Speaker:And then from those couple of versions, you can fine tune the message and, and,
Speaker:and bring people along a little bit, a little bit more rapidly, or a little
Speaker:bit more well aligned, if you like.
Speaker:Um, in a, in a leadership population.
Speaker:It's easier to lead.
Speaker:I think if, if people understand that message, it's a bit more compact.
Speaker:and I think, I think what you're pointing to is that the universal thing that kind
Speaker:of sits across that set of personality types is one, that communication is
Speaker:not dependent on the communicator.
Speaker:It's dependent on the listener.
Speaker:And so when you are communicating something, doing it in a small amount
Speaker:enough with a concise piece around it that then allows space for the
Speaker:person to actually absorb what you are saying, and then checking with them,
Speaker:what did you hear, you know, kind of demonstrates that what's landing in them.
Speaker:Might not be what you intended, might not be what you said, might
Speaker:not be, you know, anything about it.
Speaker:So, you know, that's the kind of universal piece is, you know, they're playing it
Speaker:through whatever filter they're playing.
Speaker:oh yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I, I, I, over the years have, well, there are some funny
Speaker:stories really about what you've said and what somebody else has heard.
Speaker:And, and there are games you can actually buy games off the high street
Speaker:now that, that, that do this thing.
Speaker:But yeah, that, people's perception of what you're actually trying to achieve is
Speaker:so broad now, you know, and so diverse.
Speaker:You, you have to have this constant communications cadence that, that
Speaker:touches on it and can nudge, almost nudge groups of people into the right
Speaker:orientation for, for that alignment across the business, especially a big
Speaker:business with multiple cultures, multiple countries, multiple cultures within those
Speaker:multiple countries, so on and so forth.
Speaker:It's ly, I found it to be on, kind of on the flip side, A fascinating, and B,
Speaker:very frustrating all at the same time.
Speaker:Because as a leader of an organization of any type, really, you want change to
Speaker:happen quickly, and the longer change takes to happen, sometimes the harder
Speaker:it is, but sometimes that slower pace actually enables change to be in more.
Speaker:But, but companies now, they live and die on speed of change and, and action.
Speaker:And if you can't get that message across successfully or people
Speaker:won't, won't kind of come to the message, it can be very frustrating.
Speaker:I think there's a lot of trust in that as well.
Speaker:I think people are more inclined to follow a leader that they trust, that
Speaker:they see as genuine, that they see as somebody who's, you know, prepared
Speaker:to jump in the deep end with them and, and help them with customers or
Speaker:whatever it is, deliverables, whatever.
Speaker:But again, that's very hard to do if you're the CEO of a big company.
Speaker:You, you really don't spend any time delivering for customers.
Speaker:You spend all your time dealing with investors and you know,
Speaker:the board, things like that.
Speaker:So, yeah, it's, I, I, I found that a fascinating, I come, I didn't,
Speaker:I never thought about it when I went into business at all, and
Speaker:now I think about it all the time.
Speaker:And I, and I still occasionally roll my eyes at things and think, you know,
Speaker:really we're gonna have to do that.
Speaker:It's so obvious, but it's really not.
Speaker:You have to unwind that and think about those people who can make the,.
Speaker:make the change or make the deliverables that the leader's
Speaker:trying to lead the company to.
Speaker:And they're key, they're key fundamental elements in the company's
Speaker:performance or the team's delivery.
Speaker:And if they don't get it, or they don't want to do it because they don't
Speaker:believe in it, or they don't trust you, that you're doing the, if the
Speaker:right reasons, it, it, it, it impinges on the performance or the delivery.
Speaker:And so what, what would your advice be?
Speaker:I mean, obviously you are, you are a chairman now and you have to
Speaker:influence in that chair position.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what are some of the advice that you give to the CEOs that
Speaker:you are working with about how.
Speaker:How do they kind of slow down in order to speed up?
Speaker:And, uh, and how do they also, um, really discern are people not understanding
Speaker:or are people disagreeing but they're doing it in a passive aggressive way?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Good questions.
Speaker:Um, so I think.
Speaker:My advice to CEOs is to spend a little bit more time on the launchpad
Speaker:prior to pressing the button.
Speaker:So when, when, when you wanna make a change or, you know, you've got
Speaker:something on the agenda, the temptation is right, let's just get on with
Speaker:it, and you can outrun your supply lines very quickly if you do that.
