People become successful because they're very good at a particular thing.
Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture UK podcast. I'm your host Brian Willard and today I will be speaking with Grant Duncan that the managing director at Global Leadership advisory consultancy Korn Ferry grant has over 30 years of business experience gained in two professions. His first career saw him rise to leadership roles in a number of UK advertising agencies, and laterally as CEO of publicists. His second career has been in executive recruitment, initially at the global executive search firm Spencer Stewart before joining Korn Ferry. Now this was a really fascinating conversation as we go deep into Grant's book, which is titled looking beyond the car in front. And it's really a very powerful guide to explain from his own experience, and from his own experience, both professionally, you know, in an advisory capacity, as well as his own career journey, himself, it talks a lot about how to plan your career and being able to really evaluate where you're at. So, in this episode, we look at how to avoid a career block grant gives us the steps to truly evaluating where you are identifying your competencies, transferable skills, and where you excel, and also what you enjoy. We discuss improving your self awareness, and we talk about getting out of your swim lane, or a borrow, that you have created for yourself so that you can expand and even move disciplines, careers, or just grow in your professional life. So fantastic conversation, sit back, relax, and enjoy grant Duncan. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures, flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how we might be able to help you please follow the link in the information grant. Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
Great, thanks. Lovely to meet you. Real,
absolute pleasure to have you here on the show. And slightly different conversation today as you're not an architect, but actually a recruitment expert, and executive head headhunter. You've written recently the book, looking beyond the car in front, which is really a handbook for helping mid tier professionals really foresee and kind of grab a hold of like how best to sequence and future proof and design their careers going forward. And I think this is a really interesting conversation, certainly in the world of architecture, because it's something that often I would imagine in most professions, something that just really gets left to chance, would that be fair?
I think so. I mean, I can, I can kind of empathize with your, your peer group in the in the architectural profession, because I actually spent the first 20 or so years of my career in advertising. And, you know, I do think there are certain parallels there, obviously, you know, a highly creative business, but a business where there's a lot of a combination between left and right brain, so quite logical, sort of, you know, data based, thinking allied with, with, with real creativity, sort of magic and logic, if you'd like, which I think I see the same thing in architecture. I think the other interesting correlation there is that, as was the case with me, a lot of people do enter the advertising profession, with the view that this will be their career for life, particularly if you're a creative person. So if you're an art director or copywriter, that's a skill you have, that's a skill you're born with, in many instances, and that's, that is your, that is the route you're going to take probably for the rest of your career, which, on the one hand is fantastic, because you have complete clarity on that, on the other hand, does lead to some of the issues and challenges that that my book starts to explore around getting caught in a in a swim lane. And, you know, not really knowing how to get out of it or how to how to adjust from that. So So I, you know, I do I do actually see, beyond, obviously now I'm a I'm an executive search Headhunters, you as you refer to it, and so I'm meeting people from all kinds of careers and all kinds of backgrounds. But I do hold in my mind very, very clearly those 20 As a head of advertising, and I do see the link through to architecture because of that,
how did you make this the career transition then from the world of advertising into what it is that you're doing now?
Well, it was quite a spontaneous thing I would say. Because obviously, I was chief executive of publicists, which is the UK armor publicist, which is a big global Ad Agency Network. I don't over 25 years in industry, I've obviously done pretty well to become the chief executive, being at the top of the pile for a few years. But the truth is, I was waking up in the mornings, just not feeling very excited about the day ahead. And you can do that for a few days or a week or so. But then when it you know, becomes a routine issue, then, you know, there's there's a problem. But, you know, it's one of the reasons why I wrote the book, I really didn't have a strategy, I didn't have any thoughts about what I was going to do about this, other than I just had a very strong urge that I needed. And I was in my late 40s, at the time, I really needed to think about doing something new, because I couldn't, I just didn't feel like it sustain this for, you know, for the next 1020 years. And, and also, you know, if you're not, if you're not on your A game, you, you fail, you start to fail in the job, and I didn't want to fail in the job. So I did something, which I don't recommend to anybody. And that's, again, why I wrote the book has stopped, people sort of find themselves in that situation, I just I resigned, I went to Morris Levy, the fabulous, at the time, Chairman of purposes and said, I just, you know, I'd had enough and I needed to kind of rethink, he thought I was completely mad, that he was respectful of my decision. So I stepped away, like my timing