Clive Gilson
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From humble beginnings in the north of England to becoming an academic, bestselling author, and founder of an incredible business management consultancy, Clive reflects on his early aspirations, the pivotal moments that shaped his career, and the lessons learned along the way. From writing Peak Performance, one of the top 10 business books of all time, to building Inspiros Worldwide and working with global giants like Procter & Gamble and Toyota, Clive shares invaluable insights into leadership, resilience, and success at the highest levels. Whether you’re an aspiring CEO or a young professional seeking direction, this engaging conversation offers wisdom for navigating challenges, embracing opportunities, and creating lasting impact.
Q: When you were younger, what did you want to be when you were growing up?
A: Growing up, my horizons were extremely modest. I grew up in the north of England and I had a cousin I absolutely adored, called Chris, who was a policeman, so I wanted to be a policeman too. That was my original thought for my life's work, to be involved in law and order.
Q: Did it change as you grew up, or was it always policing?
A: Yes, it did. When I went to university, I was interested in business and making things happen, so I did a business degree at Middlesex University. I then became very interested in intellectual pursuits and the academic side of things. For a long period, many years, even decades, I was driven by the desire to be a successful academic. I went from a first degree to a masters and then to a PhD from the University of Warwick. I then had appointments in Canada and Australia, and finally here as the chair in human resource management at the University of Waikato. I'm now an emeritus professor at that institution.
Q: Tell me about your story from being an academic to writing a top 10 business book of all time.
A: When you're involved in academics, the rhythms and beats of life are relatively slow. The best research can take at least three years, probably more to come to fruition if you want to get into the big journals so you set your time horizons accordingly. You spend a lot of time teaching, and before you know it, you're a couple of decades into your career. While I'm not saying the world passes you by – you fly around the world to conferences and publish, getting your name and a reputation, but it's typically within a narrow band of people. Although I was quite proud of what I achieved and would say that I was a good academic, I was not a star academic at the top level, but certainly a good second tier.
Meeting Kevin Roberts, who was then the chief operating officer of Lion Nathan, was a turning point. We met on a plane and struck up a great relationship, as he was also from Lancaster. I ended up inviting him to teach on our MBA program at the university. I began to see what he was capable of doing – he was extraordinarily successful, dare I say rich beyond the dreams of avarice, beyond what I was able to achieve as a professor. It opened my eyes, and I realised that if I was going to do something to make a statement, it would not genuinely be in the academic world of peer-reviewed journals read by a small group who don't really change the world. Kevin, myself, and a couple of other people at the management school decided to write what we hoped would be a bestseller.
Because Kevin and I were very much into sports – playing cricket and football in our youth – we wanted to write a book on sport organisations. We also wanted to look at organisations rather than leadership per se, as there are many books on charismatic leadership. With our academic background, we wanted to better understand how organisations curate themselves into sustained peak performance. This is very difficult to understand by looking at a balance sheet, which can be easily manipulated. Whereas in sport, which is the seventh biggest industry in the world, the win record is unassailable. We quickly reasoned that long-term sustained contention in any sport could not really be about the players, as they come and go; it had to be the organisational footprint. We wanted to work out what that footprint was, and that became what we call PPO – Peak Performing Organisations. (Lowercase 'ppo' refers to piss poor organisations, of which there are many!).
We set about looking at win records. Very quickly, it was clear that there were a very small number of sporting codes and organisations within those codes where you could find long-term sustained contention. Most codes, particularly in North America with the draft system, are designed to go up and down. Nevertheless, we did find them, and the book came out as Harper Collins' lead business book globally for the year 2000. We launched it around the world, and before we knew it, we were number one on Amazon and on all breakfast TV in America, CNN, Sky, and the rest. We were relatively famous for a few months. I thought I might like being recognised, but I actually didn't, so we didn't go out of our way to be the brand.
Q: So what made the book so successful was that it was one of the first of its kind where it was linking sports to business?
