Latest / The Decision Advantage / Leading with Care & Global Leadership Perspectives (Part 1)
Transcript
- speaker-0: Welcome to the Decision Advantage, a fusion intelligence podcast by Fernand Consulting. I'm Brian Leclerc, and today I will be speaking with John Hart, the Director of Grounded Risk Management at Fernand Consulting. John, welcome to the show. speaker-1: Well, hello. Thank you for having me. speaker-0: Great. Well, it's great to have you here. ⁓ while you're here, ⁓ I'd really like to hear about ⁓ your leadership experience. ⁓ you've spent a career not only leading teams internationally, but observing and coaching other leaders across different cultures. ⁓ looking back at that journey, what key experiences shaped your approach to executive leadership? speaker-1: Hmm. speaker-0: A lot, I know. speaker-1: I think I think before I before I talk about specific key experiences, I think the first thing I would like to call out is that people are people everywhere. I mean, obviously there are different cultures and there are different influences, but there are some things I think though that are that are common. No matter where you go, people want to make a difference. They they w they want purpose and they want direction. They want to have the opportunity to develop their own mastery and then they want to be empowered and to to to use that their mastery to fulfill a worthwhile purpose of some kind. I think that purpose is something that ⁓ purpose is a convergence of what you're really passionate about, what you're good at, and what the world needs. And people are looking for that with f you know, for themselves and and usually for an organization that helps them to to fulfill that purpose. speaker-0: Right. Sometimes it's hard to find the purpose, right? speaker-1: Yeah, ⁓ well, absolutely. Yeah. But when they find it, it's amazing to see how that unlocks people's excitement, their energy, their passion, their performance. And the the best leaders I I think I've seen, again, this is a global it's you know, worldwide, I've seen are the ones who are able to provide their organizations and their people with a compelling strategy that's founded on a compelling purpose and also an engaging culture, right? So they they they know what the purpose is. They can communicate that purpose effectively. They give a direction a strategy with the vision and and then they create the environment that enables people to thrive. These are leaders that I call grounded. They're grounded in their purpose, their vision, their values, and and they also remain connected. They remain connected with with first of all the people that they're serving. They remain connected with the ⁓ the support network that they have. There could be all kinds of stakeholders, it could be suppliers, it could be regulators, ⁓ it could be the leaders that they have to their their shareholders and so forth. But they also remain connected with their team. They remain connected to their source and to and to the purpose. ⁓ and so I just want to say that those are some principles that I think that apply globally. But you asked for some key experiences that have kind of helped shape my approach to executive leadership. I began to get my international experience when I was working for ⁓ GE Money and I was working for retail consumer finance, a division of r ⁓ of GE Money. And I wanna tell you a l a little bit about Margaret Keene. She was the CEO of RCF for GE Money ⁓ through the global financial crisis of two thousand and eight and following, and that's when I was working there. And I found what I really ⁓ saw from her was a leader who respected her people. she knew the value of ⁓ of people as human beings. And and and she also recognized the value of people as key contributors to the organization's mission and obviously to shareholder value. And she communicated honestly with her staff and specifically, I just mentioned it was during the global financial crisis. Well, throughout America and throughout the world there were a lot of ⁓ reductions in force that were required in order for businesses to sort of to balance their books, right? They had to reduce expenses. What I really appreciated about her was her honest humility. ⁓ her heart. She showed me that, you know, leaders can lead with heart and they can connect with heart even when you don't have good news for people. Sometimes you can deliver unwanted information and unwanted news with compassion, with understanding, with answers to the degree that you have answers. Sometimes you don't really know the answers, right? But you're she was very honest about that. speaker-0: generally want want information, even if it's not great information, they they want to know. speaker-1: That's right. Yeah, absolutely. And and she I thought she was just fantastic at that. So I will always remember and respect Margaret Keene for that. She she reaffirmed my belief that the most effective leaders lead from depth from a position of grounding and they connect with heart, even and especially when the going gets tough. Another key experience I s I reckon would be helpful to to mention would be when I was working ⁓ for Bank West in Australia. There I saw Come alive, the value of giving the people in your organization a compelling strategy. I also saw real value in purpose and and in vision and and being able to ground people in purpose and vision, but just for this example, I want to focus only on an experience that was really ⁓ related to strategy. See, Bank West was acquired by the CBA, that's the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, during the global financial crisis. And the CBA strategy was to retain the Bank West brand and operations and technology and the data systems, the people, they've effectively retained most of what what was what was Bank West and and let Bank West to continue to operate almost in autonomy. ⁓ and so while there was a lot of good work being done during that period with C BA and with Bank West on risk management, on culture development. There was also, unfortunately, scarce material investment in Bank West, in the Bank West brand and technology