NOVEMBER 2016 managementtoday.

com

Does making stuff

still really matter?
Graduates spurn
the milkround
How to pivot your career
John Vincent

JOHN
NOT JUST BUSINESS AS USUAL

VINCENT
Yee-ha! Leons foodie founder heads stateside
managementtoday.com

NOVEMBER 2016
R55

4.90
 CONTENTS

CONTENTS
NOVEMBER 2016

AT THE FRONT...
14 BRAINFOOD
Greggs CEO Roger Whiteside lives &
learns, getting career-breakers back to work,
Nissans Brexit headache and how real
estate entrepreneur Paul Oberschneider
beat the odds

19 HOWARD DAVIES DIARY

Our diarist takes a tour around Europe
while he still can

21 WHATS YOUR PROBLEM?

Suffering with a work-addicted spouse, an
idle son or a bosss dog? Jeremy Bullmore has
the answer to your career conundrums

23 BOOKS
Robert Cialdini produces more fascinating
insights into the art of influence in
Pre-Suasion, says Dr Gorkan Ahmetoglu
58
Fragrance queen Jo Malones moving and
candid memoir is a must-read for any AT THE BACK...
entrepreneur, says Claire Vero
48
Simply Brilliant by William C Taylor Why the Skoda
shows that its not just shiny, new tech Superb Estate is
companies that are being innovative, says winning awards. Our
Cameron Stevens 36 series on tomorrows
jobs examines the
FEATURES... nanomedic. Rebecca
Alexander tackles
28 28 THE MT INTERVIEW: JOHN VINCENT 42 team dynamics, and
The co-founder of healthy fast food chain Leon Tomas Chamorro-
on living in tune with the planet, martial arts and Premuzic on the three
trying to make it in the US. By Andrew Davidson most useful interview
questions to ask
32 MANUFACTURING DECONSTRUCTED
Does it matter as much as the doomsters claim 58 SMOKE & MIRRORS
that Britains industrial powerhouse days are After a data course,
behind it? Andrew Saunders gets the lowdown the CEO thinks he
on whether making stuff really is all that special can predict the future

36 THE CAREER SWITCHERS

Tired of your job and want to try something
new? Kate Bassett meets three people who are
glad theyve changed direction

42 THE MILKROUND GETS CHURNED UP

Top university campuses are no longer the only
place for employers to find the best talent.
Adam Gale reports on the changing world of
graduate recruitment

50 CELEBRATING INNOVATORS
The winners of the Management Today/Deloitte
Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at
London Business School Real Innovation Awards 50

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 7

HOW DO YOU
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 EDITORS LETTER

FINDING THE
RIGHT RECIPE
Matthew
Gwyther
MT Editor
At MT weve known John Vincent and his business Leon almost since it started
on Carnaby Street in 2004. Answering the question, What if God did fast
food? it was an instant success, winning The Observers Best New Restaurant in
the UK within six months of griddling and wrapping its first heavenly chicken
Contributors
with shallot and rosemary salsa verde. However, despite its popularity, which
created many imitators, growth in its first decade was steady rather than turbo- ANDREW DAVIDSON
charged. Vincent and his co-founder Henry Dimbleby took time out to do The last time we
spoke to Davidson,
other things including the admirable campaign to improve the quality of he was telling us all
school lunches and guarantee a free school meal for infants. (This was backed about life in the
Great War. Here he
by one Michael Gove, currently residing in the outer darkness.) turns his attention to
Now running the show without Dimbleby, Vincent has recruited senior the fast food front, interviewing John
Vincent, co-founder of Leon. How
managers from Wagamama and McDonalds and has some big expansion many entrepreneurs would name a
money behind him, including an 11.5 million loan package from HSBC. He restaurant chain after their dad?
now has 41 outlets, 750 staff and is turning over 42 million a figure which Only a brave one...
has raced ahead in the last 18 months. America is the next frontier. Extremely
open-necked in his denims plus two-tone brogues, emitting expletives from all
KATE MILLER
Millers illustrations
have appeared in

HOW MANY GRADUATES MIGHT END UP BEGINNING The Guardian

and The Washington

THEIR WORKING LIFE BEHIND THE COUNTER AT LEON?

Post. Now, they
grace MTs feature
on the graduate milkround. No big
companies came to art schools, she
angles, with a celebrity wife, Katie Derham, who took part in Strictly, hes recalls. Instead I walked many miles
of pavements clutching my portfolio,
retained a charismatic spontaneity and will spend hours explaining how knocking on art directors doors.
Eastern martial arts have formed his approach to business. (If you permit him.)
But hes no hippy-dippy New Ager. Vincent was a consultant at Bain where NICK ELLWOOD
Ellwood has made a
he met Dimbleby when they were toiling away unhappily on Burger King. As career being
the pair told us back in 2005, Bain taught us two things which helped create creative with line
our own business. Firstly, you learn how to think constantly in multiple dimen- drawings. This issue,
he turns his hand to
sions, from strategic right down to the nitty-gritty. Second, you really learn the Real Innovation
how hard you can push things, and its always quicker than people think. Awards, which showcase some of
our most imaginative companies.
By contrast the slow decline of UK manufacturing from almost 50% of GDP It was a pleasure illustrating the
at the end of the Second World War to 10% worries those who think we cannot winners, and to celebrate Ive just
placed my order on Deliveroo.
survive on services alone. Especially if Brexit makes life tough for the service
sector and all the bankers hot-foot it to Paris and Frankfurt. While manufactur- CLAIRE VERO
ing has shrunk, the number of graduates has boomed. Employers now have Aurelia Probiotic
hundreds of thousands of hopefuls to sift through after the annual milkround Skincare founder
Vero finds a kindred
has pulled out of all the gown towns. Many will take what is euphemistically spirit in her review
termed non-graduate level work. How many might end up at least beginning of entrepreneur
Jo Malones My
their working life behind the counter at Leon? And would such an experience Story. Not only does it take you on
READ MORE 0N THE at the sharp end of a growing, customer-facing business be a bad thing? the journey of Malones business
EDITORS BLOG @ successes, but also she lets you in
on the emotional side of her life,
managementtoday.com Follow Matthew on Twitter: @MatthewGwyther like a trusted friend.

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 11

 ABOUT US

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NOVEMBER 2016 managementtoday.com

Does making stuff

still really matter?
Jeremy Hazlehurst, Group director, HCM Specialist managementtoday.
co.uk/bulletins
Graduates spurn

Tim Bulley
the milkround
How to pivot your career
Richard Reeves, Rhymer Rigby
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John Vincent

Contributing editors Copyright 2016 by Haymarket Consumer Media. Issue 11, 2016 ISSN 0025 1925. MT is
published by Haymarket Consumer Media, Bridge House, 69 London Road, Twickenham,
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NOT JUST BUSINESS AS USUAL

VINCENT
This product is
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 LIVE & LEARN WORDS-WORTH CRASH COURSE COMPANY VITAE WORK PLACE RIGHTS
HOW I BEAT THE ODDS BUSINESS BIG BRAINS TAKE FIVE EVERYTHING YOU KNOW

READ MORE
BRAINFOOD @
WHEN managementtoday.com
& YOU ARE
THROUGH
CHANGING,
YOU ARE
THROUGH
Bruce Barton

ROGER WHITESIDE
CEO OF GREGGS & FORMER HEAD OF FOOD AT M&S

I had the idyllic childhood. My dad Id achieved my dream job as head of

was in the Forces, so I grew up running food, but I was seduced by the internet
around protected camps in Germany, revolution, where M&S had been slow. I
making dens in the woods. It was like met Tim Steiner, Jason Gissing and
living in Center Parcs for 11 years. Jonathan Faiman on April Fools Day
2000 and they blew me away, so I left to
I studied economics at Leeds, but in join what later became Ocado. The dot-
todays world I probably wouldnt have com bubble burst nine days later. Luckily
gone. Theres a broadening element to wed begun talks with Charlie Mayfield
university, but other than as a general at Waitrose, and there was enough
education my degree has been of no momentum to complete the deal. Toolkit
direct relevance, and coming from a
working-class background, Id have History will judge I never had the A heading on a press release: A Must-Have Toolkit
had to fund it somehow. courage to be a real entrepreneur. At for Todays Managers. The perfect thing to keep in
Ocado, we were creating something the boot of the BMW, you might think. Except that
When I first joined M&S, it was almost new and it was brilliant, but I always this toolkit is metaphorical. A tool an Old English
military. There was no way directly to knew I could return to a career. word with ancient Germanic roots is a mechanical
the head office your way in was as a implement. But for a very long time it has also meant
trainee on the shop floor. Theres no When I took on Greggs, it was trying to a mental discipline that helps you do things. A
substitute for that in retail. Every time I compete on several fronts. We werent toolkit, in this sense, is a lot of those skills bundled
take a new role now, I go straight to the going to win a war with the supermar- together. This example was a MOOC (Massive
shop and spend a week or two there. kets as a bakery, so I said lets focus on Online Open Course) organised by a university.
Then when I go to the head office and food-on-the-go. Fortunately the results You can see why it was marketed as a toolkit.
they try to tell me how the things run, I turned quickly.
know more about it than they do. John Morrish
Im paranoid that somebody will

46%
M&S has changed with the customer, invent something that will completely
otherwise it wouldnt still be around change the way we interact with cus-
today. Has it changed enough? Probably tomers, but Im still an optimist about
not. But its led the way in food since its the high street. I dont believe the future
inception. I think theyve done a great is everybody sitting inside with a 3D box
job of keeping it going. Its a business on their heads, living as an avatar. OF EMPLOYEES WILL QUIT AND
that tries to do the right thing in the People still want to get out of the house RETRAIN IN A DIFFERENT CAREER AT
context of a capitalist society. youve just got to give them a reason. LEAST ONCE OVER THEIR LIFETIME
Source: Association of Accounting Technicians

14 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 BRAINFOOD

COMPANY VITAE

Poster child for the British

motor biz or Brexit chancer?
You decide
Formative years
Although its roots date back to 1911,
the Nissan Motor Company was
officially formed in Yokohama in 1934,
a subsidiary of the giant Nissan
zaibatsu (conglomerate).
Using parts, ideas and even a chief
designer borrowed from the US,
Datsun cars (as they were then known)
began rolling off the line. But it wasnt
until the 60s and 70s that its thrifty and
reliable models rejoicing in names
like the Cherry, Bluebird and Fairlady
became a familiar sight on the
UKs roads. The Datsun brand was
dropped in the mid-80s, a $500m
Getting career-breakers back to work exercise in confusion that coincided
with the opening of the giant plant in
Your organisation feels distinctly male and period, to undertake an assignment worthy of Sunderland, a huge win both for Nissan
stale at the moment and youre having trouble their CV. Induct them in making the most of (gaining tariff-free access to the EU
market) and the UK government, whose
recruiting people with the skills and experience the opportunity, says Chivers. That means foreign direct investment programme
you need. Where to look? them understanding their strengths and learn- notched up its first major success.
ing how to network in the organisation.
Broaden your talent pool. Bringing back Offer practical support. Identify skills gaps, Recent history
Nissan Sunderland is now the most
women and men whove had an extended ca- and provide hands-on coaching to get your re- productive car plant in Europe,
reer break enables you to tap into badly needed turners up to speed. Your line managers will employing 6,700 and knocking out nearly
skills, meet diversity targets, and introduce fresh need to spend more time with these individuals, 500,000 cars including the bestselling
thinking. Returners bring a different perspec- helping them out particularly with things like Qashqai and Juke crossover models
tive not just of being a parent, but of having technology and processes, where these have annually. Which makes the locals 61.3%
vote for Brexit even more baffling.
stepped out of the workforce and come back, changed, says Ben Willmott, head of public Nissans big cheeses are not best
says Julianne Miles, founder of coaching and policy at the Chartered Institute
consultancy organisation Women Returners. of Personnel and Development. Returners pleased by the result, and have
threatened to mothball future investment
Reach out. The odds are stacked against those And psychological. One aim of bring a in the UK if access to the single market is
whove had an extended break: they are often coaching is to help returners re- different lost. Some Leavers have accused it of
blackmail, but really it is only a repeat of
lacking confidence, that career gap makes it
hard to get through the initial CV screen, and if
build their professional identify
and redevelop their self-belief,
perspective what the firm has been saying for years.

they make it to interview, their presentation is says Miles. Be careful, some returners push Whos in charge?
The Brazilian-Lebanese-French legend
unlikely to be as polished as those currently themselves because theyre trying to over-prove
that is Carlos Ghosn, perhaps the
working. Your recruitment advertising needs and that leads to early burnout. worlds most accomplished automotive
to spell out to returners they are welcome to Get flexing. Consider parents and others with executive, certainly the only one who is
apply, says Miles. They have often been reject- caring responsibilities. Offer different options boss of two once-rival firms Nissan and
ed so many times they wont bother otherwise. part time, four day weeks, job sharing. You Renault at the same time. He rescued
both with the audacious intercontinental
Bring your team onside. Before you launch a need to move the whole culture from one of Renault-Nissan Alliance back in the 90s.
returners programme, make sure there is an ap- presenteeism to one where outputs are valued, Between them the pair are now the fifth-
petite for it in the business, says Jessica Chivers, says Chivers. For everyone. largest carmaker in the world, and the
Shutterstock. Illustrations: Sarah zgl, Nick Shepherd

author of Mothers Work! and founder of consul- Japanese love Ghosn so much he has
his own Manga comic strip.
tancy Talent Keepers. Explain the benefits to Alexander Garrett
your line managers, and consider running a trial
Do say Vital Dont mention
in one department where there is a particular If you have the experience we need, we will help statistics Retirement. Hes been in
need for greater diversity. you to transition into an appropriate role and put Sales: the hot seat since 2001 but
Try before you buy. A Goldman Sachs-style re- your career back on track. $101.4bn the subject of whether and
Net profit: when Ghosn might want
All figs FY 2015

turnship is an internship for returners which Dont say to take his foot off the gas is
$4.4bn
may or may not lead to a job. Returners should Anyone whos been out of the job for six months
Cars made: taboo. Who could replace
is no use to us.
be paid a going rate, typically over a 12-week 5.42m a superhero like that?

