A Neocharismatic Leader's Journey -Geoff Cousins

After a long pause for the holidays and new year, we come back with great learning from a global leader in automotive industries Geoff Cousins.
Geoff's professional journey from steelworks in his hometown Newport, South Wales to leading Jaguar through a huge #transformation as Managing Director 2006 -2012, and now to a successful NED #career, has been shaped by the personal influences and experiences he had been exposed to across different cultures and environments. This is a great episode for all #leaders at all levels #across-cultures who are focused on #ethicalleadership.

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Transcript

Introducer: 0:05

Welcome to this podcast series on Neo charismatic leadership with author, leadership expert and coach Dr. Ghadah Angawi and executive leader Martin Hedley, where they will both explore the recently published book, Neocharismatic leadership and the coaching topics it covers.

Ghadah Angawi: 0:32

Hi, Happy New Year 2021 and welcome to the neocharismatic leadership Podcast, where we are going to interview a unique new charismatic leader guests today. Welcome Geoff Cousins to our episode, we are very happy to have you here, shining the light on your leadership roles.

Martin Hedley: 0:53

Great, HappyNew Year to everybody again from me from Martin Hedley. Welcome, Geoff. I'd like to give an introduction to our guest speaker, a phenomenal leader in my opinion. Geoff started his career in finance, and has worked in key leadership and business transforming roles for global brands such as Jaguar Land Rover and is very passionate about profitable growth. He has a compelling combination of global corporate experience and works with small to medium sized enterprises and midsize businesses particularly around brand strategy, product innovation, market growth and finance. Now, Geoff is currently Chairman GMP Group Holdings. That's a world class quality services management company that works with blue chip clients in the automotive and aerospace sectors. He's also the chairman of the Cure Leukaemia charity, and is a visiting professor of global governance at the University of South Wales. Geoff, welcome.

Geoff Cousins: 1:50

Thank you, Martin. Looking forward to the conversation.

Ghadah Angawi: 1:53

Yes, welcome, Geoff. I would really love to start this conversation by the usual, which is what made you into who you are? Usually behind every leader, there is a sequence of past circumstances. I would love to hear the story behind your success and who stood behind you.

Geoff Cousins: 2:16

I've got a very interesting story. It could take quite a long time if I went through it in detail. It is quite interesting when you reflect on where you've come from, the influences and experiences you've had, and how you dealt with them as to where you end up, or where I've ended up now. And I once was called a man of steel by an automotive journalist. And it was unfortunately nothing to do with any superpowers. It was because my first job was in a steelworks in South Wales. And for some reason, this journalist either couldn't understand or he was intrigued of how I could have gone from job in the steelworks in South Wales to become MD of a big brand like Jaguar in its home market. And as we talked more, he was very much of the opinion that you have learned so much and experienced so much you should tell people about it. And that's when I started to do a few speeches, and so on. I would think for all careers, there's a number of points in your career where something happens, that gets you to the next level, or it changes your view on life. My first job was in the steelworks in South Wales, it was a good grounding by real working class people that had some great ethics. They looked after each other, they, you know, they watched each other's back, but you had to do your job. Because if you weren't doing your job, you were letting someone down. And they wouldn't accept that within their gang for want of a better word. So you learned that you needed to work hard, you needed to contribute to the team. And if you weren't doing what you were supposed to be doing, they weren't shy in coming forward and telling you look, you're not doing this. The other bit I loved about it - that has shaped me in quite a lot of ways is their sense of humour. And I was a graduate from Warwick University with a degree in economics and International Studies, working with steel men and women who've been there their whole life. So as you can imagine, I was the butt of quite a few jokes. But they had respect for me and I was one of their gang because I contributed to it. And I think those qualities or those learnings have stayed with me, I think for the rest of my life. That is you treat people in the right way. You get more done if you're a team, but you've got to make sure that everyone in that team absolutely contributes to what the goal is. And I think everybody, to a certain extent is shaped by their first one or two experiences after their childhood. And I think then it's how you deal with that.

Ghadah Angawi: 5:26

Is there anything in your upbringing made you who you are right now that brought you to this point in time?

