Side Mirror: CAREER-VIEW MIRROR turns 3

On 1 March, 2024 we celebrated the third anniversary of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. It has become a tradition for us to mark each anniversary by curating a collection of different guest stories from the year's episodes and that's what we have done for this episode.

We have also chosen 1 March 2024 to launch Release the handbrake! The Fulfilling Performance Hub. Think of it as a resource for you if you are interested in learning more about Fulfilling Performance and how to enable it for yourself and others. Over the coming weeks and months you can expect posts and articles, examples and interviews and a warm welcome, if you'd like to engage in discussion on those pages.

I'm thrilled to be celebrating three whole years and 158 episodes of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. I couldn’t have done it without the help of the CAREER-VIEW MIRROR team and we couldn't have done it without our guests.

You'll hear 12 different voices in this episode. If you're a regular listener I hope you'll enjoy this trip down memory lane and if you are new to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR,  I hope this will help you to identify some episodes to dive into next.

#157 Katrin Zimmermann: building an adventurous, innovative and intentional career from an apprenticeship with Lufthansa to establishing and leading TLGG's New York office.

#151 Karolina Bullock: Combining a set of transferable key ingredients with self awareness, determination and hard work to create an inspiring career.

#140 Side Mirror: Caroline Rae on building a career on your own terms.

#138 Vitória Lorenzetti: From Brazil to Amsterdam, Fueling the Future of EVs.

#117 Elisa Viaud: The organisational psychologist bringing compassion back into fashion in the HR and recruitment world.

#115 Kevin Powell: the "innovative scientist" on a mission to create delightful consumer experiences.

#114 Mike Ellenthorpe: a case study in taking opportunities when they appear and remaining proactive and resilient when they don't.

#113 Kit Wisdom: navigating an automotive career journey driven by an internal need to remain challenged.

#110 Rachel Johnson: Defining a personal operating manual to help managers get the best out you.

#109 Rhys Long: on taking a slow boat to China and making the most of opportunities along the way.

#108 Dave Palmer - how a humble, hard working former auto finance guy is navigating an entrepreneurial journey in the world of travel.

#107 Preston Rogers: on proximity to decision makers, customer feedback loops, awareness of diminishing challenge and the importance of balancing family priorities within an international career.

As always, I'll look forward to hearing what resonates with you.

Thank you to our sponsors:

ASKE Consulting
Email: hello@askeconsulting.co.uk

Aquilae
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk

Episode Directory on Instagram @careerviewmirror  

Episode recorded on 27 February 2024.

Transcript

Ed Eppley: 0:00

I am sitting in lovely Siesta Key Florida.

Sherene Redelinghuys: 0:03

I'm coming from Bangkok in Thailand

Daniel van Treeck: 0:05

Prague in the Czech Republic

Osman Abdelmoneim: 0:07

Cairo in Egypt

Holger Drott: 0:08

Auckland, New Zealand

Shannon Faulkner: 0:09

London, England.

Andy Follows: 0:10

Welcome to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you with your own. I'm your host, Andy Follows Hello, listeners, and welcome to this Side Mirror episode of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. If you're a regular listener, thank you and welcome back, you'll be aware that most of our episodes feature interviews with people with a link to the automotive industry who kindly share their life and career journeys with us. We celebrate their careers listen to their stories and learn from their experiences. From time to time. We also publish these Side Mirror episodes, which introduced concepts and tools that feature in our signature towards Fulfilling Performance development programme. If you're listening for the first time Hello, I'm Andy Follows I'm a trusted adviser to senior leaders in the automotive industry. I work alongside them and their teams to enable Fulfilling Performance. Contact me if you'd like to know more. On the first of March 2024, we celebrated the third anniversary of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, it's become a tradition for us to mark each anniversary by curating a collection of different guest stories from the years episodes. And that's what we've done for this episode. We've also chosen the first of March 2024 to launch Release the Handbrake! The Fulfilling Performance Hub. Think of it as a resource for you if you're interested in learning more about Fulfilling Performance and how to enable it for yourself and others. Over the coming weeks and months. You can expect posts and articles, examples and interviews, and a warm welcome if you'd like to engage in discussion on those pages. We'll put a link to Release the Handbrake in the show notes to this episode. I'm thrilled to be celebrating three whole years, and 158 episodes of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, I couldn't have done it without the help of the CAREER-VIEW MIRROR team. And we couldn't have done it without our guests, you'll hear 12 different voices in this episode. If you're a regular listener, I hope you'll enjoy this trip down memory lane. And if you're new to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, I hope this will help you to identify some episodes to dive into next, I'll share the episode number after each guests excerpt to make them easy to find. And we'll put links in the show notes, I could have easily created so many different versions of this episode highlighting different guests and alternative stories. Think of it not as the best of but as a representative sample of the depth and breadth of content that we have in our continuously growing library. As always, I'll look forward to hearing what resonates with you. Here's Preston Rogers sharing a message that's close to my heart.