and so forth. And so some of the foundations that are required for banking that that that needed capital investment for renewal were were aging. And many in Bank West ⁓ perceived that. They could see that happening and they could see that they those investments weren't coming, and they recognized w or they perceived actually that CBA's strategy for Bank West was for it to be just a cash cow. So they could ring it for as much cash as they could, for as long as they could. speaker-0: Did that impact the morale of the people? speaker-1: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it did 'cause you can imagine so you know, there are times when a cash cow strategy is actually that that works. You can understand why why a business would do that. I mean there's it could be good for the owner of the cow, but for the cow, that strategy always leads to the slaughterhouse. Right. And so while while there was a fantastic culture at Bank West, there was always in the back of people's minds some wonder about well what's the future of this organization and what's my future here? If this is, you know, at what point is all the cash gonna be wrung out and and how hard is it gonna get to continue to be effective when we're having to deal with aging systems instructors. So ⁓ yeah, so you're right. It wa it wasn't it wasn't very good for the people who who were in it. But it did it did change though. So what I saw then was that when as new leaders came in both to the CBA and and and into Bank West ⁓ a new strategy was developed that he reimagined the Bank West brand and and its operations. It was a simplification strategy and it was an agile strategy and so it it did reduce cost, but those cost savings were reinvested in transformation into a world class digital retail bank. And what a difference that made then in terms of performance and engagement when people believe in their purpose and they believe in the strategy and then they're they're you know they're all on board to to achieve it. speaker-0: So as we're talking here, it would be interesting to get your perspective on how executives in the US who haven't necessarily spent a lot of time managing operations overseas to find out what they should understand about how international partners view American business leadership and how does that perspective matter today? speaker-1: I would say that most international ⁓ teams and l and leaders that I've worked with ⁓ demonstrated actually a great deal of respect and admiration f of US executives who particularly the ones who are on the forefront of innovation and and of process improvement. Like like good leaders anywhere ⁓ I mean anywhere. ⁓ the leaders in Australia and in in India and in the Philippines and ⁓ in some of the Central American and s ⁓ South American countries, they're always on the lookout for best practices. And they often found numerous best practices in the US. The leaders in Australia, for example, would frequently make trips to the US to visit operations there and to learn ⁓ what they might be able to take back. So I think that's that's an important ⁓ First point. That's that's a very positive point. ⁓ but they also kept a close watch or I should say and they also kept a close watch on what was happening in America because whatever happened in America has repercussions around the world. The the global financial crisis was a perfect example of that. When I first arrived in Australia, that was in two thousand and eleven, people told me, Whenever America sneezes, we all have to get out the tissues. And ⁓ so in my experience, international leaders actually though often had a more global perspective than I saw from many US leaders. That's not to say that US leaders do not have a global perspective, but rather it's just in my observation about the degree of proactive monitoring and the degree of ⁓ proactive consideration of global cooperation and of global impacts. For example, when when we developed ⁓ stress testing scenarios in Australia, the scenarios were very frequently triggered by global events that then considered the potential impacts in the Australian economy or in Australi Australia operations from those events. And personally I I think that this is an opportunity for many leaders in America. With modern technology ⁓ and with the modern markets, today the world is just a much smaller place. And the strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats that are relevant to our organizations are much more global than they sometimes were and and more global than is sometimes understood. The relationships, ⁓ the partnerships, the opportunities and the risks that can make a really big difference to our strategies may in fact be global or they may they may begin somewhere offshore for Americans. speaker-0: Right. It's really not a siloed situation. It's the the whole world is is could be impacted. speaker-1: That's right. That's right. And often the people who would like to be more parochial, who would like to think that they c that they want to live in a silo, sometimes they're not they're just not seeing reality ⁓ the way that it is and that that's almost that's akin to sticking your head in the sand. It's not necessarily gonna get you what you're looking for. speaker-0: Right. Right. Well, you've ⁓ you know, moving on to to something else, you've developed a a leadership concept around leading with care. Can you break down what care stands for and how it came about and you know who who benefits the most from applying ⁓ this framework that you've worked on? speaker-1: yes, I think I think I'll start by ⁓ how it came about. I initially developed it in ⁓ the early two thousands when I was ⁓ leading a credit card operation in San Antonio, Texas for for Chase. And ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah, that'd be great. speaker-1: When I first arrived there, ⁓ in fact I was sent there because there was ⁓ there were early compliance issues and performance issues, and then as a consequence the morale was was really poor. And so leadership was really going to be important. And ⁓ there was a book that was published back then called Fish Philosophy. Many