Links:

'Reclaim Time to Read' 2022 reading challenge:  https://www.helenbeedham.com/2022-reading-challenge

Helen's business book: The Future of Time: how 're-working' time can help you boost productivity, diversity and wellbeing

Win a free signed copy of The Future of Time

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

No Filter: the inside story of Instagram by Sarah Frier.

Gerry on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerry-mcquade-250b343/

The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Richard Branson Way: 10 Secrets of the World's Greatest Brand Builder by Des Dearlove.

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Charles Burck, Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan.

Transcript:

Helen: Hi! This week I'm talking to Gerry McQuade. Gerry has held executive board positions with BT, EE, Orange and Virgin, and he has more than 30 years' experience in consumer and business-to-business technology. He was a founding director of Virgin Mobile, and part of the team that took it from conception to flotation and eventual sale. Most recently, Gerry spent more than 12 years at EE and then BT, initially joining as the Chief Executive of their wholesale and ventures business and subsequently running their combined enterprise business. He's also worked in small enterprises and startups and is currently Chair of Forensic Analytics, an industry leading software training and consultancy business. Welcome to The Business of Being Brilliant Gerry!

Gerry: Thank you, pleasure to be here.

Helen: It's great to have you here. So you've obviously spent most of your career in the telecoms industry. Have you ever been tempted to divert into another industry?

Gerry: No, I haven't in short. I got into telco in very early nineties. And I'd been in consultancy and I had worked in lots of different industries - worked in banking, manufacturing, retail, and in a sense, although they're very modern these days it felt as if they were 18th century industries and I came into mobile and I did a job at what is now O2, to launch the first consumer tariff back in the early nineties and I realized that this was going to be something very, very different from anything I'd seen before. I thought this is going to change the world. So I jumped on it with no real idea of how it would change the world, but it's just been such a dynamic ride that I've never really been tempted to go into another industry because it's always changed. It's always fulfilled me in terms of challenges and direction. So yeah, I've never really been tempted.

Helen: I can understand that, it being such an industry where we've seen such massive acceleration in developments and innovation, and I love your intuition that "I'm in for an interesting ride.;I don't know what it's going to look like, but I'm up for it". I think that's a really great way to approach a career, just see where it takes you and enjoy the ride.

Gerry: Yeah. I've always said to people, I love change. Not so much if someone else's imposing it on me, but actually the notion of change. I do think it's what keeps things exciting and constantly challenges you. So, I think seeing an industry change it's just a joy actually to be part of it.

Helen: Yeah. So for people listening now, they've got a sense of the roles you've had and what attracted you to the industry, c an you give them a sense of who you are as a person? What three words would you choose to describe yourself?

Gerry: That's a good question actually. I think in a business sense, I think people would say I'm pragmatic. I get that description. I'm very commercial is another description I hear alot about me. And I think the other thing that I'm aware of myself is I'm dyslexic, and I think that that does define a lot of the things that probably make me who I am, and I'm not severely dyslexic, but I certainly struggled with certain things. And I think as a result, people with that experience think differently. Those are the three things that I think in terms of a work environment people would often use certainly the first two they've used and the third is one I'd use for myself to see why I think differently.

Helen: Yes. And can you tell me a bit more about that, about how it's helped you to approach your work differently?

Gerry: It's not a rational thing. It's not something that, for me, it's different. It's just the way I look at things. People will say to me, you look at the world a bit upside down and I've noticed that with other people. Working at Virgin, you could see that my CEO in Virgin was very dyslexic, and then Branson's dyslexic. And you do see that, you know, people will often come to you and say, look, here's what we want to do, and here's the rationale for it. It goes A, B, C, D. So therefore E and F comes next. And I think quite often, people who are dyslexic actually don't think like that that their brain is just wired differently. They go "what if you turn it the other way round, what if you look at it in a different way." I don't think of it as a different way. I just think of it as the way my brain works. And I think it's just that diversity of thought. And I don't think it's anything special about being dyslexic. It's just another diverse way of thinking. And I've always believed that businesses are better when it gets more diversity of every kind. Diversity of thought and experience is something that really enhances the dialogue.