Geoff Cousins: 5:34

I had a father, who couldn't go to university because his father had been shot and crippled in the war. He had to go out to work. So he had great hopes for me, he wanted me to do exceptionally well, he was very proud of me, but he never really told me I'd done anything well. So I think I was trying to do something well, to just get that, that praise. Some of the qualities he was used to he was very proud of, I think there were a couple of traits that did irritate him a little bit. As a humorous story at the age of 10. I had three or four mates around and I was my dad come out, and we were building a den. I was sat there. And you know, the three kids were building the den. And my dad said, well, why aren't you helping them? I said, I'm the manager. I'm working out the best way this thing should be done. And they get people who better me to do it now. I thought I was very smart of me, he thought you're lazy, you get on and do it. But it's interesting. As I was going through Warrick university, my professor said, it's a part of your problem, he said is that you're too good at working out just about how much work needs to be done to complete what you need to complete, as opposed to just do a lot of work, and you'll get there. So he said, somehow, you got to use that smart way and think of it as efficiency. But to do that, you can't do that yourself. You've got to do it with a team of people. And I think those two started to shape me. I had no, I had no career plan whatsoever. And interestingly, I come back up to around the Warwick University area, and joined the car industry. I was a great sportsman, but then I, I looked at this senior manager above me, and I thought I could do that job. What does it take to do that job? Well, you've got to go become an accountant. If you want to be a senior manager in Jaguar, you need to be an accountant. So I went and became an accountant. And then the job above me, I thought I can do that job. What do I need to do that job. And it's very interesting, I think there's three or four things that happen in a person's career that you don't expect, that really changes your way you're going to move forward. And for me, I'll very quickly say there was three things. One is I was working in manufacturing finance, and a job come up to be a senior manager. Four of us went in for it, I didn't get it, someone else did. Then another job come up, and three of us went in for it. I didn't get it, another job come up. But six months later, two of us in it, I didn't get it. I thought, well, that's it, I'm finished with Jaguar, they don't, you know, I'm gonna leave. And then I got a call from the finance controller of the sales and marketing area, the commercial area, he said, come and work for me get out of the manufacturing finance, come into commercial finance. You'll travel and we will sponsor you to do your MBA at Warwick university. I went from what do I leave now because I'm not valued, but then part of me thought, well, two of those certainly were better at manufacturing finance than me, but one of them wasn't the qualified accountant. And I've been told you need to be qualified to get to that level. So what does that say about the company and and then I thought ah let's just, you know, if nothing else, last 12 months, and I'll be able to visit Paris and Rome and Vienna and all these places to increase negotiations. So I went and joined that department. And that was the best thing I ever did from what was going to be something I was going to leave it become the best thing I ever did and shaped me incredibly differently for the future.

Martin Hedley: 9:40

That's interesting. Geoff, what I really like about the stories here, there are two essentials for leadership which you've covered beautifully. The first one of course, is that you know if you don't understand the daily lives of the individuals that you are leading then you're really not going to get very far. When you talk about the the working class men and women that that that sort of founded your understanding of the workplace. I think that that's extremely important. And while it's quite possible these days for people to shoot through careers with great university degrees and things like that, you cannot ultimately be successful without bringing the frontline workers with you. And then secondly, also in terms of knowing is knowing yourself, your story there about, you know, where you want to go, and what opportunities are put in front of you, and what opportunities you think you want to have, may actually not be the obvious ones. And it really is important for leaders to give some serious concern, serious thought to, you know, am I just simply following a path because everybody follows that path or am I really following a path that says, hey, this is me. Right?

Ghadah Angawi: 11:00

Yeah. And, and I like to things as well. The story where you were 10 years old, and you said, well, I'm the manager of that, that little team that was building the den, but you had a way of doing it, that was smart and that brought you the results you needed. And this is what we tell people. It's not about how much work you put, it's how smart you do that work.

Martin Hedley: 11:22

I just wanted to say, you know, this, this sort of brings us to the, I think nicely brings us to the classic question is how do you Geoff define leadership? You know, what, what is your personal perspective on what it is?

