Latest / Cutting Through with Natasha Plowman / Cutting Through with Ed Cottrell

Transcript

Cutting Through with Ed Cottrell · Cutting Through with Natasha Plowman

• 0:13
  Welcome to Cutting Through With Me Natasha Ploughman.
• 0:17
  Today I'm speaking to Ed Cottrell.
• 0:19
  Ed and I worked together many years ago at Diageo and
• 0:23
  particularly when I was working with the commercial function of
• 0:26
  Diageo, he taught me a huge amount around how the business
• 0:29
  makes money. And if you listen to Cutting
• 0:32
  Through more regularly, that is a common phrase that I will use.
• 0:36
  You have to understand how your business makes money.
• 0:38
  So I was very fortunate to have great people to speak to on that
• 0:42
  respect. But I'm going to hand over to
• 0:44
  you now and hear a little bit more about where your career is
• 0:48
  taking you over the last however many years you've been in the
• 0:51
  industry. Thanks, Natasha.
• 0:54
  Well, this is a bit of an Inflexion point for my career
• 0:57
  because I've just come back to the UK after 10 years of being
• 1:01
  away. So I was in Singapore for five
• 1:03
  years with William Grant and Sons and the world of duty Free
• 1:07
  and, and then went to Dubai and I've just come back from Dubai
• 1:12
  to the UK and what a difference in in market and culture that
• 1:17
  is. And, and took up the position of
• 1:20
  CEO at 42 drinks, 42 spirits in December of last year.
• 1:25
  Then went straight off for Christmas and, and started
• 1:29
  properly in, in January. So, so really enjoying being
• 1:33
  back in the UK, enjoying the seasons, really important when
• 1:36
  you've just come from a desert Kingdom and before that a
• 1:40
  tropical country and really enjoying the culture of the UK
• 1:45
  and you know, the creativity and the opportunities that that that
• 1:48
  it offers. Brilliant.
• 1:50
  And so tell us a little bit about Fortitude brands, because
• 1:53
  we're going to talk about the fact that probably not many
• 1:55
  people will will have heard of them.
• 1:57
  So can you give us a bit of a, an idea of what the brand and
• 2:00
  what the company produces and does?
• 2:03
  Yes. So Fortitude is what I describe
• 2:05
  as a 32 year old start up. It is, it's a company that was
• 2:11
  acquired by my chair Warren Scott just over 2 years ago.
• 2:15
  It used to be called ICB, it's heart and and the factory, the
• 2:19
  bottling plant is in Middlesbrough in the northeast
• 2:22
  and we have a small head office down in London.
• 2:27
  The core of the business is still contract manufacturing.
• 2:30
  So bottling for, for, for some of the big global companies,
• 2:34
  Bacardi, William Grant and Sons, but also private label for
• 2:38
  supermarkets. So we do a lot of Tesco's
• 2:40
  private label, Asda, ALDI, etcetera.
• 2:43
  And then our own stable of brands which vary from what I
• 2:49
  would call price Challenger brands that look like some of
• 2:52
  the more expensive brands produce actually not far off and
• 2:56
  in quality terms, but at a much lower price.
• 2:59
  And then we have a clutch of our own, our own premium brands and
• 3:03
  beginning to distribute to other brands as well.
• 3:05
  So quite a complex business, but you can see that, you know, we
• 3:08
  have a private label and contract bottling business
• 3:11
  that's cash generative. And then we invest that into
• 3:14
  building our own brands. And that's a model that's used
• 3:18
  by quite a few production companies in, in the UK.
• 3:22
  And it's, it's quite refreshing. It's like we can, we can provide
• 3:25
  you with all the spirit solutions from making what you
• 3:29
  want to distributing what you want and building that brand if
• 3:32
  need be. So it's an exciting new, new
• 3:35
  time for me as well. And 1st CEO role, I've had
• 3:39
  senior roles in, in, in larger businesses.
• 3:42
  This is the first time really I'm able to, yeah, exactly.
