Leadership Detectives
Leadership Detectives
Leadership Insights From ex-Rugby Legend, Harvey Thorneycroft
In this episode of The Leadership Detectives, Albert and Neil discuss strong leadership insights with ex-British Lions England A rugby legend and successful business owner, Harvey Thorneycroft.
Find Neil online at: https://neilthubron.com
Find Albert on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-e-joseph
Welcome to the Leadership Detectives with Albert Joseph and Neil Thubbron. This is the go-to podcast for uncovering clues about great leadership. If you are a leader today or an aspiring leader, this podcast is a must for you. In this episode, we are delighted to be joined by ex-Northampton Saint some British Lions, England A rugby professional, and business owner Harvey Thornycroft. During this interview, Harvey shares some fabulous stories of his experience of leadership from people like Sir Ian McKeeken, Martin Johnson, and many, many more. We know you will love this wide-ranging discussion on leadership.
SPEAKER_01:Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome everyone back to Leadership Detectives for our next opportunity looking at the clues to great leadership. I'm sitting here in Surrey in rain, rain, rain. So, Neil, what's it like where you are?
SPEAKER_02:It's freezing cold and wet here, actually. I've just got back from an hour and a half walk and I'm soaking. I literally just dried off before I came on here. But it's we're very excited today to be joined by someone else who's actually sitting in Surrey as well, a little bit further north than you, Albert. It's Harvey Thornycroft. Ex rug uh ex-rugby player from Northampton, played for Northampton, played for the Barbarians, England A squad. And I first met Harvey uh because Harvey runs an agency that that introduces speakers onto the speaker circuit and got a fantastic stable of people in uh that he looks after. And I was introduced to Harvey a few years ago. Delighted to meet him and delighted to have you here, Harvey. Welcome.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Great to see you. Thanks for being here. And you're in Richmond, aren't you?
SPEAKER_03:No, I'm in Thames Dithon, very close to Hampton Court, just down the river.
SPEAKER_01:I thought you were in Richmond, okay. Lovely part of the world.
SPEAKER_03:That's beautiful down there, and not far away from Twickenham, which is yeah, it's a long way from where I grew up in Northamptonshire, but um, I have to say, um, a lovely spot nonetheless.
SPEAKER_02:Fantastic. Thanks for joining us today to try and help us uncover the clues of leadership.
SPEAKER_01:So I think we've got some great stuff with Harvey because Harvey comes from a slightly different background from lots of us with the corporate stuff that we're looking at. But um, so rather than us introduce Harvey, let's let Harvey do that. Harvey, uh, let's let's let's go with the first question, right? I was gonna say imagine, but I'm sure that you don't have to imagine. You get introduced onto stage probably quite a lot to talk to people. But imagine someone is introducing you onto stage, you can decide who that person is, and you can decide what they say about you. And also, what song would they play as you came onto stage?
SPEAKER_03:Well, well, I hope they play something from the cure. Um, one of those that takes me back, which is my sort of Friday night. Um, if I'm going out and I need to get changed, I put on a couple of cure songs. Um, and that takes me back um to a very, very happy period of time. Um, who would I like to introduce me to? Uh I on probably someone like Seb Koe or my old coach, uh Saean McGeeken, or someone like Michelle Rue Jr., um, people I have huge respect for in terms of the levels of excellence they've achieved. Um, what would they say? I hope they would say that um he surrounds himself with world-class people and he's got no place in a corporate environment, but if you needed to contact the Pope, then you'd give him a call. Wow, okay.
SPEAKER_01:That's an interesting now. That's a great introduction.
SPEAKER_02:That's a fantastic introduction. So that means you've obviously got access to people that other people don't. Would you get hold of the Pope directly, or would that be through some extra higher power?