Helen: Yeah, I'd absolutely agree and I think looking at organizations, a lot of them have worked very hard on understanding the things that help promote better gender diversity, and trying to put some of those in place and to a slightly lesser extent around racial diversity. And there's a bit more talk nowadays about social diversity as well; all these different aspects of diversity, but I think sometimes the one perhaps we talk less about in concrete terms and openly is around, as you're saying, different ways of thinking, different ways of looking at problems, embracing that diversity of thought.

Gerry: I first encountered that actually when I was at Cellnet, or O2. It was a business that was really just growing. It wasn't a massive business at the time, but we got everybody to do Myers Briggs. I can't remember the exact number, but there was an incredible percentage of people were ISTJs. And everybody was recruiting in their own likeness. And we ended up with this homogenous group of people who all thought the same way and acted the same way. And actually, that was the first time it struck me there's another way of doing it.

Helen: So for those listeners who haven't come across MBTI, it's a personality traits profiling tool widely used in business, and just helps you to understand your preferred way of operating so that there's no right or wrongs are there, but fascinating that so many of you ended up with one out of the 16 profiles that you can get. Definitely cause for alarm on the diversity front! And in terms of the different businesses you've worked in and the roles you've played, you've obviously got a huge range of experience with companies of all different sizes and taking companies through flotations and merger integrations and sales. Looking back, when would you say you really flourished most in your career? Was there a particular time or was it more, certain things had to be in place for you to feel like you were really flying in your work life?

Gerry: Obviously success or growth in the business, the external factors, when they're working, it's always easy to feel as if you're comfortable and it's enjoyable. But I think the things that I think give a level of personal satisfaction as well as enjoyment and flourishing is I think it's when I've always been given a step up in terms of challenge. Not necessarily step up in role, but a step up in challenge where suddenly you've had to deal with problems that force you to think differently about how you manage and how you lead and the breadth of things that you've got to cover.

I think when that works, that's when I really feel that I flourished not just in terms of the external factors of success, but actually feeling as if I've grown and actually I'm a more rounded leader than I would have been before. And it really needs that level of stretch to make you think; whether it's scale or maybe a financial challenge in the market. Those things quite often they force you to be just a different leader, you just have to find new tools in your toolbox and when those have happened and they've been successful, I feel as if that's where I've taken more confidence about what else I can do.

Helen: So it sounds like real professional growth, but also personal growth as well. And I think what I heard you allude to was that when faced with a challenging goal or task or something that's going to stretch you skill-wise, or knowledge wise, it sounded like you take time to reflect on what you need to do differently or how you need to lead differently or what people you might need to draw on. It sounds like there's quite a bit of reflecting in there as well?

Gerry: Yeah, I think I am quite reflective, but also I do think you can learn a lot from people and I've been blessed with, especially with the CEOs I've worked for, I've always tried to get close to them and understand them. And they've all been very, very different. When I look at the people I've worked for as CEO, the spectrum is enormous, about what their skills were and what they were good at and where they weren't good at. And I've always been very comfortable speaking to them like ' when you have to address this, how do you look at it? And I don't mind stealing and plagiarising other people's ideas, but yeah, I think that's the right thing to do is stop and question yourself and say, does this work?

The area where the biggest challenge for me is when I first picked up a P & L. And the first P & L I picked up was 2 billion pounds. I'd been dealing with big issues and big companies, but suddenly you're in a market facing role with a lot more dynamics. And had no shame in talking to my CEO and I was like 'how did you deal with this? They came in and gave me this very simple piece of advice actually. They said like: don't think you can manage the people in the same way as you did before, because all of a sudden you've got a breadth that you've never had before in terms of the nature of the issues and what you need to make sure that's happening.

So use the numbers, you have to get close to your numbers. And that was a very salutary lesson actually, because whilst I've always been comfortable with numbers, I don't quite use them the way he had used them. And just a simple tool, but actually it saved me so much effort and it did make me think very differently about what I needed to do with my time and, and how I interacted with my people. It's just a small example of just thinking differently about how you manage.