A: Other books have done that, but we were probably the first to look at the organisations rather than the teams. We were certainly the first to go into Formula 1. You couldn't get close to Formula 1, and we actually made films of it that had global premieres. I could watch myself on Singapore Airlines, which was somewhat weird. We also did what was then the Australian Cricket Board, with a global premiere in Melbourne.
Everyone wants to look at the teams and rub shoulders with the great sports people, and we certainly did that, by default. It wasn't genuinely our intention, and I think the sport organisations very much appreciated that. The first question they would ask when we were trying to get access was, "Of course, you want to speak to the stars?" No. "Surely, don't you want to speak to Michael Jordan?" No. We were interested in talking to the organisation themselves. I think they appreciated the fact that someone finally recognised that the work they did was fundamental to the architecture of sustained peak performance.
There's no doubt the sport angle got people's attention, but the fact that we were doing sport organisations – it was a business book, not a sports book – made it of interest. We looked at the last running of the Chicago bulls with Michael Jordan, we were with the All Blacks with Jona Lomu. There were very iconic circumstances around the research we did and I think it became unbelievably attractive to people. In addition, because we were able to work these ideas into other sport organisations, it gave us access to Manchester United, Inter Milan, Team New Zealand, the America's Cup to name a few. We maintained that sense of connectivity. In truth, people wanted a piece of the action as long as they came along with us. It was somewhat helpful, to say the least.
We were doing sport organisations – it was a business book, not a sports book – made it of interest.
Q: You created a Business Management Consultancy called Inspiros Worldwide afterwards. Was this a natural path to progress into? Would you say there would be no Inspiros Worldwide without Peak Performance?
A: My first 20-25 years as an academic were not really the kind of experience of value or interest for anyone to listen to, because I was just a straightforward academic of some reasonable note without setting the world on fire. It was only when we decided we would need to do something with the book that we became entrepreneurial. My journey at that stage began around 1998-1999, and certainly when the book came out in 2000. At that point, a lot of the things I had taken for granted about the way I was going to work, not quite 9 to 5 but pretty close, all basically went by the wayside. We became, although we kept our academic positions (and I'm still an emeritus professor), 90% on the road building a global organisation. That was very, very different.
I think we also took inspiration from the fact that a lot of the people we were working with were themselves quite young and not risk averse. I was probably risk averse until this came into our vision. Then, with a wing and a prayer, decided this was the way to go, and so we did. Because the book was very successful, we sensed we were likely to succeed, but there are a lot of consulting companies out there that don't go anywhere.
We felt it was worthy of putting some effort and intellectual pressure into developing how this vehicle could help global corporates. We were very much boutique. We were not McKinsey, we were not BCG. We had something special that could be scaled into corporates on their terms. We wanted to migrate the ideas we'd found in sport organisations – it's important to note, sport organisations, not sports teams – into the corporate world.
The advent of Inspiros Worldwide begins the interesting story. Not only because it demonstrated that I could change my direction – and I would encourage anyone to think about their direction and whether they feel it's really playing to their strengths, but also, in due time and fashion, take a risk. You don't buy a ticket; you don't win the lottery. Now, I can say that because it's been successful, so it potentially might be dangerous if you need to knock out the mortgage or the rent. But certainly, my experience was that you probably need to take a risk. Our risk was minimal because we were already successful with the book, but we certainly still decided to do that. When you've had 20 or 30 years as a successful academic with a half-decent salary, it's pretty hard to say goodbye to that.
We always used to say we had maybe up to 10 clients at any one time, and you don't control the wildlife. You fear that one day you're going to get 10 emails saying goodbye. It's possible, really possible, through no fault of your own. Circumstances happen. You're hoping that's not going to happen so you build a reputation because we were not going to scale it and franchise it. We wanted to maintain control of the IP because it was special to us.
That was the start of what I consider a reasonably successful entrepreneurial journey that was different from what I'd done before. It was my inflection point – if you get a chance of an inflection point or creating one – use it to the nth degree.
If you get a chance of an inflection point or creating one – use it to the nth degree.
Q: Inspiros Worldwide is a boutique consultancy, but boasts an incredible team, including the CEO of the LA Dodgers. How did you assemble your team?