was lucky in the sense of as of 2007. So before the, the the crash, the the 2008 crash, so I sold my shares. And so I had, you know, had enough money to keep the wolf from the door for a time while I basically took a gap year to work out what it was I wanted to do. And so, you know, we'll maybe talk later on about what I learned from that, and how that might help other people start to approach this in a slightly more strategic way. But I was just very fortunate that one of the one of the the advisory projects, if you'd like I worked on was with somebody who was setting up a headhunting firms, focusing specifically in the advertising sector. And it was there that I began to understand, I could see then my transferable skills, which again, we may talk about later on how those could be applied to, to executive search. I didn't really want to do it. In that business, because it was focused on advertising, I wanted to get out of advertising. So I was very fortunate, I was talking to one of the big global firms, Spencer Stewart, who has happened had been looking for somebody to reboot their media practice. So I got that job in August 2008. And I think, a lot more remember, Lehman's went down about four weeks later, so I probably kind of got into cinematic your time. And then, you know, that's been the last 15 years of my career, really, really enjoying it. It was a it was a I was, I think very lucky to have found that it was a bit of happenstance. But I'm very fortunate that what one of the reasons again, for writing the book was, I was lucky. And I began had began thinking in subsequent years, actually, there are things that people can do in the run up to that moment, because that moment will come for most people. That that crossroads moment. And, yeah, at least having sort of thought that through, you certain of the sort of strategies I've talked about, to get your mind ready for that moment, is a lot better than relying on luck, which is what happened to me.
Yeah, absolutely. Really, really fascinating. I'm sure a lot of our listeners will probably be able to kind of, you know, hear themselves in the in the story that of, you know, kind of working in a particular profession where where you've invested so much into it. And certainly in architecture, I think what happens is that there's such a, such a strong structure in place to becoming a professional. And then once you've left your education, then you're on track to being an architect, and it's taken the best part of 10 years just to, you know, be able to call yourself an architect. It becomes a great reluctance to want to stray off the path that's been created. And people will often find themselves in very unhappy situations and kind of talk themselves into staying in that position for long periods of time and then there might be something dramatic that happens in a sudden And resignation? How would you help people or advise that people start to be able to kind of audit themselves and evaluate? Like, actually, you know, where are they now? What are their options? What, what sorts of things? Should they be taking stock?
Of? Yes? Well, you know, in many ways, it gets to the heart of some of the guidance. In my book, there's lots of things that can be done. But a lot of it comes back to almost auditing yourself, auditing, you know, who you are, what you really are, you know, in term as a, as an executive, as a practitioner, as a working person, and then trying to codify that in a way, because what that immediately does, it just gives you a framework that you can refer back to, when you're having those sort of moments of doubt, or crisis. If you know, at some point like I did, you decide to kind of pull the parachute cord, and go and jump out of the plane, or jump out of the plane and then pull the parachute cord, because if you did the other way around, that would be quite tricky. And it wouldn't end well. You know, you're sort of half prepared for it. And I think that's, you know, that's, that's all I think people can really do. So, you know, how do you do that. So one thing I observed from my time, in advertising, and but also I've seen it in my substant career as Hamilton is that people become, you know, successful, because they're very good at a particular thing. So if I use advertising, as example, you know, people become very successful, because they're a great art director or a great copywriter in you know, hopefully become a creative director or like me, you're very good client, relationship manager. And that may take you up to the top of becoming the chief executive, or managing director or so on. And there are very various, various sub disciplines, you get that in the broader world of people who are very good at marketing, you know, become the chief marketing officer, or people are very good at finance, become the Chief Financial Officer, which is great. Because you're building on that, and that's building your career and creating success. And you've been paid more and promoted and headhunted and all those good things, that you are in one channel. And yeah, you know, my, my strong advices obviously, continue to do to do great work in that channel, but actually find the opportunities to broaden your, your palette of experiences, and also rounding yourself out as, as an executive. So there are a few few things to think about here. One is, you know, this whole area of risk taking. Yeah, I suppose a byproduct of state sticking in your in your channel is you're getting is a comfort zone, you know, what you're doing, you're really good at it. And almost, you know, the more you carry on that way, the tougher it gets to kind of flip outside of that channel, because, you know, what's what happens if you move out of that comfort zone. So, fear of failure is a really is a common issue that I find, and, and it is something that needs to be to be grappled with. Because, you know, embracing, you