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 15

BRAINFOOD

Tattoos at work HOW I BEAT THE

PAUL OBERSCHNEIDER
ODDS
Body art has become much more
common, particularly among young Real estate entrepreneur and angel investor
adults, with one in five of the UK
population now estimated to be I grew up in a small town in the cornfields of In 1992, I decided to visit Estonia for three
tattooed. What implications does this Illinois. My father was an Estonian doctor who weeks and piece my background together. I
have for the workplace? moved to the States after the Second World had $400 and didnt know anybody or the lan-
While some employers may War. He was my hero but he also suffered guage, but I made money by writing business
embrace such lifestyle choices, others from a disease we knew a lot less about then; plans for people I met. By the end of summer,
will decide visible tattoos and body alcoholism and drug addiction. It finally killed I was writing them for big companies for up to
piercings detract from projecting him when I was about to go into my second $50,000 a pop and I made a pile of money.
a smart, professional image year of university. I came home and he was in I had a feeling all this cheap real estate in
particularly for customer-facing roles. a coma. The doctor said he would be a vegeta- Estonia would become expensive at some
The law generally supports employers ble for the rest of his life, so I made that diffi- point. So I started an agency called Ober-
in imposing appearance codes cult decision to take him off life support. Haus, and other property companies. At the
reflecting their business ethos. My mother didnt want to send me back to height we had over 800 people working for us.
Discrimination against employees university, so I worked at the Chicago Board In 2006, I got a phone call from a Finnish
and job applicants on grounds of of Trade and eventually found myself work- private equity group saying they wanted to
having tattoos or piercings is not ing on Wall Street. I promised I buy Ober-Haus. That set some alarm bells
covered by equality legislation. I overreached would never turn out like my father off in my head because in 1992 a crazy Finn
The sheer number of younger anything but promises are hard to keep. It was called Elvis told me that Finns only get into
people with tattoos is likely to relax
my father the 1980s, I was young, it was one big
party. We would trade in the morn-
markets when theyre finished. When I got
that phone call I thought, were done. I sold
attitudes over time. We may see a
move towards allowing employees to had done in ing, then have drinks at Harrys Bar, up for 200m, getting out of the last business
show smaller, discreet designs. terms of go out for dinner, and head over to just a week before the 2008 financial crisis.
Most employers would still want to addiction one of dozens of clubs where wed be I moved to the UK in 2011 and invested in
outlaw certain types of visible tattoos, all night. Then go home, put a new Vital Ingredient, a healthy food chain. It had
whether on account of their size, body shirt on and go back on the trading floor. four stores at the time, by the time I exited, it
location (eg, facial) or offensive In nine years, I overreached anything my had 19. In the last 12 months, Ive written
subject matter (eg, violent or drugs- father had done in terms of addiction. I lost two books and Im working on turning
related images). The challenge is to my job, I lost my money, I was on the edge. around a hotel in Oxfordshire. Looking back
devise a clear and coherent policy on My father once took me to a 12-step recovery the biggest lesson I have learned is: do more.
what is and is not permitted and apply programme meeting. He didnt realise it at When you find the right formula you should
it consistently. the time, but while he might not have been really put the pedal to the metal.
able to save his own life, he saved mine. When
Michael Burd and James Davies, Lewis Silkin I was at rock bottom, I remembered where to Paul Oberschneiders new business book is called
LLP solicitors, email: employment@lewissilkin.com go. Ive been clean and sober for 29 years. Why Sell Tacos in Africa?

16 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 BRAINFOOD

THE BEST THINKERS SINCE 1966

BUSINESS

BIG
BRAINS
Define the
problem. Without
a specific goal,
youre just
Dont go with

Its usually
the worst.
Be more creative

your first idea.

Play a numbers
game. The best
ideas are often
amalgamations of
Forget originality.
It doesnt exist.
Seek inspiration
everywhere.
Get a thick skin.
Youll hear a lot of
noes. Dont despair.
Learn from them.
Joseph Stiglitz daydreaming. several worse ones.

Former chair of Bill Clintons Council of Economic

Advisers and chief economist of the World Bank,
EVERYTHING
YOU KNOW
Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has made a
glittering career of being his professions most
highly qualified poacher-turned-gamekeeper.
ABOUT BUSINESS
IS WRONG
His penchant for kicking the establishment has
seen him named as one of Time magazines 100 Most discussion of the businesss potential,
Influential People in The World, and it dates back at but what are the chances of that if one
least as far as his 2002 book Globalization and its party knows much more about the state
Discontents. This cast a (rare at the time) critical eye of the market than the other, and has a
over some of the less-desirable consequences of financial incentive to paint the least
globalisation and has sold over two million copies. exciting picture possible?
Neither it nor the many bestselling works that Organisations try all sorts of ways to
have followed might have been written were it not get round this problem of asymmetry of
for his untimely departure from the World Bank, knowledge and incentives. I had another
precipitated by a characteristic refusal to toe the version of the same conversation with a
corporate line. That same stubborn streak propelled senior banker, who was concerned that
him to public fame in the aftermath of the 2008 crash, his people not be incentivised to do
his attacks on the US bank bailouts making him the things that would damage the bank in
enemy of Wall Street but the darling of Main Street. the long term. We went through multi-
Born in 1943 in the economically depressed steel year plans, deferred bonuses, plans cal-
town of Gary, Indiana, Stiglitz went to a segregated culated over the business cycle, but
all-white school and his mother was the only white concluded that none of it really worked.
teacher in an all-black school. He won his Nobel The real reason that no target-and-
Prize in 2001 for his work on asymmetric information,
the imbalances of knowledge that contribute to BONUSES BOOST incentives type plan has much chance of
producing good results is not so much
market failures such as the one that was to make
him famous seven years later.
BUSINESS about who knows what, however. Its
because it sets up a conflict of employees
The 73-year-old Columbia professor has also Many years ago, I was FD of a software vs shareholders. Scheming over where to
pronounced on inequality, and the company. It was budget time, and I ran set the bonus threshold is a zero-sum
likely end of the euro. His work is too into the head of sales and marketing. game; more cake for the workers means
political for some, but offers a useful Whats your UK sales forecast for next less for the bosses and vice versa.
reminder that, like it or not, were all year, Steve? I asked him. 2.3m, he The way out is not to keep refining
in this together. said. But were working on getting it the mechanism by which the slices are
down to 2.1m. sliced, but to move the discussion
Why would the head of sales and mar- towards how we make the whole cake
keting be looking for reasons to sell less? bigger. When you are dealing with peo-
Julian Dodd, Alamy, Illustration: Patrick Regout

Surely his job was to sell more? But he ple doing complex jobs, only they can
knew that his bonus plan would be based know whether they have given their
on exceeding budgeted sales, so the best. Your job is to inspire them to give
lower the budget the more likely he was of that best. The answer is not targets
to get his bonus. and bonuses, but leadership.
This problem bedevils all target-
setting. It would be good to get the con- Alastair Dryburgh is chief contrarian at Akenhurst
cerned parties together for an honest Consultants. Visit alastairdryburgh.com

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 17

 DIARY

MTS DIARIST TAKES A

HOWARD
GRAND TOUR OF EUROPE
BEFORE THE BORDERS SHUT
AND TAKES THE BREXIT

DAVIES
TEMPERATURE

I have always rather liked blue channels, dropping off one of these days, though they are Johnsonian jokes about rolling out the tapis
especially late at night after a long day. I refer, it unmoved by the departure of their oldest ally. rouge in Lombard Street for French bankers in
goes without saying, to the EU-only routes out In the autumn, the city has a lot going for it. exile, which used to have them rolling in the
of baggage reclaim at Heathrow. Quite what the Fresh Atlantic air, and Mediterranean-quality aisles in Davos, dont have quite the same ring
significant difference is between the blue and beaches little more than 20 minutes from down- these days. The botte is on the other pied. The
the green, nothing to declare, channels is, when town. You need to select your restaurants with Mayor of Paris has set up a special unit to lure
both are normally unpersonned, I could not say. care, but those American investment bankers financiers home with tax holidays, special flexi-
But the blue channels have always seemed to me thinking of relocating away from the Brexited ble labour contracts and a years free supply of
to be costless little tokens of friendship to our square mile could do worse than consider it. The pains au chocolat. Some might just be tempted.
Eurochums, in a country where the blue flag price is right, too. Their dollars go a long way.
with 12 gold stars has never taken root. Brussels, by contrast, has a wary feel to it
So before they are removed, in favour of tun- Then on to Dublin. I was briefed for my trip by these days. We are in a period of phoney war.
nels of death between rotating knives, I went on James Joyce, or at least by the Irish actor who Officially, no one is allowed to talk about Brexit,
an Indian summer tour of European capitals. plays him in the new production of Tom but of course no one thinks of anything else.
For the time being, you still dont need visas, but Stoppards Travesties. That gave me huge street Some see it as a useful warning shot across
if the pound continues on its downward slalom cred by the banks of the Liffey. The Irish cant the bows of the Eurofederalists and the
through the winter we will be priced out of quite decide if the UKs decision to sling its Commissions ideologues. Others see it, by
them anyway before too long. hook, and leave them as the only English- contrast, as a shot in the arm for them, and
speaking nation in the EU, is a problem or an an opportunity to make another Great Leap
First stop was Vienna. Pre-referendum pan- opportunity. The border issue looms large, and Forward in constructing the European super-
European opinion polls showed that the of course freedom of movement between the state. A third current of opinion notes that the
Austrians were the nationality keenest to see the two countries dates back to 1922. Some kind of 27 will be consumed by the divorce process for
tiresome Englisch pack up their troubles and special deal will be needed to preserve that con- years, while there are other pressing matters to
leave the EU behind. So I mainly avoided the B venient anomaly. No one quite knows how that resolve. A fair point. Even amicable divorces
word and concentrated on seeing a lot of can be negotiated. If you wanted a logical end up in legal arguments.
wonderful pictures, eating some deliciously arrangement you wouldnt start from here.
unhealthy sausages, and drinking rather too On the other hand, they are besieged by In Stockholm, my last port of call, they dont
much of their tasty red wine. The principal local financial firms asking how quickly the regula- expect to profit from our departure. Indeed the
grape is the Zweigelt, an assertive little hybrid tors will allow them to move in. There isnt, Swedes are touchingly sad about the whole
created by the head of their wine institute in the unfortunately, anywhere in Dublin available to story. They talk glumly into their Aquavit of
1930s. Fritz Zweigelt was an enthusiastic and live. At least there are very few spare homes bidding farewell to one of their most sympa-
never-repentant Nazi. It is as if our patriotic with underground swimming pools and cine- thetic allies in Brussels. Who will now raise the
Surrey vineyards proudly branded their vin mas, which no self-respecting hedgie can live standard of free trade and liberal markets, tease
rouge as Mosley red. without these days. Anyone who could find a Tusk and make jokes about Juncker? But will
I didnt find any vinho Salazar in Lisbon, my way of putting a Kensington basement on a they go so far as to join us in our quest for new
next stop, and they have changed the name of truck to Milford Haven and across the Irish Sea horizons? Nej, was the (almost unanimous)
his bridge across the Tagus, but we stayed in an would make a killing. answer. We must sail alone away from the blue
Airbnb apartment opposite an elaborate statue moon and into the setting sun, without so much
cum fountain built to celebrate his fascist New In Paris there are no mixed feelings about as a Viking longboat to accompany us.
State, with evident hints of Strength Through Brexit, though some linguistic purists are sorry
Julian Dodd

Joy in its design. Lisbon always has the air of that they dont have their own word for it. Howard Davies is chairman of RBS. Follow him on
being perched on the edge of Europe, at risk of Bsortie doesnt quite work. All those witty Twitter: @howardjdavies

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 19

Helping British
businesses grow
for 250 years

For your next step

 PROBLEMS

JEREMY BULLMORE
WHATS YOUR PROBLEM?
You suffer the Q My wife is the breadwinner in our family and works long
and hard. She leaves for the office at 7am (I drop the kids
earned quite a lot of money doing a job he neither enjoyed
nor respected and went on doing it for longer than he

double indignity off at school), shes attached to her laptop in the evenings and
she travels a lot. While I try to be supportive, Im starting to feel
should have done. He now, quite unnecessarily, feels a bit
of a failure.

of being the resentful. My career is suffering and the children barely see her.
Any advice?
By far the best rehabilitation for him would be to find
himself being useful. Dont try to bully or shame him into

put-upon parent A Unless youre utterly devoid of sensitivity, you must

applying for jobs in which he has no natural interest.
Instead, cast your mind over all your friends, relations and

when most of surely recognise that your letter would be read with
howls of joyous recognition by thousands of women
work colleagues and try to identify one or more who could
do with a friendly helping hand. Im not talking about a for-

your male mates throughout the country: So now you know what it feels
like! If youre hoping for sympathy from them, you should
mal job; money probably shouldnt come into it.
If your son can begin to engage with someone else, and
are still getting look elsewhere.
But you do, I think, deserve some sympathy not least
feel valued and appreciated, hell get back on track. But it
will take a little time.
away with it because, for far too many years, convention held that the
womans place was in the home while her chap was out
there, hunting and gathering. So you suffer the double Q I cant stand my bosss dog. He brings the mutt into the
office most days and all my colleagues love her; they even
indignity of being the put-upon parent when most of your take turns walking her. I cant tell my boss that I have an innate
male mates are still getting away with it. dislike of dogs (he treats her like his own child) and I cant escape
You need to be a little more assertive; but dont bottle the damn thing as were in a small, open plan office. Help!
things up until you become so charged with resentment
that your most reasonable suggestions come across as
graceless bluster. Fix a date, and fix a babysitter and take A Im not sure why you cant tell your boss that you have
an innate dislike of dogs. Its a fact, and you do. Hes
your wife out to dinner somewhere quiet. Keep it low key. much more likely to be upset if he thinks that its only his
Make it amusing if you can. Make it clear that youre genu- dog you cant stand. And whatever you say or dont say, your
inely delighted that shes so good at her job and enjoys it so body language in the office is certain to make your feelings
much. Dont imply that she should feel guilty; just that shes all too apparent.
carrying far too much responsibility for the breadwinning To make your aversion seem less unreasonable, you
side of things when youre willing and able to play your should maybe invent a scary, childhood, dog-related inci-
part. Dont insist on an immediate response: any change for dent. (There may even have been one?)
the better is bound to be gradual. Have another glass of
wine and enjoy the evening.
Jeremy Bullmore is a former creative director and chairman of J Walter
Thompson London. Email him your problems at editorial@managementtoday.
com. Regrettably, no correspondence can be entered into.
Q My 35-year-old son quit his job as an investment banker in
the City because he was burnt out. Three years on, he still
hasnt found a new job and hes frittering away his money, despite
having an astronomical mortgage. He wont take any advice
from me (or his wife). How can I convince him that he needs to
settle down?

A The chances are that your son is just as unhappy as

you are but is far too proud or too stubborn to admit
it. Men in their mid-30s shouldnt be out of work and they
certainly shouldnt be taking advice from their parents.
Any feeling he may have that you and his wife are ganging
up against him is going to make him even more remote and
obdurate. Trying to convince him that he needs to settle
GET MORE down is a bit like telling someone suffering from depression
Kevin Pope

CAREER ADVICE to pull themselves together.

at managementtoday.co.uk/ Id like to know more about his experience as an invest- We all understand the need for customer connectivity Phillip, however, were just a
your-career ment banker. You say he was burnt out. My guess is that he bit baffled as to how youd be able to help us with it.

