Gary Clarke, Qatar Airways: Leading the way in Talent & Leadership

In this episode of Leadership Bites, I sit down with Gary Clarke, Group Head of Learning and Development at Qatar Airways, based in Doha. 

Gary leads group wide learning across a 65,000 person organisation, with a team of around 80, covering everything from operational training that keeps aircraft flying, to leadership and capability, learning tech, digital content, and vendor partnerships. Along the way, we get into what it really takes to run an internal learning function like a business, build credibility fast, and become the supplier of choice inside a complex, high pace, multi subsidiary organisation. 

We talk about leading in a multicultural reality, the tension between standards and psychological safety, why bland harmony is a risk, and how to create a community of practice that pulls people together without forcing compliance. We also touch on AI and learning, not as a shiny distraction, but as a tool, while the real edge remains human connection, trust, and leadership craft. 

If you care about culture in the real world, not the poster on the wall, this one will land. 

Connect with me at livingbrave.com 

Subscribe for more episodes and share this with someone who cares about doing leadership properly. 

Chapters
 00:00 Intro and welcome
 00:29 Gary Clarke and Qatar Airways context
 02:51 Scale, growth, and operational pace
 05:03 What learning covers in an airline
 08:57 Supplier of choice mindset for internal L and D
 10:43 Quality, credibility, and Brandon Hall Awards
 12:14 Centralised vs federated learning models
 14:19 Building community through internal conferences
 21:17 Multicultural leadership, standards, and integration
 33:04 Clear standards, clear intention
 34:03 Human centred leadership and psychological safety
 49:13 AI, generational gaps, and learning strategy
 57:12 The next few years and what matters most 

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Transcript

00:00
Welcome to Leadership Bites with myself, your host Guy Bloom. This is a leadership podcast where I have conversations with colleagues, I chat with guests, and sometimes they'll be just me talking. You can connect with me at livingbrave.com and when you enjoy the episode, subscribe and please tell everyone.  So listen, we've known each other for some time, but of course there'll be a lot of people that don't know who you are, so we're just going to get into who you are,  the role that you...

00:29
inhabit and then we'll get into some conversations around leadership and culture and those all those beautiful things.  So if we met at a social gathering and somebody said, oh, you two should talk.  And I said, oh, what do you do for a living? What would I get? Well,  that's a good question.  So yes, so I'm Gary, Gary Clark. I am currently group head of learning and development at Qatar Airways based in Doha and Qatar.

00:58
And my role basically is to look after all of the group wide  learning and development for Qatar Airways.  I've been there for two and a half years almost.  So uh fairly decent tenure in the organisation.  And  I have  a fairly substantial team of about 80 people.  For those that don't know much about Qatar Airways,  best airline in the world for uh nine times actually.

01:27
And  interesting story, when I got there, we were  number two  in the world. We'd lost our position as the world's best airline to Singapore Airlines, I think it was. And then the following year we won it back and I went to see my boss and I knocked on her door and I said,  just wanted to ask, know, last year we number two, I joined, we now number one? Is there any correlation between those two things?  There is now. There is now.

01:53
But yeah, it's a very interesting organization, very uh operationally focused, as you can imagine with it being an airline and  it's very, very fast paced, made up of multiple subsidiaries that come together to create  what the airline is. So you've got obviously operational side of things. You've got an airport, you've got duty free, you've got catering, uh interesting stuff about catering. uh We make 200,000

02:22
fresh meals every day.  The only airline in the world that does fresh meals. So that goes some way to the,  you know, to the, to the best outline. Obviously we have flight operations, which is all the pilots and how they, you know, how they're trained and everything else, cabin crew, et cetera. So it's  a huge organization, about 65,000 people, one of the biggest employers in Qatar and obviously the flagship airline of the country,  flagship carrier. So yeah, it's it's a very interesting  part of the world.

02:51
Qatar has  around about, I think, 2.3 million inhabitants,  of which the local population is probably between 200 300,000. So  you can see  how the eclectic mix of all these different nationalities and cultures coming together in the country uh is quite an interesting  scenario to be in.  And amazingly, you you think, I think it was about 25 years ago, we had two aircraft.

03:21
And now we've got, I think, maybe over 250 different aircraft flights, 170 different locations across the world, you know, built by, you know, generally one person or all these people that came in and had this vision for the country, you know, for Qatar. And it's an interesting place to work. It's very fast paced. And yeah, we have, you know, a very 24 seven kind of culture because of the

03:49
the fact that we fly 24-7 although I'm quite lucky my  I'm not really 24-7 but as an organization we are yeah I think that's a fantastic sense of scope for something like this I think very often when you're  you're based within an organization that is either well it is in a single country  or it almost has a

04:10
a very vertical product or service, you're able to kind of rationalize it a lot more than the reality of, well, it may look like one, it might present as one thing, but it's made up of, it's like maybe Europe and you go, yeah, you know, that's not one country. Yes, that's a good analogy actually. is that kind of, it presents in one way, but in truth, it's very, very different. So I'm really interested in the scope.

04:38
of what is under your purview really.  And I think that that just would be in the hearing  the  context of your  kind of where you're operating, it'd be great just to understand, okay then, so what's,  you know, not so much starting at A and working through to Z, but what's the reality of what your coverage is in terms of expectations of that.

05:03
um The biggest part of my function is operations, right? So  I have probably just over 50 % of my team that look after operational training. um And that  is  things like dangerous goods and cargo training, driver development, health and safety, service excellence, reservation, ticketing. things that keep the aircraft in the air. um And my team tend to do a lot of virtual training. And so they are, be...

05:31
24 seven because if you're training somebody let's say based in the US and we've got the big time gap then there's a difference there so we're following the Sun in that respect but they also go out to all the international stations so if for example

05:44
we have a ground handling change at a certain  location.  My team will go out and  retrain the new ground handling staff  or if we open a new station, we've opened a few actually in  Syria, for example, Aleppo and a few other places.  And so my guys would go out there as a kind of cohort of people over a period of maybe six weeks, two months,  and train up the  location in terms of how we should be doing stuff. So they tend to do a lot of traveling, these guys.  So that's my operation.