know, taking risks. And in many ways, embracing failure, you know, does ultimately lead to great job satisfaction, you know, fulfilling your potential, making a difference. So, embracing failure, feeling good about it, you know, finding the benefits in so failure is not a nice thing that you can turn into, into positives around, understanding, you know, find the benefits of failures. You know, when failure looks like it's coming to that as a challenge rather than, than something to be fearful of. I think all of those, you know, all of those things are really important. So risk taking, I think, is an important feature of, of the ongoing journey that people are on. Really related to that is getting in the firing line. You know, try and put yourself in situations where, you know, that maybe a little bit unpopular with with colleagues or people are shying away from because, you know, heading heading into heading, somebody said to me heading towards the sound of bullets, is quite a quite a scary thing to do, but actually can be the, you know, can be the making of you. And one really good example actually was one of the people I interviewed in the book is Alan Jope, who has recently left as the CEO of Unilever. And he was the he's essentially because he was a lifelong Unilever executive, so didn't go to any other company or stayed at Unilever. But he became very successful because he took on the jobs that nobody else wanted to do. So while all his his sort of colleagues and peers were doing the rather sexy sort of, you know, Global Brand Manager of Dove, you know, and winning lots of creative awards that can or that sort of thing. He went to went to us, the US to resuscitate the Vaseline brand that was in real trouble. He went in and did sales jobs, rather than, you know, he got out of marketing quite quickly went into sales jobs, which are not everybody's cup of tea, that actually what really made him he went to China, China, a Unilever and China had been a basket case, I think they'd been through something like three or four managing directors there, or general managers, and they call them and it was like, it was completely toxic, he went there, and he made a brilliant job of it. And that, you know, and he said, you know, in my, he said, on my deathbed, I didn't want to say, you know, the height, the height of my career was, you know, winning an award for Best TV commercial accounted for, you know, for the dove. What he wants to be able to say was, I've been to China, to Malaysia, to Indonesia, to the state, you know, to all these amazing places. So, you know, so I think I think that getting in the firing line is part of that, you know, risk taking, failing and failing better.
That's, that's, that's really inspiring to hear, actually, that this kind of, you know, encouragement to break out of the channel or the structure that, you know, in many cases people have plowed for a long time. What kind of practical advice would you suggest, like, you know, just in terms of like finances, for example, and that, you know, like in an architecture, you know, one of the complaints you'll you'll hear a lot in the industry is that it's the low salaries, and this is something that causes a lot of a lot of pain in the industry. But then, that also, you know, that kind of caution and inadequacy or difficulties with with money, also then becomes a trap in itself, where people are, you know, don't feel like they've got the financial ability to be able to make a make a sharp, sharp decision or failure becomes more heightened, if you like, or the fear of failure becomes more heightened because of a financial situation. How, what kind of advice would you give people like that to? Like, what, how can they be orientating themselves in a way, where they can take more risk?
Well, I think that is a very core issue is, is you get to a point in your life, where you probably may not be enjoying it, but you're doing okay, you know, and you're earning? Well, and that is, you know, as you do that, of course, your costs start to, you know, almost increase in direct proportion to your salary increases, you know, things happen, you get married, you buy a home, you start having children, you know, the cost base starts to go up, and particularly if you are the main breadwinner, or even a cobra admin doesn't really matter. But you know, you're making a big contribution to funding that life, that because that really does become a disincentive to take, take a risk. But you know, what I would say is, in the end, it will get you. You know, I hate to say this, but you know, as we all know what a pyramid looks like, it's very, very narrow at the top. So there are very few of those jobs, you know, where you are the boss, you know, you're the you are the lead partner in a in an architect's firm, or you're the chief executive, whatever, then very few of those. So what happens to all the other people who don't make it? Well, you know, they they get sort of at the get ejected out of the system in some shape, or form. And what's quite uncomfortable is, that quite often happens when people are in their sort of late 40s or early 50s. And they're still got, you know, they've still got a lot of commitments, but also, they got another 20, you know, God willing, 2030 years ahead of them, and suddenly, they're quite on the scrap heap. So. So dealing with that, and I would say, taking the hit early, is probably, you know, the right thing to do. If you feel that, you know, this is not for you that you're not going to be running your own architects firm or, you know, working in one of the big, the big architectural firms as a sort of senior partner or something. If that's not going to be for you, then you have to very early on, start thinking about what your alternatives are, and accept that as part of that, you're probably going to have to either take a hit financially, or at the very least get