of our listeners probably have heard about it, but it was ⁓ it was a cultural revolutionary type of a book that help you ⁓ to engage ⁓ people in ways that were really going to also engage customers and and provide you know fantastic customer service. Anyway, ⁓ the fish philosophy had four tenants and one of them was choose your attitude. The other ones were play, have fun, and make their day. So you can imagine what what those kind of ⁓ tenants would do. But one was choose your attitude. And so one time when I was on a flight back from Tampa to San Antonio, I I I it occurred to me that if I want to ask my people to choose their attitude, maybe I should choose mine first. I should think, hmm, what so what would my attitude be? So then I started thinking about, well, what do I think is important for leaders? And what are imp what's important for leaders not only for themselves, but for their people. So I I I developed the this thing that I've come to call care leadership. First my first thoughts were ⁓ of how would it guide me? You know, what were the attributes that I would most like to have as a leader. ⁓ but I p picked attributes that I also thought were really important, not just for myself, but for the impact that that would have on the team, on the team's performance and on the team's morale and, you know, their their quality of engagement and and so forth. ⁓ but then after I developed I recognized also that there's if you if you really follow this, if when I followed this, it it makes a big difference for the team as well. So I think care leadership is really good for the leader, but it's also good when the leader gives this to the team and it's good for the team also to have these attributes that that ⁓ come out to spell care. They're confidence, appreciation, responsibility, and enthusiasm. And if we have time, I'd like to take a minute just to flush each of those out a little bit. That'd be great. And okay. And and as I do, I'll I'll I'll also point out how it helps. speaker-0: Yeah that speaker-1: I think ⁓ who who and how it helps 'cause that was the last part of your question. speaker-0: It's helping more than just the leaders, but it's helping the entire team, right? speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So confidence is for the leader first. ⁓ that's as I said, you know, I I I need to have confidence first, but then it's also for the team. And I wanna say first of all that this what I'm talking about here is a humble confidence. It's not arrogance. ⁓ and and humble confidence comes from a character that is grounded, that is grounded in purpose, and it has genuine capability and it has connections that matter. ⁓ Character, by the way, I I I I love a definition of character by ⁓ Dr. H ⁓ Henry Cloud in his book Integrity. He said I don't know if I have the quote right, but it was something like this that character is the ability to accept reality for what it is and then, you know, take actions that are ⁓ you know, that are aligned with reality as opposed to just trying to pretend like it's something else and running off and and doing something different or or something that's not necessarily gonna be very effective. So ⁓ if you have confidence that first starts by recognizing the reality of who you are, the reality that you're living in, ⁓ understanding what your purpose is, ⁓ and then recognizing the genuine skills, the capabilities, the talents, the gifts, the passion the passion that you have that's aligned to that to to the purpose, then that builds that that gives ⁓ confidence to begin with. So if you gotta get connected to that, first of all, but then also You can have great confidence if you stay connected to your source and if you stay connected to your people and you stay connected as I talked earlier about ⁓ Mar what Margaret King was able to do in terms of connections. Right. And then ⁓ and people then are more confident when they have a leader who is confident. Right? So a leader's own confidence is a valuable foundation, but then there's so much more potential for the leader and for the organization when that leader also helps to build the confidence of their people, their own humble confidence that's grounded in purpose. And then the leader helps them to improve their capability, which will build their confidence, and gives them networks and relationships and resources necessarily so they can all work together to achieve their common objectives and that builds their confidence. And then that kind of confidence improves their performance, it improves their satisfaction in the job, and it builds trust. So it's good for the leader, but it's also good for the people in the organization, the people in the organization that they serve. speaker-0: Right. That makes t total sense. speaker-1: So I I'm just conscious of time, so I'll I'll I'll go on to appreciation real quick. One one thing about appreciation and it's an amazing word actually, because we use it, you think about it in the English language, we use the appre ⁓ word appreciation to refer both to a gratitude and to growth. Right? We we talk about house price appreciation, for example. We're talking about the the growing size of the of of the investment or the value that you have in your home. ⁓ but we also talk about it as in terms of gratitude. And I think that's that's amazing that the same word is used in both ways because that's instructive about the value of appreciation. Because you get more of what you appreciate. If you have gratitude towards something and you show people your gratitude, you show them that you that that you appreciate what they do, they give you more of it. It's a it's amazing how that works. If I if I if I tell people that I love chocolate chip cookies, ⁓ th then and they want to make you happy because they like what it does for them, right? When when when you show appreciation. Now neuroscientists today can tell us how it works, how the brains work and the neurotransmitters are released and all that when they get a little bit of appreciation and and so forth, and that makes them want to do it more and more. So it's motivating. Sure, that that that's