Preston Rogers: 3:03

I love managing people leading people to one of the best parts of the job. In my opinion, I love seeing people fulfil their potential, and see people do things beyond what they thought is possible. I went on a training course in 2006, with a chap called Ed Eppley. And I remember he had a saying, which was you have to produce results and grow people that always stuck with me. I think the next phase of that, and I'll come on to that now, is sort of people through people, which I think is obviously that, you know, that's the hardest bit of managing well, you can't just directly manage the people, you have to you have to have, you know, you have teams that sit under other managers and can't undermine what they do. But you need to affect the whole team culturally or in terms of performance. So I've always, maybe to a fault, believe the best of people always think there's a lot of there's a lot of good in people, and there's a lot that they can bring to the table. It's just about finding what will unlock that and what gets people out of bed and what will get people motivated to fulfil their potential. I think I've also probably been very fortunate to have worked for some very people that have inspired me, and I'll probably try and mirror that a little bit. I try and you know, not through what I do, but in terms of through setting up an environment that can allow people to fulfil their potential because I've always thought the best teams I've ever either worked in or definitely managed is when everyone is facing the same direction. Everyone knows what they want to do. There's a shared purpose, shared culture shared, you know, ideals, and everyone achieves beyond what they thought was capable. And that's where the magic happens where sometimes you step back and you go, I can't believe how well we've done with that. But that's down to the people. Because the market gives everyone the same opportunities. I've always thought whether that's good or bad, but how you how you do against that. It's it's always down to the people. It's always down to, you know, whether you've thought about what people want and you've built the right systems or whether that's you've designed the right products or whether that's you You've thought about what the customer wants. So I think you know, in terms of trying to inspire people to be their best, because I've had some great leaders I've worked for and pushed me beyond what I thought I was capable of. And I've probably mirrored that a little bit. But I, I find that the most rewarding part of the job. I think when if I see somebody fulfilling their potential or they're so happy and engaged in their work, I get a good good buzz from that.

Andy Follows: 5:21

I was fortunate enough to be on the same leadership programme with Preston in South Africa in 2006. And I've spoken before about edit, please impact on me too. That's why I wanted to feature that extract from a wonderful conversation with Preston that is episode 107. And Ed Eppley himself joined me to create episode 50. Elisa Viaud shares very openly her experiences navigating her life and career journey out of Russia. Here she explains how quite literally on a journey, she experienced an epiphany that accelerated her move into entrepreneurship. First of all, I'd like to just understand, because you've transitioned from the corporate environment, to being an entrepreneur to having your own practice that you thought you might have eventually, and it's come quite soon. So how, how long did you spend at Tesla, Elisa?

Elisa Viaud: 6:20

Almost four years, and I probably would have stayed even for now because I love the company. And I met my husband at Tesla. I mean, we both work for Tesla, we both going to work, what's not to love. And then one day, December 2019, I was on my way to my annual yoga retreat to Canary Island. And there was very strong turbulence to the point that the staff stopped service, okay, it's turbulance. And then there was an announcement that it's going to last for a while and it's very violent, so brace, it was a brace for a potential big impact or whatever. And then the woman sitting next to me started to smoke is like, you know, what, if this is going to be my last one are going to smoke it anyway. I've never experienced something like this. So people were crying. Somebody was praying. We made an emergency landing on another island, which is nearby. But anyway, it lasted for a while. So I drafted a goodbye message to quite a few people. I was very grateful. And then I said goodbye to my husband. I didn't send because while there is no connection anyway, we landed. Well, there were quite a few people deeply in shock. Like what was that that turbulence was? It lasted for almost an hour. Very violent. And I called my husband say, You know what, if this was today, I would really regret never trying to open my practice to be a psychologist. He said, Now you know what to do. Like that's the most terrifying thing I don't know what to do how? 2019. And if there's one rule I know being in this profession never take any decisions after such dramatic events. Never. So I journaled little bit I had a session with my therapist. I talked about this with friends and oh my god Life is short Let's love each other. Let's be friends. Let's follow our dreams. It took me three months before I resigned over fear. Imagine March 2020. What a wrong time to resign from a very cushy for me it was a very good job and stock price when insanely up and I'm resigning and people look at me like are you? Are you What is wrong with you? Woman? Why are you leaving? Do you have a job? No, I don't. But just because you got scared at turbulence. That's why that's not right. Anyway, I got scared. And then I took one year project in between it was something which is not corporate job, not one more time again, but something in between.

Andy Follows: 9:05

Sometimes it takes awareness of our own mortality and the passing of time to push us into taking the steps we know deep down are the right ones. You can hear the rest of Elisa's inspiring tale in Episode 117. I encourage you to listen to Dave Palmer's episode in which he shares many inspiring stories including the wonderful one about how he and his wife Nicola started their Villa rental business Perfect Getaways.

Dave Palmer: 9:35

We bought a bungalow on a mortgage in 2000, late 2004 to 2005 while I was still at BMW, me and Nicola, we bought half of it us and half with Nic's Mum and Dad, and we'd bought it on a mortgage so we needed to rent it out to get rental income in to be able to enjoy ourselves and with my sort of business planning sort of had we'd worked out that if we rented they're out for 30 weeks of the year, then the rest of the year, we could sort of like go for weekends and, and enjoy it. And that's what we started doing. We were good at renting it out using our background of sales and advertising and everything else. And you know, happily working at BMW. And one day we went on holiday. And we were sat there around the pool. And we just started talking me and Nic and said, crikey, why don't we make a business out of this, because what we'd started doing because our bookings were going so well, and it was on a golf resort, where a lot of people weren't getting bookings. Because don't forget, a lot of people were going on holiday, at that time, going to a place that did enjoy, be taken in by everything in the sale, signs of own a holiday home. Everything was going swimmingly in the economy at this time. 2006 2007 They buy a holiday home, and I have no idea and in the slightest out to rent out. So we started passing on bookings to neighbours and the rest of the road, when we would get inquiries and ours was full. And we were probably doing it for about 10 properties for a number of months and just passing on bookings and saying 300 quid a week, you just give us 30 quid of that 300 quid. And we were sort of like getting a little income from that. And yeah, we sat there one day, we looked at the websites that were advertising holiday homes, the likes of Owners Direct, HomeAway. And it dawned on me that the business that they were running, which was an annual subscription business, of getting owners to advertise with them for a subscription, and helping them rent it out. It was very similar to a contract hire business. And I got this instantly, the value of the business was not in the profit or the or nonprofit that you make it on each deal, the value of the business was in the number of properties that you were renting out. So if you think of contract hire, if you look at the FM 50, is it called the FM 50? I'm talking years ago? Yeah. The top 50 contract hire companies?