06:14
team and so they're pretty full-on busy and they do a lot of work uh with the kind of operational side of our business as you know as they should do.  They also have a remit to do driver development for some of the  external organizations that go into the airport so  in the airport you have airside and landside and obviously airside where you've got the buses and things driving around the airport and  the little trolley trucks with your luggage on and stuff.

06:43
you know, they've got to be safe. So my guys train these guys that come in. And so I've got a bit of a PNL in that respect. we revenue generation for some of the external organizations that we bring in.  Then I have a typical L and D team, I guess is how you would phrase it. We've got ah what we call our learning and skills function, which is the.

07:01
generic L &D leadership management,  know, ad hoc programs and other stuff that we do across the organization.  Within that team, I've got uh a learning management system set up. we  have...

07:15
just implemented a learning experience platform. So I've got  the learning technology stack and that includes the content as well. So we use an external content provider for our  content plus  in-house developed stuff. And I've got quite a big  internal team that develops in-house content, uh e-learning, digital, those kinds of things that will go on in LMS. uh And on the...

07:40
kind of administrative side. I've got a small admin team  plus some project managers  and  basically  those guys look after my contracts and my vendors.  So we've got  multiple vendors that we look after,  multiple contracts that we have to go through to renew and everything else. So  it's almost like an autonomous  learning business actually. And I've always  run  the business like it was.

08:07
my own business, but obviously with a corporate mindset.  And I've tried to run it in that, if I'm gonna spend this money, uh if that was my money, what I wanna spend it. And so  we got a fairly hefty budget, 80 people in the team and we're connected across the organization  in various parts. So it's a nice mix and I've never  worked in aviation before. And the operational side for me was a really...

08:34
difficult thing to get my head around about what these guys do. But  I'm hoping to go to a station opening next year, which will be quite an eye opener.  I'm thinking maybe, I don't know, New York or Singapore,  somewhere terrible like that.  Pick your moment.  What about the one over there?  I'll wait. Aleppo, not for me, thanks.

08:57
So this is about, it feels as if, mean, A, it's an operation.  And it also feels as if this is your mindset. And correct me  if I'm misinterpreting, but  of course I'm internal, but this is a supplier of choice mentality. It feels as if what you're saying is, yeah, I am internal, so in essence, you're gonna use me. However,  if I'm not careful, I fall into the trap potentially of...

09:21
you know, sort of being able to be the lowest common denominator because you've got to,  but your mindset seems to be let's operate at a level as if we were vying for the business. Yeah. Because then that creates a non-entrepreneurial, but it  creates a kind of imperative to  operate at a certain level. Have I heard that?  That's 100 % correct. Yeah. And I think, um,

09:44
You know,  my view is that any internal L &D team, if you're not offering up your services the best  it can be for the organisation, the organisation will go somewhere else, right? And they'll spend their money somewhere else. And they'll find a way of spending that money somewhere else. uh And so not that we cross-charge, but what I want us to have is the best offering that we can have  in the organisation. So the organisation sees us as that supplier of choice, as you say, they go, we should go to group learning because they produce good stuff.  And I think,  you know, if you lose sight of that,

10:13
uh service you're providing to the organization. You don't provide the quality of service. The organization will let you know about it for one.  And then they'll find somebody else. And then, you you're starting to lose the battle because then other people will go, well, we've got, you know, 50 vendors, you know, and actually what we should have is vendors of choice plus group learning as one of the vendors that we might need to use. So that's kind of how I run it  in terms of  the quality  that we do. And um I think,  you know,

10:43
The team this year, we won 11 Brandon Hall Awards. And you put that into context that EY won 16, right? So EY is what 400,000 people, you know, and we won 11. So I'm very proud of the quality of the stuff that we've been delivering. So I think that kind of bears out in what you were saying, supplier of choice, we're obviously providing quality learning for the organization. So yeah, very happy with that.

11:13
Yeah, think that's quite,  I think it's quite tangible when you  have a, sometimes you get a remit,  which is come in and,  and a CEO or whoever the executive team go, we have  disparate groups,  we're gonna put a...

11:28
if I PNL  and woe betide anybody that gives you any problems, well, okay, that's  kind of like, oh, happy days.  Right, because you can leverage off that.  At the other end, you've got this kind of almost build this and they will come,  but you've got to build something of a quality  that gets scores on the doors.  And I think that's an interesting dynamic  of there's an expectation that...

11:53
group supplies a function, but at the same time, people can go and do their own  thing.  So it's a,  I guess how do you manage that?  Because there's a patience, there's a timeline, there's a reality  of if I come in all guns blazing, I can lose the room.  But if I'm not careful,  and there's no impetus to. m

12:14
come to the centre on certain things,  I lose the room.  So  that's an interesting one, I think.  It  is a balance. think, for context, when I joined in July 23,

12:28
we'd come off the back of COVID and then the World Cup. So, you know, I wasn't there for the World Cup, unfortunately, but my understanding is that, you know, the country came together for the World Cup and that included the airline, you know, and everybody was focused on delivering the best World Cup that could ever been delivered. And so...

12:48
On the back of that, my team didn't have a leader. So there were uh three functions working well, but maybe not working well together.  So I had to  look at it overall and go, okay, so what do I need to do here? And I had,  obviously, the opportunity to look at all the different aspects of it, how it was working,  understand what's going on in the organization. There are  multiple other learning teams in the organization that I've had to build relationships with, cabin services, for example, which is quite a niche area.

13:18
cabin crew,  flight operations.

13:21
not interested in training pilots, thank you very much.  But I work in  what they call the Flight Deck Training Academy where all the simulators are and it's quite an impressive place to go. And then there are the pockets of L &D across the organization, right? And I think as the company's grown organically over the years,  I think like most organizations, you tend to find  you get a centralized function, then it gets dispersed out again to a federated model and it becomes, it's almost like a cycle of things going  on.