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 21

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 BOOKS

PRE-SUASION MY STORY SIMPLY BRILLIANT

THE MASTER OF forerunner. One reason for the success of Influence was the simplicity
in understanding and remembering the message: six universal princi-

PERSUASION RETURNS
Robert Cialdinis stranger-than-fiction insights should make
ples. I dont think the same can be said about this book. The central
message that attention is important, can be manipulated by simple
cues in the environment, and has a momentous impact on behaviour,
gets blurred in an amalgam of case studies and experiments, which
this book another sure-fire bestseller despite the fact its not
quite up to the standard of his first, says Dr Gorkan Ahmetoglu sometimes seem to contradict each other. Cialdini argues for the
importance of focal attention and provides us with tools to get it: sex,
violence and novelty. Advertisers spend millions on it. Yet priming
slight changes in wording, colour, sounds or pictures seems to work
Pre-Suasion: without requiring focal attention. This complicates the message.
A Revolutionary Way to There has also been doubt about the robustness of some priming
Influence and Persuade results among academics, due to failures in replicating the effects.
Robert Cialdini I myself am a general believer (in Daniel Kahnemans words) in
Simon & Schuster, 18.99 priming effects, but believe that the questions about context are
crucial. I was once giving a talk to exhibitors on the importance
of primes, like colours, sounds, and numbers, when an audience

A
ny time I hear anyone mentioning influencing skills or persua- member asked what colour he should use for his stall when selling
sion, it seems to be followed by the name Cialdini. Its been his ice-cream brand. Heres the issue: I could have said blue or red
many years since I read Influence (his notorious bestseller). Ive and they would both be equally defensible (blue because it is congru-
since been teaching it to students, used it in my talks, and based a lot ent with cold ice-cream, and red because it is more likely to grab
of my research around it. attention). And without context, I wouldnt be confident that either
Cialdini is no doubt the godfather of persuasion, and I wouldnt would have an effect. The problem with what Cialdini calls privi-
be surprised if Pre-Suasion causes another revolution in the influence leged moments is knowing which cue works in which situations,
arena. Having said that, I think it is more like Godfather 3: a must-see and whether another competing cue (of all the potential hundreds or
(read), but not quite as good as the first (or second). thousands) wouldnt be more dominant.
This book demonstrates how trivial and seemingly irrelevant Godfather 3 wasnt as good as 1 or 2. But it did well. I similarly think
signals, presented at a critical moment, can be used as powerful that despite its imperfections, Pre-Suasion will be a big hit. Who isnt
weapons to subconsciously influence people. interested in improving their influencing skills (including persuading
And there are three reasons why it is likely to be a success. First, oneself)? It will certainly become the sequel that advertisers, publicists,
the mere fact that Cialdini has written another book on persuasion fundraisers, marketers and politicians do buy. The only way one could
is likely to get the crowds whispering (if not shouting). I dont think really be disappointed is if one was expecting Godfather 2 rather than 3.
there were many disappointed customers among the three million
who bought the original. And the word of mouth probably stretches Dr Gorkan Ahmetoglu is lecturer of business psychology at University College London
far beyond this number.
Second, it does have the crucial ingredient of a bestseller: it is
mind-blowing. Had it not been for the real case studies and scien-
tific experiments presented, readers may have mistaken Cialdini for
MY THREE TOP READS
a crazy scientist with wacky ideas bordering on insanity. We learn KELLIE RIXON MBE
that our productivity can be increased by seeing a picture of a runner Founder of Rixon Associates and former brand director of Macdonald Hotels & Resorts
winning a race, our liking of someone else can be determined by
whether we are holding a warm or a cold drink, and our companys Its Never OK to Kiss the Talk Like TED And Still I Rise
stock market performance is related to whether it has a pronounce-
Interviewer Carmine Gallo Maya Angelou
Jane Sunley LID Publishing, 2014 Pan Macmillan, 2014 Random House, 1978
able name or not. Like captivating science fiction novels, nothing is I love Jane Sunley. In my job I have the Maya Angelou is my
what it seems and you can forget what you know about your actions She writes like shes very great pleasure hero. This collection
the big sister youve of speaking at some of some of her finest
and choices. The difference is, this isnt fiction. always wanted at amazing events. Im poetry is all I need to
Third, the book will be a welcomed and awaited meal for anyone in work. In her third book, she always concerned that my raise me up. Its my latest
the industry. It provides a plethora of new persuasion techniques for gets us organised for the story isnt fun enough, read and one of my oldest.
career we really want. Its a inspiring enough or, heaven I pick at it like a big box of
practitioners to work with ones that are harder to detect and protect no-nonsense read with top forbid, the incoherent my favourite chocolates,
against. Fluffy clouds, irrelevant numbers, background music, sitting tips and practical advice on ramblings of a mad woman. enjoying every second and
making you the best you Talk Like TED actually fearing the end of box.
position, all may apparently be used as ways to influence us before possible. Its a great mix of changed me as a presenter. Except here, I simply start
we even realise someone is attempting to. This is whole different ball common sense and ah-ha It hits to the heart of what again. Im jealous of those
moments. Its also a useful makes the difference who havent experienced
game. Cialdini even has a section warning against the unethical use of read-on-the-go book, where between good presenting the joy of Maya Angelou yet;
these techniques, which function at the subconscious level. you can dip in and out to and actually connecting they get to meet the genius
While this sounds like the road to 1984, I dont think we will need to steal nuggets of wisdom. with an audience. for the first time.

call for security any time soon. This sequel hasnt quite lived up to its Hear Kellie speak at MT s Inspiring Women event on 16 November. Visit managementtoday.co.uk/iwib-london-home

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 23

BOOKS
AUTHOR Q &A

SCENT OF SUCCESS I also found myself nodding in agreement as I read

Malones feelings of joy at the sound of ringing tills,
the queues outside the door and customers raving
Lifes not always been a bed of roses for the
fragrance entrepreneur Jo Malone, as she reveals in about fragrances. I remember hitting our first 1m-
her candid and uplifting memoir, says Claire Vero in-sales milestone of Aurelia products; that joy that
Malone describes pushed us on to achieve even more.
The second half of the book talks candidly about TOM HODGKINSON
selling up to Este Lauder the deal that nobody Business for Bohemians
saw coming. Malone opens up about her first meet- Portfolio Penguin, 12.99
ing with Leonard Lauder at his penthouse apartment
My Story in the Upper East Side, the tossing and turning over
What made you write this book?
Jo Malone Most business books are big
boasting sessions written by
Simon & Schuster, 20 whether she should sell, the morning stroll around
Central Park the day after the papers had been millionaires. There seemed to be a
gap for a funny, humane business
signed, and her new-found wealth; where to sit on

I
book that talked honestly about the
heard Jo Malone speak at a business event back in the plane, what holidays to experience, what fashion- difficulties of running a small
September 2013, eight months after launching my able clothes to buy. Then came motherhood and business. I wanted to demystify the
own brand, Aurelia Probiotic Skincare. Inspired finding a lump in her right breast. spreadsheet, learn to love digital
marketing and encourage
by her words, I hung around afterwards, anxious to Reading about Malones gut-wrenching struggle bohemians to become a little more
give her a selection of my products. However the with cancer the chemo, the double mastectomy, her money-focused. Im afraid that
enormous queue and chronic morning sickness con- son shaving her head (giving Mummy a buzz cut) through most of the book I was more
spired against me; I just about managed to thrust a left me sobbing. She writes movingly, but never Basil Fawlty than Richard Branson.
bag of samples into the hands of her husband Gary. self-pityingly, of those dark times. Shes brings you
Can bohemians really make
I never actually got to meet Malone so I was into her world and its utterly compulsive. To anyone decent entrepreneurs?
thrilled when her new book landed on my desk. I going through dark or stormy days themselves, her The bohemian mindset has
love reading memoirs and relish the uninterrupted much in common with the
insight into another persons mind. My Story opens entrepreneurial mindset: its all
about freedom. They are people
with a quote by French author and Nobel Prize for
SHE WANTS US TO GET UP IF WERE who are temperamentally unsuited
Literature winner Andr Gide: Man cannot dis-
cover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose
KNOCKED DOWN, JUST AS SHE DID to the nine to five. Damien Hirst and
many artists, TV chefs, writers and
sight of the shore, and Malones tale is one of push- actors have taken their own
ing boundaries, of taking risks, of determination. determination and vision are inspiring. She wants us creativity and turned it into a
successful business. So yes,
She not only takes you on the journey of her busi- to get up if were knocked down, just as she did. bohemians can make decent
ness successes and plaudits but she lets you in on the We read about Malones MBE (When I read the entrepreneurs. But they have to
emotional side of her life, like a trusted friend. And typewritten words explaining how her Majesty the shed their distaste for profit!
that life has not been straightforward. She grew up Queen was honouring me with an MBE, I laughed
You say crowdfunding is the
on a council estate near Bexleyheath in Kent with a out loud. Someone was clearly having an elaborate most difficult thing youve
constant sense of struggle and just-about-getting- joke...) and reigniting her creative passion to start done. Why?
by. She suffered from dyslexia, her father left, and her latest venture, Jo Loves. With her innovative People have the idea that you make
her mother had a terrible breakdown. I felt like I be- fragrance tapas experience and candle shot studio, a video, put it out online and watch
came an adult around the age of 10. From that time she clearly hasnt lost her entrepreneurial edge. I the dollars roll in. In fact, you have
to raise pretty much every penny
onwards, ordinary childhood memories are scant, suppose I havent done badly for the girl who was through hard sweat. And that
replaced, or maybe eclipsed, by the responsibility of once told by a teacher that she wouldnt make any- means trudging round with your
effectively running our household and taking care of thing of her life. laptop, presenting your business
my little sister, she writes. Malone doesnt shy away The other day, I happened to notice the Andr plan and slide deck to potential
investors. Although the process
from recounting the low points, and the moments Gide quote embossed on a leather book in a book- was hell, it forces you to think
of self-doubt. And thats what makes you connect so shop window. I bought two, sending one to Malone through every detail of your
fully with her story: shes real. with a note saying how she had inspired me; I used business. And it worked, so I am
Malone describes the excitement of opening her the other to write down my vision for Aurelia for the not complaining. Just take your
first store at 154 Walton Street, Chelsea, and her next few years and Im slowly ticking goals off this time: it took us six months. And
dont ask your friends for money.
name-above-the-door moment: We stood there, list with the help of an incredible team of colleagues.
half-crying, half-laughing, feeling elated. It felt like Weve won more than 50 beauty awards but were When is laziness a virtue?
we were staking our flag into a personal summit... not stopping there. I hope Malones fascinating story Laziness means time to think and
That rang so true to me; we opened our first counter inspires many more entrepreneurs. do nothing. It can mean efficiency
too, because its the lazy ones who
in Liberty beauty hall within 12 months of launch- invent clever ways of doing things.
ing, a first in the stores history. Its still one of our Claire Vero is the founder and CEO of Aurelia Probiotic Skincare. It is also creatively fertile: doing
most important retailers today. She was one of MTs 35 Women Under 35 in 2014 nothing produces ideas.

24 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

BOOKS
MT BUSINESS CLASSIC

THE UNSUNG are open 362 days per year and it vows that new
customers can walk into a branch, open an account,

BUSINESS HEROES
Its not just Silicon Valley firms that should be lauded.
and leave with a working debit card and full access
to online banking within 15 minutes. It has opened
the first drive-through bank in the UK. It doesnt just
This book analyses other innovative companies, which do things a little better than other companies; it has
start-ups could learn a lot from, says Cameron Stevens
a one-of-a-kind presence, delivering a one-of-a-kind
performance and rejects industry norms. As an entre-
Simply Brilliant: How preneur in the fintech sector, its an example I could
Toyota Production System:
Great Organizations Do Beyond Large-Scale Production
relate to. Reform isnt enough; only those who can
Ordinary Things in Taiichi Ohno
envisage new services outside of the current financial
Extraordinary Ways Productivity Press, 1988
paradigm can grow and win market share.
William C Taylor Taylor extends his research of challenger organi- Just-in-time production, the
Portfolio Penguin, 14.99 sations to non-profits, such as the 100,000 Homes marriage of automation with
Campaign unveiled in July 2010 by an organisation human input, the driving out of
based in New York City called Community Solutions. waste through a process of

B
continuous improvement: these
usiness literature usually holds up the super- The aim: to stamp out homelessness in many major now familiar concepts were first
creative, super-growth tech firms of Silicon cities. He uses this to highlight the paradox of exper- explained and popularised by
Valley as examples of best practice, where plucky tise, where those who have the most experience of Taiichi Ohno, one of the
young entrepreneurs dream up radical new business working with a system find it hardest to identify alter- architects of Toyotas
extraordinary success.
models and where employees nap, do their laundry natives to existing practices. In this case, a former The Toyota Production
and get a massage without leaving the comfort of army captain took charge of the project and went on System (TPS) is a disciplined,
their office. Its obsessed with the new economy the to achieve fantastic results. As Taylor puts it, Exper- rigorous philosophy and
Googles, the Amazons and the Apples. tise is powerful until it gets in the way of innovation. approach. Re-improve what
Not so in Simply Brilliant, the latest book from Fast Simply Brilliant celebrates the human side of was improved for further
improvement, Ohno said.
Company founder William C Taylor. It draws insights Ohno stated that managers
from lesser-known but highly successful organisa- had to go and see for
tions, from the Indian Health Service in Anchorage, BEING GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO IS NO themselves (genchi genbutsu)
Alaska, to Lincoln Electric in Ohio, a globally success- LONGER ENOUGHYOU MUST BE THE to understand what was and was
ful producer of welding equipment founded in 1895. ONLY ONE DOING WHAT YOU DO not working. Decisions should
be taken slowly and collectively.
Taylor spent long days touring factories, visiting retail But, once taken, they must be
outlets and sitting in on meetings at 15 organisations pursued relentlessly.
all from different fields and with wildly different business, something which tech often obscures more As a Toyota manual says,
histories to discover the traits of companies that do than it supports. All of the companies in the book The TPS is a framework for
conserving resources by
ordinary things in extraordinary ways. exude a sense of purpose and are dedicated to promot- eliminating waste. People who
He consciously avoids his comfort zone of tech, ing a sense of identity for their staff and customers. participate in the system learn to
travelling thousands of miles to find uncelebrated They remind us that creativity and productivity should identify expenditures of
companies that demonstrate a way of doing business never come at the expense of empathy and generosity. material, effort and time that do
not generate value for
that is genuinely remarkable; from a car park that In an era of cut-throat competition, deep-seated customers lasting gains in
also serves as a wedding venue to a military insurance cynicism and the digital disruption of everything, productivity and quality are
company that puts salespeople through simulated Taylor says that many of us crave small gestures possible whenever and
overseas development. The thrill of breakthrough of kindness that remind us of what it means to be wherever management and
employees are united in a
creativity and breakaway performance doesnt just human. Its those small gestures that send big signals.
commitment to positive change.
belong to the youngest companies with the most I couldnt agree more. I co-founded Prodigy Finance Toyota grew, became the
cutting-edge technology, he says. It can be summoned in 2007 after experiencing first-hand the difficulties number one global
in all sorts of industries and all walks of life, if leaders of financing an international MBA; we now deal with manufacturer, overreached
can reimagine whats possible in their fields. students from over 100 nationalities, many of whom itself and ended up recalling
dodgy vehicles in the hundreds
Being good at what you do is no longer enough, are the first in their families to attend university. In our of thousands. It seemed,
states Taylor early on in the book. Average is over business, cultural awareness and empathy are crucial. temporarily at least, to have
and you must be the only one doing what you do. In a This book is relevant, absorbing and practical. It forgotten Ohnos message.
business climate defined by globalisation and constant cleverly lays out a blueprint for building companies in As the late rock singer Ian
Dury might have put it: what
breakthroughs, this is increasingly relevant. the 21st-century digital world using examples that are
a waste.
Taylor draws on the example of Metro Bank, one generations old. And yes, its simply brilliant.
of the buzziest financial services brands in the UK, Stefan Stern is visiting professor
attracting more than 1bn in capital from some of the Cameron Stevens is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of Prodigy at Cass Business School. Follow him on
worlds best-known investors. Metro Bank locations Finance, a peer-to-peer lending site for postgraduate students Twitter: @StefanStern