to, you know, make a sideways move, and get stuck there for a bit before you then move on to the to the next stage. So, I mean, you know, there are lots of things in the book about this actually. So, one one exercise I think is really helpful. Is is a kind of what I call as a poor man's iki guy, which is just look at three things, which is what do I need? What do I enjoy? Or what am I good at? And I think, you know, it's almost like a bit of stock taking, it's worth doing at key points in your career anyway. But you know, what do I need? Well, we just talked about it. One thing is typically is economics, I need to earn a certain amount of money, because I have these outgoings and so when I need to exceed those, you know, exceed those outgoings. So, you know, that financial situation is there anymore. So kind of working out where the pain barrier is on that is, is quite, quite important. But what do I need can also be, I need to have my own business, you know, or I need to be in a in a bigger organization, because I just function much better in a bigger organization, or I need to be in Manchester, because, you know, that's where my elderly parents live, and I got to be close, you know, whatever it happens to be. So getting a clearer sense of what you need is, is quite is very important. But I think the other thing is, what do I enjoy, because, you know, too many people are in jobs that they don't really enjoy. They do them because it pays the bills, because it gives them a certain degree of sort of self validation. But do they really enjoy it? A lot of people don't sadly. So what is, you know, what is what is it that you enjoy, you know, there must have been moments in your career that you you really enjoyed what you were doing. So try and capture those, try and capture that and understand what was it that you enjoyed, to try and almost give yourself a reference point for then if you're going to jump out of this particular career, what is the career that's going to actually amplify what you enjoy, or what scenario is going to amplify what you enjoy. So going back to my earlier point, it may be that you're in a big corporate environment, and you hate the politics and the complexity and the matrix reporting and all that sort of thing. And what you know, you're far more at ease, when you're kind of, you've got a degree of independence, you can do anything that's slightly that sort of suggesting that you're probably better off in a smaller business, or maybe starting up your own business. Conversely, there are some people I've spoken to who, you know, have found themselves in an early stage business and absolutely hated it, you know, hated the sort of ambiguity of it, the fact that, you know, you'll run around buying your own paperclips and actually yearned to go back into a corporate environment. So I think, you know, in what you enjoy, is really important. And I think the final thing is, what what are you good at, and I think this becomes more important. The more you know, the older you get all the more advanced you get in your career. Because, you know, as you get more senior, and as you get more responsibility, there is a sense that everybody around you is looking at you going, you're, you're the boss, so you must be good at everything. And, of course, that is absolutely not the case, you cannot be good at everything. Yeah, the reason you're the boss is because you're good at something. And the other things, you know, the sort of that come with it. So a big part of this is actually in understanding what what you're, you know, what you what you really good at, and the book does talk a lot about competencies, and identifying your competencies. And that might sound like a bit of a sort of technical term. But you know, in simple terms, they're the sort of skills or behaviors that make you successful. Now, the best way to describe this is almost like, turning your CV inside out. So a typical CV is just a list of jobs in it with dates, and, you know, sort of things that you did, so it's kind of quite, it's the, it's the, what I did. competencies are how you did it. And then and what what fell out of that. So, you know, you might be a real natural diplomat, you know, who's very good at sort of walking into a situation where there's conflict, where there's arguments, there's politics and to somehow aligning people and getting to solution. So what you are there for is your really good, you know, balancing stakeholder needs, and that's the sort of skills that so that's a competency is stakeholder management, right? Another one might be, you know, you might be a very sort of outcome, discipline, outcome oriented person, you know, he's very good at you know, what's the sort of the the end task so, you know, the competency there is ensuring accountability. You know, you're you're that is that is actually one thing you're right, yeah, you are good at is ensuring accountability. Or, you know, maybe you're really comfortable with with trial and error. Experimentation, ambiguity. And that, again, that's a competency. So it's about bringing, identifying what those are and bringing those out. Because then that, that starts to give you a very clear indication of the kind of environment that you're going to you're going to succeed in. The other thing it does, by the way, is it starts to give you a clue as to what your transferable skills are. And that's, you know, that's, I think people find that very hard. Can you can you say, Well, I'm, you know, I'm an, I'm an accountant in a, in an architect's firm, you know, what are the where are the transferable skills there. But actually, you know, if you start to think well, less about, you know, the what you're doing in that job as an accountant or in the finance realm, but the how you did that, that starts to give you some indications of where actually, I could apply that in a in a slightly different environment.
