Get up early, work hard, strike oil | PHIT Podcast | Simon Ellis

For our next episode, Mark is in the chair all by himself talking to Simon Ellis. A big thank you to Simon for being our guest, it was a very enjoyable watch for me.

The Questions 

1. Tell me a little about what you do, your business, job/role?
2. Thinking about the (people and/or technology impacts of the) last year, what lessons will you take forward and how do you see these being delivered?
3. Do you think users have grown in their confidence in using technology since lockdown?
4. What’s the best piece of business and/or career advice you’ve been given?

The Links 

You can view – Get up early, work hard, strike oil – Simon Ellis Part 1 on YouTube

You can listen to – Get up early, work hard, strike oil – Part 1 on Anchor or Spotify

Previous Episodes 

• Episode 1 Part 1 – Never turn down an Opportunity – Special Guest Jono Atherton
• Episode 1 Part 2 – – Gain the trust of the human first – Special Guest Jono Atherton
• Episode 2 Part 1 – Own the Customer – Special Guest Carl Grieves
• Episode 2 Part 2 – Going Live is the beginning – Special Guest Carl Grieves
• Episode 3 Part 1 – Helping Organizations achieve remarkable things – Special Guest Rob Dobell
• Episode 3 Part 2 – Don’t get chased down a path | Rob Dobell | PHIT Podcast
• Episode 4 Part 1 –  Do what you love | PHIT Podcast | Alistair Sergeant
• Episode 4 Part 2 – Find a Mentor | PHIT Podcast | Alistair Sergeant

 Key Takeaways 

• The Plaudits shouldn’t just go to the people who score the goals – c6min
• People doing the job know best what can make it better – c8min
• Managers manage things, Leaders lead people – c8min+
• It doesn’t have to be all sharp elbows – c8min+
• I am they… – c8min+
• Culture Drives Behaviours – c13min
• People have got to have some sense of Purpose – c13min+
• You should dream big… – c13min+
• Napoléon said…bring in the private – c16min
• People can work effectively outside of the office – c17.30min
• Anyone not thinking about using technology is…doomed to die – c17.30min+
• One of the dangers of working digitally…is it encourages you to think quickly – c24.45min+
• You must set time aside… to just think c26min
• Know you stuff / Work Hard / Care c30.30 min
• Good CEO’s, good Chairmen, look beyond near-term timescales…

The Transcript 

Question 1 – Tell me a little about what you do, your business, job / role? 

Simon Ellis 01:58

Well, I’m not going to tell you the whole book, but to put it simply. So I worked in the asset management industry for as you say, well over 30 years, mainly in very large organizations, often the subsidiaries of global organizations, so firms like Fidelity, AXA, Legal & General, where you and I worked for a period of time and more recently, HSBC, so large organizations but inside the asset management subsidiary within those firms.

Then about two, three years ago, I decided to retire from that executive life and take a little portfolio of non-executive roles. Sounds easy, take up a portfolio, you start with nothing and then you have to use, your network, your friendships, and your knowledge and skills, and then we’ll come to that later on how important that is. Where people have asked me to come and help them build businesses or recover, particularly full time in the last couple of years. So yeah, quite a varied career. And on a personal side, you know, family, man, nothing special, special to me, but I’m a family man, an avid cyclist and doing all the things that you do from your team sports, when you’re younger than individual sports, as you get older, whether it’s golf, or skiing, or cycling, in my case

Simon Ellis 06:00

Part of my thing as a senior leader is to try and find useful parallels in other industries, because I think you can get very, very focused on what works in our sector. In practice, things that work in many, many sectors will work in ours as well. And one of the things that I became quite enamored of before it became too popular, was this whole idea of continuous improvement, not from just reading about Kaizen with Toyota, but also from the British Cycling Team. This was back in the early 2010s. When Jason Quealy had just won, I think we had a very successful Beijing. So, I use those examples. Rather than where people latching on to these ideas of the last four or five years past, I was a little bit early on that one. And as you say, we used to use the yellow jersey as a way of reward of identifying staff who had made a particular contribution.

But wherever they were in the organization, I’m you know, a big fan that you should recognize individual’s contribution, whether they’re right at the bottom of the pyramid, or right near the top of the pyramid. Now the plaudits shouldn’t just go to those who score the goals. Sometimes there’s other people who make an equally valid change or an equally valid contribution. That, you know, I still remember these examples, where you get your email, remember, somebody who’s just in the post room, but says I’ve just found a way of saving you. And the example that we had in Legal & General was saying someone saves £25,000 just by introducing a change to the way in which we ordered paper. I think this is a way of getting organizations motivated, is letting people know that you’re looking for examples of success, and excellence or initiating change, wherever it happens. Just saying, you know, there’s four or five people who run a great big project, they get the plaudits often, but there’s other people doing little things underneath. You know, that’s important.

