S02 E07 | Purpose Over Profit: Pablo Lloyd OBE

In this episode of Inspiring Working Lives, we sit down with Pablo Lloyd OBE, author, entrepreneur, and ethical business leader, to explore the true meaning of purpose in business. Pablo shares his journey from finance to education and social impact, and how personal experiences led him to write The Financial Times Guide to Business Ethics.

We unpack why ethics should be operational, not aspirational, how trust has become the most valuable currency in modern organisations, and real‑world examples of leaders putting purpose into practice. Whether you’re stepping into leadership, building a business, or thinking about the impact you want to make, this conversation will challenge how you think about success and responsibility.

📘 Purchase Pablo’s book today, The Financial Times Guide to Business Ethics: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Financial-Times-Guide-Business-Ethics/dp/1292752513

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Inspiring Working Lives, the Morgan Hunt podcast where we explore public sector leadership journeys. From honest chats about career highs and lows to lessons and wisdom to inspire the next generation of leaders that will shape our society.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Hello and welcome to the Morgan Hunt Inspiring Working Lives Podcast. Today's guest is Pablo Lloyd OBE. Pablo is a British social entrepreneur, advisor, and author who has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of business, education, and social impact. He is best known as the chief executive and co-founder of Visionaires, a social enterprise dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship and helping individuals develop the skills and confidence to start and grow businesses. Earlier in his career, Pablo trained as a chartered accountant in the City of London before moving into senior leadership roles across the private, public, and third sectors, including serving as a finance director in the music industry at the Performing Rights Society, PRS. Alongside his commercial career, he has been a longstanding advocate for technical education, skills development, and entrepreneurship, helping to create programs that enable people to access opportunity and build successful careers. Pablo has also played an influential role in the UK's skills sector. He served for more than a decade on the board of WordSkills UK, championing excellence in technical education and careers for young people. In recognition of his work, he was awarded an OBE in 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours for Services to WordSkills UK and the development of young people's skills. He is the author of the Financial Times Guide to Business Ethics, a practical leadership book that explores how organizations can embed ethical thinking into everyday decision making. The book has recently been nominated for Business Book of the Year, recognizing its impact and relevance for modern leaders. Drawing on insights from senior leaders and real-world case studies, it argues ethical leadership should be operational rather than aspirational and provides practical frameworks for building trust, accountability, and long-term organizational success. Through his advisory work, writing and speaking, Pablo Lloyd promotes the idea that strong ethics and strong performance go hand in hand, and that principled leadership is essential for organizations navigating the complex challenges of the modern economy. Pablo, welcome to Morgan Hunt. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. It's great to have you here. So, Pablo, not only have you written this book and it's out there now, but it's up for an award as well, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 3:20

It is, yeah. No, it's it's uh it's it's you know been been nominated to be um business book of the year in in a particular category, and um yeah, we'll we'll see how that goes. And of course, you're in partnership with the Financial Times of this book. Yeah, so the the publisher is is FT Pearson, so it's the Financial Times Guide to Business Ethics. Um, it's part of a series of books. Um it's I think I'm right in saying it's the it's the first one in that series which focuses on ethics. The others are about um, you know, aspects of commercial activity, leadship strategy, and so on. It's a great series. Um, but this is the first business ethics one.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

We're gonna start off by talking about your life and career. But to begin with, let's talk about childhood. How was your childhood and did you have any career aspirations?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