Speaker:You know, people just don't follow the message is not holistic.
Speaker:There's not the depth to it, et cetera.
Speaker:You've gotta have time to, of any size company you've got to have two or three
Speaker:people now I think, who are implementing the leadership or implementing a change or
Speaker:whatever it is they're trying to get done.
Speaker:Because the way our social networks work now, if I try to roll out change, if I'm
Speaker:the CEO of a company, I try and roll out change, the first person who hears it
Speaker:goes straight to somebody else who works at the CEO and says, what does that mean?
Speaker:So when that person gets to that second leader, that second leader's
Speaker:got to be on the same message.
Speaker:So pre-launch, lots more planning, communications, packages ready, people
Speaker:understanding what's going out and when.
Speaker:But also those rabbit holes or whatever you'd call them, that people go straight
Speaker:down to ask somebody else, at the end of that rabbit hole needs to be set.
Speaker:Somebody who's got the, who's got the consistent and a well aligned
Speaker:answer and who believes in it as well.
Speaker:And, you know, part of that planning is, okay, let's pressure test this
Speaker:between us as the ultimate leadership of an organization and fine tune
Speaker:it so that we are all in a line, you know, we are all aligned on the
Speaker:changes or the direction that we're gonna go in and then communicate it.
Speaker:'Cause if you get that, then it seems like a more robust
Speaker:kind of solution or a decision.
Speaker:So, Way before I was even I think maybe even before I was CEo, COO, we
Speaker:used to be asked to do global cascades of information by the divisions.
Speaker:So you'd get, we'd get a corporate deck and that had two, two blank
Speaker:pages in it where you could add, you know, the oncology division or the CNS
Speaker:division or data management, whatever, you could have add materials that was
Speaker:relevant for that, for that group.
Speaker:So I was running one of the therapeutic groups in INC CRO.
Speaker:And I used to, on a Monday night, once a month, because we were global,
Speaker:we'd do it about eight o'clock.
Speaker:I would give this global all hands call.
Speaker:And I used to pick 8:00 PM because pretty much everybody around the world
Speaker:could be okay, so we might have to be in the office a little bit early.
Speaker:Some might be in the office a little bit late, but they could generally
Speaker:be on the call so we don't have to do it once and we'd, we recorded it.
Speaker:And it was at a time where I only had like 500 people in this division.
Speaker:Anyway, I noticed on the call one day I had 730 attendees.
Speaker:So I asked my operations lead how, how do we have 700 people coming to a call
Speaker:with only 500 people in the group?
Speaker:And she said, you're the only person who does this on a regular basis and provides
Speaker:the message that is coming from corporate.
Speaker:So people from other divisions come to your call.
Speaker:So you've got to have that.
Speaker:If you've got a company that's got multiple divisions or is in
Speaker:multiple locations, you've got to make sure as the leader that the
Speaker:message is getting everywhere.
Speaker:Because you can, if you end up with one half of the organization moving forward
Speaker:and the other half not, I actually think it's worse than nobody's moving forward.
Speaker:Because you've got that inconsistency.
Speaker:And customers see that.
Speaker:It's, if you're, if you're an organization that deals with customers across multiple
Speaker:divisions, customers spot that immediately and will tell you quite quickly, I get two
Speaker:different levels of service, or I've got two different, you know, understandings
Speaker:or whatever across your groups.
Speaker:So it's how do you, how do you bring everybody along?
Speaker:But I, I think you've gotta go to the end and ask people, you've
Speaker:gotta have little focus groups.
Speaker:We used to do these high potential groups in Syneos and I used to do it with the
Speaker:people who sat outside my office here in Farnborough in Raleigh, or in New
Speaker:Jersey or in New York, wherever I was.
Speaker:I would spend time talking to them and say, Hey, what do you
Speaker:think about, you know, project X?
Speaker:And when they look at you and you can see that thousand yard steer
Speaker:of project X, what, what is that?
Speaker:Then you just only have to ask, well, what do you do again?
Speaker:So then you can narrow down where the channels are
Speaker:working and where they're not.
Speaker:But I think that's part of leadership, of of leadership is to make sure
Speaker:that you have access points all the way through the organization.