Geoff Cousins: 11:36

I think I, I have been on every executive leadership course I think Ford ever, ever had, including a week at Duke University, there's so many different theories on what's a good leader, what's not, and what's leadership. One of the first things I've ever thought about how I could say to myself that I have been a good leader is the ability to create a high performing team. Now I could say, Yes, I'm a great leader, because when I was MD of Jaguar, our market share went up significantly, our sales went up significantly, the average age of our drivers come down, we made huge improvement in profit. But I'm also conscious, it's me saying I did that I did that and I didn't do that. I did it with a team. So for me, if you create a high performing team, and you've got the right level of objectives and strategy, and you communicate that to the team, and that everyone in that team knows what their job is, and how they contribute to the goals, I think you will naturally reach your goals. Of course, as long as you still look at the external environment, the risk and opportunities, but I think for me, there's leadership, there's the internal, high performing team and there's the external risk and strategy management, looking at the outside and seeing what could impact your ability to reach your goals,

Ghadah Angawi: 13:11

What you've just described, we talk about high performing teams, and the six conditions, which is creating a common goal, having the right communication, having the right people, and also having the need for that team. And the other thing, the ability to sense the environment, the assessment, the high sensitivity to the environmental factors, the external and the internal, you focused on the external, which is important for that team to be able to function.

Martin Hedley: 13:42

Yes, I think the emphasis on the team here is extremely important, because, some of our listeners are not in big organisations. In fact, some of them are in rather rural and remote parts of the world where they don't have anything like the facilities and the infrastructure that we're that we're fortunate enough to have. But if these individuals want to make a change where they live, the same thing is true, they're going to have to build a group around them, that is willing to follow that, has been communicated to well and believes in the vision, and then goes and gets others to help follow along in that vision. This is what makes change happen. And it's very, very much required because there's so many problems around the world. We can't do this all with just huge organisations. So I love that idea of the team.

Geoff Cousins: 14:43

Yeah, for me, Martin has two or three things a team can be two people, four people or 2,000 people. And I think the other way that I've managed to be successful is that I've had relationships and partnerships with individuals and other companies outside of my team because they frankly could help me get the market quicker. They could help me get to the decision makers, I needed to get to quicker. But I also knew I had to do that for them at certain times. So for me it is you build your own High Performance Team, but you want to build an ecosystem of influencers and people that are supporting you. As we went through the big transformation at Jaguar, I talked a lot about the Jaguar family, whether it was internal people, a dealer, a customer, or sports star that was doing some sponsorship for us, it was becoming part of a bigger Jaguar family. And I think you can do that you don't need that many people to do a good thing. If you're on the same page.

Ghadah Angawi: 15:47

Yeah, me and Martin, we do leadership coaching groups outside your work context, and whatever you have just said about the importance of surrounding yourself with people from different perspectives from different sectors, feeds into your leadership expertise, in your own context.

Martin Hedley: 16:06

Yes, and it's certainly true, that, a great leader helps the individuals in the in situ team, build relationships, and it connects them with the outside world. So, they may actually be internally focused, which may be the right thing for them to do. But as long as they feel the leader is connecting them to the right people outside and is communicating to them who that should be, that's a very comforting feeling for somebody who's in the team. So that's

Geoff Cousins: 16:39

Yeah, but the other thing, I would say that it great. all, sounds very easy when you say it quick, doesn't it, but it takes a lot of work and it's painful. And there's times you have to say to an individual or to a group of people, look this is my bus, I'm driving, we are going this way, for this reason. You have a very important job on this bus. But if you don't like this bus, then I'll help you get off this bus in a nice way. And I'm sure another bus will be along for you to go and work on you have to do that. And like everyone else, I've had to exit people from an organisation, which I don't like. Interestingly, one or two of them come back and thanked me afterwards, because they weren't enjoying their job. They knew they weren't doing a great job, and actually found more satisfaction and greater reward from a job that they moved to. So we do all this good stuff. But sometimes you got to say, look, I am the boss, we're doing it this way. This is the reason why. Let's just get on with it.

Ghadah Angawi: 17:39

I know, I'm jumping into growing and developing people, which is the role number 10 in neocharismatic leadership, helping people exit you saw something in that situation. So how does that help people grow?