So it's really kind of, you know, give yourself a little bit of altitude, if you like, and a broader perspective on what it is that you're doing and not get so sort of, kind of hung up on the kind of the very specific tasks that you might be doing inside of a particular company. But actually, those aren't, there's a way of doing something there, which is, you know, can be very, very easily moved on to another, another task or, or another series of things to do recommend that people work with somebody to help them identify these things. Because imagine this process has been quite difficult to do it as a self reflection.
Yeah, if any of I'm just going to go on to say that as a brilliant segue to my next point, which is, it, let's call it self awareness. Right, you know, that can come in lots of different shapes and forms. So what let's start with the one you mentioned, which is a mentor, or a coach, there are two different things, but they are they the amount to the same thing. You know, a coach, typically coaches are something that you have to pay for, unless you have to have, you know, somebody who is trained, properly trained, and happy to do a bit of, you know, sort of free consulting, but typically, you know, coaches, and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. But coaches are, are specifically trained to try and help shape some of these, some of these discussions. And you don't have to have coach all the time, you can sometimes there may be a moment in your life, where a better coaching would be really helpful to get you sort of get you aligned, and get you in on the right trajectory. So, you know, Coach, and properly trained coaches are very good at sort of deconstructing you, and you know, breaking down into your component parts, and then sort of helping you helping us rebuild those. The other route, which is probably a bit more intuitive, and a bit more personal as a mentor, and that mentor can come from within the organization that you you work in, preferably not your your boss. Because you know, that it sort of, it can confuse the dynamic and a bit of between yourself and the boss, is you do need a bit of distance and objectivity there. But it could be another person in the organization, who you like and trust. Or it could be somebody from outside the organization, but somebody who's there almost sort of on tap, you sort of call up and say, Gosh, I really need your help working this one through. And typically, you know, I'm really struggling, having a difficult time politically, within this organization, these people are creating real problems for me, you know, what would, you know, let me talk to you about it, and then help sort of guide me on that. Or it might be more broad a more broad conversation about, you know, I've been offered this great job. But I don't know if I should take it, what do you think so, but I think, you know, having that, I mean, the main point here is having a third party, an individual, who has got no axe to grind has got no real, no agenda, other than to give you the best advice. Sometimes advice you may not want to hear as well, that's the other important thing is it can't just be a mate. Because the trouble with mates is they're gonna do Oh, God, you know, I've been inappropriate. I'm going through a hard time up to sort of tell him what he wants to hear. You need You need that person to be really, really objective and to be able to, you know, give you sort of tough love, if you like. So that's, that's what
what do you what are your thoughts on things like personality profiling tools? Yeah, this kind of world?
Absolutely. I think that there's a there's a more sort of scientific approach to that, which is yes, there are there these profiling tools. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure you can get them all online. But you know, a firm like Korn Ferry has a brilliant profiling tool, all the big sort of executive search firms and Headhunters, you know, the kind of more than more strategic ones will absolutely have these as a sort of standard, or they're really helpful. The only thing is they do need a narrative to accompany them and that'd be my only concern is you know, If you're sort of taking something off the shelf, you'll get us a read out, you know, with lots of sort of, you know, lines through it and greens and Amber's and breads and, and then you know, it's a bit like self diagnosing on Google, you know, you could end up going down completely the wrong path or getting very disillusioned or, you know, disheartened, because of what this thing is telling you does need a narrative. And so you know, a call for a, we would always accompany that. The data that comes out of those tests, the psychographic tests with, you know, narrative and individual walking you through the the meanings for those of those findings. So there is that, in your own organization, a really easy one. And it's one that I think, you know, we Brits particularly find a bit tricky, is just asking you, when you had a meeting, asking your colleague, how do you think that went? One thing I did, would you change anything that I we did, you know, that sort of constant feedback? You know, it's not something that we do very well, because it's, it can be a bit uncomfortable. But you know, as an as an organization, if you if it's becomes normalized, then it leads to, again, a kind of more honest, opens or oxygenates, you know, discussions around performance and performance improvement, because you're doing it every day, as opposed to leaving it to the annual review. And yeah, one thing I again, I see again, and again, as people get to the annual review, and they get hit with bad news, and they go, oh, where's that come from? You know, no, you know, I've been for the last 12 months, everything seems to be fine. And yet, now I'm getting a negative performance review. Why didn't somebody tell me before so I could have done something about it. So absolutely, you know, ensuring that there is a proper 360 degree assessment done by your, by your boss, by your by HR team, or whatever, whoever, whatever the company structure is, is really important. But actually just as important is those sort of regular bits of feedback, which constantly sort of help you course adjust.