Speaker:And I was lucky 'cause I grew up in our organization.
Speaker:I joined it when there were 200 people and left it when there were 30,000.
Speaker:So along along that journey, I collected many access points to different levels of
Speaker:the organization in different verticals.
Speaker:And people will just come to me and say we haven't heard anything about
Speaker:this or why aren't we involved in that?
Speaker:And you, if you have to listen to the questions that they ask as well.
Speaker:Why aren't we involved?
Speaker:Why won't we ask our opinion?
Speaker:And if you hear that, it means they're not connected into the, into the change
Speaker:or into the, into the leadership lines.
Speaker:And, and lines break all the time.
Speaker:And they reform and they're, they're, they're very kind of, um, uh, liquid.
Speaker:And people get, you know, you get people who listen to half the
Speaker:information, scramble it and pass it on.
Speaker:And then you have a group of people who get a scrambled message.
Speaker:So like I said, I found it a kind of almost a fascinating social experiment.
Speaker:And just something you can learn from all the time.
Speaker:You know, now I work with much smaller organizations, which is great
Speaker:in a way, it's harder in another way, but it is a lot easier to get
Speaker:that information to the whole team.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:And you can, I really, I am a big believer in, uh, what I used to call
Speaker:shaking hands and kissing babies.
Speaker:Meeting people, and you know, just having a little conversation with 'em and,
Speaker:and hopefully they come away from that conversation with Oh, he, he was okay.
Speaker:Or, you know, yeah, I understand where he is coming from on that,
Speaker:or, you know, and, and be open and let people ask you questions.
Speaker:You, there shouldn't be any question that CEO is not prepared
Speaker:to answer within an organization.
Speaker:Obviously there are some confidential ones, finances and stuff like that,
Speaker:but you know, there shouldn't be any questions about strategy and direction,
Speaker:et cetera, that you can't answer.
Speaker:'Cause if you can't answer 'em, you haven't communicated them properly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well it sounds like that you know, that giving space for people to
Speaker:clarify, to ask questions is you a sort of fundamental in testing whether
Speaker:they're actually connecting with what you are, with what you're saying.
Speaker:And I think it's important to set up the right environment for those
Speaker:people to ask those questions.
Speaker:So, you know, we, we create a regular cadence of blogs and vlogs and things
Speaker:like that, but a space for people to ask questions confidentially.
Speaker:Because there's always a stupid, you know, how many times have we been in
Speaker:meetings where people are desperate to ask the stupid question that everybody
Speaker:else in the room is desperate to ask as well, but nobody will because
Speaker:it's probably a stupid question?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Give people a safe space to ask that question.
Speaker:So sort of our strategy leads would be kind of an anonymous, stupid
Speaker:question answerers on on a little blog.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, so you could ask a question anonymously.
Speaker:And we used to tell people all the time, we'd rather you ask the question
Speaker:than go away and get confused.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:Because we save you time, save you frustration, so.
Speaker:Yeah, no, exactly.
Speaker:But I think it's, it's getting the right communications out into the, into
Speaker:the right environment and that all, you know, ports back to the culture
Speaker:of a company, how it sees itself, how it sees its resources, you know, key
Speaker:resource being its people in pretty much any business and how they interact.
Speaker:And, and I think you've got to really think about the environment you wanna set
Speaker:up, what people are expecting to see now.
Speaker:So I, I think, you know, from an environmental perspective, one of the
Speaker:things we did at Syneos is we signed up for the climate pledge for 2030.
Speaker:A, we all believe that that was the right thing to do from a societal perspective.
Speaker:But there's a cascade from that because we hired a lot of people out of college
Speaker:and university and young people into the industry, and they've got choices.
Speaker:And if they look at you and you don't have a commitment to doing the right
Speaker:thing at the right time when people aren't looking, they're not gonna work for you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because people have a choice now and you know, people work from
Speaker:home, so they're not geographically restricted like they used to be.
Speaker:So if you are on set at the right environment that they can see themselves
Speaker:fitting into, culturally, then you're gonna struggle in the long term.
Speaker:No, exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:There's a question I wanted to ask you to kind of go back in that, you know.
Speaker:When you are part of a leadership team and you've got a really strong idea that
Speaker:looks really obvious to you, but you've got a group of people around you that
Speaker:sort of, you know, they trust you, they back you, but they just don't believe what
Speaker:you believe, how do you deal with that?