My first career aspiration was actually to uh become a drain cleaner. That that was the um we lived on a really busy road, and this big yellow machine used to come, I don't know, once a month or so and clean out the drains, sort of and and I thought it was really cool, and you know, you'd get a nice sort of uniform and you'd be close to home, and you know, that was that was uh so but anyway, um that all changed when I was about eight or nine, and something happened, I think, in my brain, which switched on, particularly to maths, and suddenly maths became uh sort of an easy subject for me, um, and stayed easy for exactly 10 years until I was 18. So that was my thing. So it's math, so I wanted to be a maths professor, right? And I was gonna solve all the problems that nobody had ever solved before. There was something called Fair Maths Last Theorem that was a it's been cracked now, but at the time it'd been around for you know a long time, no, and I was gonna solve that and all that. Um, and you know, I was lucky enough I got a bursary to a really good school, that got me into Cambridge University, studied maths, of course, um, and things fell apart a bit then because the maths uh particularly at Cambridge is famously difficult, and I just I just it was it suddenly got out of reach. So um, I mean I I got through the degree, I did okay in the end, um, learnt how to study because it had come easily to me until then, um, and then worked out that it was time to make myself useful to the world. So that's when I I uh applied for chancellor's accounty training. My dad said, if you're an accountant, you'll always be okay, and he was right.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Um uh you know, he my none of my parents have been to university, you know, they they but they were really keen on education, furthering ourselves. Both my sisters became architects, I became charter's accountant, you know, we were just set really from from that uh that inspiration from our parents, and um yeah, and did what we would now call an apprenticeship at Arthur Anderson Co. Uh, trained up there, and uh that was in the early 80s, and really that that set the course for my career.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Wow, that's really interesting. So, guys like me who can't do maths hold guys like you in a state of awe and sort of deification that's not. Yeah, they didn't do this. Well, I have got some good news for you. The profession you initially aspired to is actually called a gully sucking driver, those machines. And I many years ago had a job placing gully sucker drivers with local authorities.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

I've got a name for it now, a gully sucking driver. Yes, that's it. I'm right. Um that was my first aspiration. Thank you. There we go. It's got a name.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

So, charted accountants, yeah. Where did that go for you then initially?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Um, well, it was, I mean, it was um it was fabulous, really. I mean, I it was, I mean, as you probably know, Arthur Anson um eventually failed as an organization, and that's that's actually come back into my thinking when I'm I'm looking at business ethics. But as a training ground um for you know young, uh sort of, you know, uh well-educated graduates, you know, we were all kind of very similar kind of academic background. It were and they really, really pushed us. Um, and it was up or out. You know, you either got promoted every year or you got thrown out every year. That was it, that was the deal. So through that training process, which was rigorous and challenging, you know, after three years, there were less than half of us left in that cohort because of the up or out rule. Um, and yeah, uh, and I I stayed on for an extra year. So I I I did I went the whole hog, I did chartered accountancy and tax advisory exams, which was an extra year at the end. Um, and then found myself in the middle of deregulation in the this is a mid-80s, which you're far too young to remember all that. I'm not afraid not. And and um and it was um it was really a feeding frenzy of greed. Yeah, and uh, you know, not far from here, I was working in the city, um, I joined a fund management firm. I was getting calls from headhunters all the time saying, How much money do you want? That kind of thing. Um, and it was, you know, yes, I was learning a lot, I was being paid well, but there was something not quite working for me, and I didn't figure out what it was at the time. Um, and eventually that led me to so I was in the in the finance stream, in financial services, um, and eventually found my way into nationwide building society, which was another ethical lesson, a positive one in that case. Um, and that was also an interesting time because it was when building societies were uh converting to banks. So it was mid-90s by now, and I was working for a longtime mentor of mine, uh a man called John Hutchins, who I'm still in touch with, um, and he was a director at Nationwide, and I I was his you know chief of staff effectively. Um, and that was another lesson in this case, I'd learnt how not to lead, and I was getting lessons in how to lead from John and also um another individual who was the chief exec at the time. Um, so a quick story about that, shall I? Because it's it's report to what happened next. Um, so this was mid, it's about 1996, so exactly 30 years ago. And I I was a man by then I was a manager responsible for the savings products, and we were called into a meeting with the chief exec, um, and he said, Look, all our competitors are converting into banks. So, as you know, bullying society owned part of the cooperative movement, owned by their savers, mortgages and loans, simple business. But one by one, Abby National, Halifax, and so on. They were uh essentially persuading their savers to take a windfall of money, and then the bullying society would then be owned in the stock market and effectively operate like a bank with more freedoms, ability to do everything that banks do. Um, and he called us in, and we thought this is it, we're we're and I was ready, you know. I was going to be writing to the savers saying, look, here's a windfall, please support us in this. And he said, I've been thinking about this, and the thing that stuck in my mind, he said two things. One, we're not here to make money, and there was a sharp intake of breath round the room, because most of us had come through that deregulation, that kind of world of greed, and he was somebody saying something different, and he said, I think we're here to give peace of mind to our customers. Now we'd call that a purpose statement. In those days, it was look, this is what we're here to do. And he said, Because of that, we can't quite see what the point of converting into a bank would be. But I'd be interested in your views. We had a bit of a conversation, we were all a bit sort of thrown by it, to be honest. And of course, what happened after that, the you know, 30 years now, I'm I'm you know, I that was my last job in financial services, then I went into music. But the I now watch the ads on the TV of Nationwide Building Society with Dominic West, who plays a an arrogant banking personality, you know, pinstripe suits. And they're quite they're quite funny, they're quite sharp, uh, a little bit controversial sometimes, and poking fun at banks and saying you, you know, you should be some with an organization you can trust, nationwide, that's what they say. And um, and that that reminds me, because when I watch them, I realize that's not just the marketing department coming up with a clever film, it goes right back to the roots 30 years before that, saying this is what we stand for, back before that, when they were a cooperative between savers and mortgage holders, it's it runs deep in the organization, which they've hung on to, they've doubled their market share, they were not particularly affected by the global financial crash, which was you know uh 2008, roughly. Uh, and ironically, and here's a nice twist in the tail, Northern Rock, who converted at the same time, and they were canary in the mine, if you remember. Yes, beginning financial crash. Suddenly it was there was a run on savings, they overstretched, they couldn't, you know, let savers get access to their funds, and that's when the domino started falling. That was 2007. Um, their their assets were swept up by Virgin Money. Um, and Virgin Money a few months ago were acquired by Nationwide Building Society. So Northern Rock came full circle back home to arguably where they should have stayed all along.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