SPEAKER_03:Well, interestingly, I had no access. That was something my boss said when I sold my business in 2003. It was a guy called Connor Davy. Um, and he's thought I was slightly unconventional, and we went into a corporate environment in the city having set our own business up. Um, and he said, Look, really, really lovely working with you, but you've got no place in a corporate environment. Um, you're too unconventional, but um, I know that if I needed to contact the Pope, then I'd give you a call. So it was slightly endearing for me whether you would um like that or not. But um the fact is, um, it was some years later when we were running the World Athletics uh awards and Congress and Convention uh for Lord Co., formerly the IAAF, um, that a lady called Tegla LaRoupe uh had an audience with the Pope prior to coaching Richard Branson in the marathon. And so she had to be in two locations. She had to meet the Pope and then fly back in his jet to coach Richard Branson. I thought, my gosh, this is my direct link uh to the Pope. Tegla LaRoupe, probably one of the most amazing women of her generation in terms of what she's doing, but she was the lady that ran the refugee team during the Olympics. But obviously, as an athlete, she was one of the most successful long-distance runners of all time, hence the reason she was coaching Richard Branson.
SPEAKER_01:Just before we move off that topic, by the way, it's my mum and dad's 60th anniversary this year. So if you could have a word with the Pope, I won't see if you can put in a mention for that, actually.
SPEAKER_03:Divine intervention. That's and a Catholic as well.
SPEAKER_01:And they're Catholic, indeed.
SPEAKER_02:So uh so this this this podcast is all about great leadership, and you've obviously worked with some great leaders over the years in sport, in business, in with the military, etc. But to start with, with your with your sporting career, what what would you say are some of the great clues of great leadership that you've seen when you were working when you were in the sports world?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, I was lucky enough to play for um a premiership rugby team called Northampton Saints uh for 13 years. I started in 1987 and finished in 2001. Um, had a wonderful series of coaches and played with some of the best players of their generation. You know, when I look at the Lions um this year, the British and Irish Lions, you know, we had Gregor Townsend in our team. Uh, we had people like Matt Dawson, uh Paul Grayson, you know, really, really wonderful superstars of their generation. Whether they would play in a modern era, I don't know, but one would hope they would. Uh but we had a coach called Ian McGeeken, Sir Ian McGeeken, who again um knew his strengths and weaknesses. Um, he was probably the most four-sighted coach of his generation. Um, and when he first arrived at the club, we had a situation whereby we got relegated um to what is now called the championship. It was the second division in those days. Um, just a quirk of faith, a fate. Um, and he put a vision in place um and allowed everyone to stay. I mean, whole C you know, seasoned internationals um, who sh would never have done that in a modern era, stayed. And the culmination of that was uh he put a, if you like, a purpose in place for us all, a strategy and a commitment plan to allow us to achieve what we needed to do. Now, that was to win the league, uh, to win every game by 50 points, and to play in a style that became reminiscent with Northampton Saints in those days, because they were underachievers. But the net result of that, the year before he left, um, which is 1999, um, his wife was struggling uh with um some sort of illness, so he had to move away, and he then became the Scotland coach. So, from a premiership coach to the Scotland coach, having coached the Lions and played for the Lions, he predicted that we had a game that would win the European Cup. He was a visionary, and I've got that letter um uh at my house, which is I'm a hoarder, so I've kept all these letters. He then left that summer, the following summer in May, I think it was 2000. Northampton then won went on to win the ultimate prize, which was the European Cup. And I was surrounded by world-class leaders on the field, but I was surrounded also by one of the best coaches of his generation, the most understated, the most humble man you'll ever meet in your life, um, and revered in British and Irish Lions terms because of his pedigree, because he was a player and also uh a coach. And for that reason, I've a bit like you guys, I'm inquisitive. I've talked about being detectives. I have tried to find out by surrounding myself with world-class people what leadership and many of the other facets of management are about. Um, and again, I haven't I haven't cracked it, but I've got some good understanding from those early days with Ian McGeeken.
SPEAKER_02:And just let I'm fascinated by a couple of things because painting a vision, um being clear on purpose and strategy is really important, and and you hear that a lot in all the leadership. But one of the things that I find that we don't hear enough about, how do you get that down into the team? So when you heard that vision from Ian McGeeken, when you heard his purpose and this uh probably goal that seemed too so unrealistic of because it's so far away, how did he communicate that? And and how did you feel about it when he communicated it to you?