• 3:48
  I'm able to affect, I'm able to affect our culture in a way that
• 3:52
  I haven't done before. And that is, is very exciting
• 3:56
  because I do have quite firm views on, on, you know, on, on
• 4:01
  how a team is built and, and, and the, the role of trust and
• 4:06
  integrity and communication within that.
• 4:09
  As this is a podcast about communications and it is through
• 4:13
  the noise, that's a perfect segue to go straight into the
• 4:16
  things that we wanted to talk to you to, to you today.
• 4:18
  There's two elements the areas we want to talk about. 1 is the
• 4:22
  visibility and the resonance externally with kind of key
• 4:26
  audiences. And I suppose your key audiences
• 4:29
  are your, your customers as probably a big one that you want
• 4:32
  to build that visibility in. And then the next audience is
• 4:35
  probably most important is your people and your employees.
• 4:38
  So there's, there's like 2 really interesting areas that we
• 4:41
  can talk around how you can cut through some of the noise to, to
• 4:44
  solve those problems. Should we start with the?
• 4:47
  Should we start with customers and the external external lens?
• 4:50
  Yes. So we're, you know, we're an SME
• 4:52
  and we cannot take it for granted that people know who we
• 4:56
  are, despite where we've all come from and our own personal
• 4:59
  reputations. You know, there's so much going
• 5:02
  on in in our industry, let alone the the wider world that it's
• 5:06
  very difficult to cut through with, with your own message,
• 5:09
  your own brand without spending an awful lot of money, which is
• 5:14
  an SME we don't have. So we were taught a pretty
• 5:18
  powerful lesson a couple of weeks ago where a brand, an
• 5:23
  exciting brand that wanted to use us as their distributor in
• 5:27
  the UK. We're very verbally positive
• 5:30
  about the relationship, had done some due diligence and and I'd
• 5:35
  say some because I'll come on to that in a second.
• 5:38
  And we were preparing to lay out the agreement, start negotiating
• 5:43
  terms, etcetera, etcetera. And suddenly they pulled the
• 5:47
  agreements. And the reason they pulled it is
• 5:51
  because they'd rung up some bartenders and bar and, and
• 5:55
  group owners, bar group owners in London and asked who we were.
• 5:59
  And none of them knew who we were.
• 6:02
  They might have known the brands.
• 6:03
  They didn't know who Fortitude were.
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  And you know, we have an on trade team, a team that goes out
• 6:09
  to talk to bars and and hotels and restaurants and so on.
• 6:13
  And we use a third party that to go out there as well.
• 6:16
  And you would have thought that they would, but they just
• 6:19
  didn't. They didn't know who we were.
• 6:21
  And a big lesson for us because we just assumed and whatever
• 6:27
  we're doing on LinkedIn or whatever we're doing to, to put
• 6:31
  our name out, that just isn't enough.
• 6:33
  And if we're going into a restaurant for a meeting, we
• 6:37
  have to assume that there's some kind of leverage or some kind of
• 6:40
  credibility that we carry in with us.
• 6:43
  And it's almost as if we have to start from scratch again, which
• 6:46
  is no bad thing. It you know that the way that
• 6:48
  you're exposed in an SME is, is far more powerful than you ever
• 6:53
  are in a, in a larger business and starting from scratch is not
• 6:56
  a not a bad place to be. So communication cutting through
• 7:00
  that kind of noise, that fog of, of communication from everybody
• 7:04
  else out in the marketplace to, you know, a bar owner or a
• 7:07
  restaurant owner who's got wholesalers and suppliers and
• 7:10
  brand owners queuing around the door every morning or every
• 7:14
  afternoon when they, when they're not open for service.
• 7:17
  And it has to be confusing. So making sure you're message is
• 7:23
  heard on a consistent basis, but also having a strong enough
• 7:27
  message for people to, to engage with is key.
• 7:31
  And I think the first one is, is making enough noise.
• 7:35
  And LinkedIn is the go to platform for most SM ES or
• 7:41
  startups because it's free to a degree.