And I remember, we spoke previously, and you were talking about evaluating and looking at your career in kind of time chunks, a little bit about about that, and how that kind of relates back here to kind of, you know, if we're, if we're thinking about our schooling in five to 10 year increments, and what does that mean, in terms of like competencies and transferable skills?
Yes, I think I, something I wish I'd done, I must say, was to think in terms of five to 10 year increments, because it is very easy for time to fly by, particularly, if you're doing okay, if you're doing well, and it's all going well, and there's life goes on. And as I say, you know, you have a family, and he has all loads of stuff going on. And before you know it, you know, eight years has gone past. And, and, again, the problem with that is that it's all going really well. But then something might happen, that is unexpected. So and you spend new chief executive arrives with a completely different idea of what they want, at all, and by the way, they're bringing their own people in, and no matter how good you are, you're probably going to be you know, a victim of that, or there's a merger between to your company and another company. And there's two of everything. And so that means, you know, potential, if you want to, he's gotta go and it might be it might be you. Or there might be an economic crash, you know, like the 2008, like we're going through at the moment actually doesn't seem to have fed through yet into mass redundancies. But if you're going to tech companies, you know, Facebook, Google, these guys, were laying off 1000s of people, you know, a few months ago, these things just sort of can't happen and come out. And no matter how good you are, you could be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, yeah, apart from all the other things we've been talking about, which is sort of preparations for that for that moment, I think the other thing is to have a game plan, you know, think about right? What what what do I want to be in the next X years. So, you know, keep it simple, five years, 10 years. And one way of sort of playing that game actually is think well, what does my life look like, in five years time? Or in 10 years time? And a lot of that depends on your age and stage. So if you're 25 What does my life look like in five years time is probably, you know, a better version of what I've got at the moment. You know, I've been promoted, I'm earning more. I've got enough now that I can, you know, pay deposit on a house on a flat, you know, I can afford to pay a mortgage, you know, so those horizons a little, little sort of narrower behind helps. But you know, as you go further up the sort of the food chain, then it's like so in five years time, I actually want to be leading, you know that a division or running a function or in five years time, I want to have built up enough capital to invest in my own business later on in life, it might be I need to ensure that I've got enough for financial stability because actually I want to retrain as a cheesemaker, you know, or, actually, I just want to, I always want to check out, I don't want to lie on on the beach, you know, for the rest of the rest of my day. So depending on what that picture is, you then need to reverse back from that you need to reverse engineer that back into where you are now, or what you therefore need between now and that, that picture to get you there. And I think that, you know, I really like that idea. And it sort of comes back to the sort of metaphor of the car in front, which is, you know, yeah, the metros are pretty self evident. But if you're just staring at the car in front, as you're driving along, and you're just sort of like on autopilot, you know, there's a very great danger that when that car turns left, you turn left and you end up in, you know, the Sainsbury's car park. Idea. Yeah. You've got to, actually, you've got to be thinking what's beyond that car? So that I can then decide, you know, am I going to turn right turn left? What am I going to do the next set of traffic lights sort of thinking beyond that. So that's this exercise in taking a five to 10 year view, is part of that is, you may never do it, you may never, you know, run your own cheese shop. But at least you've got that as a reference point. So you can then explain to yourself in five years time why you didn't end up opening that cheese shop, actually, for probably very good reasons. But I think you need to kind of have that target. Otherwise, you'll just, you'll just be looking in increments of three months, six months, 12 months, which can basically leading into the Sainsbury's carpark.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Do you think that businesses should be doing this sort of process all the time with their employees? And actually kind of helping helping them take stock and helping them design where it is that they're, they're going so that it's not a surprise?