13:51
So I've had to build relationships with a lot of people that have been doing stuff themselves, right? And you can't go in there and say, right, you're just going to go and do it my way now because they go, well, who are you? You've just joined, what do you know about the airline? you have to kind of And I've got my own P &L and I don't have to. It's not that big. But yeah, I mean, think, I've had to build relationships with a lot of these guys across the organization and try to bring people together to come on a little journey.

14:19
One of the things I did just after I joined  so early in 2024,  I had a conference. So I had a conference internally and...

14:31
I challenged all of my vendors. So I challenged, don't know, said, I them vendors. We're calling them partners, actually. They're partners.  And I said, right, you know, I'm going to have a conference  in Doha  for my team and, you know, HR and a few others. uh Will you come and support it? And to be fair, they all came across for  no cost at all. So, you know, we had, you know, Harvard, Udemy,  LinkedIn Learning,  NIIT, Cornerstone, all these big vendors came over en masse and we had

15:01
like a mini conference. um again,  what I was trying to do is to kind of build firstly a relationship with those guys because I didn't have a relationship with them when I joined. And then I did the same thing again. um

15:16
this year, right in the beginning of the year, but for all of L &D across the whole organization. So was about,  I think it was about 300 people at the conference this year. uh And again, it's that it's building that uh trust and relationship with people that have got their own  agendas in that they've got to deliver operational training or they've got to deliver leadership training for cabin crew or  whatever it is they're doing. So I think  being a little bit humble and not coming in all guns blazing, as you say, to try and...

15:44
So right, is how we're gonna do it because...

15:47
you would never get anywhere. it's understanding the dynamics of the different parts of organization  and why they do things, how they do it and how you can bring them on that journey.  And I've really tried to create a community of practice of all of the L and D practitioners in the organization,  which has been  quite an interesting mix of bringing people together and  just listening to their ideas and having,  what do you think about this? Or how can we do customer experience, for example?  And uh it's created a nice

16:17
little buzz. So that's almost like a collegiate kind of correct thing you're trying to create that I have a little sense I don't know I offer what jumps into my mind. Here we go.  Buckle up.  Which is it's a little bit like when you walk past a shop sometimes and there's somebody out there with a plate and they go try that and you might go we might go that's really good.

16:41
What is that? And then I'm interested and then maybe I'll come back or maybe I'll go in and I'll buy,  you know, I buy the whole shop, but I'll buy a bit. So it feels as if  through  setting up those kind of learning enterprises by creating a collegiate space, actually you're giving, I  mean,  you have an intention  rather than a directive.

17:03
And I think people can sense that yeah, if there's a directive well, hey, then, you know He's clearly got a directive to come out and so  but then well if I don't have You all the controls in the world that I might instinctively like actually  I have to  they make it appealing but I have to appeal to people  So I think I hear that  in what you're saying

17:27
Yeah, I think, you you've got to build those relationships, right? And  I think that's the most important thing  in any relationship. You start off and I always start off with, you know, the trust element. You know, I would rather trust them than mistrust them, you know, at the beginning  and  just just connecting with people  rather than having a narrative and saying this is how we should be doing it. Listening to what they've got to say, because  to pretty much everybody in that space had.

17:56
far more experience in airline L &D than I ever have.  And so I wanted to make sure that firstly, you I could test and  adjust what ideas I had in terms of  how this might land in different parts of organisation.  But also  to get them to say, well, we've got a leadership programme, what about this? you know, can we join them together? And can we therefore  make it  more...

18:20
group-wide rather than it being specific for a particular part of the organization. And I think that's,  that's  almost, mean, you know, these things take time, right? You know, we're starting to kind of  see the fruit of that effort now where we're bringing people together to  co-deliver and be part of different programs.

18:41
And I think, you know, what I really wanted to do was just to build this, as you say, this collegiate, this community of practice of L &D practitioners that could come and share knowledge and, you know, connect and have a space where we can ideate and create and just be L &D people, really. I am, I hear that. I think there's something quite interesting about, you know, you're not taking it, I'm giving it to you.

19:08
You know, which is,  and I have to let go of that sometimes. If I'm doing something and I know that I have  created a model for the want of a better word,  and I have this particular feedback model, which, et cetera. And at first, I used to be very protective of it, because I knew the second I show it to anybody that's in  this space, boom, it'll go.  But of course that meant that I didn't share it.

19:33
What do you do? Yeah. So there is a part of you that has to go, okay, there is probably, uh you know.

19:39
there is a point maybe where actually all you're doing is taking and let's have that conversation. But in truth, that ability to create a space where you're not taking it, it's not like I'll go in and take the ideas. No, it's a gift.  The  experience is a gift, the thought, the thinking is a gift.  And that's what I'm hearing. Yeah. And I see that as, um you know, someone wants to take my idea and go and run with it. Then I think it must be a good idea, right? I wouldn't take it as rubbish, right?  So I think,  you know, it kind of stands that

20:09
where,  and also you get  genuine feedback on it from L &D practitioners, right, and they will give you an  honest view of it. And if somebody wants to take it away and use it, I...

20:20
you know, why not?  Why shouldn't we be sharing our best practices and ideas? And  I, you know, we always say this steal with pride phrase, but  you know, I've taken lots of stuff from other people and  incorporated it into my function. And you know, I don't feel any shame in that. think, you know,  everybody's got something to bring to the table.  think I totally right. Nobody invents anything for the first time, they? exactly. know, every pilot, you know, didn't steal the knowledge.  He went somewhere, he learned it. He took it.

20:50
hope you did.  I'm stealing that.  Well, it's all right, you can have it.  It's that kind of thing.  And I think that's very interesting. I'm also very  intrigued by,  very often if somebody's, they're in a single country, there's a singular culture.  And then of course you have characters within a culture. So I think there's two things going on there. And very often you don't necessarily think of a...