SPEAKER_03:It it was very simple because um sports people are extraordinarily simple. You know, it's a hundred things done better by one percent rather than the other way around, you know. And you've heard all of the analogies around marginal gains, all of these things were in place in in 1995 uh when we had an international squad that had got relegated that needed to get back into the premiership, and then five, six years later, you're winning the ultimate competition. And Northampton hadn't won anything, you know, from 1880 when they were founded to 2000. So it was 120 years of drought, you know, and then in the year that I finished, um, we were able to do that. The best leadership model for me, um, which is what Geeach was about, was what happened in modern history, which is the Olympic uh hockey team, GB hockey team, when they won the gold in Rio in 2016.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and again, Ian McGee's analogies were put all of the things in place and then commit yourself completely to that commitment plan. But understand that if you like a stretch target was to to win the league, but win every game by 50 points, which even in the second division is an audacious undertaking in a sense. Um, and what I love about uh the 2016 example, which and again, you've you've probably got another brilliant example in 2003 with Clive Woodward and that squad, and he inherited an amazing squad. Uh, what Danny inherited, who was the coach of Team GB, was a team that had no real um reason to beat the Dutch team, which was the most skillful team in 2016. Yet everything they put in place, moving to Maidenhead uh to be close to Bisham Abbey, halving their funding, um, coming together as a squad. And obviously, with the GB hockey team, uh, all of the girls that play in that team come from uh different nations, which is the only time in history they come together for the Olympics. So all of the, it's a bit like the British and Irish Lions example. They came together and they used uh psychometric testing, insights profiling to understand what people's strengths and weaknesses were. And he said, We're not the most skillful team in the world, but we can be the best team in the world. And they ended up uh doing far better than they thought by winning the gold medal. Because if you remember in 2012 they won the bronze medal, so all of the foundations were in place. But what was interesting with that team, in 2012, they won the bronze medal again against all odds, and then they finished, I think, 11 out of 12 in the World Championships two years later because they removed Danny, they moved him upstairs, so he's no longer responsible for the team, yeah, and brought new members in because a four-year cycle in the Olympics is such that people will move and go to different locations or retire like Annie Panter did, one of our friends. Um, and then they decided that they needed to put all of that back in place with a view to then go on and win the gold medal. So, in my um understanding of what I think is probably one of the perfect leadership models that I've ever seen, where everyone committed to it, not just Danny, who was the natural leader, but all of the natural leaders uh within that team, like Kate Richardson Walsh, who'd been there for years and years, it is the best example of team and leadership that I've ever seen in my history of working with some amazing people.
SPEAKER_02:And the the outcomes are clear. So the leadership work, the outcomes are clear, like the outcomes are clear for Northampton as well. Um, and it's it's the little thing. I always find it's the little things that make the difference. Now you said a minute ago you had a letter. What was that a letter from Ian McGee can plating out the vision?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, uh at the start, I mean, those days there was no emails, so you would get a handwritten letter um from your coach. Yeah and it was clear, it was referenced at the top of the page. Um, we have a game that we can essentially go on and win the European Cup. Everything is in place. Now that coach then left, and yet there were enough senior leaders in that team, people like Tim Rodber, Pat Lamb, who's the current premiership coach of Bristol, who are the top of the league at the moment in the playoffs. Yeah. Um, you know, people like Paul Grayson, uh Matt Dawson, uh in you know, in terms of their particular styles and traits, they were the leaders of their generation within that team. And and they went on to execute the vision that had been put in place over the last five years. And and and Woodward will tell you this again, who inherited that amazing squad and then took it to a different level. Um, you can seek counsel from all of the different team members and natural leaders, but ultimately Clive wouldn't have to make the decision on what they do, and that's what he did. He took all of that feedback, but there has to be someone who has to have the ability to make the decisions, and um that's what the players did themselves. We we got an old uh player back who came from London Scottish to be our coach called John Steele, and he realized the mechanics were in place to allow that group of individuals to go on and create greatness, and again, in simplistic terms, in terms of my reference point, uh, we're in the um top of the league to potentially win the premiership. We're in the equivalent of the FA Cup final, which was called the Tetley Bitter Cup final, and then the following week, we're playing in the European Cup final. So all of the various competitions you could play in, we're in. And unfortunately, um rugby's an attritional game, and as a consequence, injuries resulted in us losing the Tetley Bitter Cup final. We didn't win the league, but we won the ultimate competition, which was European Cup. And I was in the squad, it was my last year. I didn't play in the final, but I was very much, and this is really, really important to understand. Just because you're not on the pitch, I contributed to that season. They gave me a medal, which again they didn't need to do, um, because of the contribution that I'd made since 1987 all the way through. So teams aren't just made, uh, they they evolve over time, and cultures evolve over time.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting you mentioned um Tim Rudburgh actually. Neil and I used to work with his dad. We used to work with Kids Rudberg, actually. Yeah, you did.