Absolutely. Now, of course, there are companies that do do this very well. They tend to be big, well resourced, you know, businesses, but they do a very well. So Procter and Gamble, were famous for this, where you went in, in the graduate scheme, and over a period of 10 years, they would put individuals into completely different sets of roles, arming them to become a general manager to the idea where they took a 10 year horizon, which is in 10 years you, if you do this, well, you will become a general manager. And it was a brilliant, brilliant, so yes, you do. For years as in marketing and brand management, then you go into sales, then they might give you a big global brand to run, then they move you to run a small market, you know, rugby, gm of PNG, Romania, then back to the to the corporate head office, again, you know, bit by bit. And it's branching that if you look at some of the the leaders in UK PLC today, they all came through that through that png system. So Gavin Patterson, who is Chief Executive of British Telecom, Phil Jansen, with just now leaving, who also became CEO of British Telecom, you've got Tim Davey, who is the Director General of the BBC, and so on. Yeah, these are, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, there was a 10 year horizon, there was your we're gonna get you to general management in 10 years, and we're going to build the kind of component parts to get you there. So that, of course, that's all very well, if you're Procter and Gamble, or Unilever or whatever, but if you are a 20 person, you know, architectural practice, that's, you know, the resources aren't necessarily there. But, but, but I do think, you know, it is incumbent on the senior partners or the founders, to actually put invest much more into those sort of help, sort of helping people through that sort of career journey. By putting in place you know, the right kind of training or the right opportunities, thinking creatively about it, even if it's a bit painful, you know, we got sense over here is great working on this particular project, but it'd be better for them if they went with we move them to something else when we move them to another country and we're gonna lose them for two or three years. But it's better we do that. And then they just get stuck in a rut and then they and they get bored and and by the way, There's a whole separate conversation about, you know, millennials, and Gen z's, who have a completely different expectation of, of what a job is and what a career is. And they absolutely have an expectation that leaders, leaders will be creative and proactive in putting interesting opportunities within that organization in front of them. Because if they don't, they're just going to go. Because, you know, that, that concept of a career for life, or staying in one, one, God forbid, no one company for life has just completely gone. So, if you want to retain as is actually a critical retention tool, if you want to retain your best young talent, you've got to work much, much harder, creating opportunities that stimulate, create diverse experiences for for that generation, otherwise, I'll simply leave.
Well, that's, that's really interesting. I mean, we're seeing a lot of this in the architecture industry, you know, across the globe, where there is a kind of Exodus that's happened of mid tier professionals, I mean, I would kind of fall in this foot into this myself of, you know, moving away from the architecture profession and move into something else. And it has created this kind of void of experience that's there. And, you know, there's been a bit of a failure of lots of businesses being able to maintain and retain people, because of exactly what you're what you're what you're talking about, then it'd be believers See, they're more likely, you know, I'm not getting the kind of career advancement I was looking for, either I'm gonna go off and do it myself, or there's other companies and there's, there's less of them. But those companies tend to be the ones that attract the talent and retain the talent, and then they're the ones that grow and dominate the marketplace.
Completely. I mean, that is a real issue. And it is, you know, it's not just the architecture profession, I mean, everybody is facing it, but particularly organizations that are working with a traditional model, which is, you know, anybody apart from, you know, the big tech platforms like Facebook and Google, as well as why they've been so successful in, in, in attracting great talent, but any sort of high growth digital business, they completely understand how that how that works, and how to create a sort of a more sort of cellular call it sort of career journey for for their younger, their younger staff, you know, where training and development, you know, is really important. You know, also, there's a whole area of sustainability and purpose, you know, operating as a purposeful organization doing the right thing. Unfortunately, the, you know, the model that's in the minds of a lot of leaders aged over 4550 is a very, very traditional model. And it's simply not good enough, for example, to say, wish, it wasn't the case of advertising, by the way, you know, look at me, I'm your credit, I'm the creative director, or I am the Chief Executive, one day, you could be like me, you know, but in the meantime, you've got to just, you know, you've got to take a lot of crap, and, you know, do a lot of horrible late nights, and, you know, weekend shifts, and we're gonna pay you really badly, and all those things, but let your one day, you're gonna be like me, and I think a lot of that generation looking at President, but I don't want to be, I think you're completely the wrong model for me. And by the way, I'm not willing to, you know, to work every weekend, just to sort of make you rich. So, you know, it's a slightly sort of caricature example. But that that is, that is something very serious, I think.
But I think that's a very, that's a very, very, you know, you know, it might be a bit of a characterization, but it's actually, you know, there's, there's an enormous amount of truth in that. And that will hold true for a lot of a lot of people have, like, exactly, you're looking up towards a generation of, of leaders above you, and people are thinking I don't, I don't want that that's not, that's not worth it. This is this, this is what I'm doing right now. It's not worth it, there's got to be something else. And so that's why we're seeing so much movement, and businesses really needing to uplevel in terms of being able to retain talent and be able to communicate powerfully with younger younger generations and there is a very different culture and set of standards that are beginning to emerge, then you know, many, many, many for the better, some not so much. Yeah. Very interesting. So, in, in your current role, what you do now, as a recruitment expert, what kind of process do you do with people? How do people work with you?