Andy Follows: 12:01

Yeah. So let's just say because we've talked about Contract Hire a bit. So that's international listeners know that as operating lease. But yeah, the FM 50 fleet use 50 was a top 50 contract, how they went this year, and they're down to 49, because of consolidation, so 49. So you notice this similarity between the villa rentals business owners direct type model? And what you'd seen as a Contract Hire or operating lease business?

Dave Palmer: 12:34

Yeah, yeah, very much. So because, you know, I was lucky because BMW, because it was a small team, and it was it was a new venture of business, you got a good understanding of how the business works a lot quicker than you would ever would have joined a company where it didn't have that access. So it was clear to me, we had profit targets, and you're expected to make a profit on each deal, obviously. But it was clear to me that the value of BMW corporate finance or Alphabet or whoever was on the number of vehicles they had under contract rather than the amount of profit they were making on an annual basis. And the one thing I always remembered about contract hire and I can't remember is from BMW, or whether it was from Tusker Direct, but I always remember being told, the minute that we don't increase our numbers, we're going backwards. And I always remember that it might have been from Tusker in the early days. So more important than making a shedload of money on on the single year was that we continue to grow and grow and grow and grow, that was the most important thing. And obviously, if you do that, and you grow, and you get to x 1000 vehicles, a big competitor's more, more likely to buy you and bring it into their fray. So I looked at the Owners Direct model and the HomeAway model, and it was similar Well, obviously wasn't the same because it's a different market. But it was similar because to me, the value in them companies was the number of holiday homes that they were renting out, rather than making a profit on the amount that you're charging. So anyway, we sat down and we talked about it. We said, you know, this is an ideal opportunity. They don't do it great. They were they were decent companies and they were making a good living but they were both originally SEO companies. So they had the SEO side of it. So no. So we put together a business plan Me and Nic one page plan, took it home started working on it and within four or five months we we had a website built I came across the problem and it's an age old problem for any any sort of subscription site. How do you get the consumers to come on because we haven't got any anyone advertising and to get any advertisers because we haven't got anybody coming on? It's a chicken and egg situation. The way we got around that was while I was working for BMW corporate finance and Nic was working for the Yorkshire builders society at the time, we would both come home From work six o'clock, and we'd start ringing owners, and we'd be offering to put them on our website. And we'd do it for free. And not only that, we do it all for them. So literally every night for six months, we'd ring holiday owners. You know, what a great thing for holiday owner, can we advertise your property, we'll put it on for free. And you don't even have to do anything. We'll take all the details, our phone has their website and put it on ourselves for you. So you've not actually got to do anything. And that's what we did. We did that for six months, we put on 1000 properties.

Andy Follows: 15:36

So good Dave, honestly, it is what a, what a story. I highly recommend you check out episode 108. To hear the rest of that story, and how they eventually went on to sell the business to Ryan air. I invited Rachel Johnson to record an episode with me after reading a post she'd put on LinkedIn entitled Dear future boss, I'll let her explain what that was about. In her own words. You put a post on LinkedIn recently that I noticed where you went to some lengths to describe how to get the most out of you how to get the best out of you. I noticed it and thought it was a really, really good idea. And something that will be helpful if we all had something like that and shared it with our managers. Do you want to say a bit more about that and what caused you to put that out there.

Rachel Johnson: 16:29

It was actually I had a quite a nasty accident in 20, start of 2022 I was running down a mountain and my foot actually slipped on the top of a rock forcing my other foot to go straight down a tree trunk, but I actually ended up dislocating and breaking my ankle in seven places. So I had the adrenaline version of being winched off the mountain by the rescue helicopter. And I must say that the rescue helicopters does such an amazing job and little bit of a plug for them. But they actually fully rely on donations. And we couldn't we couldn't survive without them. So rushed off to hospital and had surgery on the brakes and my ankle, and was promptly told by the surgeon, I would have to have a minimum of six to eight months off work. Obviously, that prompted a lot of thinking time. And during that time, I thought you know, there's a lot of people on LinkedIn and a lot of people that I talked to who are currently not working or looking for their next opportunity and whether that be COVID related, whether that be to pivot and or change. And I thought what's gonna make me stand out a little bit differently. And I thought one of the things for me is that there's a lot of things that you can't say in a one hour interview to a prospective manager. And it's all those soft skills. And I've found in my, in my experience, that a lot of interviews ended up being a list of questions that they're asking every candidate the same question, and then just comparing answers. So that was something that actually differentiates me. And I think that that is my Soft Skills and the way that I think and I put that post on LinkedIn, because it's things that have come up and my experiences which have perhaps been misinterpreted by management or leadership, and the respect of my actions may not have been my intention. I don't mean that in necessarily a good or a bad way. And it can be both, but perhaps it's my style of thinking was a little bit different to theirs. And so I thought if I summarise it all into a little blurb, then it really gets the point through and as you comment on having read that, Andy I think for example, one of the things I put in there was an I entitled it Dear Future Boss, but I, you know, I've got, I've always got your back, but only if you've got mine. And I think that's something that I'm really big on honesty and integrity and accountability. And one of the other things was that I put my hand up and I get frustrated when I will suggest things and propose ideas and try and move the business ahead. And it's business related. And it sort of gets shut down. And then I see someone else suggesting exactly the same thing. And I get it gets accepted. So yeah, I thought look, you know, it's something that's a little bit different. And it's certainly the poster certainly resonated or has been read by a number of people who have also viewed my profile from that and I think it's perhaps being in automotive that there's a lot of people in automotive who have fallen into it rather than directly wanting to be in it. And perhaps and a lot of them have come through from Selling cars as a 16 year old or 17 year old. And the tenure within the industry has meant that they've worked their way up. And their thinking style is a little bit different from perhaps someone who's come through the university and then finance and banking systems. So I guess in some ways, it was kind of explaining where I come from. And what's really important to me in the soft skills area that perhaps a question in an interview doesn't give you an opportunity to express. So. So yeah, it's definitely got a bit of interest. And it is saying that, to me, I'm being authentic and true to myself, by putting it out there and saying, This is how I work. And if it doesn't work for you, we're never going to have a close working relationship.