Helen: That's really fascinating to hear. And I love the way you look at the CEOs and other executives you work with and think, well, what can I learn from them? We all have different leaders, different bosses and some relationships come more naturally than others, but I love that very open, curious, learning mindset. Well, each one of them is gonna teach me something if I'm open to it, if I ask the right question, so what can I learn from them? I love that attitude and it's a great piece of advice they shared with you. So when you were faced with a challenge like that or something that felt daunting or a time, when conditions for you at work in whatever way, felt difficult, how have you responded to that? And what did you take from the experience?

Gerry: I've actually always leant into those sort of things. I think I've been comfortable.  One of the lessons I think I learned quite early is that when things are successful, it's not all about you. And when things go badly, it's not all about you. When you get challenged and things are really tough you can't run away from it. So you're going to lean into it and I think you've got to use all the tools that are available to you. Usually it's about people; most businesses are pretty clear on the strategy, the markets it's not changing dramatically day by day. So it's it's usually about how you execute things and how you support people to do the execution they need. I do believe in strategy and the execution of strategy as a fundamental element of running a good business. Don't just look at the short term, make sure that you've got a 50,000 foot and a 50 foot view of your business so that you can make sure you're going to hit the right direction. But you know what are the issues in the short term. I think you've got to have lots of small things that you're achieving and looking at when things are challenging.

The thing I think probably came late to me is actually recognizing that if you have a challenge, that challenge is shared by the rest of your team and making sure that you are thinking about whether they've got the same mindset in dealing with that challenge. And I was probably slower a few times in the last 10 years or so sometimes not seeing that some people were really struggling emotionally or mentally with the challenge. So I think it's not just about making sure that they know what they need to do, but actually I think that you do also need to make sure they're comfortable in the space that they're having to operate in. Because when you have something challenging as a leader at any level, your people are sharing in that challenge.

And the last thing I'd say on it is that I think it's really important as a leader that you don't share the problem; that you share the confidence that the problem is do-able. You walk out of your office if you have an office, or you walk on the office floor and you've got to look confident, and you've got to talk as if you're confident. Because people are relying on you to say 'this is the right approach to deal with the issue, as a team'.

Helen: That's so interesting to hear. And as I've been talking with other podcast guests, one thing that keeps coming up when I ask people about when they flourished in their career is that they were asked to step up to a challenge in some way, take on challenging piece of work or a new responsibility or a new role. But the thing that made the difference was having their manager or someone senior who really believed they could do it. And I'm hearing you describe the manager's perspective on that, which is you might not have all the answers, this might be a challenge that's keeping you awake at night, but what you're doing is going out and saying to people "I've got confidence in you that together we can figure this out or that you can play your part in this".

Gerry: Yeah. Business is a team game and I think it's essential that you're giving people both space and there's always a dynamic of trying to push them as hard as you can. But you've got to do that in a way that is actually about saying " you can go further because you're capable of going further and you've got the support to go there and if it doesn't all come off, it doesn't matter". Nothing always works completely as you expect so don't worry if it doesn't and I think you've just got to give people the space. It's not about failing. It's just that it's not about always being a hundred percent.  People need support, but they also need the affirmation. I think we all do, even if we say we don't. Nobody gets upset when someone says you've done a great job.

Helen: No.

Gerry: And I think we all value it.

Helen: Yeah. And often it's not, it's not said enough and you're right. Even if someone seems highly capable and doesn't seem to need the positive affirmation, it doesn't mean they don't appreciate it and it hasn't encouraged them on.

So moving on to talk a little bit more about work cultures and in my business book The Future of Time I write about how we have certain cultural norms at work in relation to the way we think about time, the way we manage our time and how we spend it, how we value it. And a lot of that is characterized by very high speed, always on, a high degree of urgency, everyone frantically busy, but also multiple communication channels, quite fragmented working days, we're always hopping from one task to another or one conversation to another, a lot of juggling. And that can be difficult for the individual to thrive and do productive work and feel like they have a sustainable work-life. And it can be problematic for businesses as well, who may be struggling with lots of long hours of working, but lower productivity, lower well-being and actually making slow progress towards their diversity and inclusion goals. Are these time norms, these habits, are they things that you've perceived and experienced particularly as a leader? I'm interested in how you've observed that at play in organizations where you've been in a leadership role?

