Latest / The Enterprisors / Being the Smartest Person in the Room – The Insecurity of Being Too Clever!
Transcript
- Tim Meadows-Smith: Welcome to the Enterprises. The common story about high achievers is they secretly fear that they aren't clever enough. This episode is the opposite admission and a much rarer one. Two men of substantial intellectual firepower sit down to name something almost no one will say out loud. The being demonstrably the sharpest person in most rooms, seeing the pattern first, setting the pace that others cannot match, creates its own specific insecurity. the insecurity of not knowing whether people are agreeing because you're right or because they've stopped trying to disagree. Tim, Nick, thank you so much for joining us today in the studio. It's so nice to have you here. No, it's been a, well, it's a pleasure, I hope. Let's see. Well, we're gonna talk about something that you don't talk about very often. And that is the, this episode, we're gonna talk about being the most intimidating person in the boardroom by being the tallest. because you're both over six foot five and also by being the most intelligent. So, can you expand on your experience of that over the years? Well, ⁓ it's nice that you think of me in that way. You've told me, you've told me. Well, I have moments where my modesty goes out the window, it's true. No, I mean, I was a very bright kid academically, certainly. ⁓ I think probably I was a bit weird actually as a result, but apparently my mother tells me anyway that I was a terror when I was about six in the classroom largely because I was bored. I didn't know what to do with myself. And I got moved classes about three times until I found a teacher who knew what she was about in terms of handling my bad behavior. I don't remember this. So I think maybe she was exaggerating, but anyway. was all kind of fine until maybe I was about 14, 15. I think to some extent, probably the timing you start getting interested in girls and you become more socially self-conscious and stuff like that. And I sort of realized at some point that my ability to project the conversation forward and anticipate where it's gonna end up was a little bit tricky for other people to cope with. It just came across as being really sort of weird and arrogant or abrasive or whatever it was. And of course at that age I was... bit self-conscious, not particularly socially confident, not very empathetic and all this kind of stuff. And so, you know, I reacted by learning to just not do it. Oh, right. To suppress it. Because I didn't get really good vibes when I did it. I mean, a cask example is I was, I think it was about 16. I was at home half term or whatever, doing my GCSEs and I went to the hairdressers and she's a young, young lady. doing my hair and she sort of tried to engage me in conversation, which was a big mistake, know. I don't want to chat, I want my haircut, please. Anyway, she's like, are you off work then? I said, no, no, I'm just, you know, on half term still at school. She's like, you're still at school? I was like, yeah, yeah, what are you doing? I'm GCSEs, okay. And then you're gonna get a job after that? No, no, I'm gonna do my A-levels. And she went, well. And then she just, you know, I could see her face was just like, you know, I don't really want to talk to this guy. And it wasn't... her fault. was because I, I dunno, I just sort of, I must've projected. Don't want to talk to you. Well, well, probably because I was probably shy and awkward, but I also probably projected a kind of like, what do you mean am I going to get a job? No, of course I'm going to go do A levels and go to university. What are you talking about? You know, that's my life, you know, and But I was obviously self-conscious enough to be aware of this. so, this is an example of where I, you know, if I was confident, not now, I'd have just engaged and carried on and had a chat, you whatever. But at that age, you're much more kind of sensitive to it. And so, you know, I started to suppress it, particularly in situations... I mean, ultimately, I ended up going to Cambridge University. You didn't really need to suppress it there because you're surrounded by people who are probably in the same situation. But even then in a subsequent work environment, it would sort of manifest itself as self-deprecation, modesty. I've seen that in Which is a little bit of a British thing anyway. So it's fairly acceptable to do that. Yeah, yeah. And our kind of culture of sarcasm fits very nicely. And that was all fine and actually probably did me all sorts of good in the early part of my career when actually you need to be a little bit... you need to take responsibility to fit around more senior people, more experienced people. know, they don't really need to hear the young scallywag being cocky. And it didn't do me any harm for a long time, but the problem is it became a habit. And so I realized even now to some extent, that I'm still doing it as a very experienced 52 year old. You're still doing it. Still doing it when I'm not paying attention. And the problem is that... Now I have experience and wisdom and maturity and social skills, but hopefully. I don't need to do it anymore because actually ⁓ it doesn't do me any favors. And actually when I'm much more authentic and much more authoritative in myself, I tend to get really good reactions now because I'm able to do it in a way that isn't annoying or abrasive or cocky or whatever. So what was the fear behind... I mean, I understand as you're growing in the business and you're going up, you don't want to piss people off at high level. But when you get there, what was the fear about hiding behind this self-deprecation? To be honest, by time I got there, I don't know that it was conscious anymore. As I said, I think it was just a really deeply ingrained