Speaker:Well, again, I think it comes down to the trust between you and them.
Speaker:Um, and they've got to trust that if, that they can tell
Speaker:you why they don't believe it.
Speaker:And, you know, you've gotta be open.
Speaker:I mean, I, I've, and I've, and I've done this as well, I've seen, um, things that
Speaker:I thought were a great idea and try to push 'em through and hammer them through.
Speaker:And if you don't have that support to do it, even as a CEO of a big
Speaker:company, it gets harder and harder and harder and harder, and you end
Speaker:up in a war of attrition right?
Speaker:And that's very counterproductive.
Speaker:But I think the manage leadership teams should be able to work out between them
Speaker:the right solution when that happens.
Speaker:So if somebody comes in and is a massive believer in X, somebody
Speaker:else doesn't, let's, let's have the debate and there shouldn't be any,
Speaker:well, I'm the CEO, you know, you're the COO, so we're doing it my way.
Speaker:The, the, I don't think there's any room in business for them,
Speaker:my way or the highway anymore.
Speaker:Because the initiatives are so complex and they're so, you know, have so
Speaker:many facets now that if there's any division in that leadership, you
Speaker:just can't get the message through.
Speaker:So again, I think you've gotta have that right culture at the leadership table or
Speaker:in the leadership teams, where there's an equal and kind of effective voice
Speaker:across the whole leadership because it helps you generally refine an approach
Speaker:and and provide a better solution.
Speaker:You know, and I think modern CEOs, I mean, I, uh, I think there is thousands
Speaker:of examples where, you know, amazing companies were built by amazing people
Speaker:who had a my way or the highway approach.
Speaker:I just think business is too complicated now to have that.
Speaker:Um, I'm sure it works for some people in some places, but you won't have
Speaker:a leadership team for very long.
Speaker:I heard a great quote once that people who don't listen end up being surrounded
Speaker:by people who have nothing to say.
Speaker:And if you get to that point, a leadership team, it's game over
Speaker:because you're not, it's not a team.
Speaker:You've got to have that team dynamic and, and, and you have to think about how that
Speaker:dynamic is foster and he's a, it's like a, it's like a very complicated relationship.
Speaker:It has to be nurtured, it has to be cared for, it has to be allowed to evolve.
Speaker:Uh, and people need to be able to move on and around and take on other positions.
Speaker:Um, and I'll come back to that 'cause I think that was really
Speaker:important in my career, actually, the different positions that hold.
Speaker:But I think you've got to have that ability to say, I think this
Speaker:is, I think this is a dumb idea and this is, and this is why.
Speaker:Or I think we could do a better, you know, this is a better solution and
Speaker:the people who are bringing it have gotta be able to, to open to that.
Speaker:So I was lucky in a way, as we grew INC and, and, and evolved
Speaker:over like a 10 year period.
Speaker:I ended up with a reputation for fixing things along the way.
Speaker:Um, and I had a few nicknames that I didn't.
Speaker:No until very much later that some are quite good actually
Speaker:and some are not so good.
Speaker:But what it did give me, as I went through the organization, I ran oncology and
Speaker:I ran business development alliances, data management, global services,
Speaker:regions, that kind of thing, were all involved in all those kind of things.
Speaker:Got all these different viewpoints of the business that I just
Speaker:accumulated along the way.
Speaker:And I didn't realize how valuable that was until I got made COO.
Speaker:And then I just had this, like, ability or vision I suppose, of how
Speaker:it all fit fitted together and what worked, what made the organization run.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Where the core, where the core specialty was actually, and kind of that.
Speaker:And if you got that part right as a foundation, the bits on top
Speaker:of it, which was super important, would just run a lot better.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I think that's an important element in leadership as well.
Speaker:I'm a big fan of moving people around.
Speaker:You know, it's very tempting to say, right, you know, Julia's doing a great
Speaker:job at eggs, just leave Julia doing that.
Speaker:But Julia gets bored of doing that and she kind of fancies going over
Speaker:to, I don't know, Singapore or you know, wherever to to run a different
Speaker:division, see a different culture, that kind of thing, it's all learning.
Speaker:And I don't think businesses do enough of that.