26 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 INTERVIEW

ANDREW
DAVIDSON

JOHN VINCENT
The co-founder of Leon and martial arts devotee fizzes with positivity
and drive as he talks about ambitious plans to take the healthy fast
food chain to the US. Does he stand a fighting chance of success?
Portraits by Harry Borden

I
approach in peace, which is a sensible Doesnt that make him anxious? He shakes school food three years ago. Both were award-
starting point as John Vincent has barely sat his head. Its like Wing Tsun, if someone is ed the MBE for services rendered.
down before hes standing up and offering going to learn your martial art, you are always And yet, given he swears like a trooper and
me a demonstration of his martial arts. going to be better. Its the competitor that dresses like Shakin Stevens, Vincent isnt en-
Im learning Wing Tsun, which is a martial doesnt give a shit about Leon that worries me. tering the Establishment just yet. Leons head
art first developed by women. It involves: Well always stay ahead of the copiers. office remains a grungy hotchpotch of rooms
staying relaxed, recognising that most conflict This summer he announced a ramping up of up 80-odd stairs in a Victorian block beside
is created by your own ego, never attacking but the Leon business, raising new finance to Londons bustling Borough Market. Old fur-
always hitting first launch in America and promising to grow the niture, boxes of samples, and a large list of
He is a big man. Hold on, hitting first? London-centric chain to 500 branches in Brit- Abraham Lincolns setbacks and reversals,
Only if someone has begun to attack. I re- ain and abroad. Why? Because you have to painted on the wall, greet the visitor. The
ally wish I could show you, he smiles. Come expand to keep good staff, he explains. And point about President Lincoln being, I guess,
on, try and put me in an arm lock. keeping employees happy is the reason why that persistence pays off in the end. It should
Please dont hurt my right hand. Why, have you are served with a smile the single most add the final line and then you get shot.
you injured it? No, I write with it. Thats why noticeable change in Britains food service Vincent likes a joke. He talks with a chuckle
Im here. scene. Two decades ago everyone was grumpy. and the very name of his business is steeped in
For all the world, it looks like Vincent has Now nearly everyone beams. But only, says humour and love, so-called after his own fa-
forgotten. And thats his charm. Curly-haired, Vincent, if they like where they are working. ther, Leon Vincent, a cash register salesman
bedenimed, aged 45, he appears totally in The whole proposition at Leon is built from north London.
thrall to his enthusiasms. Behind the toothy around the wellbeing and happiness of the That insistence that business must be fun
grin, however, hes also a smart organiser, team. We treat them with kindness and love, has echoes of another company too: that of
trained at Procter & Gamble and Bain, and and we track that, whether they are eating Vincents old friend Richard Reed, co-founder
still an adviser to Vivian Imerman, the cash- well, physically active, living in tune with the of Innocent, the smoothie brand. The two ran
hungry South African best-known for turning planet, learning and creating, free from toxins a clubbing business together at Cambridge
round Del Monte. and stress, living with positivity and purpose University and you can sniff the competitive-
Somehow Vincent mixes all that with a vol- His managers attend wellbeing retreats ness in their relationship.
uble humour, a pugnacious interest in Eastern twice a year at the Sussex country home he Vincent cites Reeds success in setting up In-
philosophies and a desire to make business a shares with his TV presenter wife Katie Der- nocent as key in his own decision to leave man-
force for good. As he puts it, he likes to shake ham. The timetable includes yoga, meditation, agement consultancy, and hes typically forth-
things up. acupuncture and, of course, Wing Tsun. right in describing their bond. I f***ing love
As co-founder of Leon, the healthy fast food And for critics who find this all too New Richard, hes brilliant and principled. Reed, at
chain, he has already done just that. The Agey, he can translate. The way I want to lead time of writing, was uncontactable, climbing
12-year-old company, which sells coffee, juices, is to be clear about the mission, find shit hot Mount Etna with Richard Branson, but given
salads, meatballs and wraps eat-in or take- people, love them a lot, f***ing kick their arse if that he is godfather to Vincents elder daugh-
away now has 41 outlets, 750 staff and a 42m something goes wrong, then give them a hug. ter, you can guess the love is reciprocated.
turnover, but punches well above its weight as a As for sceptics: I have my view based on re- And just like Innocent, Leon has
radical innovator in a ruthless marketplace. sults, they have theirs based on ignorance. learnt from its difficult moments. Launched
People copy us all the time, he nods, su- He has a point. Leons reputation is so high with a boost from the media celebrity con-
perfood salads didnt exist before us, others that he and co-founder Henry Dimbleby nection, the chain grew then faltered, initially
didnt do hot wraps. When we launch a new whose father David, the veteran BBC news- co-run by its founders, then just by Dimble-
menu we know M&S and Pret buy all our caster, is a co-investor were asked to lead a by, now after losing money post-2008 just
stuff, weigh it, cost it, decide what to copy. government-commissioned enquiry into by Vincent.

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 29

INTERVIEW

Three challenges facing Vincent

Finding new sites Managing the Winning in the US
despite Londons impact of Brexit on without distraction
steep property costs access to a young from the UK market
European workforce

The two founders, who met at Bain, appear So why did he get so driven? He laughs I love Vivian and Vivian loves me but we have
to have swapped roles without rancour. Both loudly, then cites his parents and his upbringing. separate bedrooms.
are foodies, both obsessed with detail, both Born an only child in Enfield, north London, Huh? Its a METAPHOR, he shouts, gig-
culture-driven. But Dimbleby, now a non-ex- his mother a teacher, his father a salesman and gling before getting serious. I was doing too
ecutive, says that the plan for faster growth frustrated entrepreneur, he grew up in a close, many things before. Now, Leon is my passion.
better suits his friends skill set. loving family with English and Italian roots his Imerman also holds a 12% stake in Leon so why,
The bigger an organisation gets, the more grandfather Giovanni Vincenzo Febraro, a hair- adds Vincent, would he want to distract him?
important it is to have a leader who likes to dresser from Naples, anglicised the family name James Allen, co-leader of Bains global strat-
shake things up. And John is very ambitious, to Vincent during the Second World War. egy practice and Vincents former boss, says the
very positive, never cynical. My father studied at the LSE in the early biggest challenge facing the Leon CEO is pa-
Vincent also wanted more control after 60s, but his dads death really affected him and tience. He has to solidify the platform of Leon
pumping extra money into the business. Since instead of getting a really good job he ended before rapid expansion. John has a big brain
he stepped up, the business has accelerated, up selling cash registers. He had kindness and and a big heart but that is almost bursting out
with two senior finance executives poached a sense of humour, but was more introverted of a small enterprise.
from Wagamama, new expansion plans an- than me. And you can feel the ideas fizzing from Vin-
nounced, options for franchising explored His mother, on the other hand, was a much- cent when he speaks, citing books, therapies,
nine of the current 41 outlets are run by out- loved primary school teacher renowned for art, politics, the threat of business to the planet.
side firms in travel hubs. More sites outside her positive approach. Whatever happens she How does Leons board ever keep him on
London are sought (only three so far of the 32 would say its great. That positivity is key. track? Next he wants to assemble a panel of in-
wholly owned). The energy is almost palpable. They coached their son into being an exem- ternational advisers. After seeing me, hes off to
But is healthy fast food the right vehicle? plary student, outgoing and ambitious, who Washington DC to scout for sites to open
Isnt America a huge risk? And if Leon is suc- moved from state primary to private second- Leon there.
cessful, wont a not-so-healthy giant like ary school with ease. At Cambridge, he stud- More prosaically, right now he has to change
McDonalds or Burger King (a former Bain ied history but mostly, he jokes, he and Reed his shirt, as his assistant has vetoed the old one
client) simply make him an offer his investors ran parties. They were like f***-you May for the photoshoot. He pulls off one, drags on
cannot refuse? Even Innocent eventually sold another, while pointing to the different Leon
out to Coca-Cola. logos propped around the room. The late Wal-
Innocent had to sell because it had no outlets THE WHOLE PROPOSITION AT ly Olins, brand guru, advised the launch.
and needed distribution, and big companies of- LEON IS BUILT AROUND THE He was a mentor, but he hated all the corpo-
fer more distribution. We wont need to, says WELLBEING AND HAPPINESS OF rate design rules hed created. So we try and
Vincent. Our outlets are a string of pearls. THE TEAM. WE TREAT THEM WITH get away from the dead hand of the Mac. Here
And he is prepared. Leon has already hired a
former Burger King chief executive, Brad
KINDNESS AND LOVE there is no one Leon logo, just a set of ideas
And if nothing else, that name has a personal
Blum, to advise on expansion into America. In twist that is piquant. I think my father conclud-
the UK, it hired former McDonalds executive Balls, because they wouldnt let me on the ed that there were a lot of w***ers in business, he
John Upton as its MD in April. May Ball committee haha! chuckles. That makes me an avenger.
Wont that compromise the vision? Not at Then came P&G, to earn money while he
all, says Vincent. The original concept for tried to get an entertainment company off the
Vincent in a minute
Leon was if God did McDonalds, and the in- ground, and Bain, to earn more money for the
terior design is deliberately styled on an older same. P&G taught me process, and Bain 1971 Born 28 September in Enfield, north
incarnation of the burger chain just offering strategy and finance. Clients included Voda- London. Educated at Haberdashers
Askes and Cambridge University
healthier fare. fone, Smith Group, De Beers and Burger 1993 Recruited by Procter & Gamble in sales
Hes also brutally honest about his brief time King. Then escape with Dimbleby to launch and marketing
advising Burger King while at Bain. Thats Leon, while simultaneously working at Whyte 1997 Joins Bain as management consultant
where I realised I wanted to revolutionise fast & Mackay, the drinks firm, for Imerman. 2004 Co-leads turnaround team at
Whyte & Mackay
food. Their attitude was that it was just about Schizoid, 100-hour weeks. 2004 Sets up Leon with Henry Dimbleby
the money. Most of all, he just wanted to be his own 2008 Becomes non-exec at Leon
And that is all linked into societys shortcut- boss. And now he is. But given the variety of 2012 Returns to executive role at Leon
overseeing food
ting of everything from our need for sex to our his former interests, how can we be sure hell
2014 Appointed CEO of Leon
need for sugar. Its why we get so f***ing fat stick? Hes still listed as an adviser to Vasari, 2015 Awarded MBE with Dimbleby for work in
and unhappy. He wants to reverse that. Imermans buyout vehicle. He laughs that off. improving school lunches

30 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

Evolve
or be left behind.

Learn how leading executives and their

teams are leveraging talent to boost
corporate performance and shape
their function for the future.

cebglobal.com/MT
Alamy

32 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 WHEELS OF INDUSTRY

WHY
MAKING THINGS
STILL MATTERS
Reviving manufacturing is often held up as the panacea for
the UKs economic ills, despite the flourishing service sector.
ANDREW SAUNDERS examines our preoccupation
with production

hats so special about manufacturing? Hardly a Manufacturing was killed off deliberately back in the 80s
month goes by without calls from one quarter or with 20% interest rates and extremely tight fiscal policy,
another to rebalance the UK economy away from to tackle what was seen at the time as our worst economic
services and back to the good old days of the 1970s when problem labour relations. The question posed then was:
manufacturers accounted for over 25% of UK GDP. Brit- Who runs the country, the government or the unions?
ain was the workshop of the world and prosperity poured and Mrs Thatcher was elected to make sure that it was
forth in the shape of export-earning artefacts everything the government.
from ships to steel girders, cars to chemicals from busy The key issue is not so much manufacturing vs services
factories up and down the country. as productive vs unproductive activity. What is special is
Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that we live in innovation. There is a broad consensus among economists
an increasingly friction-free virtual world where the smart- itself a very rare thing that the benefits of innovation to
phone rather than the white-hot crucible is now the starting the rest of the economy are large and positive, says Britton.
point for growth, its become axiomatic for many that mak- Innovation feeds into productivity, and it is productivity
ing more stuff is the miracle cure for the UKs economic rather than manufacturing per se that is the key to prosper-
ills. When everybody from the CBI to Jeremy Corbyn is ity. And while the UK may have many economic strengths,
calling for the same thing, surely theres got to be some- productivity is not one of them our output per hour
thing in it? worked is 38% lower than the US and 36% lower than
And as the country faces up to the unprecedented chal- Germany, and of the remaining G7 countries we outper-
lenges that Brexit hard, soft or otherwise will bring, the form only Italy.
question of just how much manufacturing is enough, has Manufacturers dont have a monopoly on innovation,
once again risen up the economic agenda. of course there are lots of service innovations too, from
Is there a simple answer to that question, and why when iTunes to JustEat. But, he reckons, manufacturing innova-
service industries are a quick, cheap and seemingly effec- tions tend to be less sector specific and more widely ap-
tive alternative source of GDP and employment is the plicable. Take carbon fibre for example. It started out in
physical act of making still held up as the gold standard of aerospace to make wings lighter, now it has thousands of
economic activity? uses, there are even carbon fibre bikes. We should be look-
Is manufacturing special? No, the headline conclusion is ing for high-tech, high-innovation sectors where we can be
that the idea that manufacturing is somehow sacred is not globally competitive, whether manufacturing or services.
true, says Erik Britton, director of Fathom Consulting and Sectors like the creative industries, pharmaceutical, aero-
former macroeconomist at the Bank of England. space and the automotive sector are Brittons idea of good
For Britton, a pound of GDP is a pound of GDP and manufacturing. The rust belt industries of old are not.
whether it comes from bashing metal or bashed bankers, There is no merit in returning to the days of making steel
from striving techies or striving foreign students dutifully and building ships in the UK, they are not highly produc-
paying their tuition fees, is immaterial. tive or innovative industries.
The debate over manufacturing is as much political as The machine age: Charlie Chaplin But he does concede that putting too many of the na-
economic, he says, and dates back, like so much in this struggles with factory life in the tions economic eggs in one basket is unwise, and that from
country, to that fateful General Election way back in 1979. 1936 film Modern Times this perspective at least a shift away from services (now