A: It's really based on the depth of connectivity with clients and also from the original research. Stan Kasten – CEO of the LA Dodgers, incidentally, is undoubtedly the top sports administrator on the planet, bar none. He was with the Atlanta Braves with Time Warner and Ted Turner. At the age of 29, he was the CEO of the Atlanta Braves, the Thrashers ice hockey team, and the Atlanta Hawks basketball. It was the biggest sport organisation in the world, called Atlanta Spirit, bigger than the Yankees, Real Madrid, anything like that. And he was the head of the lot. We became very firm friends, and he is now a director of Inspiros Worldwide. Dario Scaffardi, who was the CEO of a giant oil company and one of the top oil men in the world, also became a firm friend and was very interested in what we were doing.
The team essentially came from building connections along the way. When you've been the chief consultant to a Procter & Gamble, a Toyota, or Novartis, that becomes irresistible. Other people want to know what that was like in the belly of the beast, buying Gillette for 59 billion. There aren't a lot of people who've been in that room. You have many people who want to get on board, and you just pick the ones you want.
Q: You met and worked with many people and organisations. Do you have a few notable names or companies you could say you worked with?
A: I think, without a doubt, and I've already mentioned them, the top corporate organisation by a country mile would be Procter & Gamble. Toyota was a great organisation to work with. Various parts of Novartis. I started with their OTC (over-the-counter) division and then graduated to doing big pharma. Novartis was interesting because I went around the world in all the major markets creating a purpose, linking the business model, operating model, and strategy effectively on a country-by-country basis. This is very old-fashioned, but because healthcare is basically based on government, your relationship with government is critical, hence it's country specific. You go around Brazil, Argentina, Poland, Germany, Italy, Russia – a whole bunch of interesting experiences and many great people.
Q: You’ve had a very unique level of exposure to these incredible companies and people and have gained invaluable insights. I want to dive a little deeper into this. These successful people, these business leaders, what is it that makes these people seem significant, even superior?
A: You do find that the cream does rise to the top. One of the things we found out very quickly – and it goes back to Sir Edmund Hillary – is that even from a young age, if you ask these people a general question, "What do you stand for?", they're going to give you an answer. It's usually two or three things, and it's authentic. It's not typical nonsense or motherhood and apple pie. It's usually born out of the work they have done and the struggles they have overcome in order to be successful.
You do find that the cream does rise to the top.
So, if I were to ask anyone reading this now, "What do you stand for?", and if it's motherhood and apple pie or just working hard, I can't believe that even at this stage in your career, all you can come up with is working many hours and liking what you do. You've got to have something more unique about yourself. So, even at a young age, the successful managers and executives will be able to tell you what they stand for and be very clear about how that impacts the work they're doing with their organisation. It's not just for self; it's for self and organisation, typically even the other way around. Classically, in Procter & Gamble, they say, "Promote the business, promote your boss, and then that effectively promotes yourself". You don't do it the other way around. Those who promote themselves, you can smell them a mile off, and they don't get very far. If it's all about them, it's not going to work.
That's something unique we found across all our sport organisations, and then also found in the big global corporates. We were able to match PPO theory with what they were doing. As our own purpose at Inspiros Worldwide states, it is to take them higher.
Typically, it's not that people suck. In the consulting world, it has a bad reputation – people go in, slash and burn, carve out their own billing arrangements, and tell everyone they were so bad. We had an entirely different approach. Our approach was that actually, most organisations are pretty well run. We just lift it. You don't need that much; you just need to lift it. But sometimes, when you're in the heat of the moment, you can't see the wood for the trees. All you need to do is lift it up a little bit and give people the right interpretation of what they're seeing. Apply a little intellectual pressure, and before you know it, you've changed the direction of travel a little bit. If you go in and slash and burn, it isn't going to work.
I think that's one of the reasons why we were also successful. We did not go in and say, "We're going to rewrite your organisation". We were not as arrogant as that. We were interested in helping lift them.