Speaker:Um, because it fosters understanding, it fosters a better vision
Speaker:across, across the business.
Speaker:And as people rise up in a leadership team, you need that experience.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And if they don't get it within an organization, they tend to leave to try to
Speaker:seek out what, what they're missing, so.
Speaker:But the other thing that you just.
Speaker:Kind of touched on that I think is really important is when you've
Speaker:got that men mental model of how does this business operate?
Speaker:How does it fit together?
Speaker:Not just from a personalities perspective, but from a, you know, from a functional
Speaker:perspective, you, you have a, a different way of viewing the business and seeing it.
Speaker:And I think that there's a lot of leaders that get recruited into a business who
Speaker:have a mental model from their previous organizations.that isn't necessarily the
Speaker:mental model of the, the organization they're working for and the time isn't
Speaker:spent to help them have that realization or this is the foundational piece, these
Speaker:sit, sit on top, this is how they connect, this is how these things work together.
Speaker:Um, and I think as you were saying earlier, that when you are in a
Speaker:startup mode and then you grow rapidly.
Speaker:Um, it's like the people that were there at the beginning have got
Speaker:that mental model, but then you haven't brought everybody with you
Speaker:on that, and they're just in their silo doing their, doing their thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I agree.
Speaker:I mean, uh, we would have a fairly extensive orientation
Speaker:for new leaders into.
Speaker:Into the organization to, to try and get that understanding.
Speaker:I don't think you can ever get it in there fully, and everybody's always chomping
Speaker:at the bit to just get on with it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So go back to the launchpad thing earlier on.
Speaker:But yeah, I think that's a real challenge because everything needs to be done now,
Speaker:now, now, so you just, you just don't have the time sometimes, but it, it's
Speaker:definitely worthwhile people understanding how the bits fit together and what makes,
Speaker:you know, why does that part have to run so well for the other part to, you
Speaker:know, even be able to service customers?
Speaker:On the other piece that you mentioned there, the kind of how do you coming
Speaker:outta startup and into different phases.
Speaker:I think that the interesting thing through my career.
Speaker:Was every three years I think the company almost reinvented itself
Speaker:or it became something different.
Speaker:We'd either have a ton of organic growth or we'd acquire something or
Speaker:we'd, something was always changed.
Speaker:I used to tell people It's never boring here because something's either
Speaker:just happened or is about to happen.
Speaker:So you are constantly having these changes, which was great.
Speaker:But I think looking back, you almost have to think about a co, a company as a, as
Speaker:an engine and a gearbox working together.
Speaker:So you can pull away from the start line in first gear.
Speaker:And first gear is the most powerful gear because you're moving from nothing, right?
Speaker:So the hardest thing to do in a company is get it moving.
Speaker:So you've got it moving.
Speaker:Now what?
Speaker:Well, you don't drive a car and just make first gear work harder
Speaker:and harder, you shift into second gear, which is a different set
Speaker:of cogs working in a different patent in the gearbox, et cetera.
Speaker:And I think about businesses like that.
Speaker:So, okay.
Speaker:The people and processes we got that we, we created the organization with
Speaker:and we started it with and got us to that first gear change, some of those
Speaker:aren't gonna be the people who are here when we change from second to
Speaker:third, because they're startup people.
Speaker:They're not operations people.
Speaker:You know, or kind of daily operations people, and I think there's a difference.
Speaker:You've gotta have more sophisticated systems.
Speaker:You've gotta have better wiring between the, the, the groups.
Speaker:And you've got to evolve the businesses at the right time to do that.
Speaker:Um, you know, who are our bd, you know, who are our sales targets?
Speaker:Who are the customers?
Speaker:How do we get to them?
Speaker:What channels do we need to put the product in?
Speaker:That kind of thing.
Speaker:So I think you've got to constantly think about, okay, this is where I am.
Speaker:This is where I'm heading.
Speaker:Have I got all the right things?
Speaker:Do I have the right people?
Speaker:Am I in the right places?
Speaker:Do I have the right, you know, underlying systems?
Speaker:I mean, some of the hardest things are when you get to a point where
Speaker:you've got so many people you are you having to bring in ERP systems and
Speaker:platforms like that 'cause a, nobody's ever enjoyed putting an ERP system.
Speaker:Believe me, I've done it twice and I wouldn't want to ever do it a third time.