Geoff Cousins: 17:54

As a director or a manager, or supervisor, I think you have to decide how much you want to put into your people. I've worked in my time for senior managers and directors that will just employee "Yes", people and make them feel good and that's what they do. If I have good people working for me, then my department, or my strategy, or my job will be better because I got better people working for me. It's like, it's easy to say I want people that challenges the status quo. Now that's hard for the people to challenge the status quo. It's also hard for me as a leader to take someone saying, no, you're not doing this, right. And some people can't take that. And at times, you don't like being told you're not doing things, right. So it is focusing on the end goal. And you also work out. You may be in a big office, you may be out on the shop floor as it were. But when they're in a team, or you're in a team, the rest of the team tends to know the strong points and the weak points of the people they're working with. They tend to know to slacking and who's not slacking. So I think part of it for me is that you need to interact with your people, firstly and foremost, understand what's going on. What their issues are you then look at, well, how much do I really want to develop these people. And it's difficult at times because we're all human beings. And if you're not careful, you have a few favourites within the team. They're generally the people you can rely on. I know that person will get that job done. And if you're not careful, they become seen as favourites. And the rest of the team starts to think well, it's okay for them. They're just favourites What about us. So it does take a lot of thought and concentration and therefore you need to be willing to put in the effort to do a good job on it. Otherwise, don't do it. Otherwise be the person in the office. And it will be what it will be. The other thing I've seen is that, you know, you're seeing people have appraisals twice a year, you have the 360 degree process. And then at one company, it was, well, you need some development, here's a list of training courses choose two or three to go on, you know, and they go on basket weaving or something, you know, and guess what the praise on the next year says exactly the same. So it's a lot of effort from you as a director, but you also need that similar level of effort from your HR department, and from your mainstream directors who may not agree with you. So all I'm saying is that you have to spend the time it takes a lot of time, and you do it properly, or you don't do it. I chose to do it properly. Sometimes I would think harder spending so much time on this, why am I doing it? But then I had more people promoted out of my area, that any other area in Jaguar worldwide. And I'd have some people say, Well, I don't understand you, Jeff, you, your people are leaving you I've turned over three or four great people here. And I said, Yeah, but I got great people coming in. For me, it's a win win, I got great people coming in, because they see they're going to be developed and they will leave. I also got, if you will call disciples of mine in other senior positions now, that will influence their positions, and therefore will be very useful for me when I want something done. So for me, it was win-win but there was a lot of directors who thought I was a bit mad. And at times I thought was a bit mad because it takes work. So I suppose I think you do it or you don't. Because if you don't do it properly, the people see through you straightaway, and it goes back to the steelworks day. You'll be called out. It's all talk and no walk.

Martin Hedley: 21:54

Yeah, absolutely. It becomes a programme. It's just another thing. It's just another corporate event going on. It's not really from the heart, is it? And people can tell that? You know, certainly I've been on both sides of that. You know, I've known when it's not genuine and it's been pointed at me. But also, I remember how hard it was, you know, when when I had a global organisation of almost 5,000. You know, you think, Oh, my God, I just can't reach everybody? Well, no, of course, you can't reach everybody, but then you have to have your lieutenants able to reach their lieutenants, etc. And you just have to make that a culturally accepted norm in the organisation that, development is important and we're going to take some time to, to look at it. So it reminds me, we are, we're talking to people around the world, of course, through this podcast series and I think you've got some interesting stories, Geoff, about, you know, what, how your leadership, or at least how your learning changed, perhaps as you started to go round to totally different cultures from what you were used to. Can you expand on that?