Q: What I've noticed playing in sports versus at work is that the passion is significantly more in sports. Teammates are like family. Whereas in many jobs, people just turn up to go to work.
A: It is, and when we were talking about setting up Inspiros Worldwide, that was one of the questions we asked ourselves. We'd been to all the games, the finals, the Super Bowls – it was pretty hard yaka, but someone had to do it! We thought, "How do we cross over into corporate?" Yet, we had no difficulty whatsoever. It was astonishing how inspirational and committed and passionate people were about the jobs they were doing.
I remember we did a session with some of the guys at Procter & Gamble who were in charge of Eukanuba dog food. There was a remarkable level of engagement and passion those guys had for what that dog food was able to achieve for pet owners. They came with buckets of letters saying, "Thank you so much for this food which has changed my life because it's changed my dog". I'm not a dog owner, so I wouldn't know, but it didn't matter because of the level of inspiration and passion. I've never found any problems with any corporates to find that.
I work a lot in the oil industry, you think they're a commodity, how can anybody be passionate about that? Well, without oil, there is no modern living. Sustainability and renewables are interesting, but you still need power to keep the lights on, and it's going to be oil for a considerable period. Those guys who work in that industry know that, and their passion for keeping the lights on, for maintaining and enabling modern living, is what drives them. It's not that cynical; at least, that's what I have discovered. There is a huge amount of passion in what people are trying to achieve.
In fact, in many ways, you sometimes don't find the level of passion you expect in sport at the top; it becomes very routine. One of the companies we were chief consultant with was EMI, the record company. We would be involved with some of the bands. You'd go to a Rolling Stones concert, and the band members and roadies are sitting around maybe smoking a cigarette, absolutely bored out of their skull, looking at the clock waiting for Mick to come on. It's very routine. What would appear incredibly unbelievable to everyone else just becomes a job. The same in football; I've been to San Siro, the great cathedral of world football. You have 1500 people there helping to put a game together. It's extraordinarily routine year in and year out, to the point where they even barely watch the game because it's a job. People think it's dripping with this and that, but it's not always the case.
I never have any trouble finding elements of inspiration within people. I think for younger people thinking about following their passion, you can find passion in what you do. If you really hate it, then get out, but generally speaking, if you've chosen a career path, don't think, "Oh, those people spent so much more time doing what they really want to do, and I've wasted my life". Find a way to understand your contribution. That gets back to what you stand for.
What do you stand for? Ask yourself that question seriously. Most people actually can't answer it very effectively at all. Not in a way that enables them to scale it so they can make a significant contribution to the organisation they're working with and the people around them.
Q: What common themes or patterns have you seen around how these people define their own success? Do they think they're successful, or are they always driving for the next thing?
A: Well, I go back to Sir Edmund Hillary. When I talked with Ed, who became a very dear friend, I asked him what the feeling was like climbing the last few steps up Everest, the Hillary Step. He said, "Well, actually, I knew I was going to do that, and I was looking around. I was looking at Makalu and thinking, 'That's the way to climb that one, isn't it?'". He said, "It's always the next challenge".
One of the things we quickly discovered is that the peak performers, as we call them – this isn't going to sound very good – aren't necessarily happy people. They're always dissatisfied with what they're doing. Many would say, "Why are you talking to us?" until we showed them their win record. They're always looking for the next level, the next opportunity to improve themselves. And the next challenge.
It's working out what the next challenge actually is. It's interesting to say "world domination," but that typically isn't going to happen. It's placing a challenge to the point where it's always in the balance as to whether you're going to achieve it. Going back to Ed, he had this wonderful phrase: "If you’ve got a challenge that you know you're going to succeed, why start?" There has to be a challenge where you need to develop further skills, learn how to get into that space to carry out that warrant. That is called flow theory. When you're in a state of flow, you're being challenged to reach a level of ability that enables you to see the challenge coming and know you're going to fulfil it. Once you're in that space, you're looking for the next one. You're always dissatisfied with the fact that you've achieved the challenge.