21:17
an indigenous culture  if we're all of that culture.  And that it's the focus probably is more on just characteristics.  But actually,  if we say that humans have a relatively shared group of characteristics, but actually, no, now it's cultural and that comes into it.  So I don't even know what the question is other than I'm just interested in  where does the culture,  where does does differentiating cultures make it maybe  amazing, but also make it

21:46
hard work and that's you know that's not pointing at anybody it's just the truth of it.  Yes  so in my function I've got 17 different nationalities out of 80 people so that's quite a  quite a big mix I think as a group we've got some 170 different nationalities so there's such a broad mix of people

22:09
And I think you tend to find that obviously the country itself has its own  national culture.  What I really  believe and what I've seen from the organization is that  there is something about...

22:27
we're there to create a legacy for the country  because there is a big push to ensure that  local talent  rises to the top and becomes the leaders of organizations as you would expect them to do.  But they need that support as well. I think there's  kind of part of the organization that  just wants to really  push.

22:52
the nationals to the best positions they can get in.  And that takes a bit of time, right? You know, can't just come in as a graduate and the next week you're gonna be, you know, chief of something, right? You know, so it takes a bit of time. And I think that cultural side of things is important because um a lot of the the Kattery uh colleagues that I have

23:14
never work outside of the country, right? know,  majority of people tend to stay in the country. They might study  in the UK or wherever, you US,  but they tend to work in the country. So  it's a small mix and they all know each other, but they have to then  integrate with,  you know, people that come from all over the world, right? And so  that's an interesting uh dynamic  and...

23:40
you know,  the guys that come in on the grad scheme come in at a certain grade  and they will be equivalent to somebody that's maybe got 10 years experience. And  how do they therefore then  manage somebody that has got,  you know, 10 years experience  over and above that, you know, they're very, very academically  qualified,  but maybe not got the experience. And I think  what I've been...

24:07
The way I kind of look at it is that I feel it's a little bit like Sandhurst, right? You know, I'm ex-military, right? Just about to say that you beat me to it. And you know, you go through one year of training at Sandhurst, right? You know, the guys come out as young officers, they go to their unit and they turn up and the platoon sergeant goes, right, sir, go and sit in the corner and watch what I do. You know, and they take them around the organiser, you know, the...

24:34
platoon and they get more and more confident about what they do and I think  that's something from a cultural perspective that we have to be very cognizant of right you know we are  guests in their country  and therefore you know  we have a legacy to leave you know the CPO keeps saying we've got a legacy to  help the country to get where it wants to be every  every pretty much every Middle Eastern country's got a vision a national vision 2030 is is country national vision and it's about

25:02
elevating their local talent, building out the country, bringing wealth into the country and everything else. So there's that kind of aspect of the culture around our local colleagues, our national colleagues. And they're a really, really nice nation of people, very, very nice people. And then you have the other side of it, which is the multiple cultures across the whole of the organization.

25:32
you tend to find that some of them sit together, know, so the Indians and the Filipinos and others,  when they go for their lunches and stuff.  So there's a little bit of, um you know, breaking down those kinds of barriers.  I created, certainly from my function, I created a few things that  we do. So we have a lunch and learn,  which is  a monthly thing where we get external people come in from maybe, I don't know,  medical division or whatever.

25:57
And we have to sit together and we all have to sit together and you can't just sit with your mates, know,  and your fellow countrymen.  And we try and mix it up as well. And we have  other things that we try and bring people together on.  I think from a cultural perspective, it's an interesting one. And when you're leading a multicultural team like that, uh it's a tough balance to find the right balance of how you um connect with different nationalities.

26:27
you know, some nationalities are quite acquiescent.  Some nationalities are quite, um I'm not going to mention  any nationalities,  but some are quite robust. know,  some people  don't particularly take feedback very well if it's direct, for example. I know you've had  Amy Edmondson on your podcast, right, if we're talking about culture.  But I think, you know,

26:52
it's a balance of how you manage the different aspects of that.  And I've always tried to be  fair across  everybody,  in terms of how I've managed the function. so,  extrapolate that out to the rest of the organization. Some of the areas you just think,  they're quite, a few thousand people with all those different nationalities, must be quite tough.  But it's a challenge.  But I think if you can... uh

27:19
bring people along on a journey with you and have them involved in it, regardless of where they're from.  there's a purpose when you come into work, right? I think that  kind of helps to create  the right culture and not segregate the cultures into their various nationalities, you know?  I find that to be true where people's motivations are their own.  And  one of the biggest mistakes I  see is somebody saying, well,  what should motivate you is, you go, well,

27:49
you know, that might be all right with somebody maybe that's incredibly young, incredibly naive and needs guidance. I would understand that.  But as you get more  mature, more kind of worldly wise people, well,  how about you don't tell me what motivates me.  But I do like this idea of layered possibility of engagement. It could be that what you're really focused on or you like or motivates you is the country.  That really floats your boat. For others, well, it's the company. For others,  it's my...

28:19
my own progress, you know, I'm not being selfish if I say that. Or  for other person, it's the team.  Or,  and maybe it's a jigsaw piece from each puzzle, or maybe, you know what, right now I'm all about,  you know, and that may  shift, somebody's motivation might shift where when I was ex- I wasn't really bothered about the country per se, but now I'm all over that or the other way around. So I think these,  knowing  what could be the motivations for people.  For me then, the accountability is,

28:48
you'll,  I can't find that connection for you. But if I see negative behavior and  your willingness to contribute  to none of those things,  because they would all require a way of behaving that would work out well if you're just trying to help the team or if it's for  the company or  then the truth of it then is the behavior would be one of contribution, the behavior would be one of,  but if none of those make you want to do it.

29:17
then Houston we may have a problem.  So I think I'm intrigued by that kind of people finding their own  reasons to engage, I guess. Yeah,  and um one of the things I saw a few years ago was um there was a scandal, I think, in the Australian military. And I saw this video, this Australian general, said, the standard you walk by is the standard you accept. And it kind of struck a chord with me, you know,  and I kind of tried to ensure that.