Well, we, we sort of faced two ways really, you know, the one one face is too awkward the client community so we have clients So who typically will come to Korn Ferry looking, you know, for our senior level, you know, we operate at a pretty senior level, sort of C level, and c minus one, the C minus two companies will have a recruitment need. So they may have, the CEO may have, you know, retired or resigned, or the CFO may have got poached and, you know, gone to, you know, to another company. So, there's, there's a, there's a gap that needs to be filled. So, they will come to us to help us fill that gap. In the meantime, the other face is pointing out to potential candidates, so the kind of the pools of candidates that are out there, because our job is, you know, once that client says, We need a new CFO or CMO or CEO, is to pretty much have in our minds, and this is the brief would to pretty much have, in our minds, a list of at least you know, five to 10 people, we think, yeah, they could be right for this because we know because we're out there talking to people. We know who where the talent is who the best people are, and sort of create that connection. That's sort of massive oversimplification of what we do. Because actually, there's a lot in between that, which is not dissimilar. I mean, I think, you know, in many ways, we're not dissimilar to strategy consulting businesses, because actually, a lot of it is about understanding, at a very profound level, what that company's business targets are as objectives, what is, you know, what that new leader will be coming into what the, you know, the, the success metrics are for that role, and so on. And, you know, really sort of understanding that in a way that somebody from a McKinsey or BCG would really also understand. So that you're actually making a very sort of, you've got a very clear understanding what the brief is, and then a way of articulating that to the outside world. And then most critically measuring, you know, the, the candidates and their, you know, how many sets, how many boxes do they take of that the key requirements, and funnily enough, that very processes was the transferable skill that I saw from advertising into, into executive search, because that's what you do in advertising, you sit down with the board with a senior level management, right, we've got this brand here, it needs, resuscitating reviving, you know, you get through all the data, all the market research, you know, there's a customer feedback. And you you know, as an agency, your job is to really kind of create a compelling proposition and brief that then gets handed to the creative department who then and, you know, the version of the candidate in advertising is the campaign is a is an advertising or marketing campaign. So, so in simple terms, that's, that's what we do. But a lot of it is, it's high stakes, because you know, a new CEO for a public company can make or break, you know, the success of that business. But you know, getting the right person can create a, you know, an absolutely amazing multiplier effect in terms of return on investment and shareholder return and so on.
Amazing, brilliant, brilliant. And so, if people are kind of going through this quandary themselves, or they're looking to really design their career, is it something that you know, they can reach out to you or to Korn Ferry? I am, what would you
say? It's not? That's not what we do. You know, I actually, funnily enough, that's more what, you know, the sort of coaching sort of profession do interestingly. Yeah, I mean, I wrote the book purely because I, you know, as you can see, I've had lots of sort of experiences lots of ideas in my head, which I just wanted to commit to paper, because, you know, the experience I went through, and it could have been so much better if I, if I'd had my book, you know, 1520 years ago, things might have been turned out very differently, or maybe in the same, but actually, it would have been, I'd been going into it in a more structured structured way. So no, I can't promise that that's, you know, what would come you know, if somebody approached Korn Ferry, or indeed any other are big, big search firms. But you know, I didn't think you know, almost the point of having the book is you can do this yourself, you don't need to pay somebody to do this, you have to pay a coach to sort of help you with this. You can actually do it yourself because a lot of it is is common sense. But sometimes when it's about you things about yourself of much more difficult to unpack because it is you you know and so it's a way of it's almost like an out of out of body experience, it's a way of taking outside of yourself and analyzing yourself and and then and then as you do taking control of it yourself so I would in fact I would say you know there are very few people out there who do this thing as a you know, dude as a profession. Other than the coaching community, that actually you don't really need them, you can do it yourself.
Love it. I love it. Amazing. Brilliant. Well Grant Thank you so much for sharing your your your your personal experiences and your enormous breadth of knowledge share in terms of career development and, you know, the insights that you've that you've garnered from several, we're working in multiple industries and working with lots of people. So really, really appreciate this. And I think this is a really important conversation and very privileged to have had you on the show. So thank you. And that's a wrap. And don't forget, if you want to access your free training to learn how to structure your firm, or practice for freedom, fulfillment and profit, please visit smart practice method.com Or if you'd like to speak to one of our advisors directly follow the link in the information. The views expressed on this show by my guests do not represent those of the host and I make no representation, promise guarantee, pledge warranty, contract, bond or commitment, except to help you the unstoppable