habit. And to some extent, I guess when you're a really quick pattern recogniser, one of my kind of... superpowers as I can sort of see what's going on really quickly. There's a tendency to just assume that everybody else can do it too. ⁓ And so by being that way, I thought it was transparently obvious that people could see that I was being excessively modest as a sort of joke, you know. It's a way of saying I'm actually quite bright, but I know that's not. know, the coolest thing to project. I'll, you know, I'm clearly doing this. And of course it doesn't come across that way at all. And so you've got this, I personally had this massive blind spot, I guess. And did you find yourself when you did, when you actually were able to recognize your own pattern and stop doing that, that people were in the room, but they were because you are intelligent and because you are articulate and because you are tall, you are... intimidating. Were people agreeing with you just because of that? Or were they too frightened to disagree with you? Do you think? Well, so they have I'm not entirely sure I always recognise which one it is, let's say, but there have been times I can certainly remember, particularly socially, where I'm more relaxed, maybe a couple of glasses of wine down, you know. And if I just sort of just let it all go and get quite excited. that can be quite intimidating. If people don't know me because I tend to get a bit louder, a bit sharper. I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but I have number of occasions, even recently, where I'll use a word and everyone looks at me and they're like, don't you know what that means? And I kind of like have to recalibrate in mid conversation because... I'm one of those guys, if I've heard a word when I was 12, I remember it and I know what it means and I'll just use it, because it's a word, why not? I'm not trying to be cocky or intellectually snobbish about it, it's just the right word, you know. But even now that comes up all the time when I say things and I thought, this is the perfect word, it really gets the subtle tone that I'm trying to get across here. And then I realized I've lost the thread, you know. It's interesting, isn't it? Because when I find... If there's a word I don't know, I'll ask. Yeah, you're very open like that. You're just not worried. No, I'm not worried if you think I'm not is exactly how it should be. I mean, if people were all like that, then this probably would never have happened to me. Yeah, true. I if people were all like that, it probably wouldn't have I'm not a victim here. I'm not doing anything like that. But you're saying that you wouldn't have developed a pattern to hide it. So you're hiding yourself because you're worried about other people's response to you. Yeah, yeah. And I guess, and I guess I'd persuaded myself, and it was probably the right thing, as I said, when I was younger, but I'd persuaded myself that this was the way. That's a waste though, isn't it? It's a waste in a business situation. I think about it, totally is. Because I think I've only really started to realise this in the last 12 months or so, you know, I mean, and spending time with people like Tim, who, you know, maybe have had similar journeys and can relate to it and challenge you and call you out on it and say, well, why are you still doing And Tim, you found yourself kind of backing down in rooms and being less of an imposing person. Why did you do that? Why? Well, like Nick, it starts young. As a ⁓ 10 year old at the top of primary school, I was the only kid over six foot tall with size 11 football boots. And you find yourself in the playground and every other kid's dad has said, just pick the biggest one and hit him on the nose. I think you're showing your age there. always thought it was 1952. Pretty more. Actually about 1968. It is a long time ago. And so you find yourself, and of course bullying was frowned upon. So you find yourself backing off. physically in social groups from a really young age. And then, I mean, I wasn't academically high flying, I think largely because I was bored. And I- You relate to that, you? I did a year at university and found it boring and dropped out and went into business. By the time I was 25, I was ⁓ managing a team of I think 160 odd people, every one of whom was older than me. Interesting. And intimidated by that or not? Well, you certainly, there was definitely a psychological impact of doing that. And I think I was probably a really unpleasant, arrogant bastard at the time. But think that was because that was the skill that you defaulted to? You're doing what you... I was ambitious, I was able, ⁓ I worked really hard. I worked harder than anybody else I knew. And ⁓ I wasn't good at suffering fools. And so really, I would... I don't think I would have liked the person I was then if I encountered them for myself. do you think, like Nick's experience, that you were finding people were agreeing with you because they were too frightened not to? Well, I was fortunate to find myself in big corporate. I was on a fast track management program. I was dealing with senior people who were very much my superior and learning from them. And you you'd get the regular appraisal, you know, and I seem to recall one of them saying, know, Tim's really bloody good, but he's not quite as good as he thinks he is. Which is almost the opposite of you, of Nick's problem. But that combined with the early experiences does cause you to make a point. all the time of just checking it and backing off. And so you are constantly denying your potential, which is somehow a loss. Do you feel like there is that potential that you feel like was not used properly, but equally traditional corporate environments aren't really well set up to embrace that potential. No, they're not. You know, there's very