Gerry: I think it's becoming an even stronger dynamic, even when I was younger in consultancy. It was the dynamic of a very macho culture. We would expect to be in at the crack of dawn and no, you were not expected to leave until quite late in the evening. And the mindset was, it was a necessity to get work done, but at the same time it created all sorts of poor dynamics within the workplace. And I think we're seeing, you know, the technology, as you say, shifting the dynamic of what work looks like.

I don't know what quite the answer is here. We did a piece of research probably three or four years ago on graduates that we were hiring and it was interesting to see their mindset. There was quite a spectrum, but there was quite a lot of people saying, "look, I live my life digitally and I do what I need to do, when I need to do it. And I do it digitally. And if you need me to do work, I'm happy to do it anytime, but I expect you to be flexible. So if I need to do something in the morning, and I'm going to do all my work in the evening, if that doesn't impinge on things why should that be an issue?" And perfectly reasonable question, actually. But of course there's other work dynamics that need you to be in and collaborate and I think that that evolution of the way millennials probably think is very different to the way most leaders are thinking. And I think it will drive a lot more change in flexibility and it's already happening.

And actually through COVID what we saw in our business was that people's commute time became work time, and people thought there was a presenteeism required. So they sat by their computer or on a computer for ridiculous amounts of the day. And we didn't have a productivity problem through COVID; we had the opposite problem where people were working too long and we were trying to tell people that if you might take a break for half an hour in the morning and lunch it's not a big deal. But people feel obliged to be connected in the business and look as if they're busy and we need to make sure that people know that we understand the need for work-life balance. I actually do tend to the view that actually we need the business and the employee in this world to be more flexible? So the idea of everything being a nine-to-five or a fixed set of hours is very difficult in a world where we're becoming more global, customers and suppliers and whoever in different time zones. They all have different implications for how we run the business.

Family will always come first. And therefore, if someone says "I need to take my child to here tomorrow morning, can I have some time off?" the smart answer is always to say yes. Unless there's some major problem you're going to tell me about, of course you can take the time off. Because actually they'll give you it back in spades. They know that you're recognizing their needs and they've got to recognize your needs.

I do think that dynamic of technology is the one that is going to continue to shift the way that we need more flexibility, from both businesses and staff. And I don't know quite how the contracts work on that, but you see it all the time. And in terms of how you deal with it, I think it's just trying to be personable and sensible and recognize that the business isn't everything in people's lives. It's a means to an end for most people, it's not an end in itself.

Helen:  That's really good to hear. And so I see some organizations leaping quite quickly to figure out often quite collaboratively with employees, you know, what their new working policies are going to be - working arrangements - and to announce that and I see other organizations still sticking with a period of experimentation, sometimes saying, well, let's just see how we all individually make it work and at team levels over the next year, and then we'll review it again and see. Where are you on that spectrum?

Gerry: Yeah, I think manager discretion can work quite well, but it also can be a bit of an issue when you get different views. You mentioned that the start I'm the chair of a very small tech company and having worked invery large businesses, the same issues arise.

On the board of Forensic Analytics, which I chair, we've had the exact same discussions; do we make this policy? And we can see the dangers of that being a policy. And we said, well, we do want to lean into this. How do we make it monitors discretion? And then you get different managers around the table saying "well, that wouldn't work for my team". And others say 'well, I'd like to do it". And so  I think you need to just be open to the ideas and then see how you can take small steps. If you're worried about the implications, see whether you can find solutions by doing small steps. Those are not easy tasks and every business, every business struggles with how do we lean in to make sure our staff has as much flexibility as we can give them whilst at the same time, not damaging the business within and as a result everybody's impacted. So it's a tough one. It's a tough one.