It's placing a challenge to the point where it's always in the balance as to whether you're going to achieve it. Going back to Ed, he had this wonderful phrase: "If you’ve got a challenge that you know you're going to succeed, why start?"
It's the same with sports people. I remember talking to Shane Warne about this. They'd just been crowned world test champions and won the one-day trophy. His response was, "Well, yeah, we celebrated. The following day, I couldn't give a rodent's behind; I was moving on to the next challenge". He took inspiration from his failures. He gave me the shirt from his worst test performance ever; that was his inspiration to better himself towards 900 wickets. It's not quite what you might think.
There's always a huge amount of humility to what they're achieving. And the great phrase we got from Jona Lomu, who became a firm friend, was, "We hate coming second best to ourselves". That's a way of looking at yourself. You do need to look at competitors, especially in sport, but it's far more about not coming second best to yourself. (Jordan apart, who said he had the top two spots). We found that across everyone. I remember talking to Franz Beckenbauer, the Kaiser, and saying, "How do you live with your career?" He said, "Well, it's not that good. We lost the World Cup in '66".
They don't see themselves as being what we would call peak performers. We never met a single sports person, sports administrator, or corporate exec who said, "Yeah, I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread". Never ever came across that.
Q: Have you seen any specific daily habits or routines that make these people stand out?
A: You're drilling down into the theory of peak performance here. The theory is at the organisational level, although we do work around personal purpose. The thing which tends to define people at the individual level is their ability to focus to the exclusion of all other things. When there's a coming together of focus that works for the organisation and the individual, you have a powerful nexus, and if that's shared throughout the organisation, it becomes unstoppable.
The thing which tends to define people at the individual level is their ability to focus to the exclusion of all other things.
I think the ability to focus when you're facing unbelievable pressure. Most people think, "Give me a crisis, I'm great in a crisis". Rubbish. Most people are crap in a crisis. They redefine what a crisis is to something they can manage. A real crisis requires incredible intestinal fortitude and focus. This works in sports and in global corporates. You get an enormous sense of pressure, and being able to maintain your focus on what really needs to be done, and enlist other people in that so they can see you're not failing or flailing around. You're not falling to pieces when everyone else is. You're not losing your head. It's a natural form of leadership where they tend to go quiet, gather themselves, and usually what helps them is they know what they stand for. There's an integrated theme to their approach.
I think that, plus – and I hate to say this in an academic way – what you do find at the corporate level is that the people who rise to the top really are smart. They really are intellectual powerhouses. It's not so much in academics. What happens is, those who can do; those who can't teach. You get academics who work well but whose research isn't that brilliant, and they're not really innovators. There are some, of course, but a lot of academics you have to worry about, to be blunt.
The people who rise to the top really are smart.
Q: How do these people approach failure or setbacks, are they just able to compartmentalise and get back on the horse right away?
Well, I had the delight of interviewing Sir Donald Bradman for the book. I made the mistake of asking, "Sir, if you lost form, how did you get back into form?" His response was, "I've never been out of form. I wouldn't know". Pissed on my raspberries. He admonished me, "You should know that because I've said that before". And looking back, yes, he had. So preparation is not a bad thing.
But I think it would be true to say that although these guys are self-critical of what they've achieved, they're not that stupid. They realise they're pretty much on song and have achieved a lot. They don't need to look over their shoulder and say, "Oh man, that was a huge failure, wasn't it?" because they've got so much alongside that which demonstrates they are outstanding.
I think if you find yourself in a place where there's abject failure, you probably need to get out of that environment. There's a great phrase we use: if the value of an organisation is declining, so does the value of the people within it. You need to be able to avoid that. If you find yourself in that environment, you need to get out because individual agency is not powerful enough to overcome that. You need to recalibrate, refocus on something where you can begin to build a portfolio of success.
I think if you find yourself in a place where there's abject failure, you probably need to get out of that environment. There's a great phrase we use: if the value of an organisation is declining, so does the value of the people within it. You need to be able to avoid that.
Q: You've seen a lot of leaders. What would you say are the main things that differentiate great leaders from exceptional leaders?