Andy Follows: 20:49

I think that's such a helpful idea to start a working relationship with clarity about how your boss can get the best out of you. You can hear more of Rachel's story in Episode 110. In this next bit, Rhys Long talks about his involvement in South Africa's war with Angola, and how he's dealt with that experience.

Rhys Long: 21:11

The second year of my national service, that is when you as a in a leadership position, you get seconded to a different area, where you then have to be the people training, the new juniors that are coming through. And then I had a very brief moment of conflict where I actually went up to the border, where the battle was happening. And I spent about three months in that environment, which was, again, a totally different environment, you don't realise what it sounds like when bullets and bombs are flying around your your ears, and it gives you a whole new respect for having discipline approaches how to handle things, it enlightens you like you have no idea.

Andy Follows: 22:02

The twinkle in your eye. Now, yeah, okay, I get it. You now think, right? This is why we have these rules and guidelines. So when you were saying at the beginning of the conversation, that sometimes these guidelines are important. I have no idea where that was coming from, I didn't realise it was coming from such a fundamental place as life and death. So, wow. Three months in a conflit situation. So it taught you that rules and regulations and guidelines can keep you alive and keep your colleagues alive? Did it, can I say this? Did it do you any harm?

Rhys Long: 22:51

I think psychologically, maybe, I think anybody that is exposed at that young age 18, 19 years old, exposed to that level of violence, you definitely carry that with you for a period of time, I think I was fortunate in that my personality type allowed me to deal with that maybe better than some other people. And I know certain people that have really struggled with it. But you know, at the end of the day, it was part of life, it was a dark place, but we've moved on and you know, we life gets better, life doesn't necessarily get worse, and opportunities present themselves. And I think also having come from that boarding school environment, I quickly learned that you need to try and make the best of each situation, because the situation is never ideal. And you can either mope about it and be really unhappy. Or you can just try and make the best of it. And I think with a good group of friends, it helps you to push through those difficult phases, and get you to see the sunlight at the end of the tunnel.

Andy Follows: 24:01

That's making me think Rhys, because we see that sort of statement on social media about making the most and this too shall pass and all those sort of things. But doing that when there are bullets flying around, and people are trying to kill each other that's sort of next level dealing with it. And you say that was your you think that your your makeup if you like your approach to life helped you deal with that? Is that what you mean that you were you were able to make the most of what was happening, you able to see whatever positive was in the day and not let it get out of hand mentally for you?

Rhys Long: 24:39

Yeah, I think so. You know, Andy it was, as I said, it was a tough time. But you know, you cannot dwell on that forever. If everybody had to really absorb it too deeply. There would be no progress because everybody would just be fixated on the negative. You've got to at some point, just say, Okay, it's bad, I can't do anything about it, I can just do my best move on. Right, I've got to tell you one story, I've got to tell you just one story from from that episode. And it's quite a funny story. So, one day, we're on patrol, and you walk this, each sections got 10 people, and you go on regular patrols, maybe two or three, and you might go out for two or three days at a time, and then come back to base and restock and things like that. And often what we used to do, we used to do all the naughty things. So for instance, we you have three sections going off in different directions, we would go around the base, because you're in the jungle you in the bush in the desert, you know, nobody knows really where you are, and we'd all get together. And instead of going as three separate individual sections, we put the three sections together, and we go as a platoon. And now all of a sudden, there's 30 of you, there's more camaraderie you having more fun. And the one day we came across quite a big snake, one of these big cobras, you know, the ones that stand up with a head with the head stands up. And one of the guys in our group fancied himself as a bit of a snake charmer. He said, I've caught snakes on the farm. Before I know exactly how to handle this. I feel like typical young guys, we form this big circle with a snake in the middle and this guy approaches the snake and grabs it by the tail. And His strategy was I will swing the snake around because the centrifugal force will not allow it to bring its head towards the tail and bite him. But what he didn't know was that this snake was stronger than the centrifugal force that he was generating by spinning and the thing that came back towards his hand. So what he did was he let go. What we all did then was turn around and run outwards. But in slow motion, I saw the snake coming and it landed on my back and my neck. Now picture the scene you're in the desert. The sand is like sea sand. You got boots on. You're putting in maximum effort, but you're getting in minimum traction.

Andy Follows: 27:08

It's cartoon style.

Rhys Long: 27:13

I will never forget that feeling of that snake on my back. And I must have run for about 150 metres in this desert sand just trying to get away from this thing.

Andy Follows: 27:25

Oh my and it fell off then or

Rhys Long: 27:27

Yeah it fell off, it was long it was about a two metre snake. I love to tell the tale.