• 7:44
  And, and you can, you know, you can play around with it, you can
• 7:47
  put posts on there that that do have impact and that people
• 7:50
  read. And it's clear that people read
• 7:52
  them not just because they like them, but but also, you know, I
• 7:55
  hear feedback from people saying, oh, you've got a lot of
• 7:58
  stuff on LinkedIn or you've, you know, I've seen, you've done
• 8:01
  this and I've seen you've done that.
• 8:03
  And, you know, it is, you know, it leads on to other
• 8:07
  conversations as well. So I think that the importance
• 8:10
  of LinkedIn can't be underestimated, but it has to be
• 8:16
  in a way that engages people. And the way that I do it is tend
• 8:22
  not to write lengthy descriptions of how I'm feeling
• 8:26
  that morning. I don't need to decry other
• 8:28
  people who do that and they do it for a reason.
• 8:30
  But I don't want to describe what it's like to be an SME.
• 8:34
  You know, that there's not enough time in the day.
• 8:36
  And, and So what I like to do is, is, is profile my team,
• 8:41
  which is so important or really good partners who we've stepped
• 8:46
  into an agreement with or customers, notably Sainsbury's
• 8:50
  where we got a listing the other day.
• 8:51
  I mean, it's a big deal to get a listing with Sainsbury's.
• 8:54
  And actually, funny enough, that was the one that had the most
• 8:56
  traction. And it's a repost for me.
• 8:59
  But if you're just pointing people out, you're celebrating
• 9:02
  people's success, you're getting you're you're you're catching
• 9:06
  the interest or attention of other grocery buyers who might
• 9:10
  see it. But LinkedIn is a very powerful
• 9:12
  way of doing it. Yeah, and I think the content is
• 9:15
  always really interesting for these and I think because you
• 9:19
  can make it so much more human. There's a whole conversation at
• 9:23
  the moment around people who, you know, corporate and being
• 9:28
  corporate, being quite anonymous and not connecting with people
• 9:30
  on a human level. And it sounds like what you're
• 9:33
  doing is really amplifying the people who are in the business
• 9:36
  and what makes them, taking who they are.
• 9:39
  It's the customers, it's the commercial realities and making
• 9:41
  people more relatable to the business.
• 9:44
  And so has that been a really core strategy for you is to be
• 9:47
  much more human in the way that you communicate and approach
• 9:51
  those relationships? I mean, yes, firstly because I
• 9:56
  am human. That sounds a big.
• 9:58
  Price, but good to know that and we'll make that really.
• 10:00
  Yeah, that's not, not, not an AI, no.
• 10:04
  This is it. I mean, this is the problem
• 10:05
  we've got with AI and trust. And we talked about how do you
• 10:08
  build trust as an SMA? And it's that ability to know
• 10:12
  that you are speaking to Someone Like You.
• 10:15
  And also for people to remember in businesses that, you know, at
• 10:17
  the end of the day, who they're reaching is another human to
• 10:22
  make it a different, to know something, something different
• 10:24
  about you, to think or feel something different about you as
• 10:27
  a business, as a company, as a brand and as a partner.
• 10:29
  Or you want them to do something differently.
• 10:31
  Either you want them to, you know, be more involved.
• 10:34
  And it's those human attributes which I think are really at the
• 10:37
  core of what SM AS can be doing more of to make sure that
• 10:41
  they're getting that cut through as well.
• 10:44
  Yeah, absolutely right. And not just that, but also back
• 10:47
  to who I am as a person and my style, which is very, a very
• 10:52
  humanity and, you know, kindness and, you know, building teams
• 10:56
  is, is what I hope I'm, I'm not famous for, but certainly know
• 11:02
  people know me as, as, as being that kind of leader.
• 11:06
  And, and also, you're quite right.
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  I think that the big, the big corporates, just because of who
• 11:12
  they are, we can't deliver that, that, that kind of personal
• 11:16
  relationship, whereas SMEs have to, it's a necessity.
• 11:19
  We, you know, that's our, that's our, that's our value.