Geoff Cousins: 23:05

Yeah, it's interesting that I, you know, when I said I was, I didn't get promoted in the manufacturing job. And therefore, I was disillusioned, going to leave. And then the director said, we'll come into the commercial world. And I went for my, to have a chat. There was an interview, but you know, it was a chat really wasn't it? And I said, well, what's the job? He says, well, the job is you have to agree within independent distributors, the price of the car each year, and what price they're going to sell it for in the market, effectively. And at that time, most of the countries in the world, their sales companies weren't owned by Jaguar they were independents. And because of the name Jaguar, they tended to be wealthy, and they tended to have a lot of luxury brands and powerful people. And he said, well, he says, I suppose he says, we'll start with Europe, you'll have to go to Paris, you'll have to go to Rome. You have to go to The Hague, you have to go to Vienna and you have you go there you have a price negotiation. You agree if you go out with them at night, because they buy the cars from us and you move on the next day. And I thought, well, that's not a bad job, is it that can't be that difficult. You know, you've got your your business plan your budget, so you know what the cost of the new car is and what price you want. And it's quite fascinating. Yeah, so I go ou my first one, which was F ance, so went to Paris. I re ember this that the guy unfortu ately has passed away. He wa number 12 on the civil list i France so if the top 11 died, e ran France. So he was a pow rful person. And he had a he ived on the Champs Elysees and e just sounded impossible. So I ent in there and I said, look, e've got this new car, it's won erful, it's this, it's that and o on, and this is the price. He lit up a cigar, blew smoke in my face and said, I can't accept that price. My family would e out on the streets, he says f om his office on the Champs Elysees. How about this price? If I accept that price, I'll be sacked when I go back. And w must have talked for about t ree hours. And then he said, do you have to catch a flight home tonight. I said, No, I'm alri ht. I can stay. I know we've bee there for five or six hou s. He said, Okay, it's time for dinner. I think your price is ight, minus 10%. I'll sign up or that. We signed up for it. And we went for dinner on the Champs Elysees. Now, it so nds a funny story. But it st rted to teach me the art of ne otiation. I'm not saying I'm a reat negotiator. But you got to find common ground. And yo've got to understand where th y're coming from and the rea ons why they're coming from it. I knew after 12 months in thi job, if I had a good rat onal understanding, and cou d express it, of why the pri e of the car was this, if I was in Germany, Holland, Bel ium, Scandinavia, they would say Yes, that's right. I agree tha Yeah, you can, yeah, we twe k around the outside. I agr e that. If I was going to Fr nce, Spain, or Italy, or Po tugal, I had to increase the pr ce, because it didn't matter wh t facts I had. They wanted a ne otiation. And to see that pr ce come down. I didn't re lise I was learning. But I wa learning because of that. On of how to listen to them and gi e them time to get their po nt across even thought, even th ugh you thought it was was pr tty daft, waste of time, but o ay, I got to listen to you. A d then pitch in a way that is n t offensive to them. Or t ere's some common ground. And t at taught me a lot around urope. Yes, it was a lot of cult res. Yes,

Ghadah Angawi: 27:08

yeah. sensitive to the culture itself.

Geoff Cousins: 27:12

And then from that, it was very interesting. Again, I talked earlier about there's a couple of points that change your career. With Jaguar they had a joint venture in Japan, with a big finance company. It was losing money and the Ford Board, the main Ford board said to the Chairman of Jaguar, either you fix it in the next 12 months, or we'll get Ford of Japan to fix it for you, which we didn't want. So he got the chairman Jaguar got myself a new sales director and said, you may not believe this, guys, but I've told the head of Ford thay you're the A team on Japan, you know, you're on the flight to Japan in two days time. Didn't know anything about the country didn't really, it's never been anywhere like that before. And we thought, well, what can we do? The first thing is we sit down and listen, we do our due diligence, we do our homework. And it was one of the strangest things because I remember, it's a 12 hour flight from the UK with a nine hour time difference. And then you went into a meeting four or five hours after you landed. And there was, I don't know, there was three of us, from the UK, and another three from our half of the joint venture. There was about 10 Japanese in the room that included two interpreters, and it was all being recorded. And you thought I understand more about the European culture because, you know, we go there, which is close. But to go to the far east was hugely, hugely different. But I gotta say, you know, once we got over some translation issues, it went well. And I think you work out that you shouldn't be afraid of culture, you just got to be aware of the culture. And I made some really good friends in Japan. I went 15 times in four years for two weeks at a time. We did turn the company around, we made people redundant, which was virtually unheard of in Japan at that time. We sold off some of the dealerships. But once they realised that we were listening to them, and we were doing what we had to do from our perspective on what we thought was right, for the long term. It was not easy. Don't get me wrong, it was very, very difficult. But it did work and you realise there's good and bad people everywhere. You know, the sensible and silly people everywhere. There's the aggressive negotiator, there's the passive negotiator, you know, and you just - providing your mind is open, you learn. It drives you mad at times, why can't they understand this? What's wrong with them? It's as easy but they were in that meeting and the same about us. So once we got over that, it was quite fascinating because they would take you out that night. There was almost like next day in the office is almost like that night didn't exist. It's almost this is work and we'll take you out now because we're good hosts. Please understand anything we say when we're out is nothing to do with what we're going to discuss tomorrow in the office, which is different to the Western way where a lot of discuss over dinner becomes part of your negotiation. In Japan, it was at that time very much not like that. Fascinating.