all well and good. But we knew long before neuroscience was telling us this that people like to be appreciated. ⁓ so like confidence. Appreciation also improves performance and it improves satisfaction and it builds trust. So I've always made it a point to try to put practices throughout my day that so that I can have an attitude of gratitude, demonstrate appreciation to my people, ⁓ and then watch them do more and more of what I like seeing them do, which by the way isn't just about when they go above and beyond. Right? When they do just the job that you asked them to do and they do it well, then that's sort of worthy of appreciation, right? Yeah. If you want them to continue doing it, then appreciate ⁓ for it. speaker-0: Right. I I think a lot of the times, you know, that gets lost. It's like this is what you're hired for, but it it's still speaker-1: Important. Yeah, that's right. And then the third pillar is responsibility. And again, that's for the leader first, but then it's also for the team. So the th th the leaders, responsible leaders, that they don't just set direction and expectations for others. They understand and they fulfill their own responsibilities. And leaders have unique roles and unique responsibilities in the organization. And it's important for them to know that what those are and that they fulfill them. And sometimes that means also ⁓ getting rolling up your sleeves, getting your hands dirty, there's all kinds of cliches, but people like it when their leaders get in the trenches with them, right? And demonstrate some some responsibility, some camaraderie, some sharing of of the work and and also helps to build understanding. ⁓ and so, but these responsible leaders would also, and this is what I would do, is I would encourage my team and support them in their responsibility by first of all ensuring that everybody understands their accountabilities. What is the unique role that they play in the organization and what their accountabilities for that role are, what's expected of them, and and also make sure that they're provided with the right l resources and the right development so that they can fulfill those responsibilities. And so if if I act responsibly and if I enable my team to act responsibly, then that improves performance and it improves engagement and that also builds trust. So it's good for the leader and it's good for all the people. Everybody benefits. And then the last one ⁓ i i is enthusiasm. the this is the spirit that underlies that that motivates, that empowers and sustains the leaders and their teams and the organization. So I mean, enthusiasm is so I get up each morning and I excited to go to work because I really want to do what I'm meant to do. So that comes from me from being grounded in purpose and staying connected to your purpose. And ⁓ once I talked earlier about purpose, it's where it's the convergence of your passion, of what you're good at and what the world needs, right? So if you're passionate about it and you're good at it, you know, that's it's pretty exciting. You can stay enthusiastic about what you're doing. And for as a leader, first of all, people are watching you all the time. You can't have a bad day as a leader. I mean you can. People are gonna allow you to do it, but then but then, you know, y you could just be frustrated because Your dog died, but next thing you know, everybody else is thinking that the stock market's about to crash for you or something like that, right? Right. That's right. Yeah. ⁓ so ⁓ so so you it's it's best to recognize how big your leadership shadow is. And so you walk in enthusiastic and excited about your mission, excited about your purpose, and then that's contagious. People are gonna pick up on that as well. But don't just rely on that. Share the purpose with them. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Stay connected to it, help them to be connected to it, help them to have the relationships that matter and that are gonna support them in that, and help them to be so be a cheerleader too, right? So they can be just as enthusiastic as you can about it. So those are the four pillars of care of leadership that I've tried to to try to live by. And it's worked for me for the most part. There have been times when it hasn't been it's not usually those principles that didn't apply, it was my execution that didn't work, right? speaker-0: Well, as you said, it's really hard to be, you know, on top of everything all the time. That's right. If if you have that passion in your you know, if you have that passion for a job or ⁓ an organization, then the enthusiasm seems like it would naturally come out, right? speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. speaker-0: That's great. ⁓ you know, it was a good good view on on, you know, how you're leveraging your experience and and how this might help, you know, executive leadership ⁓ across the board. So but ⁓ you know, we covered a lot of stuff today, but we didn't even talk specifically about what you're doing with firm and consulting. speaker-1: Well, you're right. Well, at least n not specifically. but much of what I do with Ferdinand Consulting is about grounded leadership and it is about global influences. We talked about those a little bit today. But with Ferdinand, we used to get a little bit more specific and a little bit more practical about the influences on risk management and on communications of of being grounded and of these global influences. Right. speaker-0: Well, it sounds like, you know, perhaps it's a good opportunity to just have you back and we can dig a little bit deeper into the risk management and communication and and talk more about about what you're doing at Ferndon. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, that sounds great. I'd I I'd I'd love to come back. Thank you. Okay. Well speaker-0: Well sounds like a plan then. So why don't we do that? We'll we'll get you back on the next show. speaker-1: All right. That's awesome. Thanks a lot, Brian. speaker-0: All right. So until next time, when we continue our conversations with John, thank you all for tuning in to the Decision Advantage.