29:46
you know, certainly in my area of the business and where I work is, you know, we keep a standard, right, you know, and if you slip below that standard, then as you say, Houston, we've got a problem and just trying to get people to recognise that actually, you know, turn up to work on time or, know, it's like, know, get out of bed in the morning, make your bed, that kind of thing, you your first success. If you can't get into work on time, you know, what is the challenge here? And it might be...

30:15
an underlying issue that they've got as an individual or a family or whatever. And that's always something that, you know, sort of I have to bear in mind when people are  potentially not coming to work or it could be something in the work, you know, do we have somebody that's bullying or,  you know, so think having that  a little bit of intuition around uh flexibility, but with some guidelines for me really helps to. Yeah, I think standards are  an important thing.

30:42
people can get very locked into generational differences and  you can disappear down rabbit holes that prevent you from  action.  Because if you're  being sensitive to a thing is one thing, but being having a,  having the calibration on this microphone, well, it should be sensitive, but  if it's set too high, it's going to distort.  I think that's the same for these things. And I think there are things that cut through  culture.

31:12
characteristics, age, you know, for example, just, I think that word, treat people with respect. Now we can have a conversation about what that might mean, I guess, and calibrate around the edges, but we all know what bullying looks like. It doesn't matter where you are in the world. We all know, except turning up on time. Yeah, of course, there might be a reason, but without one, my expectation is, so it doesn't really matter if you're 18 or 80, it doesn't.

31:39
or if you're from Timbuktu or China, it doesn't matter. There are just certain things that are just  universally true. And  I think that setting a standard is the unifier.  And that seems to be something that I think I'm  hearing. Yeah, I mean, if you can't turn up to work on time, what are you doing when you get to work, right? If you can't get out of bed and get into work and get into work on time and then...

32:05
throughout the day, what are you gonna be doing? If you can't be motivated to get into work on time, right? And we've got a flex of an hour as well, right? know, between seven and eight is the working time to get in. So you can either work from seven to 3.30 or eight to 4.30. So there's flex there, there's enough flex for people. But I think, you know, what it's enabled me to do also is that by setting that standard, if people are turning up a little bit late, then I can see, well, maybe there is bit of a challenge here and having that.

32:35
foresight to go and say hey, know, is everything okay? Is everything all right at home?  And it's amazing actually that  it is a bit of a trigger, you know, if something out of the ordinary happens.  to make an observation if it's not against a standard. Exactly, yeah. What am I observing? I'm observing behavior, but in relation to what?  So it doesn't have to be authoritarian,  but actually if I don't have a sense of what good might look like,  at least within a bandwidth of good.

33:04
Yeah, right. Even if it's not a kind of a very linear, well, that's good or else on the lappy,  then how do I have,  how do I check in? How do I reference it? How do I, how do I know? And I think actually that's one of the big things that in this kind of leadership cultural space, you know, think having  an awareness of and being sensitive to and paying attention to all great stuff and should happen.  But actually, if you have clear,  there's two words for me I've been working with a lot over the last couple of years, which is clear stand.

33:34
and clear intention. know, this is intention, this is what we're going to do and standards and this is who we're going to be while we're doing it. Yeah, I agree. Bum bum. I agree. At its most simple, that's it. Yeah, I agree. It's like a book on running, isn't it? Left foot, right foot, continue. How hard can it be? Of course it's more complex. But at its most kind of, kind of, if we just all agree that, that's our starting point. And that feels like what

34:03
Yeah, I I think that's right.  I  hope we're not, well, we may touch on AI, but  there's a lot of stuff going on around AI and everything else. And whilst I'm kind of interested in what that means, I'm more interested in the human side, actually, of how we work together with kind of AI and that human-centered leadership.  For me, it really hasn't changed. It's not going to change.

34:31
Actually, it's even more important now that we have to be human-centered and we have to connect with people. We have to have empathy. We have to be,  you know,  sympathetic to what's happening in the world and everything else, right? Because  as  other stuff takes over, who knows what's going to happen in the future, but I think it's important. uh And I've always tried to live by that rule of being, you know, human-centered person because you never know what someone's going through, right? You know?

34:56
Everybody comes into work with with you know baggage that might be happening at home, right? But they come in and they're in work and they've got stuff going on  and I think it's it's one of those things I've really tried to  Get across to my guys right, you know, there's psychological safety here. Things are not going well Speak up, you know don't don't  simmer on it because if people start this is an undercurrent of unhappiness You know,  it can be quite insidious, right?  Yeah, I'm  totally fascinated by commercial cultural

35:26
Yeah, and it's you it's maybe it's like being a parent  Maybe there is the perfect parents and somewhere there is the perfect company doing the perfect job  I'd love to know who you are Because every family I know,  know,  it's it's bonkers and brilliant Yeah, you're right every business I know that does what it's bonkers and brilliant and if it's two bonkers, that's not good And if there isn't enough brilliance, that's a problem. So listen, it's always it's always a balance. But yeah, I think I do here in there that um

35:56
I'm really fascinated by the reality of balancing the human truth of, and now at 56, I now know that we all carry stuff, whatever that might be. It may have been a long time ago, maybe just this morning, and the odd person, no, it's been a plain sale, but most of us, there's stuff. And I'm...

36:23
really intrigued I guess by, this isn't even aware you are, this is just your take on this, is when we talk about being sensitive to, and psychological safety is a word that we hear a lot of, I'm very interested by this, somebody said to me, well people shouldn't feel under threat guy, and I went, hmm, I don't know if that's true, I think people shouldn't be threatened, but if you're holding somebody,

36:51
to account for performance and there is a timeline associated with it. Even if I'm gonna coach you, train you, counsel you and you're gonna move into my spare bedroom and I'm gonna work with you every day to make this work.  So by golly, I'm gonna support you to the end. You still might feel under threat.  Even if we're doing absolutely everything to hold you during that process, because guess what? We are a commercial enterprise.  So psychological safety to me doesn't  mean...