Speaker:And, you know, when you, when you get to that level of sophistication in a
Speaker:business, it's completely different to running a business of 20 people
Speaker:or 50 people, or a hundred people.
Speaker:So I, I think you have leaders have to think about that and,
Speaker:and also reflect on themselves.
Speaker:Am I the right leader for this organization?
Speaker:And I think of, when I think of INC's growth over the years and the CEOs we had
Speaker:and then into Syneos, for me it's, I think of it like a re, almost a relay race.
Speaker:We had, all of us had sweet spots where we were doing really well, and then we had
Speaker:spots where we weren't doing really well.
Speaker:And sometimes that's what, where it's not going well, or you feel like
Speaker:you're not adding the value anymore.
Speaker:It's the point to hand over the bat to somebody else.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:And I think leaders have to feel confident that that, that
Speaker:they understand that themselves.
Speaker:So I learned a lot about myself as I went through my career and
Speaker:became, and certainly in the last two positions that I had as COO and CEO
Speaker:I became very reflective of myself and how, how I came across to others.
Speaker:And I really did notice it when I became CEO.
Speaker:You know, they say it's lonely at the top.
Speaker:I couldn't have imagined how that would shift to that.
Speaker:But also going back to the speaking and listening part, if
Speaker:you're the CEO of a company, if.
Speaker:When you say something in a meeting, half the people in the meeting believe that
Speaker:that is gospel and that is the solution.
Speaker:And that's really dangerous because you want those people who sit around the
Speaker:table who have the expertise to tell you, and that I learned to be quiet.
Speaker:The first half of the meeting, you are not hearing what I think,
Speaker:I want hear what you think first.
Speaker:And I try and do that now as chair.
Speaker:And I always sit there in the, I always sit in meetings and think, God, these
Speaker:people must think I'm a little bit dense because I'm not saying anything
Speaker:and I'm the chairman of whatever.
Speaker:And it's because I want to hear what they think first.
Speaker:Because as we formulate a solution for something, you want all the inputs first.
Speaker:If you give the output, some of those imports don't even bother coming.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:And that's, you know, and that, and that's an interesting point, isn't it?
Speaker:'cause you almost have to label that's what you are doing so that people don't
Speaker:kind of create an image of you that isn't what your actual intention is.
Speaker:Well, I, I, so I work with people in INC for 20 years.
Speaker:And those who know me well, we would go through parts where, you
Speaker:know, we'd be in a meeting and we'd come outta the meeting and they'd
Speaker:come to me and say, are you okay?
Speaker:And I'd be like, yeah, I'm fine.
Speaker:You were very quiet.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'd just be like, yeah, I, uh, I'm listening for the solution,
Speaker:not trying to give out a solution.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, given that we're running out power and steam, maybe we should end it there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, thank you.
Speaker:So thank you so much for having you this conversation.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:It's been wonderful and very insightful.
Speaker:Um, and, uh, and it'd be lovely to maybe, you know, speak again at
Speaker:some point to hear your evolving thoughts as, as things change.
Speaker:I'd be happy to.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:What a fascinating conversation with Alastair.
Speaker:I was so struck by what he shared and the three things that I took
Speaker:away were, firstly, if we all have a different reality, it's
Speaker:a fact that we will disagree.
Speaker:And if you know that there is nothing to fear, only to surface
Speaker:and see what makes sense.
Speaker:It's so interesting how we think that everybody else is seeing the same picture
Speaker:in their heads as us, and so frequently we realize that it's not working that way.
Speaker:See how much you can observe that in your own life by really understanding
Speaker:the picture in someone else's head.
Speaker:Leading by listening rather than telling was Alastair's key message.
Speaker:And I've been reflecting since we've had this conversation on how much I've
Speaker:been listening rather than talking.
Speaker:It really is a skill to develop.
Speaker:We are so conditioned to want to tell people the answer or give them advice,
Speaker:but when we really listen and really get quiet, we can ask better questions, and
Speaker:we can get a better picture of what's in others' heads rather than our own.
Speaker:What would be the value for you if you asked better questions?
Speaker:If you enjoyed this episode and you feel that others might benefit
Speaker:too, please go ahead and share it.
Speaker:You can do that@generativeleaders.co or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:I look forward to being with you on the next episode of Generative Leaders.