• 11:22
  And you know, we can't, we, we can't do it.
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  Likely we have to go into a relationship seriously because
• 11:29
  the person with whom you're going into the relationship with
• 11:32
  want to see that, but also want to know that, you know, they are
• 11:37
  a real focus for you. Yeah.
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  And it's that old people by people, and I think even more so
• 11:43
  now when people feel like trust is so important to remind people
• 11:48
  that that's what they're looking for is that human connection is
• 11:51
  important. And I think the it's really
• 11:53
  interesting that you like, you know, this is an external focus.
• 11:56
  So it's really embedding this approach within your entire
• 11:59
  commercial and sales function. But we talked about the culture
• 12:04
  that you want to kind of embed into the company.
• 12:06
  Is that something that you're already focusing on now?
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  And what are you putting in place to to really build a
• 12:11
  people first culture that is built on trust and
• 12:13
  relationships? Yes, and before, because this is
• 12:17
  a, a small team, you know, we're about 100 people including, you
• 12:22
  know, our employees up in Middlesbrough, many of whom are
• 12:24
  on the, on the bottling line. But but down in London with
• 12:27
  sales and marketing and the other functions.
• 12:31
  It's not a big team. Everyone knows each other very
• 12:34
  well. And in any SME there are always
• 12:37
  external influences, whether that's your, your shareholders,
• 12:40
  your customers, your partners, you know, regulatory bodies, you
• 12:44
  know, there's so many other influences on, on your team.
• 12:46
  You can't sort of see culture in isolation.
• 12:49
  And you know, my ideal culture is where we have a group of
• 12:53
  people that have come together, each of whom have been given
• 12:56
  their their, their guide rails and work within their guide,
• 13:01
  those guide rails to fall over if it means they have to fall
• 13:04
  over or pick themselves up or create something that's
• 13:08
  brilliant or, or negotiate with a customer and feel that they
• 13:12
  have the freedom to do that. But but know that behind them,
• 13:17
  they've got people that will support them and have their
• 13:20
  back. And in an SME that's so critical
• 13:24
  because people do make mistakes, me included, me most of all in
• 13:28
  some instances. And you know, that connection,
• 13:32
  that personal connection with everybody in your team and then
• 13:37
  knowing that you've got your back and, and that might mean
• 13:39
  small texts at the end of the day saying, look, I heard you
• 13:42
  did that, fantastic that you were in there in the 1st place.
• 13:45
  Doesn't matter if that happened, let's building it, let's work
• 13:48
  with you and etcetera, etcetera. Those little texts, those little
• 13:51
  personal texts for me are hugely important to, to, to build that
• 13:56
  trust. Because if you let them down, or
• 13:59
  if you've been saying things about them that you haven't said
• 14:01
  to them to their face, or there are, there are plans that they
• 14:06
  don't know about that you know, that, that come into place and
• 14:09
  that they feel surprised about that lets that trust down.
• 14:13
  And it's, it's very, very difficult to, to, to rebuild it.
• 14:17
  So my perfect culture really is one of harmony, but yet the
• 14:24
  permission to create and to build a business for that person
• 14:29
  or, or yourself. And it's a very difficult, it's
• 14:32
  a very difficult balance to get. And the other element to it,
• 14:35
  which is which is very important to me and actually has come as a
• 14:38
  result of, of 10 years in, in Singapore and Dubai is the value
• 14:43
  of different minds and different backgrounds.
• 14:47
  And I had in my Dubai role anywhere between 15 and 20
• 14:53
  different nationalities in a, in a team of 50.
• 14:56
  Similarly in, in Singapore and where you've got cultural
• 15:00
  differences between Turks and Egyptians, Lebanese and, you
• 15:05
  know, and French and English and Australian and all the rest of
• 15:08
  it. It's fascinating to see them
• 15:10
  play out in a, in a team environment.
• 15:13
  And that's, you know, that's not, that's without the, the,
• 15:15
  the gender differences and, and all the other elements of
• 15:19
  diversity that you have. So I love that.