Andy Follows: 27:33

Yeah, thank goodness you do. Before we started recording listeners before we started recording, Rhys said, "I've never done anything like this before." And then you rock up like a pro raconter someone who's had a career telling stories, you just take us from one thing to another effortlessly. So thank you very much for that. As I mentioned there Rhys shared plenty more stories with me in episode 109. Let me take a moment to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by ASKE Consulting who are experts in Executive Search, Resourcing Solutions and Talent Management across all sectors of the automotive industry in the UK and Europe. I’ve known them for almost 20 years, and I can think of no more fitting sponsor for CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. They're the business we go to at Aquilae when we're looking for talent for our clients and for projects that we're working on. ASKE was founded by Andrew McMillan whose own automotive career includes board level positions with car brands and leasing companies. All ASKE consultants have extensive client-side experience which means they bring valuable insight and perspective for both their employer and candidate customers. My earliest experience of working with Andrew was in 2004 when he helped me hire Regional Managers for my leasing sales team at Alphabet. More recently, when Aquilae was helping a US client to establish a car subscription business, ASKE Consulting was alongside us helping us to develop our people strategy and identify and bring on board suitable talent. Clients we've referred to ASKE have had an equally positive experience. Andrew and the team at ASKE are genuinely interested in the long-term outcomes for you and the people they place with you. They even offer the reassurance of a 2-year performance guarantee which means they have‘skin in the game’ when working with you. If you're keen to secure the most talented and high potential people to accelerate your business and gain competitive advantage, do get in touch with them and let them know I sent you. You can email Andrew and the team at hello@askeconsulting.co.uk or check out their website for more details and more client feedback at www.askeconsulting.co.uk . ASKE is spelt A S K E. You’ll find these contact details in the shownotes for this episode. Ok, let’s get back to our episode. Katrin Zimmerman had an education that encouraged her to take ownership. And this has served her well in her corporate career to. Here she talks about the mindset that led to her and her colleagues co founding the Lufthansa innovation hub.

Katrin Zimmermann: 30:19

It was the moment in my career where I realised at some point, you need to take matters into your own hands if you want to progress and just say, this is the thing that I think this organisation should be doing. And this is how it should be doing it. And this is why I want to do it for you. So learning these three things have in an organisation and I learned that very early in the Lufthansa Group. And I'm very grateful for having that understanding big organisations only function as the concept of big organisations. Meaning that in the end, every individual in the organisation no matter where they stand, is replaceable and must be replaceable. Because it's an organisation people might think it's sad that you're leaving or that you're doing something else. But in the end, the organisation needs to continue. That's the purpose of the organisation. And that's good because it's not one individual, but it's a team of people who come together to produce or deliver something great. And with that learning, I think I realised quickly, that also gives you freedom of saying, Hey, I see a piece of the pie missing over here, or or I think there's something that I could add in value over here that you might have not seen it or prioritise. But I could give you argumentation, of why it's worthwhile to look at. And so in the context of this role, what we as executive assistants at the time realised is that the whole subject of digital transformation was coming about more and more. And we flagged this to our executive board. And were ultimately asked to come up with a concept to think through how we might use and at the time, the subject of innovation hubs and outside in innovation units was very big. Think through that is an endeavour that Lufthansa should be embarking upon, and then find a concept or develop a concept in order to do that. And me and a couple of colleagues together, we then co founded the Lufthansa Innovation Hub, with a group of internal and external teammates. Starting on a journey that to this day is very successful and very exciting part of the organisation that obviously I'm very proud of, but I also understand the challenges of bringing something to life of this magnitude in a big

Andy Follows: 32:28

I think that's a very helpful perspective to have organisation. about our role within a big organisation, and how to champion innovation. Katrin was my guest for episode 157. Kit Wisdom's conversation brought up the topic of how what makes change hard is not the uncertainty of what's next. But having to let go of people and situations that we've become very comfortable with.

Kit Wisdom: 32:57

It was incredibly difficult, it was such a difficult decision. Like I really enjoyed my time at Enterprise, I worked my way up the chain, you know, going through the grades, getting to a senior position with Enterprise, and really valued my colleagues really enjoyed, you know, working with my colleagues really enjoyed the culture and the opportunities that Enterprise had given me. But I really kind of had this, but I want to do something else. And perhaps Enterprise isn't work isn't moving as quickly as me wanting to move on. So yeah, it was a real challenge. So I had to really get advice from my, my wife, a lot, and from friends, from family to kind of, you know, is this, this is the move that I want to, want to make?

Andy Follows: 33:44

What was your wife's advice?

Kit Wisdom: 33:46

She was very certain that I should leave and do something else.

Andy Follows: 33:51

Right, on what grounds?

Kit Wisdom: 33:54

I think perhaps she saw that I wasn't perhaps as happy as I had been. And I think I knew that I was really struggling with letting go. And I think deep down I knew that, which is why of course I was entertaining the conversations in the first place.

Andy Follows: 34:08

I think there's a couple of really great points I like they're the reason I dug into the wife question is because the number of times my wife has, while she's gone as far as saying, Well, you need to do something I cannot put up with you being like you need to get something else. The other is this realisation that with change. It's actually not about thoughts of taking on something new, that make it difficult. It's thoughts about letting go of stuff that we've got hold on tightly. It's more about, you know, I'm gonna have to let go of all this if I'm going to enjoy some of that.

Kit Wisdom: 34:56

That's right, and I relish the new stuff. Because I relish making it work. I relish achieving it. Yeah, I relish the challenge, not the fact that it's new and shiny. Yeah. And that the accountability bit comes in the ownership. It comes in for me personally. But yeah, it was the letting go of the colleagues and the culture that you've grown up within, if you'd like, with it being a first role? So although it's the first company, seven years, different roles, slightly different cultures, but still within that framework? What's Is there something you want to let go of you have really, in seven years worked your way up that particular pyramid if you like, so, yeah, the letting go is you're absolutely right. That's the biggest piece.

Andy Follows: 35:45

If you want to know how things worked out for Kit, after he made his difficult decision to leave, you can hear the rest of the story in Episode 113. Vitoria Lorenzetti treated us to a fascinating story full of twists and turns. Here, she shares some wisdom from her grandmother, and how she managed to find her way from Brazil to study in the US. You said, You need to have a vision, you need to have an idea of that you're working towards when did that start?