Ghadah Angawi: 30:25

So here you are talking about the prerequisites of neocharismatic leadership. You've mentioned, self awareness, you've mentioned empathetic listening, and the ability to take in the other person's point of view. One thing I am inquisitive about is, you've mentioned earlier, the idea of challenging the status quo, some of your team if they weren't challenging the status quo, you were questioning why are they so compliant? Are there Yes, people? Can you elaborate more on that idea of challenging the status quo? What does it mean for you as a leader,

Geoff Cousins: 31:02

I think it's important to challenge the status quo. And that's because it shows you've got your own independent thought of what should be done. And also, a lot of it, I was very keenly aware from my jobs earlier in my career, guess what the people on the shop floor tend to know more about how to improve something that their manager does, because they're working with it every day. So I used to say, my people, it's our job is to put forward what we think is best for the company. If you will, we march up the hill, and we say to our boss, given what you've asked us to do, this is what we think is the best way to do it. This is how we're it's being done now. And this is the strong bits and the weak bits and how we should change it. And that's our job to do that. If the person ultimately responsible for it says, No, I'm not doing it that way. Okay, that's, you know, he or she is the boss, and that's down to them. But our job is to walk up the hill, and tell them about that. Now, to get your people to do that, they have to be confident that you will protect them or have their back or speak up for them. If they do that and they get shut down, or some says no, no, no, we can't do that. We can't do that. It can work very much the other way that someone comes up with a great idea, not being listened to whatsoever. They're not supported in a way. So guess what, you won't get any ideas from them again, in the future. A lot of organisations I've seen, there's a lot of people that just keeps their heads, you know, below being too visible, or making decisions, because of what they've experienced in the past. If I put this in a personal context, I worked for a while for a very, very talented American woman. Out of the Ford credit, she was head of Ford credit, and she comes to be global MD of Jaguar. And I was UK, MD. She was tough and of course, a lot of the men didn't like the fact that she was tough. And she had a bit of a temper, but she was a very caring, very hard working woman. There was a lot of people that didn't like or upset them. It was very interesting. Yeah, I went to one of my appraisals. And soon as she asked me this question, I thought, God, how am I going to answer this? She said, there's something about you, Geoff, you say things to me that people daren't think yet you get away with it. I might shout a little bit now again, but I listened to what you say. And you keep coming back. And your people keep coming back with ideas. So what is it that's different, you know, with our relationship, as opposed to some of the others. And you think, well, how do you do this, you know? And I said, well, look, you're an American out of Michigan, or she's originally from Pittsburgh. And I said, look, there's times where we think what you say is not right. And the way you deal with people is not right. Most of the times you are really very, very good. But the most important thing that all my directors will say is they know you will support them. I said you're a bit like the seventh cavalry of old. Sometimes you go up come over the hill, before we ask you to, sometimes you come over the hill and shoot everyone including us. But you come over that hill, you come over the hill to support us. And if you do that, then we can forgive a lot of things. And therefore we're not afraid to challenge the status quo, and to make recommendations, because we know at the end of the day, at the end of the day, you will support us. You may tell us off in private, but you will support us and so for me it's that level of support you give people is what will drive them, to then challenge the status quo.