A: Let me start from a relatively mundane position: the most underrated position in all corporates is general manager. Everyone thinks general management is just kind of ho-hum. It's the holy grail. The phrase general manager should put the hairs up on the back of your neck. It's the forerunner to higher office of chief executive. The reason is because it's in the word 'general'. Everyone understands when they're good at marketing, finance, HR, whatever. Understanding the essential relatedness of what you do with other people and what makes the organisation tick is key.
Understanding the essential relatedness of what you do with other people and what makes the organisation tick is key.
When you see people in a C-suite, and I've run many, it's clear someone is there because they're a great CFO but not a great C-suite operative. They'll never make CEO because they don't understand the essential relatedness of different parts of the organisation. As organisations grow, they split apart before coming back together. You have silos – marketing, communications, strategy, HR, finance – somehow that's got to come back together, especially with multiple brands and matrix structures. If you don't understand the essential relatedness, which is the role of the general manager, then it's a long day. Understanding the essential relatedness and the relationship of dependence and interdependence is a relationship of power and understanding power dynamics. If you're dependent on me, I have power over you. If someone uses that negatively, people see it and put roadblocks.
Understanding the essential relatedness of people within the organisation is the route to general manager. If you super evolve that, you've got the great CEOs and leaders who truly understand that. They can do that not only within the operating model but within the business model. For the operating model, you need to be able to demonstrate you can be an 'instigator' – someone who can instigate relationships within an organisation, and people trust they're doing it for the greater good, not to be screwed. Then they do that in the business model externally, in terms of strategic direction. It's very difficult to have someone good at both running the operating model and understanding the nature of the business. There's a huge amount of intellectual pressure required.
But there's also a sense of understanding of what it is that makes the organisation tick. If you have a narrow vision of that, you will never be successful as a great exec. That's what we see. All the great CEOs I've worked with – A.G. Lafley at Procter & Gamble, Yoshi Inaba at Toyota, Joe Gimenez at Novartis, Kevin Roberts at Saatchi & Saatchi – they are all capable of doing this. You continue to learn from these people because of the depth and breadth of their exposure and how they've managed it.
Q: These executive-level people are frequently making big decisions. How do they make these decisions? Are there frameworks or themes that you've seen?
A: There is typically a process. Individuals rarely make decisions on their own. Ultimately, someone presses go, but they won't unless they've been through due diligence. The success they have is because they have gone through that process and asked those questions, developing a consensus around it. If you work with the Navy SEALs or SAS, they've long since abandoned the one great person and leadership. The commander is followed into battle, but each individual is empowered to make their contribution as long as they know the overall purpose. That's the work we do; it's about originating the efforts.
Leaders are not so much saying, "Yeah, we're the people who know everything". They are the people who understand how other people make their contributions. I think it becomes an inevitable decision that everyone has bought into and understands. There will be occasions where someone says, "Okay, I'm going in this direction," but those are the exceptions. This is one of the problems of the charismatic leadership movement of 20-30 years ago, where you just had to find the one great leader, and we all follow. We don't believe in followership in the work we do. It means people are leaving their best abilities at home. If you're following someone, you're just waiting for someone to tell you where to go. This is why the word leadership is a problem – leaders have followers. The word leadership comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'laed', which is how you lead a horse with an IQ of nine. Why would you use leadership as the right metaphor? This is why we use 'inspirational players' or 'inspirational leaders' as a preface to what leadership is typically thought of.
Q: You've observed many industries evolve, mainly with technology, I imagine. How do these individuals and companies stay relevant and adapt, especially in these very fast-paced environments?
A: Well, it's interesting. It's almost a manifesto for consultancy. Your readers may be familiar with Transactional Cost Economics (TCE). Basically, without going into great detail, TCE says in your organisation, you do the best you can until you find someone who can do better and cheaper than you, so you then bring people in.