SPEAKER_03:He was the FD of IBM, wasn't he?
SPEAKER_01:Certainly was. He certainly was. Just just want to think a little bit more for our audience here around let's take the team captain and how the team captain is performing on the pitch and what they expect from their team. What can you share with us about how that works? How does the dynamic of that work? As a leader, you set some things out, but then you're into execution. What do you expect from your team to perform for you as a leader?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I mean, the probably the best uh natural leader that I ever came across that didn't really need to say anything was the man that won the World Cup with England. It was Martin Johnson. And if you remember, Martin Johnson wasn't Clive Woodward's original captain, it was Lawrence Bruno Nero Delalio. Um and there's two really contrasting individuals there, and I know them both very well. Martin is very understated, unbelievable technical knowledge on his sport, but every other sport, um, they call him Stato because he's got the most unbelievable brain when it comes to uh knowledge on sport, and um he led by example, he was an uncompromising individual that people respected enormously. You can't really put uh any particular um reason why he was so successful other than he was. Yeah, whereas someone like Lawrence DeLalio, who has again uh gone on and reinvented himself, and that's a really interesting thing. Um, many of the gentlemen that I'm talking about have had the ability to go on and reinvent themselves beyond um the traditional confines of what they were doing. Yeah, um, so Lawrence Bruno Nero Delalia, and I love that name, um, he just led by example, but he was also a natural leader. He would not compromise in any way, shape, or form. And every facet of his game he took to the highest level. Yeah, um, and and I felt very blessed because when I came out of playing rugby, I also had a captain and then director of my organization, Rodb Thornycroft, Tim Rodber, who again was a very, very similar person, should have been the natural captain of England. But when you've got DeLalio and you've also got Johnson, you have to fit them in. And when you take that 2003 team, there were probably six or seven natural leaders that led on the field. And what Clive did was get the very, very best out of them. Yeah. Um, and um, so there are teams within teams, that's what we used to be referred to, teams within teams, and um, you know, we can go on and talk about that. But those three individuals, for me, as captains, they were captains of their club, um, and they all went on to reinvent themselves significantly, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Um and what and I get that, and and they you know, I'm observing from the outside, they look like great leaders, you know, just watching from the outside. But what you said, Martin Johnson's probably one of the best of uh examples of a natural leader. What was it he did that made him such a great leader? So, what were the things that he did on a daily basis, on the in during the match, before the match, what were the things that made him that leader that people just you know followed?