37:20
Easy. No, I agree. Does that make there's an accountability there? Right. You've got to be accountable for your actions. And yeah,  it's it's not a  cop out for anything. Right. You know,  but but  I agree, you know, and I think I mean, performance  is an age old thing, right. In any organization, how do you how do you measure our performance and make sure that, you know, you've got people that are performing at the right level.  But also, think

37:50
For me as well, there's a flip side around people being able to come and say, hey, look, I've got a bit of a challenge here. How do I take this forward or how do I increase that person's performance or whatever it is? If they can't speak up like that, then there's a knock on effect of them feeling that they can't manage that person, right? And so I think there's a real kind of balance between being open enough to be able to say, okay, you

38:20
we're all in a safe space here. But also, as you say, there's an accountability because as you said, the bottom line is we are there to support the organisation, to make money, to build the country, whatever, in our example. So yeah, and when you've got multiple cultures as well, as I say, we've got 17 different nationalities in my function from kind of all parts of the globe, UK, Jamaica.

38:49
Africa, Kenya, Uganda, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia, yada yada.  It's a massive melting pot of,  I have to say when we have a potluck, if you know what a potluck is, where everybody brings their food in, it's amazing, right? But  yeah, it's the best day ever. uh yeah, it's tough because you're managing somebody.

39:10
that could be, like I say, you if they're very acquiescent, you know, how do you get the best out of somebody that doesn't want to challenge back? Well, that's really interesting, isn't it? Because you can say, hey, in this team, you know, we need to be able to put things on the table. Well,  one person's cultural characteristics might be a bluntness.  But also somebody may not have those cultural characteristics, but their character is quite blunt. Yes.  Yes. Now, which one are we talking about?  And I find that.

39:39
really interesting and that's where it gets very  well that's that's the craft isn't it if it was easy everybody would do it because i think right  so  the point is and i think also  that's where i think the nuances of conversation um and i think that's one of the big things for me is and back to your point of that collegiate space is it requires conversation to  have  a line of sight and maybe to create a

40:08
you when you have a floor, they put a leveling compound on it,  right? And because all the bumps and it ends up level, not here, not there, level.  And maybe that's what that is. It's that ability to meet in the  middle.  And  I have this  real idea around leadership is leading in context.  And what I mean by that is,

40:32
You manage your preference. I'll manage my preference. But our context here is we are agreeing that's what good looks like. Because if,  especially with psychometric profiles and stuff like that, there's a rabbit  Warren of  what you need to adjust to everybody.  Well,  it's not that it doesn't help to make adjustments for people, but actually if we're talking to people on mass in groups at pace, I cannot  shift my variables to every single one. So why don't we just all agree what

41:02
good looks like. You dilute it, right? If you try and meet everybody's needs right, you're going to dilute it and you'll never be able to do that. So I think, you know, having that purpose. too quick, too much.  Having that purpose. If we're all on the same purpose moving forward,  as long as people are behaving in the right way and interact with people in right way,  then I think for me, that's a good sign. You know, I think  it's  having that  one

41:31
purpose, one direction of where to go. And it would be boring if everybody was the same, right? Let's face it, you've got different characteristics and you can use those characteristics of different people for different things, right? Because they'll all have different skills, different strengths, different areas of development. I think that's And holding those truths, I saw this fantastic picture literally this morning and it was around autism, my little boy has autism, and there was a row of berries and it went sweet.

42:01
sharp, squishy, hard, and each berry had a different feel to it. I love that. And he said,  so why doesn't he like those? And then it had a picture of these little biscuits and he want every one of them  is the same. Why does he like these? Well, that's why. And I thought that is one of the best pictures I've ever seen because actually if you want everybody to be a biscuit, right,  it becomes either you end up with the lowest common denominator.

42:29
or it becomes incredibly performative because actually if that's the template standard, how I get rewarded or blah, blah, blah, blah, I will perform to that. And if we have a high reward capability, but if I'm performing, not just performing commercially, but if I'm performative, right? But actually,  we, are we comfortable with all the berries being slightly different?  And I find that as a visual, also a way of  our  tolerance may be the wrong word, but our...

42:59
embracing sounds a little bit too woke, but there's something in the middle that is about our comfort, our desire to manage the ambiguity. Yeah. And I think, it reminds me of, think it was in the invincible sort of, you know, these kinds of animated things where there's a family of four, you know, the father, the mother and all this sort of stuff. And one of the baddies is this kid with this crazy hair. I know exactly what you're watching. I can't believe you're watching that. on.

43:25
He's these and the fathers are lunatic. Yeah, but it but but the the baddie that baddie says, you know, if everybody's super then nobody is You know, and that's really stuck in me. Actually, it's quite a profound phrase because if everybody's amazing Yeah, nobody's amazing because you're all the same as a standard of normal. Yeah, and so if you normalize it and I we normalize the curve in performance, right? You know Somebody someone has to be at the bottom generally and somebody's has to be at the top right and and if you have everybody the same

43:55
You can't differentiate, you can't reward, you can't be recognized. How do you performance manage people if they're all the same?  So it makes it much more difficult, think, to your  blueberry or whatever it was that was squishy, sweet, sour.  But that's more interesting, right? If everybody was boring at work, mean, imagine,  would you want to go to work where everybody's a biscuit?  That's a t-shirt.  That might be my next book. Do you want to work wherever it is, a biscuit?

44:25
That's the best front cover ever. was a little bit. take credit for that. Yeah. I a brilliant. I was a little bit. We've said baddies. Yeah. Yeah. oh gosh. Yeah. And I think that's that's that's for me is I think actually the common denominator is competence is very much an expectation and a drive. Now characteristics.

44:54
your own  and  as long as they add value  even  in sometimes  their awkwardness.  Right? Because actually you being a pain in the butt  has made me go away and rethink how I need to  offer that or  you've made me better because now I've actually rubbed up against something that's abrasive  and now I've got to find a better way of saying it.  So actually until we all become the perfect entities  you know and float off.