What you find is that organisations that have been going for many years and are relatively successful, when something new and different like AI comes along, it's highly unlikely they are going to develop the necessary skills internally. They will tend to bring in the right people. In a sense, that was why Inspiros Worldwide took off; we were able to provide an interpretation of what it is to run a business within the context of their business model. That's what our purpose work actually does – it's the junction of the operating model and the business model. That's a big thing; that's the whole ball of wax. Everything else sits below that, like technology, data systems, new ways of approaching things. That typically will be bought in until the realisation is that you probably need to bring it in-house because you need to develop that competency and skill because it becomes central to your success, in which case you don't want to rely on other people providing it.
Q: What's a common misconception people have about what it takes to succeed at a high level?
A: The general sense that you have to work 18 hours a day. You do have to work hard, no doubt about that. But the assumption that you do more work than someone else potentially means you're doing other people's work because you don't trust them to do it.
The assumption that you do more work than someone else potentially means you're doing other people's work because you don't trust them to do it.
I have said that it's important that without a certain amount of brain power, it's not possible to get to the highest level. There are many outstanding careers where someone is making a significant contribution but hasn't made CEO, and they're quite happy because they know their limitations, but their abilities are still quite extensive, and they can have a very pleasant life making significant contributions without worrying they didn't make CEO of IBM or something. These positions are very rare.
Indeed, I think people looking to do that should be thinking about building their own business, becoming a CEO of their own world. You see a lot of that. But you really do need to know what your business model is and what the business case is that gives you the license to do that. There are a lot of business failures. You need to be very clear that your mousetrap is better than someone else's. You've got something that is a competitive advantage rather than comparative advantage.
I think people looking to do that should be thinking about building their own business, becoming a CEO of their own world.
One thing I see, even at the big corporate level, is a tendency to spend squillions on comparative advantage. They see someone else with something and say, "Oh, we need the same thing”, so they spend millions, maybe billions, trying to do what someone else has done. That's comparative. Competitive advantage is when you have something someone else doesn't have. That's harder to do. Much harder to do. It's the same when setting up your own business. You need a better mousetrap, something someone else doesn't quite have, and to test that. That's what the business case must demonstrate before anyone provides you with capital.
Q: Many people reading this are in their early 20s, and some might aspire to be a CEO of a big company. From what you've seen with these high performers – not just CEOs, but in executive roles – have they always been child prodigies? Or was it a bit of luck, hard work and knowing their strengths? Or is it a balance of the two?
A: I think there's a baseline of engagement. Steve Jobs called it a reality distortion field. We all have them, some more than others. All the people I've met in this space, some general managers at Procter & Gamble where general management is real general management – not a bastardisation. They've made general manager by their late 30s; if they made it before, it's not real; they don't have the miles under the hood. You can tell their reality distortion field is present. When they walk into a room, they are judgmental, not in a pejorative sense, but they will have an opinion, a view they will want to share. They've got the self-control of a five-year-old; they really need to want to share it, not for their own benefit, but because they want people to integrate how they see the world with the matter at hand. You find that at an early age. The mistake is people see that as charisma, and it's not. Without that, you're back to 18-hour days and hoping.
So, it's presence. It's having quick wins. It's demonstrating you understand the nature of the business and the essential relatedness of the parts, which is the pathway to general management and further. And as I said, working out what you stand for. As a corporate, as a human being, as someone who is discursive, who understands and reflects on the world. Reflective capacity is important – being able to reflect rather than being just a plaything of social forces.
It's presence. It's having quick wins. It's demonstrating you understand the nature of the business and the essential relatedness of the parts.
Q: You’ve briefly discussed this previously, but for young people reading this who are wanting to either start a business or climb the corporate ladder, what advice would you give them to set themselves up for long-term success?
A: I think they need to learn a great deal about the area that they are passionate about. I don't just say work on your passion; you can find passion in many things. And without being too boring about it, be prepared. When you walk down that corridor, are you ready when those doors are open, or can you open those doors? Are you ready to walk through them? Seeing opportunities, having your mind open, and not missing any doors that might be open without you even realising or wanting to know what's behind the door. If you're walking down that corridor of life, you have to be prepared, and you will be rewarded for that. Preparation doesn't get anything like the amount of good press it should. I haven’t come across anyone who's been very successful who's not prepared.