Simon Ellis 08:28

We all know that, you know, when organizations are looking to get leaner and fitter. They think, well, what does that mean? Let’s get rid of some stuff. Because it’s very difficult to be leaner and fitter so cut the training budget first, then the marketing budget, then people.

Now I’d rather not cut people. And from the top down, you’re so remote from what people are doing, it’s very difficult to know what processes, what things can be improved. And one of the things I’ve learned through the years is people doing the job, know best what could make it better.

So, what you should do as a leader, as opposed to manager… managers manage things, leaders lead people, I think what is important to do is to let them do their job, to the best of their ability, you tend to get in the way. So the better thing to do is to say like if you’ve got a really good idea that you think could save some money or make your process better, or whatever else it is, speak to your line manager. And if they say, I think you’ll agree between you if you want to do it. If that person’s line manager thinks it’s nonsense, whatever else, don’t be worried to escalate it. I’m not in a sort of formal process or whistleblowing. It’s just the organization letting people challenge the norms making something happen. It doesn’t have to be all sharp elbows. You know, people don’t want people coming in and disrupting the lines of accountability. But just let people know that if you’ve got a bright idea, raising it is welcome. and it’ll help the organization rather than sitting there and saying, you know, they don’t understand.

Because I used to have a little nomic in my head, which is I am they. So when people say, Oh, they don’t understand they mean, I don’t understand. Do you know what? They are normally, right? So, to say, if you don’t understand it better than me, provided you we can’t identify any real reasons for not doing something. Let’s just do it.

Simon Ellis 12:56

Fluffy stuff, Mark, but it’s not fluffy. You see, it’s really hard. You know, and it’s interesting. For example, the regulator in our industry, FCA, they’re now focused, they’ve identified that culture drives behaviors. And culture is about how do people within an organization relate to each other? How do they interact with each other? How do they behave? And there’s lots of things because I always set the tone from the top, yes, you have to set the tone from the top, that has to filter all the way through the organization and what I’ve learned, and painfully many times, because these things, you’ve read them in a book, but doing them is really hard, is people have got to have some sense of purpose.

What are we trying to do? What are we all of us? What are we trying to do here? And when you call it vision, or mission, those sound like something that you’re going to space or something, but you’ve got a clear idea of what it is you’re trying to build. That is the job of the leadership team to identify what that is, then the skill is to communicate that in a way that is sufficiently engaging. so people say, Yeah, I want to be part of that. As opposed to I want to be a spectator, you guys carry on and do that. And I have seen so many firms, where they senior management team come up with a new vision of what they want their business to be. But there’s little connection between that vision, which is normally written in some sort of corporate gobbledygook, of some you know, it’s not even a castle on the hill, just say, we want to be the world’s leading xxx, or we want to be a top five playing normally, it’s we want to be a top five or top 10 in our industry.

And from that very small senior leadership team, which they may have discussed with the chairman and the shareholders. The people underneath the scene, imagine again, I’m not sure that’s achievable. And then the further down the organization you go, the less the more and more remote it becomes and the more it looks like a pipe dream. I’m not saying you should limit your ambitions but to make it believable. But what it does say is what you’ve created, needs to be understood and relatable all the way through the organization. So, people are looking to say, even if I say, I’m not sure that’s achievable, but I’ll give it a go. That’s all I want. Give, it gives us a chance. So, you should dream big. And you should try to get the whole organization to come through.

There’s a classic one, I don’t know, I’m not totally convinced it’s true about Napoleon, Napoleon would get us all these generals in the tent, I’m sure you’ve heard the story. You’re all the generals in the tent, and they designed the battle plan, it would all be agreed. And then Napoleon would say right, bring in a private, and they get a private in and they would have to explain to the private, what they were going to do and what his role is in it. He said, If he doesn’t understand what he’s going to do, then the 10,000 members of Grand Army won’t understand what to do either. And that, I think, is a really interesting example, or analogy of if your day-to-day workers do not relate to what it is you want them to do, and how you want them to do it, it will not happen. Because it’s only when the whole organization is moving towards a common objective. At roughly the same place using roughly the same methods. You’ve got any chance at all a success.

Question 2 –   Thinking about the (people and/or technology impacts of the) last year, what lessons will you take forward and how do you see these being delivered? 

Simon Ellis 17:09

Well, that’s a huge question. But I think there’s, there’s two things, which I think was one thing, which I think we’ve all learned. And there’s another thing which I think we have to do. So what we’ve learned is that people can work effectively outside of the collective office environment. So people can work from home effectively. And they can be trusted to do so.