• 15:22
  And I, I, I would want to bring that back into an English,
• 15:25
  English into Auk environment. Well, actually I don't think
• 15:28
  it's is as advanced. Oh, that's, and that's really
• 15:31
  interesting because obviously the issues around diversity,
• 15:34
  equity and inclusion or the acronym DE and I have are being
• 15:39
  politicised and weaponized in a way quite worrying and
• 15:43
  dangerous. Whereas you know, the way you
• 15:45
  talk about it, it's just fundamental to the way we do
• 15:47
  business. Yeah, it's normality.
• 15:49
  It's normality. People bring, everyone brings
• 15:53
  different experiences, different perspectives, different ways of
• 15:56
  operating. And, you know, creating a
• 15:59
  culture that just enables that to be come to the fore and be
• 16:03
  open is really quite powerful. And it's, you know, and group
• 16:07
  and one thing I always, always like groupthink is your biggest
• 16:10
  danger to any business if everyone is just exactly the
• 16:13
  same. So are you seeing more the
• 16:16
  experience you've had being able to open people up to more
• 16:21
  diverse thinking? And it can be from not just
• 16:24
  nationality, it could be, yeah, like you said, gender, age is
• 16:27
  another really interesting one. Not talking enough about around,
• 16:31
  you know what we've got like, what, 5 generations within the
• 16:34
  workplace at the moment and how are we speaking the right
• 16:37
  language and having a consistency of language to look
• 16:39
  to the future. So it's, you know what?
• 16:42
  It's nice to make that happen. Yeah, it it's for me, it starts
• 16:47
  with trust and belief from whomever you're from me to
• 16:51
  whomever I'm I'm managing or leading.
• 16:53
  And that should philtre down to to the teams and, and and that
• 16:58
  belief comes from knowing that that person in the 1st place is
• 17:04
  the person that you want. And, you know, building teams is
• 17:07
  all about choice and all about getting the right people in who
• 17:11
  you think you believe in, in the framework and, and structure
• 17:14
  that you have. So that's, that's, that's the
• 17:16
  start. Now that's not, that's an ideal
• 17:17
  world. You're, you're often taking
• 17:20
  teams over. But sometimes when you come
• 17:22
  through with messages around trust and, and belief, you open
• 17:26
  people up and, and they, you know, they, they suddenly think,
• 17:30
  oh, OK, so maybe I can say that. And maybe it's all right that,
• 17:35
  yeah, I'm, I'm a French woman and I have principles around,
• 17:39
  you know, how I deal with people and, and how I express myself,
• 17:42
  etcetera, etcetera. And, and patience and
• 17:46
  understanding and giving people time to, to open up is, is key.
• 17:51
  But the other thing I think is, you know, really kind of
• 17:55
  evidence now in the workplace and with teams is just how much
• 18:00
  pride people now have in who they are, what they believe in
• 18:05
  and how they want to express themselves.
• 18:08
  And, you know, that's, that's a, that's a relatively new thing
• 18:13
  last 10 years, you know, from when you and I worked together,
• 18:15
  where we were following the rules to to a degree.
• 18:20
  And well, maybe you, maybe you weren't following it's.
• 18:24
  Been a little bit of a rebel there.
• 18:26
  I think that's fair and probably me as well.
• 18:29
  But the but yeah, I think, I think, you know that there was a
• 18:32
  lot more hierarchy. There was a lot more, kind of.
• 18:35
  It's definitely more hierarchy and it's also that whole notion
• 18:38
  of giving people the the courage, but also just assuming
• 18:42
  positive intent. I think often when you when you
• 18:45
  observe and you're in organisations which are either
• 18:48
  highly politicised or there's divisions or people get very
• 18:53
  paranoid about their role because they don't necessarily
• 18:56
  assume positive intent from other people or they don't
• 18:59
  assume positive intent from themselves.
• 19:01
  And it's like if you just set that out right from the outset
• 19:05
  and just say this is what we're all working towards, the same
• 19:08
  goal and the same outcome, and we all bring different
• 19:11
  perspectives and ideas and how we have a better debate about,
• 19:14
  it can only be a good thing. Yeah.