Vitória Lorenzetti: 36:16

Very good question. Andy, I have to say that this really comes from my grandmother, the wise grandmother, she always taught me that we need to know where we're going, right? Because sometimes we will be doing things that we don't like to do things that sometimes that is not really meaningful, but those tasks, and those actions will take to the place that you want it to be. So and I think like growing up hearing her saying that, to me, it was quite natural, for me was kind of like a very, was ingrained, almost like in my personality that you need to be okay with doing sometimes things that you don't want it to do, because the outcome will be good. And I think and the like nowadays, I also see that this is also something very strong about the Latin culture, where we have to bear with a lot of like things that we don't like, in a lot of instability of like the emerging economy or emerging countries where things sometimes are not as predictable. In I'm okay with that.

Andy Follows: 37:37

Brilliant. I'm so glad we heard that it came from your wise grandmother, that was a beautiful moment. Back to the story then where we find you in Sao Paulo. I've got you pacing around your rooms or whatever thinking right? I've got to roll my sleeves up and brainstorm how am I going to solve this? Because I'm sure as heck not going home. So what did you do?

Vitória Lorenzetti: 38:02

Absolutely. So I said, going back home, my mum was already preparing the room for me to be back home. I said, Mum, that's not going to happen. And then I start thinking about what about going abroad. And then I remember my mom said, Well, we cannot even afford to pay your school here. You want to go to where to US and study that we cannot do that. And now, like going back, I said, you're saying that we cannot do it based on what right? So I start exploring some options and said, Okay, let's see what is out there? Like we don't know, right? So we basically the same things that we don't have the full story, we don't have the facts to say. So then I went to like travel agency to see, okay, if I wanted to go abroad, what do I need, right. And of course, there's many options available, you can basically go to study in Canada, just to study and then don't work and do whatever, and get the school paid by your parents. Or you can go to Australia pick up oranges in the field, which was not really me or you can go to the US as an au pair and take care of American kids. I said, That could be me, even though I'd never done that type of job in Brazil. I think I can definitely do it. And I started thinking about going to the US as an au pair. And of course with my plan in mind. I kind of lined up I remember, I still have these paper today. And I kind of traced what I wanted to write so I said I will stay six months in the US. I go learn a language, raise money and then come back to finish my studies right. Yeah, everything was quite, you know, traced and planned. And then I said, Okay, I have I have like some savings, which is the savings that like the grandparents used to, to put some money, you know, since I was like a one year old and I can just get that money and just pay for the student exchange programme. And I did.

Andy Follows: 40:24

If you listen to Vitoria's inspiring story in Episode 138, you'll soon learn that she's not one to take no for an answer. Mike Ellenthorpe impressed me with the lengths he went to to improve his chances of getting a job that he recognised to be a likely life changing opportunity.

Mike Ellenthorpe: 40:45

So really, I want to share this part of this and we can maybe thin out other parts. But this this is a really, for me is a key moment. And I was driving home on the M6 northbound from London. And I got a phone call from Bill the headhunter. And obviously it was a couple of hours later. And he said, Mike, just wanted to touch base. Thank you very much for coming down. Just wanted to give you some feedback. It went very, very well. In fact, to be honest with you, just to let you know, you're down to the final three. I went, Wow, brilliant. Thanks, Bill. Really appreciate that. And he said, No, no, no, he obviously went well. He said, I can't believe how long you're in there. So yeah, no, no, it's really, really good. I'll be in touch with the next steps. I said, Okay, thank you very much. So I arrived home. And I got straight online, went on to British Airways. And I found a flight to Bahrain. And Gail came up said, What are you doing? And I said, I'm gonna fly to Bahrain tonight. And she went, what? She said, you can't. I said, I can because British Airways says I can. So I remember it being you know, at the time you thinking, wow, you know, 550 600 pounds, you know I had a young family and I had Jordan was a baby and Elliot was only a little guy. So anyway, I booked the flights. I got the shuttle down from Manchester and the following morning, six o'clock down to Heathrow. I bumped into this guy by mistake. And his name was Andy and he ended up befriending me worked in Bahrain himself for a number of years, he could see that I was an absolute rookie on the international potential internecine. I told him the story. He was in business plus, I wasn't. But he kept coming back to me to make sure I was okay. And that has stuck with me forever, because he recognised something in himself when he first went out there. So anyway, I, I hired a car arrived into Bahrain, it was about 35 to 38 degrees. So what I decided to do is a mystery shops, all of the dealerships. And I mystery shops, the company that I was in the running for that evening, I got back to the hotel, and around Paul, General Manager, the group General Manager, and I said, Paul, can we meet? Is it possible we can meet again? And I said, Mike, thanks for calling. I'd love to sit. But actually, it's my birthday. And I'm not in London. I'm in Bahrain. I said, Oh, great. So am I. And then it went quiet, because he couldn't quite sort of digest what I just said. And he said, You're in Bahrain, why are you in Bahrain? I said, Well, if I've got a 33% chance of getting the what I consider to be a life changing opportunity, I thought it was worth coming out to see what Bahrain has to offer and what you are like as a company. He said Mike let me ring you back. So anyway, he rang me back about an hour later, he said, Mike meet me in this bar in this hotel, and we'll have a bit of dinner, and we'll have a beer. We'll just have a chat. So anyway, that's what we did. And we chatted, and he said to me, said, I've rang Zeid, and I told him what you've done. I know that you weren't his number one choice. You were one of the three but you weren't number one choice. So you just elevated yourself to number one spot. And I have a contract here in my pocket. And Zeid would like to offer you the role. And he's happy for you to take the contract back home with you talk to your wife, and then you can let us know in the next 48 hours if that's convenient. If you need longer, let us know. And I said I don't think I do. I think as far as I'm concerned, I will speak to Gail but you've got a provisional yes from me. And that's how it was Andy. That's what happened. So I did get home. I did climb back into bed with Gail It was late one night and she said you're going aren't you you've got the job. And I said let's get some sleep. We'll talk in the morning.