Ghadah Angawi: 34:52

So have you challenged the status quo and took a personal risk that that you learned from and you share it with us.

Geoff Cousins: 35:01

Because of the success of Jaguar Japan, I was on the fast track development with Ford. So one of the four directors rang me and said, I used to come on a two years to comment the Dearborn to Detroit. Because of my personal circumstances I didn't want to do that. So I said, No, it's just not the right time for me. And then they come back and ask them three or four months later, so it's still not the right time for me. And it was okay, if you don't want to come, you don't want to come. But you've got to realise that it's gonna hurt your future. You have not taken this. And one person who said, Well, you know, you will never be a director as long as Ford owns Jaguar within finance, when in finance at the time. And you think it is what it is, what can you do? But then, the guy that was chairman of Jaguar said, look, we've got an opening in Jaguar headquarters in the US, I'd like you to do that job. I know, your personal circumstances, your wife doesn't really want to travel. I'm happy to have a chat with her and say, if you don't like it, I'll get you back in six months. Which I thought from him as a very powerful guy was one, it would make me feel good, he thought enough of me that he would do that. But for someone, and this guy actually went on to run Ford worldwide, that he had that empathy himself. So I went to New Jersey, and then in year 2000, that was when Ford bought Volvo, Land Rover, Aston Martin, and they put them all together. That was a $6 billion organisation in the US. And they made me Chief Financial Officer of that organisation. So in three years I went from, you will not have a job to being CFO with one of them, certainly more global and public divisions that they had. It taught me a bit about you take a risk. And I didn't want to look back and say, should I've not gone to America, I wish I'd gone to America. And it also taught me that a change in management somewhere can affect your career good or bad, which was a lesson for the future. They moved us all to Southern California. So I went from Newport, South Wales to Newport Beach, California, and they're worlds apart. So I took the personal risk. And I took a risk from a professional point of view as well, I would say,

Ghadah Angawi: 37:20

And you never came back in six months, your wife was happy.

Geoff Cousins: 37:24

Well yes,, she she didn't want to go to New Jersey, then she didn't want to go to California, and then she didn't want to come back to England.

Martin Hedley: 37:31

Yeah, that's great. So Geoff, you know, with all of these, competing needs and strategies that you get faced with, literally month by month through an executive career. Have there been any times where you've had to make a decision that possibly would have gone against your, your very being, you know, that something just didn't seem to be right to you? Has that ever happened? And, you know, how did you approach that?