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 33


To buyers in China or Australia
it matters less and less where a
British brand is actually made.
Thats not so important for the
future as it has been in the past

Getty Images

accounting for 78% of GDP) and towards manufacturing This is essentially David Ricardos theory of comparative
(around 10% of GDP) would be a good idea. A more bal- advantage which dates back to the early 19th century and
anced approach is sensible where are the large areas of the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Crudely summarised
social returns that you are missing? The smartest kids want it says specialise in what you are good at and buy the rest
to trade bonds that is unbelievable! What are you contrib- from someone else, and it has been one of the guiding ten-
uting to society? Nothing. Literally and figuratively, weve ets of generations of industrial development.
got to get our hands dirty. This argument goes to the heart of the manufacturing
One of the trickier accusations levelled at those calling debate, but the trouble with Ricardos theory is that it ig-
for more manufacturing is that they often appear to be act- nores the fact that advantages can be gained as well as lost,
ing out of nostalgia, fighting parochial old battles rather and that what look like low-value commodities ripe for
than engaging in the new global ones. someone else to do, can sometimes be turned into high-
So when the government is exhorted to dip its hand deep value products with a bit of clever thinking and technology.
into its pockets to save, for example, the 4,000 jobs at Ta- Steel is not just steel, says David Landsman, executive
tas Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales (or its pension director of Tata Ltd and head of the giant Indian conglom-
scheme at least, to encourage prospective buyers), is this erates European operations. There are construction steels
sound 21st-century industrial policy or a rose-tinted but which generate energy, or reduce the carbon footprint.
ultimately futile hankering for days gone by? Tata Steel reports always talk about how many new prod-
Manufacturing is important, and lets hope much of it Industrial heritage: a shipyard, ucts have been brought on stream.
is in Britain its associated with big GDP contributions, circa 1900, when Britain was The high-value model is right but you can create value
the workshop of the world
job creation and exports, all good things. But for me its (above); cheap global rivals in a range of sectors. There is a future for UK manufactur-
not so much about where things are made, but about mean the future of Tata Steels ing and its precisely because it has changed from those old
being competitive on the world stage and allowing our works in Port Talbot, Wales, is days. Its not about oily rage any more, its about digital
brilliance in design and creativity to shine through, uncertain (below) and tech.
says Martin McCourt, chairman of domestic appliance
group Glen Dimplex and former CEO of bagless vacuum
pioneer Dyson.
Im not a purist if buyers in Japan, China or Australia
see a British brand name on an item, it matters less and less
to them where it is actually made. Thats not so important
for the future of the economy than it has been in the past.
My drumbeat is always that we should figure out where the
best place to make things is the place where you can make
the best product at the lowest price with the right quality.
If thats just down the road from a British HQ, all well
and good and even if it costs a bit more to do that it may
be worth it for convenience. But it might equally turn out
to be Ireland, Eastern Europe or Asia.
Steel is a good recent example if we can make a fist of it
then good, but if we cant then what is the point of labour-
ing over something that because of the economic condi-
Alamy

tions we cannot be competitive in? he says.

34 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 WHEELS OF INDUSTRY

Tatas operations in the UK embrace not only the troubled

steel business but also Tetley Tea and JLR, the poster child
for the reborn, globally owned UK car business a sector
which employs 800,000 and turned over 69.5bn last year.
Landsman also points out that even making the dis-
tinction between manufacturing and service industries is
increasingly redundant, as the line between the two is be-
coming blurred by a process going by the unlovely term
servicisation. Things that used to be sold as products are
increasingly sold as services you buy the use of the thing
rather than the thing itself.
So customers for Rolls-Royces aero engines, for exam-
ple, now sign up for Power by the hour a pay-as-you-go
model which includes servicing rather than shelling out
for the engines (the product) and maintenance (the service)

Getty Images
separately. And whereas buying their own wheels has been
a no-brainer for car-mad Brits for decades, there are now
numerous service-based alternatives, from car clubs like
Zipcar to ride-hailing apps like the all-conquering Uber. High-tech and here: The UKs But she is far from blind to the economic imperative, and
We have a substantial R&D department and endow uni- Shadow Robot Company would like a bit more thought and energy directed at manu-
versity chairs, theres lot of innovation going on, he says. manufactures dexterous facturing from the corridors of power.
The Tata story is a textbook example of the kind of for-
robot hands
I love manufacturing and have a real passion for it. Id
eign direct investment which has kept UK manufacturing like to see a bit more of that kind of enthusiasm reflected
alive in recent years. Fears that Brexit may now lead to a back from government.
turning off of some of the FDI taps need to be addressed, The omens arent too good on that front politicians
says Glen Dimplexs McCourt Our openness has been a may talk a good game but they dont follow through take
big strength. If you are a wealthy investor or development recent changes in capital allowances, she says. Weve just
capital company then the UK is a good place to bring your spent 700,000 on a profiling machine in one of our busi-
money. We need to continue to attract that and hopefully nesses. Capital investment adds value, but the changes in
that will be top of the list for the new cabinet. allowances have made that investment more expensive.
So much for the economics, but there is another aspect of UK We do need to rebalance because we are so reliant on
manufacturing that plays a part in its special status the na- MANUFACTURING financial services now. Manufacturing provides medium-
ture and quality of the work involved. In comparison to the ACCOUNTS FOR: and high-skilled jobs to pay for public services the NHS
fragmented world of the gig economy, or job in a call cen- and education.
tre or fast food joint, the manufacturing journey from idea On the subject of jobs, the prospect of the next wave of
to design, then production, and then the finished article automation has got many commentators hot under the col-
somehow seems more human and psychologically complete. lar thanks to the fears that artificial intelligence will lead to
Ive grown up looking round factories with my dad, I 10% the hollowing out of many industries.
love the creativity of it and the fact that theres a tangible of Gross Domestic But the flipside to the rise of such tech, says Rich Walker,
product. For me thats much more satisfying than finan- Product managing director of Shadow Robot Company, is that bar-
cial services, says Cassie Hutchings, chief executive of riers to entry are falling too. Its becoming much cheaper
GCH Capital and one of MTs 35 Women under 35 for and quicker to get a manufacturing start-up off the ground,
2016. (Incidentally the dad in question is none other than says Walker, whose business is making sophisticated robot
Greg Hutchings, the maverick former boss of the Tomkins
engineering empire, now owned by a Canadian private eq-
2.6m hands, which much more closely mimic the action and deft-
ness of a human hand than existing clumsy claws.
jobs
uity consortium.) There is always room for more high-tech manufacturing
GCH owns eight manufacturing businesses whose prod- in the UK as a manufacturer you benefit from being close
ucts range from LED lighting and automotive parts to steel to your users and suppliers. It might cost three times more
plate and wooden agricultural storage boxes. When you to have something made by a guy in Essex than someone
go round our sites, the people you meet, the processes in- 44% in China, but if you need it in three days then its worth it.
volved and the products they make, its mind-boggling. of total exports So after all that, is UK manufacturing special? Well, yes
Hutchings who took a degree in psychology before re- and no. Its not the panacea that some boosters proclaim,
alising that she likes a solution, and I was never going to but it certainly has an important part to play in a balanced
be able to solve people says that not everyone wants to economic diet. Were strong in consumer products, auto-
push photons around the internet for a living, and that a motive, pharmaceuticals we suffer a bit in commodities
sense of collective endeavour and being a part of a greater
whole can be a powerful thing. People want to know how
69% but its more than compensated for by the broad spread
elsewhere, says McCourt. We have great diversity and
of R&D investment
what they do makes a difference, to have something to lots of levers to pull. Im an optimist, there are many worse
show for their days work at the end of it. Source: EEF places to be than here.

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 35

 HOW TO PIVOT YO
YOUR
CAREER
Whether youre dissatisfied with
your job or simply seeking a new
challenge, KATE BASSETT reports
on ways to change direction and
speaks to three people who have
thing hed ever done. Hed been working for big corpora-
tions, including Sainsburys and BT, for 25 years and had
become reliant on the mothership. Many organisations
create a dependency culture, he says. Pay, reward, recog-
nition, promotion, the working environment theyre all
designed to make you stick. But security comes at a price.
You can become trapped by your own success.
reinvented themselves professionally He offers three tips to changing career. First, try to visu-
alise yourself in 10 years time and jot down what youre
doing and whats making you happy. The only thing thats

I
ts Sunday afternoon. You start to feel anxious and the stopping you from, say, opening a caf in Cornwall, is your
knot in the pit of your stomach tightens every time you own imagination, he says. Think about who you are and
think about work. By the evening, a mini-depression has whats important to you rather than what youve become.
set in. Your 48 hours of freedom are coming to an end; to- Second, speak to a financial adviser and get a proper sense
morrow morning youll have to trudge back into the office, of how much you need to earn to keep the wolf from the
to a job that makes you miserable. Photography by door. Finally, dont wait until youre in the depths of de-
Youre not the only one stuck in career paralysis. Britain is Julian Dodd pression to jump ship. No one ever makes good decisions
home to millions of discontented workers. According to re- when theyre grumpy, he warns.
search by the London School of Business and Finance, 47% Blake, who hopped from a tech start-up to Google to
of the UKs workforce want to switch careers, with around a self-employment, reckons pivoting is a four-step process:
quarter saying they regret entering their current profession. plant, scan, pilot and launch. Think of it like basketball,
Despite this disillusionment, changing careers or piv- she says. Successful pivots start by planting your feet set-
oting isnt easy. Walking away from a robust salary and ting a strong foundation then scanning the court for op-
an established routine into the big unknown is daunting. portunities, staying rooted while exploring options. Next
Career changes seem to threaten our most fundamental you start passing the ball around the court, testing ideas
needs, says Jenny Blake, author of Pivot: The Only Move and piloting with small experiments, such as job shadow-
That Matters Is Your Next One. Were afraid that if we make ing. Eventually youll be ready to make a shot, or launch, in
one wrong move, we will soon become homeless and unem- the new direction.
ployed, unable to fend for our very survival. Perceiving this Remember: changing your profession doesnt mean youve
potential threat to our primary needs, we freeze, flee or fight failed. In todays gig economy, well all be swapping jobs
the nagging voice within us that seeks greater fulfilment. more frequently than previous generations. Instead of sham-
Tim Johns admits that leaving his job as Unilevers vice ing and blaming people for hitting completely natural career
president of global corporate communications to start his plateaus, or calling them a midlife or quarter-life crisis,
Alamy

own consultancy was the most petrifying and liberating we should recognise them as the new normal, says Blake.

36 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 THE BIG SWITCH

NIA MORRIS
THE FORMER CITY FINANCE LAWYER WHO BUILT A SUCCESSFUL INTERIOR DESIGN BUSINESS

N ia Morris was a hotshot finance

lawyer. She joined Linklaters
as a trainee, spent six years
working as a solicitor and, at the
age of 31, became one of the firms
youngest partners. Four years
later, she was snapped up by
American law firm Weil, Gotshal &
Manges and helped to set up its
London office. To all appearances,
she was thriving. But she had a
gnawing feeling that she was in
the wrong profession. I kept
thinking, I should be doing
something different, she says. I
had a constant yearning to do
something more creative. Id open
the papers and immediately turn
to the art and fashion pages when
I should have been reading the
finance section.
Morriss third child Millie came

Id open the papers and
immediately turn to
the art and fashion
pages when I should
have been reading the
finance section

along in 1997; she was born with turned to what she enjoyed most: earning a listing in Elle management; managing clients
severe hip dysplasia and doctors interior design. Shed refurbished Decorations Top 10 Interior expectations; working to tight
told Morris that her little girl might her own two houses in Islington Design Practices, and being deadlines; budget planning.
never walk. Millies legs were in and Cornwall, and found she had named as one of the Telegraph s Youd assume that interior design
plaster for two years and she went a natural flair for it. Friends started Best 20 Interior Designers in involves a lot of wafting around
through five operations. I was to commission her. So Morris Britain. She started Nia Morris but, in reality, you cant afford to
married at the time to a partner in decided to retrain and signed up Studio at the beginning of this be casual in this industry. Mistakes
another law firm. Both of us had to do a one-year diploma at KLC year with the aim of establishing a are expensive, she says. Eighty
been working flat out but when School of Design in Chelsea. The presence in the Cotswolds where per cent of what I do now is
Millie came along, one of us course was full time and very she now lives. I get such a buzz actually very similar to my old job
needed to be at home to look after labour intensive, plus I was out of seeing my designs brought I just get paid a lot less! But that
her. I went on maternity leave juggling three kids; I didnt have to life, she says. I used to just like doesnt bother me. If I thought
and never returned. That was the time to feel daunted by what I my job. Now I love it. money made you happy, Id still be
catalyst I needed to leave law. was doing. The skills she honed as a lawyer in the City. My only regret is that I
When Millie was (literally) up on Morris set up her first London- have come in handy: project didnt make the switch sooner.
her feet, Morris started to consider based interior design company,
DONT SWAP CAREERS WITHOUT...
her career options. Returning to Nia Morris Design, in 2007, then
Being willing to retrain. Going back to school gave me confidence and
the City after a long break seemed went on to launch Studio Ohm credibility in my new role. And I wasnt the only mature student in the
nigh-on impossible, so Morris and Cloud Design Studios, room. Even if youre in your 40s or 50s, theres no such thing as too late.

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 37

CHARTERED MANAGER
STATUS PROVES
YOUVE BEEN THERE
AND DONE IT.

When you find yourself moving up the career ladder within a

specialist or technical profession, often it can feel like youre
the little fish in the big pond all over again.

Subjit Kaur, a senior management consultant for EY, started out

as a research scientist and credits the confidence she needed to
branch her career out into management to Chartered Manager.