I think we’ve been through this idea of working from home was always “working from home”, and then walking the dog and taking the kids to school – actually there was nothing wrong with that, as long as they did do the work. But with this idea of you go into the office for o’clock, you work and go home, that is not essential.

There are many reasons why I think people should still be encouraged to go to the office as often as possible, because I do believe that innovation and sharing of knowledge and building the culture of an organization can only be done collectively, properly. But I think we’ve learned now that there’s no downside to being flexible. And there’s probably quite a lot of upside. Have you said that when people say I’m much more productive at home, I’d like to say prove it? Yeah, you just feel better. You’re not more productive. Anyway, that’s so that’s what we’ve learned.

Now going forward, I think they’re much as a much more important lesson, which is, everyone’s got really used to using technology now. And so I think any organization that thinks it can go back to a customer service model, or a business to business interaction model, without using technology, as the core of that proposition, is doomed to die.

You know, in the conversations I’m having in the boards that I sit on now, it’s all about how are we going to change our digital interaction with all of our different stakeholders, customers, suppliers, staff, etc, etc. I think we’re, whilst we’ve got all the tools, the knowledge and understanding of how to use them appropriately, and where the forms of innovation are going to come. I think we’re a little bit in the foothills of that. But if you’d said to, I think, most of us two years ago, zoom, we might have thought of an ice lolly from the 1970s. Now, you know, I’m having zoom calls with my family, that’s people in their late 70s through to 15 year olds. We’re all sitting on a zoom call every Sunday at six o’clock. It’s a lovely thing to do most of the time.

But the fact is, Zoom is now part of everyday life, as teams or whatever else you want to go there not so easy, but you We’ll just people say, a zoom call.

Simon Ellis 20:06

But amongst the people that I deal with, in my, in my business world, or my social world, we’re all very, very comfortable with the idea that you have a multimedia life. And, as I said, I think it’s essential that businesses think a lot harder about what they’re doing in the digital world, and how they’re going to use technology, both from a hardware perspective, but also in terms of, just how we use it.

And, you know, I was talking to board meeting this week, and we were talking about customer engagement. And the customer being the end consumer, people like you and me, when we’re buying services from advice, practices, or whatever else. I’d say, people be much more comfortable with having an hour zoom call, rather than having to go to your office or you having to drive 50 miles to go and see them to do an hour meeting. Because the amount of time you waste going back backwards and forwards and the money it costs, if I can do that, in an hour, I’ll do a review meeting in an hour on the screen.

Why would I? Now that’s so you can say well, that’s great, because we’re saving money. Possibly, I see it’s an opportunity, which is what it means we could be saying, let’s see each other a bit more often. Or rather just having a review meeting, I might want to do is have a stimulation meeting, let’s say to chew the fat or shoot the breeze or whatever phrase you want to use, about what else is happening. Tell me a bit more about…because we don’t normally get to talk about what’s happening with your family and all that kind of stuff in a review meetings we’re trying to do the do. But let’s just have a little bit more. So I think this is this is just an example of it’s going to transform the way in which relationships in businesses work.

We just don’t know how we can I suppose, but the starting point is let’s make sure you got the right tech, that we trust the tech and instead of looking at as it’s a way to save money, or be more efficient, because we can record the conversations or something like that. That’s all good stuff…but It’s an opportunity.

Should we be making more time for thinking… 

 Simon Ellis 24:43

I think I think that’s that’s broadly right. There’s a lot of things in there. So, let’s just take a couple of things. The first is one of the dangers of the of working digitally Is encourages you to think try and do things quickly. Information is ubiquitous. The tools are designed to work quickly and hopefully intuitively. And attention spans have been increasingly limited because people can get gratification of their inquiry or whatever they’re trying to do really, really quickly. And that’s great.

One, and then the second thing you mentioned is about, you know, having a framework thing, the thing about frameworks for thinking is you’re already creating some limits, because you’re trying to process you’re trying to get something which is perhaps ethereal or half formed, and get it into a funneling process. So you can end up with a being a deliverable of some form or another.

I got a couple of concerns that’s attached to both of those angles, which was one primary concern, which is you have to set time aside to just think, now that used to be you talk about going on trains and traveling around and things like that (probably not driving) that’s good thinking time.

I think you do have to have some thinking time. And, what are the advantages of some of the richest people in the world, not because they’re rich…but money buys you time. And you see, suddenly, they are gurus, incredibly intelligent people, one of the luxuries that they have is time to think and actually having time to think gives them an even greater advantage. So, if I look at someone like let’s say, Warren Buffett, for example, now, I don’t know Warren Buffett at all, or what his methods are, I know his numbers look like. But I suspect that a lot of people around Warren Buffett are doing a huge amount of really, really detailed technical work, and he’s slamming back and going. I wonder what if Heinz didn’t do that, and they did something different, you know, he is thinking about not just global macroeconomics, but where’s this going?