• 19:16
  And it is really, it's heartening to hear that through
• 19:19
  your international experience that you're this is something
• 19:22
  you really want to bring into kind of your world now.
• 19:25
  And often in different cultures, you know that you know they're,
• 19:28
  they're not encouraged to to think.
• 19:30
  Some are, but some aren't. And you know that it's
• 19:34
  refreshing, even more refreshing when they hear questions from
• 19:38
  me. And and that's, you know, one of
• 19:40
  the, the greatest mechanics is the role of open questions.
• 19:45
  So the the what, how, when? What would you recommend?
• 19:52
  Why is my favourite? I mean it became the trendy
• 19:56
  thing about what, 5-10 years ago?
• 19:58
  But why is fundamental? Because it kind of goes straight
• 20:00
  to your strategy and your outcome and and makes it clear.
• 20:03
  But. I I get questions on a day by
• 20:06
  day basis said what do you want me to do with the question and
• 20:10
  the answer would be what do you recommend?
• 20:14
  What? What are you telling me?
• 20:15
  You're on a senior team? I'm not going to tell you what
• 20:18
  to think. You tell me, I will give my
• 20:20
  advice and guidance, but I want to support what you recommend.
• 20:25
  And anyway, I'm not going to do it because I don't feel like
• 20:29
  I've got all the information or I don't feel like I'm good
• 20:31
  enough to recommend. And that that's back to
• 20:35
  confidence and belief and how you express yourself.
• 20:39
  And some people, don't get me wrong, some people, I'm just not
• 20:40
  going to get there and can't expect this from everybody.
• 20:44
  And that's why you shouldn't stop striving for it.
• 20:48
  And you know, those who don't like that, who do like to be
• 20:51
  told what to do, you know that they may not want to be in your,
• 20:54
  in your team. And, and I think, you know,
• 20:56
  you've got to be, you've got to be quite committed to, to, to
• 21:02
  driving this. And it is a very new, still, I
• 21:06
  think a refreshing, a new way of thinking, particularly when
• 21:09
  you've been in different markets and, and had different
• 21:11
  experiences. But you have to keep going.
• 21:14
  You, you've got to bring people with you.
• 21:16
  And that might mean you're stakeholders above by the side
• 21:20
  of you outside of your company, but particularly your your team.
• 21:25
  Yeah. And it's, and every culture is
• 21:28
  different. There is no one way of defining
• 21:30
  a culture because a different culture can be different for
• 21:32
  different businesses. But making those decisions
• 21:35
  collectively and using a consistency of language, which
• 21:40
  is your communications fundamentally, and it means why
• 21:42
  everyone is responsible for communications, not just a
• 21:45
  communications function, allows you to to to embed a culture
• 21:51
  that everyone's brought into, which sounds really interesting.
• 21:53
  It's not. And I mean, for, for decades
• 21:57
  people have been using the phrase multicultural.
• 22:00
  You know, my belief is that, you know, that's been used and part
• 22:03
  of your point earlier on about politicised as, you know, the
• 22:06
  way London is. And so it's great, that's fine.
• 22:09
  But for me, I love the idea of a multiculture, you know, that
• 22:12
  means in itself that you're collecting people's beliefs and,
• 22:16
  you know, opinions and, and bringing to life they may, they
• 22:20
  may be different. That doesn't mean back to my
• 22:22
  kind of military days where, you know, you had an order and
• 22:25
  everyone, you know, followed the order.
• 22:28
  Actually, in truth, in the military, people did to a
• 22:31
  degree, but they wanted to do what they felt was the right
• 22:34
  thing to do at their level. And, and the army's slightly
• 22:38
  under sells itself on that point.
• 22:39
  And but that applies exactly the same to a culture today.
• 22:43
  I, I want a multicultural. I want people to come together
• 22:47
  with their own opinions and beliefs and their own culture
• 22:50
  and make it work for the business.