With the work I do, theres nothing to say youre qualified to do

it, but from an industrial and practical application perspective,
Chartered Manager status gives you that endorsement because
of its experience-based approach.

How are managers like Surbjit using Chartered Manager to

benchmark their technical expertise against the skills and
experience required for a career in management? Find out
online www.managers.org.uk/surbjit or call 0333 220 3146.
 THE BIG SWITCH

DAVID ELLIS
PREVIOUSLY IN TECH AND SOCIAL HOUSING, THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF HARLEQUINS RUGBY CLUB IS PROOF THAT YOU CAN SWITCH TWICE AND STILL WIN

D avid Ellis was on holiday in

2010 when his wife spotted an
ad in the paper for the chief
Changing face offer
Middlesbrough on
a been transformed
executive role at Harlequins rugby into retro restaurant
club. Ellis was working in social
housing at the time. He had no
experience of running a sports
club but he was a massive rugby
fan; he started playing at the age
of six and had been a Harlequins
supporter from the age of 17.
This job was an opportunity he
couldnt ignore. My wife showed
me the ad and said I should throw
my hat in the ring, he says. I knew
Id regret it if I didnt give it a shot.
This was to be Elliss second
career pivot. After graduating in
theology from Durham University,
Ellis spent a decade working in
commercial roles for tech
companies ranging from Mitel to
WorldCom. But he wasnt fulfilled.
I was ready to do something
different something with a
charitable purpose. I felt I could
do more with my career than just
building tech firms.
Ellis started to immerse himself
in the world of social housing.
I went to ridiculous levels to
educate myself in the subject, he
says. Id spend four to five hours
each night reading reports on the
social and economic impact
of social housing, working out how
my skills could add value to that

environment. Ellis joined the fact I was pivoting that and sitting in on meetings,
Catalyst housing association in would have been overwhelming. trying to understand every part of
2006 as group director of I imagined myself in I just focused on what skills I the club: In a new environment

the job before I was

business development and he could bring to the table, he says. humility is important, you have to
spent the next five years there. It helped that Id worked in social be prepared to learn.
Going from tech to social
housing was a big step down
actually in it I focused housing and had a background
in growing tech companies.
In his five years at the helm, he
has increased ticketing revenue
financially but Ellis wasnt on what skills I could Harlequins is a club rather than a by 40%, grown average crowds at
fazed: I wanted to have an
impact and do something that bring to the table pure business; its driven more by
core values than the bottom line.
The Stoop stadium by 10%, seen
record membership levels and

would get me out of bed every Equally, it needed to be pulled more than doubled income from
morning. Ellis loved that job into a more professional and sponsorship revenues. The club is
and hed probably still be there commercial way of thinking. 150 years old and it still has so
if he hadnt been blindsided by point where he wrote a report for Once Ellis got the job, he spent much potential, he says. Thats
the Harlequins ad. the board on the future of the a lot of time listening, watching like rocket fuel to me.
The interview process for the club. I imagined myself in the job
DONT SWAP CAREERS WITHOUT...
Harlequins top spot lasted around before I was actually in it, he says.
Playing to your strengths. To use a rugby analogy, Chris Robshaw is
six weeks. Once again, Ellis He was also very clear about his an amazing back row player but you wouldnt ask him to be a winger.
crammed for the role to the strengths. I never thought about Know what youre good at and build on that.

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 39

THE BIG SWITCH

SARAH WOOD
THE FORMER ACADEMIC TURNED SILICON ROUNDABOUT STAR WHO FOUNDED UNRULY

I t was the 7/7 bombings in

London that prompted Sarah
Wood to quit her job. After
picking up a PhD at UCL, Wood
had spent a year teaching
American Studies at Sussex
University. She loved the role
but she hated the commute. I
lived in Hackney and would spend
three days a week lecturing in
Sussex. Leaving the kids every
week broke my heart.
Then, in the summer of 2005,
London was hit by the worst single
terrorist attack on British soil.
Wood was on the tube on her way
to the British Library in Kings
Cross, and just a few stops away
from the explosions. I was running
late so it was a near miss. There
were 52 people who didnt go
home that day. Moments like that
show you how tenuous life is; they
force you to re-evaluate what youre
doing. Wood realised that her two
big priorities were a) to be close to
her children and b) to make more
of a professional impact. I was
writing and teaching about the
American Revolution but there was
a communications revolution going Changing face offer
on under my nose. I wanted to be Middlesbrough on
part of that, she says. a been transformed
into retro restaurant
Her husband Scott Button and
his business partner Matt Cooke
were selling their analytics firm
Connextra and were on the hunt
for a new challenge. The trio on the end game. That gave me a University and set up Unrulys Wood admits that quitting her
decided to team up and do sense of progress, she says. You pop-up university (City highly regarded role at Sussex
something in web 2.0 we just can be waiting a long time for the Unrulyversity) her lifestyle has University to run a start-up was a
didnt know what. In 2006, they big wins; its demoralising. She transformed. And she gets to see big risk. There was a real
launched eatmyhamster.com, a also joined a tech COO meet-up her kids. We set up the office so possibility that the business might
comedy site based on people group through LinkedIn to mix its a home away from home; not make any money. I wasnt sure
sharing and rating funny content with other internet pioneers. We theres table tennis, Jenga, bean if Id cope psychologically but
(it was hard to monitise we were based in East London in bags. When my son Ezra was sick actually the scariest part was right
ended up killing the hamster), the area now called Silicon the other day, I bundled him up in before I quit. Once Id made the
followed by Viral Video Chart, Roundabout; there were lots of a blanket and took him into work. leap, I just got on with it.
ranking the most popular videos new companies springing up and He hung out in the retreat. My She neednt have worried.
across the web. A year later, they a palpable sense of excitement. children are part of this unusual, Unruly now has 20 offices
launched their killer business, I tried to embed myself in fulfilling journey and theyve had worldwide, 300 employees, and
ad tech company Unruly. that community. the opportunity to travel the world was snapped up by News Corp
Wood says she celebrated the While Wood never completely as weve grown the business. last year for 114m.
small wins, like finding desk turned her back on the world of
DONT SWAP CAREERS WITHOUT...
space in Londons Old Truman academia she still lectures at
Writing a list. I wrote down all the reasons why I was
Brewery or hiring their first Cambridge University, has an leaving my job. Every time I had doubts about what
developer, rather than focusing honorary doctorate from City I was doing, Id pull out that list.

40 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

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HAS THE GRADUATE
MILKROUND
GONE SOUR?
For decades the dominant means of marrying top jobs and top talent, big employers are finding
fresh alternatives to their traditional tour of university campuses. Meanwhile, graduates career
ambitions are also on the turn. Its quite a shake up, says ADAM GALE

42 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 GRADUATE RECRUITMENT

N
ineteen sixty-six was a good year to be a student. A pint become the foundation of corporate recruitment. But just
of beer cost about two shillings (equal to 10p), sexual as nobody now gets their two pints of semi-skimmed from a
intercourse had recently been invented and nobody dairyman doing the rounds on a glorified mobility scooter,
had heard of tuition fees. It was also a good time to be a the old milkround is starting to look distinctly 20th century.
graduate. Long the recruiting grounds for the civil service Graduates are no longer the only horse in town.
and the professions, universities were now also being tar- Our graduate scheme will probably grow slowly, but the
geted by businesses, looking to fill their ranks with freshly exponential growth will be in apprenticeships, says Ralph
minted clever clogs. Tribe, UK and Ireland director of people at Sky. In four
The early years of what came to be known as the gradu- Illustration by years, Skys apprenticeship intake has gone from a handful
ate milkround (in which big employers toured the countrys Kate Miller to 200 double the number of its graduate places. Theyre
universities, as though delivering milk) were not without fulfilling similar roles as well. We dont place an accelerated
their difficulties, however. As a squeaky-cheeked grad by the career path badge on a graduate relative to an apprentice.
name of Martin Sorrell wrote in Management Todays De- We dont see one group as the managers of the future and
cember 1966 issue, the long-haired students werent all that the other as not. Thats just not how it works at Sky.
fussed about a career in industry, while the corporate bods in The storys the same at EY, which has quadrupled its
smoky personnel departments were singularly unimpressed school-leaver intake to 200 since 2012, with 900 spaces re-
with the calibre of the young candidates on offer. served for graduates. It doesnt matter whether youre a
In the years since, university has gone from being an elite graduate or apprentice, says EYs head of student recruit-
pursuit to a mass rite of passage, while the milkround has ment Dominic Franiel, who predicts further increases in

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 43

 GRADUATE RECRUITMENT

the apprenticeship scheme, even if this means grad numbers

could decline somewhat. Why one grad spurned the milkround
An apprentice would join on a five-year training contract, Ollie (not his real name) I consider myself a
a graduate on three. It leads into the same professional qual- says: If youre looking for a machine learning specialist.
ification. At the end of five years, they essentially have the career in law, youll want to I interviewed at Google
same opportunities available to them. work for Slaughter and May, last year and got to the
Last year, there were half a million apprenticeship starts. right? But tech is different. penultimate round, and they
While most of these were equivalent to GCSEs or A levels, Small firms have a lot to asked what I was doing that
20,000 were higher (equivalent to undergraduate degrees) offer. They make it clear they was interesting in my
or degree apprenticeships. Thats double what it was the want someone with specific current job. I couldnt
year before, and 10 times the level in 2010/11, when the skills rather than just a 2.1 in answer because there wasnt
Coalition government started to promote the programme. any subject from a good anything interesting. Now,
Compare that with whats happening in graduate recruit- university, and they dont I could talk about lots of
take three months to get cutting-edge stuff.
ment. Only 55.8% of grads under 30 are in high-skilled
back to you after you apply, At the start-up, I got stuck
jobs. The rest are either unemployed, economically inactive
like big companies do. The in from day one, Im learning
or in low- to medium-skilled work, with little hope of free-
culture there is a lot slower. tons of new tech and
dom from the heavy debts they accrued as students.
Theyre going to have to meeting people Id never
Indeed, of 500,000 or so students leaving university every start thinking about that. have met otherwise. The
year, only 50,000 end up in graduate schemes, traditionally I did four undergraduate bank just doesnt value tech
where the best jobs were. So whats happening? internships. The last one was they use it as a stop-gap to
Its tempting to put the changes taking place at firms like in a tech role at a major fill the holes where theyre
these down to the apprenticeship levy, which is due to hit bank, and it got me a job missing business logic. If Id
larger firms from April 2017, but both Franiel and Tribe say offer on its graduate scheme. wanted to work in machine
their programmes were already expanding before the levy Working for a big corporate learning there, Id have had
was announced. looks great on the CV, but to join a different division
The apprenticeship levy is a curiosity to us, says Tribe, I turned it down for an and work my way up over a
who points out that being able to offset an apprentices internship at a tech start-up, few years. Within five years
training against the levy is a minor incentive to hire more which I heard about through my degree will be outdated
of them, given that salaries are 10 times higher than training my university career service. I cant let that go.
costs. The growth is because we just like apprenticeships.
In fact, the rise of apprenticeships is best seen as part of a
wider change occurring in graduate recruitment. As well as
hiring more school-leavers, more and more employers are

Social
BBC and Unilever HR head Gareth Jones. The elite organ-
isations like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey will privately tell
you they used to recruit the brightest and the best. In truth,
saying to students that they dont care where you studied or
even what grades you got.
enterprises theyre finding it harder and harder because the brightest
and the best dont want to work for organisations.
It doesnt take a double first from Cambridge to infer and James Uffindell, who describes his graduate recruitment
from this that recruiters are struggling to find the necessary high-growth start-up Bright Network as a cleverer milkround, agrees.
talent the old way. The question is why. Social enterprises and high-growth tech businesses are tak-
One explanation is that todays students just arent up to
tech ing the high-performing grads. They want to do something
it. The age-old debate about skills gaps gets a bit tiresome, businesses different, something contrarian. The other theme is that
but there is an issue, otherwise employers wouldnt be rais-
ing it and we wouldnt have vacancies going unfilled, says
are taking millennials want to start their own businesses, he says.
Ah, millennials. Homo digitalis. A lot of whats written
Stephen Isherwood, chief executive of the Association of the high- about the generation born between the early 80s and mid-
Graduate Recruiters. performing 90s presents them as starkly different from Generation X
Breaking it down, Isherwood says this is particularly acute and Baby Boomers. These digital natives have ditched sal-
in some sectors theres a desperate shortage of electronic
grads ary, security and status in favour of such higher things as
engineers for instance and in some locations. However it
also reflects a structural peculiarity in the UK labour market.
Whats so different about the UK market is that what you
purpose, job satisfaction and snazzy perks. So say the mar-
keters, at any rate. HR people are harder to convince. If you
tell me that 25-year-olds are different from 45-year-olds, I
study doesnt have to drive what you do for a career, he says. wont find that surprising, says Jones. The interesting ques-
If youre a big four accountancy firm in the UK, youll go to tion is what will the 25-year-olds look like when theyre 45?
Nottingham University and pretty much the entire campus Isherwood and Tribe meanwhile both point out that in-
is your target market. If you go to New York University, its terest in graduate schemes is as healthy as ever among young
just one course. As a result, employers find it difficult both students, with an average of 68 applications per place. Still,
to target potential recruits and to build relationships with quantity of interest doesnt necessarily translate to quality,
university departments, which in turn makes it less likely stu- and all those computer whizzes going to work for tech firms
dents will have gained the skills business needs. have to be coming from somewhere.
That could be part of UK plcs graduate recruitment It would therefore seem that the talent pool available to
problem, but its not all, says business author and former traditional recruiters has dried up a little, whether because