Helen: It's interesting to hear how you're approaching that in your current organization. And is there a future ambition that you haven't yet achieved? That were we to be talking 5, 10 years time, you'd love to be telling me about?

Gerry: I don't have a personal ambition for future. I love the business. The reason I've taken this business, I think it's, it's a very purposeful business. The people who are in it are fascinating and just fantastic people. I love working with them. So my ambition is purely one of ... It's a business that it's tiny, it's get 3 million of revenue and it can grow very fast. It's in a super position and just making that successful for the guys. They've worked for eight years on this idea, they've never taken funding until now, they've worked for next to nothing to make this happen. And it's just a joy to try and help them be part of it, to help them be successful. And they deliver a product which is actually a really meaningful in society, it really has an impact. And so that's the ambition I have: how to help them be successful. .

Helen: Yeah. Okay. And I'm sure there's lots of great things that you could recommend that would be useful to people listening, but is there a particular resource, whether that's a book or a talk or just a piece of advice, that's really helped you in your work life and your career that might be helpful to people listening. Is there one you could share?

Gerry: It's probably two things. I've never been, I suppose when I say pragmatic at the start, I'm not that theoretical. So when I have read and I do read business books, I often find them difficult to really be deeply meaningful. There's two that I think ... One is really just a a simplification of Branson's philosophy, which is it's just really tries to, in 10 steps of what are the key philosophies - and philosophy is probably a big word for for this - that Branson applies, or the brand of Virgin tries to apply to the businesses. And I think when I was in Virgin it was about 200 businesses, so it wasn't Richard, it was just the brand values were the things that were in there. And the really simple things about ... Everybody talks about being customer first. I mean, the notion they had, which I actually love is that look after your staff, because if you look after your staff, they'll look out for the customer. If they look out for the customer, the customer will look after your balance sheet. And it really permeated the business. So there's a book, which I said, I mentioned because I never remember this guy's name.A guy called Des Dearlove and he calls it 'The Richard Branson way', but it really is a very simple book. And that's one which actually, I do think there's lots of really simple ideas in there that are worth thinking about when you're in business.

And the other one was a book that I had a CEO who'd arrived when I was at what became EE, at Orange. And the CEO came in and he had a big reputation. He liked changing in the organization and driving very hard. And he arrived on day one and everybody was a little bit unsure of what was going to happen the new CEO, and he gave everybody a book called 'Execution', which scared the life out of everybody. They thought it related to them. It's a book by a couple of consultants called 'Execution: the discipline of getting things done'. And again, it's not a highly theoretical book, it's a very practical book. And basically it says businesses don't fail in their promise because of the market or because of the strategy, because there's business leaders typically know what's going on in the market and they typically are pretty sound in their strategy. It's execution that fails them. It's about understanding why businesses fail to deliver what they promise. And I think actually it's a nice, simple book abou recognizing that just because you sayit, it doesn't mean to say it's going to get done as a leader and actually you need to take actions to think about, how am I going to ensure that this actually gets done in a way that really enables the rest of the strategy? And it's a book that actually I did take a lot from, in terms of just a sensible way to think about leading change in your business.

Helen: Thank you for those two recommendations. They both sound fantastic and quite complimentary and sounds like actually you could use them. They might be of benefit to you, whether you're running your own business or running a small business or running a big role in, in a big business well.And how can listeners connect with you if they want connect with you professionally, after listening to the podcast. What's the best way to do that?

Gerry: I suppose  LinkedIn is probably the easiest way. I am on LinkedIn. Eh, I'm pretty easy to find, I don't think there's many Gerry McQuades on Linked In!

Helen: Okay, great.

Gerry: And there's a picture of me on LinkedIn as well. So you can see it's me.

Helen: Brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you, Gerry, for giving us your time and talking about your career and the different roles you've had and what's been top of mind for you as a leader and how you've gone about leading the organizations you've been responsible for. It's been really fascinating to hear, and I'm sure listeners will have picked up so many great pieces of advice and wisdom. So thank you for sharing those.

Gerry: My pleasure. Thank you very much.