I, I try and take time, or make time to read stuff. And think about stuff that’s not straight up and down the wicket to use an English cricketing expression. So, if we take that example, are you reading stuff about what futurologists are talking about and thinking about? I like looking at what’s happening in other industries, you know, I have a bit of a sort of a nice science minded view, I like looking broadly, and getting all these different inputs, because I think it just helps you to then go. So that’s happening there! Why wouldn’t that happen here?

So if I come back to this digital thing, we’re looking at how do we, how does the financial services industry get better at Digital, they want to hear that it’s we’re great at things that save us money and give us better processes in the in the back office. But when it comes to doing stuff that engage customers we’re poor. And then you look at what people who are who make their money out of managing customers from Google, Facebook, Amazon, and others. What are they doing? Well, we should be looking at what they’re doing not because they’re going to come and do it to us, they might, but they’re doing stuff which their customers, which is our customers too, they’ve got more than we have and their customers seem to enjoy the experience. Yeah. And we try and make them enjoy experience with us. If they’ve shown us the way to create an enjoyable experience. Maybe we should be learning from them, rather than trying to defend from them. So this is the thing about thinking…I think this is what good chief executives do, it’s what really good Chairman do of PLCs is… they’re looking beyond our horizon to other people’s horizon. What going on, you’re what people doing, why are people behaving in this way? You know, today, why have consumer sales dropped off? Why is that happening? People have got more money in their pockets than they’ve had for ages, because they haven’t been spending it. So why aren’t they spending it? What does that tell us? I haven’t got a clue. There’s literally in the in the news this morning. I thought that’s really interesting little factoid. What’s that telling me?

Question 4 –   What’s the best piece of business / career advice you’ve ever been given? 

Simon Ellis 29:46

Yeah. I don’t want to pin it down to one person or one piece of advice. I think over the 40 years I’ve been in this in this 42 years sadly, since I graduated and started in this industry, I’ve learned things as I’ve gone along. And the industry has changed. So you have to keep refreshing, you have to keep thinking. So the things that I have learned there’s two or three sort of really important things. The first is know your stuff. I had a couple of really good CEOs. And he said, I say, I say the good three questions, question, one would be a sighter. And just to test that, we’re all we agreed on what we’re talking about, the second one would be a probe. And the third one would knock you over unless you knew your stuff. And that third question’s what you’re looking out for so know your stuff. Second thing, work hard. There’s no substitute for hard work. That doesn’t mean to say you got to do hours, hours or hours or hours. It’s not the number of hours, it’s the quality of hours, but you’ve got to work hard if you want to be successful. And I’m sorry, but that’s just a fact of life.

And the third thing that’s come to me bit later in life, and I regret it in a way, which is about caring. I don’t mean caring in the sort of broad social sense. I always cared about success, that I cared more about customers, I cared for the customers rather than about them as a way of getting my success, and caring for staff.

And what I hadn’t really fully appreciated, is in being successful. I think a lot of people in my generation that may apply to others, were more concerned about their own success and running, you know, in the hamster wheel, getting doing as well as you could and beating off the competition and showing all your friends and everybody else how successful you were. And it meant you try to get people around you who could make you successful.

And what I’ve learned over the last four or five years, in particular, is the value of having people around you and customers who were awkward or different. Then I call it diversity and inclusion. And I’ve always liked working in eclectic teams with people

I remember our sales team at Henderson’s many, many years ago. So you’ve got some odd people in your team. I loved it. Because they were all bringing in these different contributions. We didn’t talk about diversity then, I just like working with some with a whole bunch of weird people. But I’ve really come to value, the idea of bringing in different ideas and different people.

And I’ll finish on this, I’ve not been aware of a thing called neuro diversity, which is quite a recent awakening for me. But the idea that there are people who’ve got skills and knowledge is, but their approach is not one that would work easily. So you’re sitting in a team meeting, who’s the quiet person, the corner is not saying anything, or the person over the other corner, who’s saying something like, Oh, for God’s sake, you know, banging on about that their contribution is still valuable, you should value that person and their contribution, even if it seems to come from a weird place. Because actually, it’s their personality, their neuro diversity, as expressions come through, I could give you examples. It’s just that they’re not wired like me, you know, I’m clearly an outgoing, standard sort of alpha white male, middle aged person. So I fit easily into the corporate life. But the people who don’t fit into that, but their contributions are as valuable and that’s the thing, the final piece is… care for people. Let them sing their sing their song. And you’ll find that that will improve the quality of the understanding and the decision making as you go along.