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 45

 GRADUATE RECRUITMENT

education hasnt caught up with the private sectors demand

for skills or because grads are themselves less interested in
what big business has to offer. Employers the grad schemes because they havent realised some of the
big recruiters would even consider them.
This hasnt stopped business from trying. Sky, for instance,
It would be wrong, however, to think employers only
opened up their intake because they were pushed. They are
dont want spends a disproportionate amount of time and money on
the non-redbrick universities, getting boots on the ground
all at pains to say theyre not scraping the barrel. Instead, carbon to talk to students not only about opportunities at the com-
they discovered an untapped resource of smart youngsters cut-out 2.1s pany but also about how to write a good application.
whove turned up their noses at university, which would Recruiters are also increasingly turning to online tech-
leave them around 40,000 in debt, in favour of apprentice-
from Russell niques such as holding Twitter takeovers or connecting
ships that could earn them 40,000 over the same period. Group through services like Bright Network, which attempts to
In our experience the school-leavers are just as capable
and in some cases they completely outshine their counter-
universities give students more personalised career advice.
Despite the success of these measures, getting on-
parts in the graduate programme. It comes back to finding because they campus is still considered essential in attracting quality
the best people, and you find them in all places and walks of all look the applicants, which presents a problem when it comes to
life, says Franiel. finding school-leavers there are 150 universities in the
Diversity is more than just a buzzword to these recruiters.
flaming same UK, but over 7,000 schools.
The whole approach to diversity and why it matters has
changed over the years. It used to be to do with fairness, but
actually now its to do with different thinking. At Sky, our
Do not expect this to slow the growth of apprentice-
ships, however. The governments commitment to parity
of esteem means schools will soon be measured on appren-
challenge is to keep pace with a very diverse customer base. ticeship starts as well as university places.
In order to connect with potential and existing customers Apprenticeships will become more and more popular, but
we need a workforce that reflects that, says Tribe. dont take this to be the writing on the wall for the graduate
Jones puts it more bluntly. Employers dont want carbon milkround, says Isherwood. Universities are responding to
cut-out 2.1s from Russell Group universities because they the rise in tuition fees and apprenticeships by focusing more
all look the flaming same. They want people who are a bit on employability, such as offering more work placements
different, who bring something new. and vocational training as part of undergraduate courses.
Vetted by in-house assessments rather than academic Besides theres a value to education beyond just skills
grades, apprentices and students from new universities training. Enlightened employers say university is about
many of them specialising in vocational degrees can fulfil whole-of-life experience. They still want to work with peo-
that need. Finding them isnt easy though. The milkround, ple who have that experience. Its why I dont think graduate
as it is, doesnt go to the University of East London or Pais- recruitment will disappear, says Isherwood.
ley, because it costs money to get on campus. Indeed the The value of university to employers hasnt faded. But its
average graduate recruiter still only visits 20 universities in no longer the only experience thats considered valuable.
a given year and only recruits from 30. There are online job Ultimately, that means more variety and more choice, which
boards, but many students in these universities dont look at can only be good for both business and young people.
Alamy

Engineering apprentices learning practical skills: big firms are employing more and more school-leavers through apprenticeship schemes, which is affecting graduate recruitment

46 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 BRITAINS
MOST
ADMIRED
COMPANIES
2016
THE WINNERS OF THIS YEARS BRITAINS MOST ADMIRED
COMPANIES AWARDS WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF
MANAGEMENT TODAY
THE SHORTLIST
Aldi (UK) GlaxoSmithKline Lidl (UK) Royal Dutch Shell
ARM Great Portland Estates London Stock Exchange Severn Trent
Berkeley Group Greggs McDonalds Restaurants UK Spirax-Sarco Engineering
BHP Billiton Halma Merlin Entertainments St. Jamess Place Wealth Management
BT Group Handelsbanken National Grid Telefnica (UK)
Costain Group Hargreaves Lansdown Next Travis Perkins
Crest Nicholson Holdings HSBC Pets at Home Group Unilever
Diageo InterContinental Hotels Group Prudential Victrex
Dixons Carphone International Airlines Group RB Vodafone
Dominos Pizza (UK) John Lewis Partnership RELX Group Workspace Group
easyJet Johnson Matthey Rentokil Initial
Experian Kerry Group Rightmove
Fever-Tree Kier Group Rolls-Royce
GKN Kingspan Rotork
AT THE BACK
MOTOR MOUTH Skoda Superb Estate
You may not have a burning desire for this car, but its sensible, spacious and award-winning, says Matthew Gwyther
Remarkable to think that it is now 25 years since Volkswagen and whistles added, the on-the-road price came to a not inconsiderable
took over the former Czechoslovakian Communist state 32,310. Youd be better off de-specced with a smaller engine.
enterprise that was Skoda. (Its actually the third oldest car The dual-clutch automatic gearbox was jerky in stop-start traffic, but
manufacturer in the world predating the heirs of Lenin, on the open road it changes up and down through its ratios well enough.
harking back to 1895.) Now a proud part of the European Its hard to see anyone yearning after a Superb. Youd be a bit odd
capitalist West facing off against Putin, Skodas rebranding or a diehard Czech patriot if it quickened
exercise is complete: nobody under the age of 40 associates your pulse. As a purchase it has good sense SPECIFICATION
the carmaker with old-school gags that indicate shoddy written all over it rather than keen desire. Skoda Superb SE L Executive Estate
quality. Skoda now plays a well-defined and profitable part Clarkson gave it a rather mean two stars, PRICE 32,310
in the VW brand line-up as the value choice. whereas our rather more sensible and con- ENGINE 2.0 TDI SCR
If you are going to call a car a Superb it had better not just sidered colleagues on What Car? (who have TRANSMISSION Six-speed DSG 4x4
FUEL CONSUMPTION 55.4 mpg
be quite good. The Skoda Valu or the Skoda Really-Not- never biffed anyone in the face) gave it five
(combined cycle)
Bad-At-All-For-The-Price would not fit in emblazoned and not only awarded it their best estate car CO EMISSIONS 135g/km
2
across the boot in fake chrome lettering. The Superb looks of the year for 2016, but also best compact POWER 190PS
very good indeed especially in the estate version tested executive car for less than 25,000. Ill go 0-62 MPH 7.7 seconds
here. Its lines are elegant and purposeful. Also in its favour with three and a half. TOP SPEED 142 mph
is its huge size probably the most space you can get for the
money from any showroom.
It is quite some way short of the levels of technological
sophistication, interior styling and execution of both the
Audi A6 and the VW Passat. The engines a wee bit gruff.
It wears the hand-me-downs of the posher German rellys.
But that has to be so, otherwise why bother with those
costly mid-market and premium brands in the first place?
We drove the absolute top-of-the-line model with four-
wheel drive and a two-litre diesel engine. With all the bells

TOMORROWS JOBS
The coming breed of medical professionals is going to need extremely small hands and big brains
WHY? so cells that make up the average swimming around zapping cancer
Because very small medicine is human being. cells, for example.
going to be very big business the Much of what we have learned If that sounds like sci-fi it
global nanomedicine market is about the nano-world so far comes probably is, for now at least. But
predicted to be worth over $500m from high-tech manufacturing and even though the discipline is in its
by 2019. Medicine will increasingly theoretical physics, so nanomedics infancy, big strides are being made

No2
escape the clinical environment are inter-disciplinary types who using nanoparticles to increase the
of the hospital and surgery, combine medical and physiological effectiveness of drug delivery, and

NANOMEDIC becoming something that we all

carry around in us instead.
WHAT?
expertise with an appreciation of
the weird and wonderful behaviour
of very small things.
so-called Quantum Dots to boost
the quality and resolution of
scanner images.
Nanonmedicine is medicine HOW? The small print
conducted on the nanometre-scale The ultimate goal of nanomedics Like any new field, there is a risk
(a nanometre being equal to one everywhere is the production of that nanomedicine will fail to live up
billionth of a metre). Precisely the sub-microscopic therapeutic to the hype. This is a STEM-heavy
size range on which most of our machines that patrol our insides environment so if maths, physics
vital biological processes are looking for baddies think of an and chemistry were your least
carried out, within the 37 trillion or impossibly tiny Terminator favourite A levels, look elsewhere.

48 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 AT THE BACK

THINK ONCE THINK AGAIN

REBECCA ALEXANDER TOMAS CHAMORRO-PREMUZIC

Tackling team dynamics How to hire people who are better than you:
the best interview questions to ask

We all know theres no I in team. Except, there is. And that I is fre- The great David Ogilvy used to give every new manager a
quently exasperated, put-upon, stressed out and annoyed by their team set of Babushka dolls. His point? If they only hired people
members, however wonderful they may be. who were worse than them, they would become a company
In coaching, I often hear about difficult colleagues, annoying bosses, of dwarfs. If they hired people who were better than them
and foot-dragging direct reports. I cant do anything about the people and each of those people did the same they could
who arent in the room. But I can and do work with my clients on how become a giant.
to approach their team dynamics differently. And you can too. All you Ogilvys principle has since become an overused man-
need is yourself. agement clich, but alas few people tend to hire people
Before I go through the steps, here is the premise. While we experi- who are better than themselves. This isnt caused by an in-
ence our work hassles and triumphs on a very individual basis, were ability to find or vet talent but rather, petty and
inevitably part of a much larger system, comprising your immediate short-sighted career jealousy.
colleagues, manager, their managers, your department, other depart- As a method for judging talent (or potential), interviews
ments, the board, clients, shareholders, rival companies and former col- are quite ineffective, yet they still represent the most com-
leagues. Before we become attached to our own version of events, we mon selection method it is virtually impossible to get a
need to consider this wider system in order to effect lasting changes. job without being interviewed (at least by phone, Skype or
Try visualising it. Using coloured pens and a whiteboard or large piece an avatar). The main problem is that interviewers are gen-
of paper, start by creating a map of yourself and those around you, as if erally not competent to ask the right questions or make
looking down on it from above. Use coloured dots to represent yourself sense of peoples answers, which explains why the world of
and those in your map, varying the size according to how much impor- work is full of false positives (inept em-
tance or influence you feel they have. The map can include anyone that Interviewers ployees who excelled at the interview).
impacts on how you are at work, including friends and family. are generally Instead of the classic questions (eg why
When youre finished, stop and think about why youve chosen cer-
tain colours and sizes to represent particular people. Have you drawn
not competent did you decide to apply for this job, what are
situations in which you demonstrated lead-
them facing each other, away from each other, near to or far from you? to ask the ership/initiative/the ability to think outside
(One client with a particularly intimidating colleague placed a red spot right questions the box, or where do you see yourself in five
on top of her own dot to emphasise how overwhelming this person was years?), here are three useful questions that
in her life.) Consider what it tells you about the dynamics within the may help you hire people who are better than you:
group at large, and your place within it. If you had my job, what would you do differently?
Now take a fresh piece of paper and rearrange your map to create a The answer will reveal how much the candidate knows
teamscape thats more to your liking. Move and resize your dots until about your job, and whether they are able to come up with
youve found your ideal fit. One client had ranked his many customers useful suggestions. The good news for you is that even
facing him in a row, taking up all of the paper, while he laboured alone on if you dont hire them you may be able to get some
the other side. Not surprisingly, he introduced a new dot, representing a free advice.
new member of staff, to redress the imbalance. The point of this exercise If I hired you, how do you think you could get me pro-
is to give you a fresh perspective on how your team functions, and to moted? This question will establish your clear priorities
offer an insight into your own impact on those dynamics. The helicopter you are OK with the candidate getting your job, so long
view enables you to see past ground-level issues to the wider forces at as s/he can help you get promoted and force him/her to
play, offering solutions that might not otherwise have been apparent. come up with a strategy. As with the first question, this
Youre nearly done. Make a list of concrete action points to enable you may be useful even if you dont hire them.
to move from the original to the improved version of your maps. Make Can you give me a long list of reasons for not hiring
your action points specific, measurable, and with a clear deadline. you? This exercise will reveal how creative and honest can-
Finally, take photos of your before and after maps. These will serve didates are. Short and predictable lists may be indicative of
as a useful visual reminder of your insights in the months to come. dishonesty, delusion, or poor imagination.
For an in-depth look at systems thinking, see the work by John Whittington
and his colleagues at coachingconstellations.com. Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is an international authority in psychological
profiling, people analytics, and talent management. He is the CEO of Hogan
Rebecca Alexander is an executive coach at The Coaching Studio. Please email comments or Assessments and professor of business psychology at University College London
questions to rebecca@coaching-studio.co.uk or tweet @_coachingstudio and Columbia University. Follow him on Twitter: @drtcp

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 49

REAL INNOVATION AWARDS the results with your friends would prove so popu-
lar? However like most success stories that seem
to come out of nowhere, the reality was rather dif-
ferent. Its three founders burned through many
months and numerous half-baked apps before
perfecting Dubsmashs winning formula.

THE
The trio followed the lean start-up model of de-
signing a minimum viable product, lots of user
testing and rapid iteration. One of our biggest
learnings was that simplicity for the user is key,

WINNERS
says co-founder Daniel Taschik. With our previ-
ous apps, we built technically sophisticated, yet
way too complicated products. We also broad-
ened our perspective to not just limit ourselves to
music, to be able to capture the full potential of a
lip-synching app, just as Dubsmash is right now.
Real innovation takes With these flaws addressed, Dubsmash took
grit, perseverance and off. The next step will be to make it into a fully-
fledged communication play, says Taschik. We
a little bit of luck. see that Dubsmash will evolve more and more
MT teamed up with into a video communication platform, where peo-
Deloitte Institute ple can express themselves through video and
communicate with their friends within the app.
of Innovation and
Entrepreneurship JOINT WINNER
at London Business HERTFORDSHIRE
School to celebrate the INDEPENDENT LIVING
SERVICE (HILS)
companies and people If a crisis is just an opportunity in disguise, then
that are truly disrupting in the case of HILS the disguise was a pretty
their markets convincing one. The Letchworth-based meals-
on-wheels service, set up in 2007, was already
struggling with costs and inefficiency when its
then-CEO died suddenly. When a catastrophic
Illustrations by Nick Ellwood 250,000 trading deficit was revealed shortly after-
wards, it looked like the end.
But rather than pull down the shutters, new
chief exec Sarah Wren and her team took the
bold decision to extract themselves from coun-
cil control and become instead an independent
social enterprise. When the services were deliv-
ered through local government, there were com-
plex systems and lots of red tape. It was hard even

THE IF AT FIRST YOU DONT to work out our real costs, says Wren.
Numerous changes of tack were required she
SUCCEED AWARD
JOINT WINNER
DUBSMASH
Only a week after its launch in November 2014,
Dubsmash was number one on the Apple Store
in its native Germany. By August 2015, it was top
of the charts in 78 more. As of this year, it has
been downloaded more than 100 million times
across 193 countries, raised $5.5m from Index
Ventures and counts superstar celebs includ-
ing Jennifer Lopez, Hugh Jackman and Arnold
Schwarzenegger among its users.
Who would have thought that recording your-
self lip-synching to pop videos and then sharing

50 | November 2016 managementtoday.com

 REAL INNOVATION AWARDS

says, but thanks to HILS can-do mentality and these changes have required effort to overcome
creative approach to trying out new ideas, a sus-
THE PUBLIC resistance, including a national strike, within a
tainable new business model was arrived at. It
VOTE traditional public sector operating environment.
The shortlisted entries
took the crisis to make us realise that we needed were also put to an 160m of cumulative savings have been delivered
a radical difference, she says. online pubic vote, while demand has fallen by 60% At 98m the
Fast forward to 2016 and the appetite for HILS which produced an budget is 22m smaller than it was five years ago.
intriguingly different set
has never been keener it delivers 500,000 meals of results. McGuirk has now moved on from the fire
a year and has branched out into a whole range of service and is chairman of Warrington and Hal-
additional services, from welfare checks to install- The If At First You Dont ton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. But his
ing telecare emergency alarm systems (this latter Succeed Award model for public service reform will go with
Paul Ostergaards Norwood
at one-sixth of the previous 3.5m local authority Systems for the World Phone app. him. There are going to be unpopular decisions
budget). Its a no-brainer we do good, and we within the NHS as part of its transformation,
The Masters of Reinvention
do it better and cheaper too, she says. Its now a Award he says. But these are vital. It is simply about
widely studied leader in its field. Norways Schibsted Media Group there not being enough money to go round.
for its successful shift from print to
a digital business model.
RUNNER UP