SPEAKER_03:Well, so if we go back to um, and again, we're using all rugby or sporting analogies here, and obviously I've met many, many people in different facets. Um, but you know, to use someone like John, okay, if you go back to Ian McGeakin's analogy around you have a vision which is essentially to be the best team in the world, you know, you put a strategy in place to essentially win the European Cup, or in Martin's terms, the the League, or the World Cup. So, you know, amazing, amazing undertakings. Um, and what people don't know is that he put everything in place to make sure that at no point in his three-lane highway, which his career would have been rugby and his friends and family and his own personal well-being, none of them were compromised. So he executed every element that was required to the highest level of his ability. He wasn't willing to compromise, but he was willing to take risks. He was willing to try things and fail on the training field in order to get to a point where he could iterate and succeed in those pressure situations. I mean, I've seen many, many uh clips of the last few minutes before uh England did end, eventually went on to win the World Cup. And um they break it down. All of those were training scenarios within their commitment plan, which they had rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. A moment of brilliance from Matt Dawson was probably something spontaneous. And if and if you look at Olympic sporting turns, but you look at something like um uh what the guys were doing during the Olympics 2012, which was strengths and weaknesses, teams identified their strengths and their allowable weaknesses. And using a cricket analogy, Kevin Peterson could win a game by playing a reckless shot. That reckless shot could lose the game, but it could also win the game. So all of the teams knew that his allowable weaknesses from time to time he would do something that was audacious, it'd either come off or it wouldn't. And um Matt Dawson provided that in a in a World Cup final with that little run that he did, which essentially made the ground to allow Johnny to do the drop goal. But these are all small things, really, really small elements, that ultimately went on to ensure that um well, they only won the World Cup in '66, um, with the World Cup football team, but 2003. I mean, we nearly pulled it off this year, but uh not quite.
SPEAKER_01:Let's um so you did mention there, Harvey, that we're talking about a lot of sport analogies, but you know many other people, you've met many other leaders, right? Should we talk a little bit about your uh brilliant mind interviews, right? Because you've done some great stuff there. Is there anything you want to draw from that to share with our audience what that's about and and uh what you've got?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so when I came out of rugby, and it's very difficult to reinvent yourself post-rugby, but we had a business that had access to people and places you wouldn't ordinarily get access to. And we built that business up, it was called Rod Bathornycroft after after Tim and myself, and uh sold it in 2003, and we were very, very fortunate. It was two years after the European Cup final. We were in a position where extrinsically we're in a great, great scenario, um, but we weren't that motivated intrinsically. We'd sold a business and we were working in the city, and many of you will know working in corporate environments, somebody sometimes you get lost. Whereas if you're autonomous and you're responsible for your own ship, that isn't the situation. But the nature of selling out is you've sold out. Um so I was looking for some answers, really, and I met a very interesting gentleman in 2003 uh in Florida who said he'd spent most of his life trying to acquire wealth, the remaining part trying to acquire health. Um, and health he defined physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, spiritually being purpose as we know it now in business. Um, and I was fascinated by that. And he gave me a reading list, and all of them were American authors. So, to answer your question, what I've done over the last 16 plus years is to find the very, very best leaders, metaphor deliverers, delineated specialists, whatever you want to call them, of their generation in their particular fields, bomb disposal experts, heart surgeons, military leaders, um, people like Neil, who've done extraordinary things in that sense. And so what I've been able to try and do is get an understanding instinctively of what makes those people tick. And the brand is Brilliant Minds. Brilliant Minds was born out of the fact that we had access to this extraordinary community, but we needed a way of exposing that community digitally. Because when you hear inspiration, as I did last night where I interviewed James Cracknell OBE, what you understand are the, if you like, the wonderful examples of the people we revere, but what you don't get is the difficulties that result as a consequence of being that great. And the mental anguish that they go through post-career and this sort of thing. And so it defects depends on how you define success. Success for me is very different to the alpha male psychopathic CEO that just wants to succeed, never look back, never enjoy uh the present, just look to the future. So the definition of success for me varies depending on who you are.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I guess um with all those brilliant minds, when we look at leadership, so because it there's lots of stuff we could talk about around those brilliant minds and their characters and what you could learn from them, but specifically around leadership, are there some common themes and traits that have come out of that? Because I know you've done some research with all the interviews you've done anyway.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so what we did over um seven or eight years, we wanted these guys to have access um to our sort of community, but if you remember before digital, it was very difficult to do that. You'd go on a train to London, you'd meet a senior person, they'd have a particular request and you'd fulfill it, and it was very organic. Um, and what we were able to do is film 1,250 video clips of about 200 brilliant minds, um, which we then posted out into our communities just to, if you like, make people aware of learning from other people and other industries and and and passing that on. If you do good things, good things tend to happen. And then uh a gentleman came along as one of our clients who was part of York Business School, uh, a guy called Paul Stanley, a wonderful man, very academic, but also very, very good at business, very savvy, definitely worth getting on to your program at some point.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And um he recognised, because we've been posting this for seven years or so, that there was probably some really good stuff uh within the Brilliant Minds interviews that we did. Uh, and the guys that did that for us, we had a collaboration with a company called YBC, which is a digital marketing organization. And Mark Sinclair uh and James Kirk recognized that um if because they were both lawyers from the interviews, they did the transcripts of the interviews. And what Paul recognised is, and again, this wasn't my idea, but if we could run a piece of software over uh the transcripts, we could find out what the common traits are. And there's some generic traits in leadership and then some context-specific leadership traits. And I have some of those, but I tend to tell them around a story and those individuals. And and again, in all of the time that I've been doing this, I still haven't come up with a definitive guide as to what makes brilliant leadership. I've got some ideas and some brilliant examples of that, but this study, if you like, encapsulates probably the biggest and most diverse group of views from all of the videos that we actually performed and explained.