Andy Follows: 45:03

So I, oh my goodness, thank you for sharing that that is a cracking story. I love that story. And I especially appreciated that by going the extra mile or several 1000 miles, Mike elevated himself to being the first choice candidate and came away with a contract, Mike joined me to create episode 114. Caroline Rae and I talked about how to build a career on your own terms, he or she encourages us to think in terms of having a relationship with our career, rather than thinking of it as a ladder. So what I like to think is that we've done enough in this few minutes to paint a picture of you people have understood your journey, they've seen the serious environment you've been in, you've mixed business and politics, if you'd like you've been at the centre, bringing those parties together, you've also been in the startup world, you've experienced burnout yourself, and you have been vulnerable with us today and shared it with us. So now we've got this rounded picture of you, if you like. And it makes a lot of sense that you're using all of that experience plus your coach qualifications and practice to then help people. And we talked about a few things that we could highlight in this conversation. And one of the things you do with people is help them to understand when it's or why it's time to let go of the career ladder, which is a term that we're so familiar with, and instead embrace the career relationship. And I was excited about this. I want to hear more about how that works. Because it sounds intriguing.

Caroline Rae: 46:38

Yeah, you know, our careers are enormous parts of our life. And sometimes they can be the main thing. And I think in some seasons, that's okay. So I think when you're 20, you know, you can run at pace, you get a lot from your work, you're often getting social life from your work. But I think what happens is sometimes we can just have that model, and then continue to apply it throughout our life. And what I know from the work that I do with clients is that we need different things from our career in different seasons. And so when we're thinking about the career relationship, and the reason that I think this is a useful framing, when we think about our careers, most of how we think about success and ambition is through the lens of our career solely through the lens of our career, we're not thinking about being ambitious for our life, as well as our career. And I think when we think about how our relationship is with our career, it's the same as any other relationship. So whether it's with our partners, whether it's with our family members, whether it's with money, whether it's with ourselves, it's the same set of questions that you need to ask yourself, and I think the questions we ask around our career are completely around progress. You know, the currency of it is progress and competition, really, that's when we, when we think about careers, that's, you know, we always have to be beating ourselves, getting to the next level, getting the next pay rise, you know, getting the title. And for me, these are external tick boxes, these are sort of how we've been taught to think about success. It's all external. And then it's completely understandable that you have any role models that sort of thought about, what do we want our life to look like? Not just What's success in our career, I mean, I didn't know what your role models were, but certainly, at home work was definitely hard, like work was hard. It wasn't that enjoyable. Like, I didn't know anyone who was like, I feel really satisfied and rewarded for my work. It was, it was hard, it was something you had to do. And even if I think about you know, like Wall Street with Michael Douglas, you know, like lunch is for wimps. And you know, there's all these role, like, sort of working girl, there's all these role models, none of which were, I want to think about my life in the rounds and I want to think about I'm thinking about, is the relationship with my career, like, do I feel like it's reciprocal? Do I feel like, am I putting in all the effort and not getting the return? Am I putting investing time and energy into developing that relationship and nurturing that relationship? Whether it's learning a skills or whether it's, you know, networking, and so I think that framing around it, calling it a career relationship can really distinguish between the external tick boxes, and I'm not knocking them you know, we work hard, and ultimately, the currency of worked between you and a company the exchange is money, but the other bits are the bits that make the difference between something feeling ugh and something feeling. I'm not saying that every day is going to be incredible, but for the most part, progress, rewarding autonomy. These are the things that my clients want. They want more autonomy, they want more fulfilment. They want to be working on stuff that really energises them. Yes, they do want the pay and promotion, but that tends to be secondary. I don't know if you have a similar experience with your clients being more experienced being more senior.

Andy Follows: 50:05

The idea of wanting autonomy and fulfilment from a career really resonates with me. And I suspect with some of you to Caroline practices what she preaches and shares more of her hard won wisdom in Episode 140. In his position leading the research and development laboratory at Gillette, Dr. Kevin Powell and his team faced a significant challenge to improve on a razor that was widely recognised as the best a man can get. Here, he shares how he galvanised the team's efforts and attention to achieve just that. Say little bit about that if there's anything that comes to mind?