45:24
you know, from our natural bodies and become energy forms  until that day comes,  it's always going to be like that.  And that's okay. As long as, and  years ago I read, heard, whatever, I've taken it as my own now, it's okay to affect the situation, i.e. well, you clearly don't agree, but you can't infect.  And it's that  not wanting people to infect, that's clear. Not wanting people to affect the situation, as in what you just want agreement, you just want contribution.

45:53
people do affect the room and that's okay. Yeah, well you're being awkward. Yeah, I know.  That's okay.  Yeah.  But I think that, as you say, that creates the tension, right? And if you've got that tension, then  you know that if there's no status quo, then there's something not quite right, right? And so you should investigate that, right? If everything was smooth. Yeah.  I'd be worried if everything was going smooth. I'd be thinking, right, what's going on here? So I've missed something here, you know. So Stepford Wives, everybody's smiling.  What, all the time?

46:23
Yeah, we never argue. What, never? It's like, yeah, so there's clear hatred here, amassed  by a social veneer. Yeah, so, and that's the thing, right, you know, there's something then insidious under the surface, right? If people don't feel they can speak up or don't feel they can contribute, I think,  you know, I've got all these guys, they've all got a lot of experiences in different parts of the world, different organisations, everything else, you know, they've all got something to bring to the party, right? And if you don't...

46:52
take that into account,  you're missing it. It could be the smallest thing that could actually turn out to be something quite huge for the function or the organisation, whatever.  But if you don't take that into account, I think you'd be remiss as a leader not  to recognise the differences. And I think it's one of the things that I'm very alert to is people that are trying to  iron out anything that is an abrasion  through  ironing out certain words, ironing out certain behaviours,  and actually...

47:20
For me, that's not what it is. It's absolutely that's not acceptable. Right? That is a big no-no.  But also I think, you if you pick up the stick, you get both ends.  Right. Having it so docile, so ambivalent, so neutral that we can't really offer, well, if you talk like that, people feel threatened.  Well, no, people may feel under threat, but let's be clear, they're not being threatened.  We do need to educate. Yeah, there is. I think we do need to educate a comfort.

47:50
with the tension and hold people to account for being neutral and bland and passive  and  berating others for being comfortable with the tension, but also  being super comfortable with that doesn't mean then you can just go around being a git.  There's a midpoint where  there's an interesting balance  of that and if we can get that right,  then we can just be very human.

48:19
and maybe we're all learning to operate in that  mid space. And I think with the cultures and  whatever, that becomes uh something that  intellectually I know what you're talking about, but I haven't experienced it. So  I find that quite fascinating.  It's taken a lot of getting used to, have to say. I've worked in  multiple organisations with a few different nationalities, but when you've got such a...

48:46
of nationalities is quite an interesting mix. And actually  in our organisation at the moment, we've got a huge range of ages as well.  So a lot of our cabin crew are quite young.  And then you've got our executive right at the top end of the age scale. So you've got a breadth of  maybe from 20 right away through to  mid sixties in the organisation.  And these generation things now happen even more because  people are working longer because they have to. m

49:13
It's an interesting thing.  One of the things we're just  considering as well is, how do we kind of,  as an example around reverse mentoring,  in terms of technology and some of the stuff that's happening around AI and other bits, right?  Some of our senior leaders probably know what AI stands for, but do they really know how to utilise it? And then  you've got some of the young kids that come in and they're like, they're just whiz kids on  anything to do with technology. I'm fascinated, but I've got to climb right now.

49:42
one of the MDs when I just  don't want AI in our business. That's interesting. uh

49:52
That's just a hell of a statement to make, isn't it? You know, and that's, just don't want bit presumptuous, right? Yeah, exactly. understand. You don't want certain, you know, but what you mean is there are things about it that you don't like  that you're concerned about and maybe it takes out your worry that it takes out the ability for people to think and their ability to grow. I understand that. But yeah, there is a relationship. I use AI, chat GPT in such a way. Well, I literally don't.

50:20
For example, with Google, used to use that. was, remember when it first came out  and I saw that clean screen and I did my first search and it said, you know, and it told you the speed it actually found the search in. Oh my God. You know, you went from Yahoo and Ask Jeeves to this instant thing.  And now for various reasons, Google's got sponsors. You have to fight to find the flipping search. Now I'm using ChatGPT for all sorts of things and I'm using it like a search engine.

50:46
And it is amazing how that shift, even in one lifetime, no internet, a revelation of the internet, and even now that's old in the format of it. Amazing. And I speak to a group of senior people and we talk about TikTok, and one of them goes, yeah, it's just dancing videos, isn't it? I at first, but now it's probably the most accessible source of media, probably globally along with Twitter. it? I where do you get your news from? Well.

51:15
BBC,  nine o'clock. Yeah. And that's generational. And that's where the generational difference is really.  And I think that's, that's a,  yeah.  And I think I'm very interested in just  the time we've got left is that  managing that  desire to work with it, that what it can bring in, but also not letting it become the dominant force because it's often, it's not perfect. It's a long way from being perfect.  how does that kind of,

51:46
Yeah, does that factor in with the learning teams that wanting to use that kind of thing and bring it in? think, mean, yeah, 100%. We are still in the nascent stages of looking at AI in the organization. We've now got a co-pilot and we're starting to use it for certain things. I really am pushing my guys to use it for, you when we've got...

52:13
somebody comes in and says, we need to do X, Y, Z, know, stick it in co-pilot, see what comes out. You know, it might be 30 % good, but it's 30 % you'd have to create, right? You know, and so it's a case of, it gives you a starting point. They do the heavy lifting. Yeah. mean, you know, I'm doing this coaching course tomorrow, you know, aspire to the sort of stuff that you're doing. do it with a company called ITD World based in Malaysia. Really amazed some of that. I mean, I had a coaching session with John Matone, which was just incredible.

52:41
But all of my notes that I took over a period of the first module from all my books I read and everything else,  I just typed it all into chat GPT and said, right, know, few prompts, find me some themes here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it came out and I was like, this is unbelievable. I mean, unbelievable. It would have taken me weeks to probably sift through all my notes and everything else.  And you just scan it in, take pictures of it, whatever it was.  And I put it in and it just came up with this kind of complete.