much a bit of a conformist, you know, know your place, you know, hierarchy, which there are probably lots of good reasons for it. And, you know, it's tried and tested and so on and so forth. But there isn't this... We've also talked about this in previous episodes that the founder has not necessarily has an ego. And does not necessarily want to be surrounded by people who know more than he does, who are more intelligent than him. Although we also recognize the fact that it's actually really good for that founder to have someone, some people who are in a better position. The founder is a very unique position, isn't it? Because, you know, they have to have some mojo. And in many cases, that mojo manifests itself as, you know... command and control, for example, or, you know, I I've met and worked with some tremendous narcissists. And that's a tricky one because to be honest, doesn't matter what you say, how good you are. If it's not brown nosing, then it's getting you nowhere. But that's quite a unique case. So it's a tricky one for the founders. think corporate world's a bit different. think corporate world does a little bit of a strength in numbers situation. So right up until the CEO, there's always, several of you at your level and you fought your way up there and there's a little bit of, you know, wait your turn. I was gonna say, so as a CEO in a corporate level, you don't necessarily want someone to better than you. CEOs at corporate level maybe is a unique position because at that point you're on the hook for everything. And so to be honest, you're minded to just get anyone who can deliver for you in the right place. But you know, at senior manager level, there's probably a little bit of protectionism. And quite naturally, mean, know, survival of the fittest type thing. And maybe incentives aren't always aligned to, you know, and I don't know that we get enough training in the human aspects of leading throughout our careers, to be honest, I certainly didn't get enough. So I see it, I see as there's an environmental issue, ⁓ not sure how easy it is to fix other than having good individuals in leadership positions who you know, recognize talent and work out what to do with it. Yeah, but the big move, I mean, I made the move from big corporate and CEO to entrepreneurial in my mid thirties. So I'd spent five years in a very big job with, I think I hired 200 directors in two years, scaling a business within a corporate. And you come out thinking that you will be God's gift to small business and then fall flat on your face because you don't realize just how much is done by your support team. ⁓ yeah. And you, things you take for granted in corporate life, just not there. But the big difference for most people these days who found businesses is they start them incredibly soon after education. Never experience an appraisal. Never get any formal training or guidance in how you get beyond being a doer, problem solver, creative. I was straight into the only job in the world where you don't ever get any feedback. Yeah, that's one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't regret having a corporate career. I think it was absolutely foundational for me and the skills and knowledge that I have now that I learned in those 20 odd years. just, I just constantly amazed by how much I know that I just take for granted because I operated in that environment. There are best practices that corporates have found, you know. And they train and develop you as well. Yeah. And of course, the one thing that founders do is reject all of those out of hand because they, you know, they belong with the evil bastards who run big corporate. is great, right? Until the point where they start scaling and they can't do it. I mean, it was interesting. I was very much a micro control freak until I was about 30. And it was when I moved to my first trading role, essentially I was... operating in BP oil trading, but I was a sort of mid office analyst. And then I moved to a role in BP chemicals where I was responsible for trading a certain chemical product. And basically just given a whole bunch of- Money? No, no, a whole bunch of product and assets and said, and make some money out of it. Using sort of the stuff that the oil business has developed over the years. so, suddenly I'm responsible for a P &L and no one's sort of, you telling me what to do, I've just got to make money. so, very simple, do I buy my product today or do I sell it? You're on your own, right? And the feedback loop is really quick. I'll buy it. Damn, the price has gone down. Was I wrong? don't know, was I wrong? And so you realize very rapidly that decision-making, you you use a risk management approach. You change your measures of stress. say to yourself, well, as long as I'm up by the end of the year, I'm not gonna get every decision right. It me about 18 months to learn that mindset change. But then it also taught me that I couldn't, I had to spend half of my day thinking about the data. What is it telling me? Should I go long or should I go short? Which meant I couldn't do the tracking of the tons. I couldn't do the P &L calculations. I couldn't do the documentation for the ships and the barges and all that kind of stuff. And nor did I need to because, you know, I was making more than enough money to have people do that. It made sense and they were good at it. so, you know, within the space of two years I realized there are so many things that need to be done. There are so many people who better at it than I am. And why don't I just use my skills where they're best used? So actually that's a really good message, isn't it? Because I was just, one of my questions was going to be as a founder, a CEO of a midsize company, how do you let go of the things that you need to let go of to somebody like you or you, well either of you that's