THE MASTERS OF The Best Beats First Award

Grab, Southeast Asias leading cab-
AUTO TRADER for its transformation from print to
digital automotive marketplace.
REINVENTION AWARD hailing and ride-sharing service.
The George Bernard Shaw
WINNER
STEVE MCGUIRK,GREATER
Unreasonable Person Award
David Helgason and Unity THE BEST BEATS FIRST AWARD
MANCHESTER FIRE SERVICE Technologies for their market- WINNER
Back in 2002, Professor Sir George Bain pro- leading game engine. DELIVEROO
duced a report into the Fire Service which pulled The Alexander Fleming As a Wall Street i-banker chained to his desk in the
few punches: The service needs to be changed Serendipity Award noughties, Deliveroo founder William Shu got a
Prof Rosalind Picard and Empatica,
from top to bottom to bring it into line with best for their wearable epilepsy monitor. $25 dinner allowance which he splurged on take-
practice at the start of the 21st century. out from New Yorks famous food scene. Moving to
The Harnessing the Winds
As county fire officer of Greater Manchester of Change Award London, he found it much harder to do the same,
Fire Service during the noughties, Steve McGuirk Protean Electric for its Protean and thus was born his big idea a delivery service
had to adapt to both big reductions in spending Drive in-wheel electric motors so that smart restaurants could do takeout, too.
and changing levels of risk. McGuirks innovation
for cars. Three years later and Deliveroos bikes are a
familiar sight in 35 UK cities, 40 others internation-
ally and has raised a total of $475m its latest $275
from Bridgepoint Capital said to take the firms
valuation over the magic $1bn that brings entry to
the Unicorn club. Its just launched a corporate
product and surely the proof that it has really

was to refocus his force away from its traditional

firefighting role towards safety and prevention.
This was not popular with firefighters, but it was
enormously successful, with dramatic reductions
in both workforce and the numbers of fires.
In recent years, McGuirk has also led changes
in the use of technology to make firefighting safer,
and increasing cooperation between the fire and
ambulance services to speed up responses to
falls, cardiac arrests and other emergencies. All

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 51

arrived has prompted the launch of rival offer- low-cost infant incubators for developed and de-
ings from Uber and Amazon. veloping countries at 1% of the cost of traditional
It was by no means the first in its sector, but it incubators. CEO and co-founder Jane Chen and
has rapidly become one of the best. Thats thanks her team conceptualised the idea at Stanford Uni-
to its USP of providing a network of dedicated versity and went through design iterations and
couriers and an ordering platform, making it easy user testing for years before launching in 2011.
for restaurants which wouldnt otherwise offer The technology consists of a sleeping bag
delivery, to do so. These include chains like Car- design incorporating a wax-like substance with
luccios and Gourmet Burger Kitchen, as well as a melting point of 37C. One melted, the wax
independents even Londons Michelin-starred maintains its temperature for up to eight hours,
Trishna has signed up. The idea itself is incred- regulating the newborns temperature. This is
ibly simple, Shu has said. We are successful be- vital in countries where there is often no electric-
cause of our execution and technology. ity for incubators and their costs are prohibitive.
Each Embrace unit costs around $200.
RUNNER UP Chens tenacity is shown by the fact that when
KING DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT for its she met with rejection, she moved to India, which
super-addictive Candy Crush mobile games. has one of the highest infant mortality rates global-
ly, to pursue her not-for-profit venture. Later, bank-
THE GEORGE BERNARD SHAW ruptcy loomed when a healthcare companys VC

UNREASONABLE PERSON AWARD arm pulled out of a fundraising round. Employees

deferred their salaries while Chen embarked on a
WINNER frenzy of meetings, finally convincing Salesforce
JANE CHEN, EMBRACE co-founder Marc Benioff to invest.
INNOVATIONS You have to stay rooted in your purpose, even
GB Shaw was famous for his determination, even when the more practical thing to do would be to
cussedness. The reasonable man adapts himself shut down. During these challenges I remind my-
to the world, he wrote. The unreasonable one self that this work is bigger than me, and that the
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. challenge is temporary, she says.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreason- Embrace then launched a new Little Lotus col-
able man. The winner is an admirably unreason- lection for healthy babies in the US and Europe.
able woman, Jane Chen. They have a 1:1 model; for every Little Lotus pur-
Around 15 million pre-term babies are born chased, an infant incubator is donated.
globally each year. Embrace Innovations makes Embrace works with governments, NGOs and
private clinics to distribute their products. These
have helped over 200,000 babies.

RUNNER UP
FERNANDO FISCHMANN OF CRYSTAL
LAGOONS which makes environmentally-friendly
swimming lagoons complete with beaches.

THE ALEXANDER FLEMING

SERENDIPITY AWARD
WINNER
BARRNON
A small engineering company based in Appleby
in Cumbria making tools for scallop trawling is
not where youd expect to find a ground-breaking
piece of kit to help recover nuclear waste from
power stations. However, over the course of the
next 120 years it is going to cost anything between
90bn and 220bn to clean up the UKs nuclear
waste. And nobody is very clear how to undertake
the task. The largest part of this cost relates to the
Sellafield plant and its sludge pools.
So how was the link drawn between the strati-
fied highly toxic waste that lurks at the bottom
of radioactive sludge ponds and scallop fishing
 REAL INNOVATION AWARDS

equipment? Magnox put out a web enquiry for Three years later, he and co-founders Nicolas
assistance, which we answered, says Barrnon MD Brusson and Francis Nappez launched BlaBlaCar,
Andy Barr. Barrnon quickly prototyped a purpose- a platform that allows cash-strapped, socially-
built system and demonstrated it to the UKs Nu- minded millennials to share rides securely.
clear Decommissioning Authority. Scallop trawl- We couldnt know for sure that BlaBlaCar
ing technology involves dragging a metal dredge would work, of course, but we were confident
along the seabed to scoop up the scallops (and in the concept, says Mazzella, now CEO. There
everything else too). The same technique applies were billions of empty seats in cars all around the
to collecting nuclear waste. The kit works. world, all costing drivers money in unused re-
So far Barrnon has worked on the cleanup of sources. At the same time, the rise of new technol-
the Hunterston A plant in Ayrshire, and Barr is ogies such as smartphones and search engines,
along with the rise of social networks, meant it
was perfect timing for ride-sharing to grow.
BlaBlaCar has raised almost $337m in funding
so far. It helps to reduce congestion and emis-
sions while providing its 30 million users in 22
countries with an affordable way to travel. Ride-
sharers can even specify how chatty they are,
from Bla to BlaBlaBla hence the name.

RUNNER UP
WAZE the community-driven GPS mapping and
traffic info app.

currently bidding for a contract to help clean up

the Fukushima reactor in Japan. But his dearest
hope is to be allowed to get started in Sellafield.
Barrnon won the award because the judges felt
it was a great example of imaginative, opportunis-
tic and entrepreneurial activity, outside the usual
start-up setting. It is also a near perfect case of that
rare thing: a truly serendipitous lightbulb mo-
ment. If youd told me seven months ago wed
be doing what were up to now, I wouldnt have
believed you, says Barr.

RUNNER UP
EMPATICA for its wearable epilepsy monitor.

THE HARNESSING THE WINDS OF

CHANGE AWARD
THE JUDGES
Julian Birkinshaw Vimi Grewal-Carr
WINNER Professor of Strategy and Managing partner, Innovation
Entrepreneurship at the London and Delivery Models at Deloitte
BlaBlaCar Business School and academic
Its axiomatic in business these days that the director of the Deloitte Institute of Matthew Gwyther
winds of change are blowing ever harder, so the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Editor of Management Today
trick lies in spotting them before they have be- at Haymarket Media Group
come destructively gale force. BlaBlaCar felt the Tim Brooks
CEO of BMJ, a global medical Kathryn Parsons
sharing economy breeze picking up way back in knowledge provider Founder of Decoded
2003, when Airbnb and Uber were mere glints in
the entrepreneurial eye. Luis Cilimingras Jeff Skinner
Unable to get a booking on a train home for Managing director of IDEO Executive director of the
London Deloitte Institute of Innovation
Christmas that year, Frdric Mazzella cadged and Entrepreneurship at LBS
a lift with his sister and was struck by how many Charlie Dawson
empty seats there were in the cars around them. Partner at The Foundation

managementtoday.com November 2016 | 53

WORK
SITTING
or
STANDING
VARIDESK sits on top of existing
desks and lets employees easily
switch between sitting and standing
throughout the workday. It arrives
fully assembled and sets up in
minutes with no tools required.
Order online at uk.VARIDESK.com or
call 020 3808 5398.

For patent and trademark information, visit uk.VARIDESK.com/patents

2016 VARIDESK. All Rights Reserved.
 the loNg-term effects
Caer
When you think of cancer, you may not think preserve livelihoods of those with long-term
of it as a long-term condition. However 65% conditions, but also benets organisations in
of cancer survivors say theyve had to deal retaining knowledgeable staff, as well as fostering
with long-term side effects during and after a positive work culture and loyal workforce.
treatment. These long-term effects such
as persistent hair loss, depression, fatigue, The building blocks of a good health and wellbeing
nausea and loss of condence can impact at work strategy include policy, training and
their everyday lives, including at work. support programmes that raise awareness and
address the needs of employees, and ensuring that
Each year, almost 120,000 people of working age relevant staff (such as line managers and HR) are
are diagnosed with cancer in the UK, and with equipped to support colleagues affected by cancer.
survival rates improving and people retiring later,
this gure is set to rise. With 82% of people wanting
to return to work after cancer treatment but 47%
having had to give it up or change roles as a result
of a cancer diagnosis, it is important to ensure that
the right support and advice is available early on
to prevent staff falling out of work.

However despite the need for this support, line

managers are often ill equipped to offer the right
level of information to help manage employees
affected by cancer.

Organisations urgently need to develop a To nd out about the expert training,

health and wellbeing at work strategy that
guidance and resources Macmillan provides,
recognises the needs of rising numbers of
employees with long-term conditions. This is
visit macmillan.org.uk/atwork
why Macmillan has developed Macmillan at Work, You can also email the team at
which offers workplace training, consultancy and workandcancer@macmillan.org.uk
resources to help HR and line managers support or call 020 7840 4725.
people affected by cancer.

Evidence shows health support in the workplace

can help prevent people falling out of work due to
ill health. Remaining in work can have a positive
impact not only on wellbeing and helping to

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). MAC15903_MT_August 2016
Margerison-McCann
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THE END

When the CEO goes on an IT refresher course,

the comms chief predicts there will be trouble
MONDAY analysing what the data predicts for Smokehouse. She was
As part of Smokehouses unswerving commitment to diver- a short blonde woman with aggressive earrings. The
sity we have a returners programme for mums coming blinds went down so I assumed the future was looking
back into their IT jobs. This aims to bring women back up good for Spivey. Apparently shes booked in for regular
to speed with technology where so much can happen in ongoing consultations. Just in case, I made a note of her
nine months. So far weve had one person enjoying the website address.
course and thats Miriam in IT who, in the worlds worst- ALL PREDICTIVE
kept secret, has just had the baby of our CIO Mike Lamb to ANALYTICS THURSDAY
add to the two he already has with his wife to whom he MEANS IS Board meeting. Spivey announced that predictive analyt-
maintains hes still happily married. That of course is the
THAT IF I ARRIVE ics has shown us precisely where our bright future lay. As
kind of thing that happens in IT every day of the week and
no one bats an eyelid. My big worry is that our bewigged and
LATE FOR WORK we know, Smokehouse currently makes medical appli-
ances and prosthetics. We all held our breath. Everyone
antediluvian CEO Linton Spivey volunteered to go on the FOUR DAYS OF round the boardroom table was thinking of the most out-
course last week to refresh his working knowledge of IT. THE WEEK, ITS landish and preposterous suggestion simply to make
VERY LIKELY Spiveys upcoming idea look relatively sensible. It never
TUESDAY THAT ILL BE does but its a useful psychological bracing mechanism.
Spiveys working knowledge of IT is that if it doesnt work LATE ON Spiveys paradigm-shifting, box-exiting, black swan was
you need to turn it off and on again. That technique applies
to our servers, our cloud-based SAS applications and to
THE FIFTH that we should now make prosthetic legs for horses. I
pointed out that the treatment for lame horses was nor-
the internet itself. My worst fears were realised when
mally to shoot them. He got a bit angry and said I should
Spivey burst through the door this morning and said that get up to speed with my multinational logistical repres-
the whole company must be realigned to follow the guid- sion. Or something very similar.
ing light of predictive analytics. I asked him to explain but
he just coughed and snapped one of his biscuits in half, FRIDAY
which is a telltale sign of him coming up hard against the One thing I learned from the Cub Scouts is that you fight
concrete block of his own stupidity. Shortly afterwards, I fire with fire. I called up the company that runs the IT
got a snitty email from him saying that we could basically courses and it turned out that its last course had been can-
predict the future of the company through multinomial celled because only two people had turned up. Was the
logistic regression. It would have been so much more other person a very short blond woman with the eyes of a
impressive had he changed the font of the Wikipedia cut- viper by any chance? Funnily enough she was. I checked
and-pasted bit to match the rest of his email. out her website and there she was with her guide to predic-
tion with tarot cards. Before her next reading for Spivey,
WEDNESDAY I paid her 10 times her normal rate to make sure it clearly
The whole company is now being harnessed to predictive showed that if he moved a muscle at work for the next six
analytics which, according to respected IT gurus, is the months his genitals would explode. Youve got to know
golden egg laid by the goose of big data. Personally, Im not how to handle the data. Horse prosthetics (and Mike
Alamy

so sure. My acid test of corporate foolishness is to ask Lambs marriage) will both be over by the end of next
Martha on reception what she thinks. She said all predic- week. All very predictable.
tive analytics means is that if I arrive late for work four days
of the week, its very likely that Ill be late on the fifth. If I Guy Browning is the author of The British Constitution: First Draft, published
turn up at all, she added unnecessarily. by Atlantic Books at 7.99. He can be contacted at guybrowning.co.uk
Meanwhile Spivey is locked away in his
office with one of the course consultants

58 | November 2016 managementtoday.com