SPEAKER_02:So, what would be a story that would share uh one or two of those traits?
SPEAKER_03:Well, um, look, I mean, take one of the generic leadership um, and and again, one of the most amazing men that I've worked with, I was lucky enough uh to work with. Lord Sebastian Coe. And in my mind, there isn't a better leader of his generation than that. I would put him in the same category as someone like Ian McGeakin. And again, these people have a high degree of humility and have wonderful charisma. But if you think about what Lord Co. has been doing over lockdown, so he is the president of World Athletics, formerly the IAAF. He's the chairman of the biggest sports marketing organization in the UK and globally, Chime Sports Marketing. He's the president of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. He's also Chancellor of Loughborough University and a Lord. So there isn't anything that he hasn't seen during the last year. And what he's done, bearing in mind, he has a whole team around him that would respond to emails. This new technology that's been developed, which has been around, but in terms of frequent usage, Zoom or Teams or whatever you want to call it, he's now able to communicate with those teams around the world in a completely different way. And as a consequence of that, a sustainability strategy has been put in in World Athletics because he has 214 federations and he needs to speak to you. Imagine the cultural differences, you know, from the Cook Islands right the way through to Team USA. And one of the things in generic leadership is uh keep external politics away from the teams. And he uses this lovely example because I've just mentioned what Lord Coe is doing now. But do you remember he stood on a platform and um amazingly got London 2012 to these fantastic shores? Um and that originated in a pub. Now he said to me, and this is a really interesting thing, Paul Dyton, he recruited from uh Goldman Sachs to be, I think, the CEO of Low COG. And he's used to say in the various interviews that he did, it was no point getting Paul Dighton to answer on Radio 5 some disgruntled taxi driver because he can't go down the lanes anymore in London getting to the Olympic Stadium. That was Seb's job to defer all that because he's brilliant at that type of thing. That's what he would have had to do as a whip for uh William Haig or as an MP. Very, very good at deferring and allowing your team. So let's put this back into Kevin Dutton, who's the foremost brain-on psychopath. You might have all of the attributes that you need in order to be a CEO, but you don't have that killer instinct when it comes to sacking someone. What do you do? You use the Lord Coe analogy. You would bring in someone who has those acumen, who has those abilities to do that. So teams and the leadership of those teams have to be collaborative. They have to be cognitively diverse. And the types of leaders that we saw when I first set up in 1996 are extraordinarily different to the leaders now that I see in the city. I mean, one of the biggest things, and we talked about health and wellness, is their ability to be well, a healthy mind and a healthy body, understand the importance of sleep. Do you remember those guys that you used to see in the city who would go out and essentially entertain all night, be up at five and on their desk by six? Yeah. How on earth could they be making um huge performance decisions? Yeah. Sorry, I pause there, Neil, because I thought you were gonna ask a question.