53:08
outlook of what I'd been studying for the last five weeks.  I think that's where I'm trying to get my guys now to, you know, to come up with, you know, if you want to lead your framework, put it in. What does a leisure framework look like for an airline, right? As a starting point and then build your prompts on top of that after it goes through.  It might be perfect, but it will give you a starting point.  think the bit I don't quite know is I know that I know quite a lot. I also know I don't know a load of stuff, but I mean, now in my mid fifties, I know quite a lot. So when I interact with

53:38
I'm operating from a pretty high knowledge base in my specialty. Therefore,  when it does the heavy lifting, I can calibrate around the edges.  I think the  bit I'm  less sure about is if you're starting out  and  then you're using it as your knowledge source  to advise you.

54:02
or to learn from. I haven't gone through that. I think, you know, me working with it because I'm supplying 90 % of the thinking, it's not doing the thinking for me. But if I don't have that knowledge, I wonder what depend, for some it wouldn't, it would always remain a tool. But for others, the dependency that could be bred around that. It's something I haven't even got an answer to, but I imagine, like some people use social media when they feel like it, others can't get off it.

54:31
So there'll always be those characteristics. I think internally you need to watch out for them. I'm interested by that. Interesting, yeah. I think, you know, as say, we're at the nascent stages of what we're doing. I'm currently working with one of our  guys to look at innovation slash  AI Academy. What does that look like for us?  And I think  the real critical thing is that it's just a tool.

54:58
Right, we still need to have some inputs and ideation, some creation in there to be able to. Yeah, exactly. want to use it as a tool to enhance what we do. think at this point in time, it's not so good that you can just go, hey, create me an airline leadership framework and it comes out and it's the best thing forever. But if you can use it to help you to do prompts or whatever it is. I think where.

55:24
where you're crunching data, that's where I found it's very useful, certainly for me and some of the things we've done,  where we've had  ideation days around the Innovation Academy and everything else,  and throw that into chat GBT and say, all right, come up with some key themes, or  what would be our kind of mission vision purpose for the academy? It'll give you some prompts around some of these things.  I mean, that for me is just like, so time-saving. You can spend weeks and weeks and weeks ideating something and going around in circles.

55:54
Well, in my world, it's me with associates, but the amount of stuff I can generate. So actually, it's no different for you if you're in an organization. Now we saw a 3D holographic model in the station. it's not going to be long before that's at the front of the classroom, you know, with a kind of a learning model behind it. And it's going to be, it's not going to be like on a screen. It's going to...

56:18
Go for 100 years. That could be your legacy. You could be that hologram guy. 2100 leadership bites. He's dead but his hologram lives on. So listen, I'm alert to time. I just keep going forever. I'm not the Joe Wright.

56:43
three and a half hours of people listening. Thank goodness, nobody wanted to listen to me for three and a half hours. Three and a half minutes, maybe. So I guess one final kind of parting shot, know, if somebody came up to you and just sort of said, what should I either pay attention to just over the next couple of years, or what should I read or what should I... If you just had to go, do you know what, there's probably a million things you could do, but I would definitely say, read that book, or I would say, just keep your eye on, or they may have spoken about

57:12
but what would be your kind of  your gift to somebody there?  That's a good question. think, as  I said, I've been doing  this coaching course every other night and I just think that connection between humans is gonna be so important in the next few years as  we look at,  know, removing some of the kind of process driven stuff in the organisation, right?  How do we stay relevant?

57:37
as  a corporate citizen, right? When you've got all of this technology coming in that can do stuff for you,  and we're gonna have to stay connected as humans, right? We can't just rely on technology to drive things. We've gotta stay  connected together, make sure that we're working together and  using that human-to-human interaction. think,  and as I say,  I follow quite a few people on LinkedIn that...

58:05
look at AI and I think there's almost two factions in L &D from what I've seen.  People that are talking all about AI and people that are talking about actually that human-centered part of,  and I'm kind of siding on the human-centered part. just,  I love the AI and what it can do,  but I feel it's just a tool.  I think from a learning perspective, from a leadership perspective, from a culture perspective, that's all about humans, right?  It's not about, know, AI doesn't give us culture.

58:33
for example, you can help shape the work culture possibly, but  it's that human piece for me. And I think that's where I'm really interested to see how things go moving forward. So how do you get the best out of people that maybe  have got a completely different job? How do you coach somebody that, know, if they're all their process stuff that they used to do is gone  and they've got to do other things now, how do you bring people along on that journey?  I'm really interested in how that might look. I don't know what you think about.

59:02
You what would you say would be the next few years? But  I just feel that that that human piece is going to be critical for us. I think agree with you. think it's always a balance of what's coming next with who we are.  I I,  I do not believe  that anything will bode well if we don't get better at the craft of ourselves.  And that would mean then change context, change timelines. It doesn't matter. But if the focus is always on us.

59:32
trying to be, and I don't, when I say the best version of ourselves, I don't mean six packs and climbing the Himalayas, I don't quite mean that, but just being a better version of ourselves to then  do these things and to utilize these things,  then  we will have control of it and it will not.

59:51
then damage us. So I think that's quite key. I think organizations need to be alert to that too.  Okay, listen, I'm alert to time. So I'm going to bring us to an end. And just say thank you so much for your time and spending some time. know you've flown in.  So I've grabbed you for an hour and I just...

01:00:08
massively appreciate it and this has been one of those conversations that's just very easy, very natural and I can see the experience in you, the wisdom in you and I can see the thinking in you that I really admire so I appreciate it. Oh thank you, my pleasure. Thank you so Thanks very much my friend. Bye bye. I hope you have enjoyed listening or watching the podcast. If you have please subscribe and tell people you spreading the word makes a massive difference and if you'd like to consider working with us

01:00:37
then make your way over to livingbrave.com.