• 22:52
  Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's been a really
• 22:56
  interesting conversation because so often we don't hear enough
• 23:00
  from senior commercial leaders talking about culture.
• 23:05
  They because they do kind of own the cultural they are, they are
• 23:08
  responsible for directing that culture.
• 23:11
  But and how it then plays out internally and externally is
• 23:15
  definitely something that I think we can be talking more
• 23:18
  about from a commercial perspective.
• 23:19
  Because This is why I wanted from cutting through to show
• 23:23
  that everyone owns communications.
• 23:26
  It is a lever to solve your business problems.
• 23:28
  It is an ability for you to see your business both internally
• 23:32
  and externally. The way you link to all those
• 23:35
  different audiences and stakeholders you've got.
• 23:38
  So this for me has been a really heartening discussion.
• 23:43
  Your leadership and your notion of leadership is a consistency
• 23:47
  or a guardrail of culture that respects and and likes to see
• 23:51
  everyone bringing. It's like the whole other term,
• 23:54
  bringing their whole selves to work, which I think is another
• 23:57
  thing that's been rather weaponized in a dangerous way.
• 23:59
  But it's a way that gets people to know themselves, know their
• 24:04
  impact, know their contribution, know they've got someone who's
• 24:07
  got their back, know that there's trust embedded into the
• 24:10
  organisation and know that everyone's moving in the same
• 24:14
  direction, even if they may come at it from a different
• 24:17
  perspective or different standpoint.
• 24:19
  Does that sound like where you want the business to kind of
• 24:21
  move forward to both from a kind of commercial perspective but
• 24:25
  also from the way your people see their time at Fortitude?
• 24:29
  Yes, exactly. And yeah, as a, as an SME, you
• 24:33
  know, we are all interested in the success of of our business.
• 24:38
  But we will, we will only ever be a success if the individual
• 24:42
  people within our business feel that they're being successful.
• 24:45
  And they'll only ever feel that they're being successful if they
• 24:48
  not just be recognised for their success, but actually know
• 24:51
  they've been successful. And that means in their own mind
• 24:55
  that what they wanted to do has been achieved.
• 24:58
  And you know, we haven't got that at the moment.
• 25:00
  We're striving towards that. We've got probably a long way to
• 25:03
  go. But to know that that's the
• 25:06
  direction you're going in is is motivating in itself.
• 25:09
  No, absolutely. And that will then flow through
• 25:11
  really, really clearly and easily to those external
• 25:15
  audiences that we started this conversation talking about.
• 25:17
  You know, people consistent, consistently know and understand
• 25:21
  who Fortitude are. And this is where it's
• 25:24
  absolutely clear that having that basis of a cultural
• 25:29
  positioning of the company enables that commercial success.
• 25:33
  Look, Ed, this has been a really interesting conversation.
• 25:35
  I'm so looking forward to hearing and seeing the the
• 25:39
  progression and the impact that you have in the business moving
• 25:42
  forward. And I think it's definitely
• 25:43
  something that more businesses can lean into with their
• 25:48
  particularly in times of disruption and particularly in
• 25:51
  times it's not a nice to have. This is the bedrock of your
• 25:53
  business, getting to know your people and understanding what
• 25:56
  makes them ticket, how they contribute.
• 25:58
  So thank you very much for your time, Ed.
• 26:00
  Thank you, Tasha. Thank you for listening to
• 26:06
  Cutting Through with me, Natasha Plummer and brought to you by
• 26:09
  Spinning Red. Cutting Through spotlights the
• 26:11
  people solving business problems.
• 26:14
  Spinning Red exists to help you from strategy setting to
• 26:18
  advisory and tactical communications delivery based on
• 26:21
  what your business needs to say and what your audiences need to
• 26:25
  hear. We bring commercial acumen,
• 26:27
  communications practise and business reputation.
• 26:30
  seemore@spinningred.com and don't forget to like, subscribe
• 26:34
  and share. Cutting through Season 2 is
• 26:37
  underway. Get in touch if you would like
• 26:39
  to take part.