SPEAKER_01:So um I I I um No, the reason that Neil stopped is he was just recover recalling his life when he was in the city.
SPEAKER_02:No, I uh well, I was around the city in the 80s, but not in that um but I I I think there's some I mean there's some fascinating insight there, and I'm conscious of time because we're we're half an hour, half an hour in. Um Albert, I think it'd be worth asking that last question actually, because I think they're uh before we go on to quick fire, because there's a I think it'll be really interesting link to something Harvey just said.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, so you touched on it earlier, Harvey, because you talked about the fact that you know these guys need to reinvent reinvent themselves. So let's just talk about that for a minute. What do great leaders do when they stop leading? What do they do?
SPEAKER_03:What well um there's big examples of this. So um let's use let's use um James Cracknell as an example. Um, and and this is really pertinent because um when we think of James, we think of two times Olympic gold medal, six world championships, um, and we think of him as one of our greatest sporting heroes in a boat that was one of the most successful. But what you don't know um is what did he do post his rowing career? Well, he sailed across the Atlantic, a bit like you, Neil, you're looking for things outside of what you did previously to fill um, if you like, um your desire to require purpose or whatever it may be. So he did um the most amazing challenges, and then what we don't know, and and many of the people last night when I was interviewing James didn't know, was in 2010 he had the most catastrophic accident going coast to coast across America, which put him in a medically induced coma. Nine years later, he submitted his dissertation at Cambridge University, where all the neuroscientists after the accident suggested that you will never ever be able to get back to the person you are. And so his view is and this is one on reinvention, is don't ever limit me. You don't know what I was like before, you don't know what the mindset of James Crackmelobier was before. Allow me to find a way of reinventing myself. So We all thought he was mad. He went back to Cambridge, if you remember, in 2018, because since his accident, everything was defined by the head injury, and people basically judged him, which took a toll on his confidence. So he went back to see if he could prove himself academically, and he did an M-Fill in human e human evolution. He then went back and tried to see if he'd get in the boat, and obviously, um, and it and he was trying to rescue a relationship that he had with his family, you know, because many relationships split up when you have a brain injury like that, because he becomes a different person. He did become a different person, but now history tells that whilst he was failing for a few months, he got back in the boat and he won the boat race, one of the oldest men to win the boat race. He handed in his dissertation nine years on after the accident, which the neuroscientist said there's never you never ever do that. Um, and now he's getting remarried and he's built um a life with his family. Now, if I was going to talk about reinvention, he is probably the best example of anyone that I've ever come across. Now, like Arson Wenger, like Michelle Rouge Jr. or other people I've interviewed, if you ask these guys, um, in order to achieve that level of greatness as a leader in that career lane, whether that's in business or sport or surgery, did you have to compromise any of the other lanes, health and wellness, or indeed your family and friends? All of them, including the Alex Ferguson documentary, which you'll have seen on Netflix, said probably the thing I regret the most was I neglected that part, which is my family. I didn't spend enough time with them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yet we revere these individuals for greatness, and then yet we expect them to go on and be great fathers or great family members, or and you know, you look at some of the guys on Harry's program, some of those great England stars that have fallen upon hard times now. Um, nothing really is being done to allow those people to transition beyond their careers and reinvent themselves. Yet they've got the skills to do it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I guess you get that. It's like achieving any big goal. And I guess it's the same for a leader at a great level is you get this depression after you achieve it. You get this decline, unless you set yourself another big goal, like reinventing yourself, like focusing on developing your business like you did. Or so you need that next goal to shoot for.
SPEAKER_03:But if if you look back at my career, I played in the England A team and I played a lot of games for there, but I didn't get capped. Um, went on a couple of England tours. People knew I could play the game, but I wasn't dedicated enough to be or or probably good enough. Some would say yes, some would say no, but that's not the point. The point is I wasn't prepared to dedicate my whole life to the outside line. So it's really important to understand how you define success.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Frank Dick will say successful people climb to the precipices of their dreams, they feel like they're taking too much room up, so they drive to the next level. They never enjoy the moment or reflect on the past. And you'll see that with leaders that you've worked with. And those leaders, you could say, have got mild psychopathic traits. And we need people like that for our world to succeed. And I and I absolutely um admire what they're prepared to do, but I wouldn't be prepared to do it because it compromises other elements of my life.