good at the job and could possibly come across as intimidating and just trust them to do the process? Well, I think there's a little bit of an act of faith. If you've not had that corporate career, because it's easy to learn delegation in a corporate world because you're not normally as budget constrained and it's not really your money at the end of the day. So that makes it a whole lot emotionally easier to deal with. But to some extent, you only have to look at companies that are three times the size of your company and ask yourself, is somebody micro-controlling this whole thing? And the answer is always hell no. So it's transparently obvious if you're honest with yourself that if you wanna get bigger, materially bigger, something has to change. You have to delegate. And I mean, I would always say to people, get the best individual. the most motivated individual with the right attitude and pay them, okay, not what you can't afford, but pay them whatever it takes to get them because one shit hot individual is massively better for you than five average people. And I don't mean, know, lots of people potentially exceptional, but it's about attitude rather than it is about delivery. mean, now that I've got to the sort of point where I've recruited hundreds of people over the years, I would... I would only ever recruit on attitude now. Yeah. And do you think your attitude has shifted as you got older? you still are a tall, very intelligent person who can see patterns. Possibly not quite so intimidating? Well, yeah, I think I'm older and wiser and much more emotionally intelligent, I hate to say it, than I was when I was 14, 15 for sure. And so, Now I realize I can pull it off. mean, you know, people actually value your insights if you present it, you know, with care. And you do it for the right reasons. know, I'm not, you know, if I say to somebody, look, what I'm seeing is this and you should do that. Trust me on this. I'm not doing it because of my ego. I'm doing it because I know it's true. And somehow or other, I guess I can convey that now in a way that I... was just not even conscious of needing to when I was younger. Yeah. So as a CEO ⁓ or founder of a mid-sized company, actually, it's not about intelligence. It's not about sort of being scared of the intelligence and scared of the person actually. Look at that person and can they do the job? And as you say, if Nick tells you to do something because of this, It's not because you're doing it for ego. doesn't matter how these, whether he's six foot five or five foot six, it is because he cares about your company. was on a sort of a men's camp walking up Snowdon a few weeks back and was sort of five or six of us. And one of the chaps on this camp was 23 years old. was running his second business, basically moving commodity metals in East Africa and selling them in places. you know, 23, right? And he had some, you know, emotional hangups about how he wasn't fulfilling his potential and all this kind of stuff. I just- 23. I know. And I was just like, goodness gracious, young man, you know, I have to tell you, you're actually exceptional. And to be clear with you, if I was in a position to give you a job, I wouldn't even need to think about it. I would just give you a job right now. I don't care how old you are. Yeah. But what you've achieved at that age tells me everything I need to know. fact, another example is my daughter's a junior athlete and she's won a European title as an under 18. And we were at Brentford Football Club in the boardroom. And there's a director there who's a managing director at JP Morgan. And he knew about my daughter's success and he came right over and he said, come and work for us. And she's like, well, hang on, know. Give you chance. And he's like, he said, I don't even need to interview you. know, the fact that you've won a European title tells us everything we need to know. That's amazing. You know, we know you're motivated. We know you know how to do hard work. We know you're, you know, not shy of putting in the effort. You know, you've dealt with pressure and extreme situations. The rest of it we can teach. was going to say sports. Sports is a great way of getting into business, isn't it? Tim, have you got anything to add to this episode about actually not worrying about what people look like, what people, but just getting the right person for the job? Yeah, well, I mean, all of us, as we go through life, if we're lucky enough to carry on going through life, have to swap our energy for some experience and some wisdom. know, because frankly, you know, if, if we didn't learn some and we ran out of energy, there'd be nothing left. And actually this is the thing that founders need to understand is that you quickly need to move from doing everything to being the designer of everything and seeing that the best person gets it done the best so that the whole company moves forward. And it doesn't matter who does it and it certainly doesn't matter whether you do it or not as long as it gets done. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have anything to add, Nick? Yeah, I mean, just, you know, don't be afraid to recognise what your skillset is. Yeah. Right? You know, play to your strengths. You know, don't need to be brilliant at everything. I'm certainly not. Nobody is. No, exactly. And even if you are brilliant at everything, there's probably two or three things that you're just distinctly better than other people at. And most, that's true of most founders, otherwise they wouldn't be successful founders. Yeah. ⁓ So play to that strength and delegate everything else. Get somebody who's superpowers, organizing logistics to do your logistics for goodness sake. Yeah, true. Absolutely. Makes sense. does. Well, I'll really quickly. Thank you very much. Both of you really enjoyed it. Me too.