Preparation doesn't get anything like the amount of good press it should. I haven’t come across anyone who's been very successful who's not prepared.
In my work, when I go into a new client, I must know as much, if not more, than they do so I can have a proper conversation with them about anything. I hit the books, the computer; I spend weeks preparing myself so that when I walk in, I am confident they will see me as someone capable and who has earned the right to be at the table. That's the same inside an organisation as if you're trying to work with one in a consulting capacity. There's no shortcut to that. Some smart alec idea or phrase is not going to help you if you don't know the very basics.
Q: Did you do an OE (overseas experience) when you were young? And what are your thoughts on it? Some people reading this will be a couple years into work and thinking it's time to travel.
A: To start with, yes. But like anything you want to be good at, you need practice. We also overhauled our annual performance reviews to quarterly, then monthly one-on-ones. The conversation shifted to "Hey direct report, tell me three reasons I sucked for the past month and how I can serve you better". When the focus becomes about growth rather than critique, it becomes a powerful tool.
Q: You probably didn't do an OE (Overseas Experience) until now. Would you say this year is your OE, and what are your thoughts on OEs? Have your thoughts changed?
A: Well, I'm originally from the UK, so an OE was never really on the agenda, although in recent years it's become so, as I understand it. My basic answer is yes. Travel broadens the mind, etc. I'd be careful about just using it to see waterfalls, museums, and art galleries. You can and should do that, but if you can, try and find some area of interest that you learn something from. Whether you're allowed to work somewhere is an issue but utilise it carefully so you don't waste that time.
Q: Some of our audience are a few years into their careers, and many are probably starting to think about their financial futures. Do you have any advice you could offer them?
A: Well, it depends how much money they have. I've never known at any point in my life how much I've earned or how much I'm worth. I know I'm fine, as it were, but it's an outcome. Now, you can say that if you're successful, but frankly, when I was an academic for 15-20 years, I wasn't doing it for the money so to speak. I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and I was paid for it. I did not, until peak performance came along, have a particular desire to do anything in such as be Dean etc. I was chair of department. I had no desire to be a vice-chancellor or anything like that. I don't think about money per se. When people tell me they've got millions and squillions and advertise that, I'm like, "Why are you bothering? Why do I care?"
You actually don't need a huge amount to get by. It's whether the contribution you're making is the one that you want to make and you have a degree of satisfaction about that. Ed Hillary was never a rich man; I've never met a more satisfied person. If it's a god, you're in trouble. If it's your god, think again.
Q: What advice would you give to your younger self?
A: It brings me back to the start of the conversation. I don't regret doing 20-25 years as an academic, but I do regret doing what I've been doing late in life. I should have moved on in my life's work a little earlier. I became complacent and relatively happy, but at the same time, I knew I probably should be doing more. In that sense, I rather dodged the bullet. I'm very lucky that I sat next to Kevin Roberts on a plane back from Sydney to Auckland. Had I not done that, I don't know where I would have been. I feel very lucky because I was part of a project, in a sense, that wrote the book Peak Performance, which changed my life completely. I'm a bit of a fraud in that sense; I dodged a bullet.
Yes, I should have tried harder earlier. So, if you feel you're spinning your wheels, stop spinning them, step out, and try again.
If you feel you're spinning your wheels, stop spinning them, step out, and try again.
Q: And finally, if neither time nor resources were a constraint, what ultimate goal or dream would you pursue or would you have pursued?
A: Well, just disregarding everything I've said, we're sat here in a gallery that I curate. I curate this as a volunteer to my own organisation. I own and curate it, but I also report to a trust board, which means that if they tell me to mop the floor, I'll mop the floor and clean the windows which is very interesting when you get on a plane and go and make billion-dollar decisions with top corporates. But for me, art is the central thread of life. If I had my time over again, I would have done an art degree, immersed myself in art, become an art dealer, and loved every minute of it. This, I found out belatedly, is my real, real passion. Luckily, I can fulfil both right now.