Geoff Cousins: 38:04

Yeah, I think we all make decisions that, in hindsight, seem wonderful. Whether they went right or not so good or wrong. I think there's very few, I don't know, in my experience, you know, there's a right and there's wrong, but most are towards the middle, could you have done better with something. And for me, it was as much about actually, two real things as ingrained in me is that when you decide what you're going to do, you've got to act with decisiveness and speed. But before you activate decisiveness and speed, you actually need to prioritise what you're going to do. Because lots of people say, I got these 20 objectives I'm going to do this week, or this month, or this year, so well, good, good for you. I work on five. And then when I've done those five, I've worked on another five unless I've got enough really good people, that means, together, we can accomplish them. I think it's more could I have done better in a certain way, could I have sold something better in a certain way, but also, there's three skills I call the streetwise skills that I learned in a very harsh way. And that is one as particularly in a big corporation, you know, you need to be politically astute. Because it doesn't matter how good your job you're doing. You have integrity, you can be credible. You can challenge the status quo, you absolutely deliver your results, but you need in my opinion, to be politically astute to manage perceptions, and to deal with conflict. They're the three things and I'll tell you a story in a minute, how I was almost sacked by one of the most powerful men in Ford. And how that brought all this together. Say within a board who are the most influential people on that board? What makes them tick? What's their hot topics? As MD of Jaguar I must have been measured on 25 different metrics. But what was the two or three that the CEO would bring me on every day? And it was sales, it was sales and then profits. So what's their hot points? Who were the key influences? If there's a row between sales and marketing and engineering or manufacturing who wins, who generally wins. So who are the key influences that you will need to get on your side, even if it's the best idea in the world. You need influences on your side. The other one name was managing perception. Because we all see in today's world, it's even more important. When I was in the US, they thought, you know, the headquarters up here in England thought that I've gone native, I'd suddenly had a chip in my head and was talking American and became American. I was doing what I thought was best for my job, which was the best for success of Juguar in the US. How you deal with conflict goes back to my earlier thing about how you negotiate, yourself, but then is how you negotiate between different parties that are in conflict, I think with that you need to be robust, and you need to know you're not going to win all the time. You need to be resilient. Let me tell you a quick story that puts all this together. So I was CFO, North America for Jaguar Land Rover. Most of the cars in the US 80% of the cars are on two year leases. So the car comes back to you. And you've guaranteed the customer a price for the second and value. So if the second value, when you put it through auction or sell it the second time is a lot less than you take a profit hit. And I thought that the market was going soft on the used car values. So I had a conversation with the global CFO of Jaguar Land Rover, and these people and say, I think we need to put something in the forecast for this. I haven't got the detail yet. I haven't got the data. But trust me, I'm in the market. And what I see you need to. It was a difficult time there for Jaguar Land Rover financially, and it didn't happen. And then the numbers started to come through and what my instinct was was right. So I went back. This was about four or five months later, to the CFO. We've had conversations in between. And I said, look, we've now got a profit issue. Oh, well, perhaps it's best that you ring, you know, the head of the Division of Ford to tell him. So you want me to ring him and not you? You report to him? I don't? Yeah, because you know, more of the detail. So I rang him. And I said, Hi, I won't say the name. We got an issue. And he said, what on, I said, use car values. And he said, well, I heard about it four or five months ago, but there was nothing put in the forecast. So I assumed it was covered or it's gone away. I said it's not covered and it's not gone away. And he said How much is it. I said, Well, I haven't done all the numbers, roughly about $75 million. Is that Sorry, I missed that, how much do you say? I said $75 million. And then I've heard these immortal words. He said to me, it's okay, Geoff, don't worry, the sun will still rise in the morning. It's whether you're here to see it or not. And I sat there and somehow I blurted out, I hope it's a long night then. But it was not a long night. And there was an investigation. And it was down to a lack of communication between me and the UK. Now on my side of it, I saw I told you and told you, you could have put something in. But then when I sat down and thought about me, I should have made more of it. I should have stamped my feet I should have shaved it louder. I should have gone back to them. I probably should have gone to this the central finance in Detroit, which the UK would have hated but I knew was going to happen. And I relied on the UK that they take an account of it, and they hadn't so yes, I could blame them. But for me it come back that I should have done better myself. I should have been stronger. As it happened, that same person who two years later supported me to be MD of the UK. Because for him it wasn't just you, it was a lesson you've done a great job and I moved out of finance which is what I wanted anyway and I worked in the used car market in the US which give me great operational experience and he, two and a half years later back me to become MD of Jaguar's home market. Whilst it seemed my whole world had fallen in and I should have been better because of what I've done in the past and the type of person I was, I had a lot of support. I didn't see that support. But a lot of that support was there that led to this person then actually being the main reason I was promoted. It just shows that you do.....it's tough to challenge the status quo. It's tough to stand up the powerful people. But if you do it right, they may not agree with you, but they will respect you if you do it the right way. And then if it doesn't go your way, you got to think, all right, let's just get on my job and do the best I can, and be the best I can.

Ghadah Angawi: 45:28

I think this has been a great story, too, to end this episode to begin the year 2021 by telling our listeners, how important it is to be authentic to be before all these titles, to be your own selves, and to come from an altruistic, ethical point of view. Really, really thankful for you, appreciate you taking the time and being with us here today. And Happy New Year.

Geoff Cousins: 45:56

Thank you. I've enjoyed it and the same to you.

Martin Hedley: 45:58

Yes, thank you very much, Geoff. Indeed. Happy New Year.

Introducer: 46:02

Ghadah and Martin, hope you enjoyed this episode. There is more information available at Neocharismatic leadership.org. And if you would like to discuss coaching or training for yourself or your team, you can contact Ghadah and Martin through the website. We look forward to your participation next week. Until then, goodbye