Kevin Powell: 50:44

I think, Andy, you're absolutely right. And I think actually, it comes to a very important point that I learned is the importance of being able to clearly articulate a goal as a leader. So you know, we talked about purpose, you know, it's clear, the purpose here is to touch and improve a man or a woman's life, you know, so to be able to enable them to remove hair safely, so they can look well groomed, that will allow them to attract and retain a mate or to get and to keep a job. It's as simple as that, you know, that that's really why people do it. So the purpose is very clear. purpose alone, to your point commercially, is not a sufficient articulation, you know, you can't just say, oh, let's spend 750 million, because I think this person is going to have a better life. That's not a good bet. What you need is a very, very clear goal. And we had understood over the years that you needed to be able to take the best razor that you were creating in development, you needed to shave it blind, and now we're talking men or women against the best on the market, which invariably at that time, at least, was Gillette. And you needed to beat it to to one in blind testing. So when you ask that preference at the end, which of the two razors did you prefer, then it needed to be experimental. And you will put statistics around that. So we knew very clearly Andy that this purpose, I could articulate as a goal. And that goal, simply stated was, would I get a two to one win it was done in a very sophisticated way. So you went out on 214 men, they were newly recruited, they'd never been on a shaving panel before they were all over the country or all over the world, it didn't matter. They were not told it was Gillette, these things looked very experimental. They shaved for two weeks with one product, they shaved for two weeks another product, you ask them the question, which do you prefer? And then you say, at the end of the day, do I get that two to one or not? And we did that multiple times. And if you did you then knew you had something that was delightful. And so everyone in the laboratory doesn't matter who you were, we had about 120 people there in the Reading laboratory. Everyone in that laboratory knew their job was to get that two to one win. And not just one, several, you want to create a pipeline of two to one winners. And they were so good at it. That and that is a they not me, I was fortunate enough to lead the laboratory, I had some of the best and most creative and very much to our earlier conversation, diverse minds and talents. Scientists, engineers, rapid prototypers, people working on time compression technologies, you know, well before what you're seeing today, they'd learned how to be able to make a razor and 24 hours instead of three months, you put them together, and every single person knows that the success is did we get this two to one win or not. And so the whole laboratory was literally sort of doing on fingernails, when the results of one of these tests came back, because they knew it was a really clear indication of were we successful or not. And if we weren't, then frankly, you know, the whole laboratory was at risk. So when I took over leadership of the laboratory, predecessor had been removed from the role because he had not been able to lead the laboratory through a two to one win. Well, frankly, the reason he hadn't, if he had not put that goal out there and held it up, you know, he'd allowed all sorts of other things to happen and people to work on all sorts of diffuse things that you hadn't brought everyone together around that very clear this goal. So that really Andy underpinned the rest of my career was that sense of okay, I know what my purpose is. That's clear. But in each circumstance, What's my goal? What does winning look like? How do I quantify that, you know, it's the old classic, make it SMART, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound. But make sure everyone knows that it's got to be on every single person's work plan, their remuneration must be linked to that your whole culture has to be built around that. If you get that right if Every one like a finely tuned orchestra is playing from the same script and is in harmony, magical things will happen. And that really is what allowed us to have that playground there in Reading and frankly, although I've gone on to work in other wonderful companies and positions, I've never known such an experience is that such a creative experience such a focused experience, and such a successful experience that group, you know, the things that Gillette is launching now, were developed 20 plus years ago, you know, based on that group working together, by and large, and I think there's a lot to be said for that.

Andy Follows: 55:38

I'm sure you'll recognise how Kevin's explanation of the importance of clearly articulating a goal as a leader. And his example of how he was able to do that for his team is helpful for all of us. His episode number 115 is full of transferable insights. Karolina Bullock is another of my inspiring guests who have demonstrated courage and resilience in navigating their life and career journey. Here, she talks about learning from mistakes managers, and mentors.

Karolina Bullock: 56:08

It's not like I didn't make mistakes, because I did and everyone does, but I'll try to learn from them. If I make a mistake, then I'll take it on the chin, and then I'll learn from it, I'll identify what I could have done better. And I will try to take that approach next time. Because most of you makes mistakes, especially when you're learning. It's having the ability to just move past it and try not to do it again. Rather than, you know, put yourself down or think, Oh, well, maybe I'm not good enough for this. And maybe I can't do it. It's just okay, I've made a mistake. And partly might be down to the mentors that I've had in the past and people that I used to report in to have supported me and to build in that person that is really confident and knows they can do everything if they work hard for it. Because actually, all of my managers in the past were really supportive and really, I think helped score the person that I am now,

Andy Follows: 57:03

is there a story that stands out for you, or comes to mind easily about a manager or a mentor who has helped you.

Karolina Bullock: 57:12

So I guess nothing specifically not a specific story, although I do have a favourite manager and at the heart. And what I liked about the management style that he took with me is that he used to push me into bringing him

Andy Follows: 57:24

It's good to hear that Karolina has been well solutions rather than questions or problems. And that really made me think differently of my role and how I should be approaching my work. Because naturally, everyone will have their comfort blanket at work. And somebody they can always ask questions, and somebody will that will never judge them and any stand relying on that. But actually, if you want to challenge yourself and improve and get better, then you kind of have to remove that and ask yourself, what would that person say? And then I'll do that. So this particular manager used to do that to me, and I would approach him and say, Listen, this is the situation what should we do? He would always say, what would you do? And force that thinking, and really drill that into you? And then I would never really then every time I would naturally think to approach him for something I'd think, right? He's gonna ask me what I would do. So I need to have a think about this before I do anything, so I think that really, really helped actually, and this is something that really stuck with me. supported by managers and mentors who've helped her to develop along the way, you can listen to the full extent of her unusual journey in Episode 151. You've been listening to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR with me, Andy Follows I hope you've enjoyed this celebration of episodes from our third year of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. I've certainly enjoyed selecting these stories to share. Whilst I couldn't feature every guest and every story, the good news is that they're all available in our growing back catalogue. I'd like to thank all of my guests since episode one for joining me to share their experiences and insights. If you enjoy listening to our episodes, please could you do me a huge favour and share them with someone you lead parent or mentor or a friend do you think will also appreciate them? Thank you to our sponsors for this episode ASKE Consulting and Aquilae and thank you to the CAREER-VIEW MIRROR team without whom we wouldn't be able to share our guests' life and career stories. And above all, thank you to you for listening.

Osman Abdelmoneim: 59:34

No matter how hard you try. No matter how hard working you are, you're never going to be able to do it on your own. It's just not possible.

Paul Harris: 59:40

You know, at the end of the day, you're steering your own destiny. So if it's not happening for you, and you're seeing what you want out there, then go out there and connect.

Sherene Redelinghuys: 59:49

Don't rely on others. You you have to do it yourself. You have to take control.

Rupert Pontin: 59:55

If you've got an idea if you've got a thought about something that might be successful, if you've got a passion to do something yourself but you just haven't quite got there do it.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:00:05

Take a risk take a chance stick your neck out what's the worst that can happen you fall down okay you pick yourself up and you try again