SPEAKER_01:I think what's interesting, Harvey, what you say is absolutely right for much of the past. And what Neil and I have been learning recently is leaders who need to be successful today need to bring that element into their world. They need to stop and celebrate, they need to stop and take time with the team, they need to appreciate today. They need to be you talked about um being humble, right? One of the names you mentioned, saying that that is one of the traits we're seeing is that today, that's what leadership seems to need. So things have moved on, right? But but and it's great to learn the lessons of the things that you've seen from days gone by and what you see working here today. Fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I think you know, we've covered a huge amount in this um session. Really appreciate your candidness and openness and the stories and amazing people you've met as well to build this picture up from. Um, I think we've probably missed on the quick fire because we've we're quite over time now.
SPEAKER_01:I think we've covered a lot here. Yeah, I I I think um the the the the way you portray it, by the way. Another good thing to talk about here is Harvey's storytelling capability, right? That is something about good leaders as well that we've seen, Harvey, and just the way you mentioned it here, because it's been very articulate and hopefully very engaging for our audience.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. So, if there was one message you wanted to leave with the the leaders that are listening, or the potential leaders that are listening, as they want to develop their skills and they want to grow into leaders, what would one message be that you'd want to leave with them?
SPEAKER_03:You know, it's really that's a really difficult question because um this is just my opinion, um, having observed very, very successful individuals, but but that doesn't mean they have to be captains of industry. I mean, what we found certainly during the lockdown is people have stepped up to the plate who you would never imagine, you know, bus drivers, people working for the NHS. Um, and I have huge admiration, you know, military leaders that have gone in to set up nightingale hospitals. Um, and these aren't people we naturally assume would um be heralded as great leaders. So I think you can find leaders in in every facet of life, but I would also suggest, um, just as you said, you know, things have changed since the um pandemic, um, and people are very cognizant of the fact that the simple things in life are just as important. Now, that's my opinion. I think, you know, I write a gratitude diary down, which I've been doing since Christmas. I've never done that before, but my wife suggested it wasn't a good thing to do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've done it for years, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And what are you grateful for? So just be grateful for the fact that even if you're really successful, even in a pandemic, um, just be grateful for the fact that your son played in a brilliant sports team and enjoy those moments. Reflect on how successful you've been in order to get to where you've got to. But be very cognizant of the fact that the future is something that you need. Everyone needs purpose. If they don't have purpose, then very, very few of us, as we found, if you've been furloughed and you've been stuck in without any purpose, from a uh cognitive perspective, it can cause mental anguish. There's a lot of heartache out there at the moment.
SPEAKER_02:No, brilliant thoughts as well. And gratitude is such an important element for your own grounding, but also sharing gratitude with your teams and with the people who you're leading as well. Um, so Harvey, uh you know, I just want to say a massive thank you to you for joining us on this uh podcast today. Great to have you here. Some great insight for our audience. Uh, to the audience, you know, hopefully there's some great thoughts and ideas in there you can pick up from some of the amazing leaders that Harvey's talked about today. So, Albert, I'll I'll hand over to you to close.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, just just my thanks to you as well, Harvey. I know you've got a really busy schedule, so thank you for fitting us into that. Really appreciate you sharing that with our audience. Um to our audience, thanks very much for listening. Please carry on giving us your comments. Please carry on subscribing. Uh, do take a look at the website for all the stuff that we've got on there and whatever media you're coming through, whether it's podcast, YouTube. Um, I hope you've enjoyed what we've got here. Look forward to talking to you again, and we'll see you on the next episode. Cheers. Cheers. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Cheers. Bye bye.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to the Leadership Detectives with Neil Thubron and Albert Joseph. Please remember to subscribe, give us your comments and your feedback. Please also visit leadershipdetectives.com for all the episodes and more resources and support.