That's a brilliant story, isn't it? Um, because yes, as you say, '96, that was kind of the okay, we're all gonna go for this, we're gonna go for it, and it ends in disaster in 2008. Exactly, exactly. But that statement made by was it the chief exec?

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yeah, yeah, Brian Davis, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Okay, that statement was that a lens almost that every decision within the building society kind of went through to make sure it was held in the appropriate status of building society.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

I I think it was. Um I think I I I shortly after that I was I was I I went I followed my longtime mentor who who had gone to the Performing Rights Society in the music industry as as a CFO. Um, so I didn't stay in nationwide. Um, not that you know it was it was a great place to work. What I've seen from the outside, and I'm still a customer, is that yes, they have stayed true to that sense of we're we're doing the right thing, we're not chasing the dollar, we're protecting your money. And their business because it the other insight is it's not just about doing the right thing, it's about having a business model that connects with that because it's business, you've still got to, you know, make make the the PL and the balance sheet work. And their clever model is that they say, look, we're trustworthy, we don't pay the best possible rate for savers or the lowest possible rate for mortgage holders. We're up there in the and that they've had a policy of, as I've understood it, of staying in the top three or top five. Um but that you know they don't have you know a cheap deal for a month and then they pull it and another, you know. They are very consistent. Um, and because of that, they've just attracted more and more market share, and they're not taking great chunks out of their margin while they're doing it because they're not trying to compete with you know today's cheap deal. They are just staying up near the top, and they that imbues their decision making, their rate setting, their marketing, as we're seeing now. So it's a clever business model as well as being a principled one.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yes. Okay, got it, and I'm sure we're gonna talk more about ethics and just how these things play out in the real world shortly. But just to carry on your sort of career journey, PRS, yeah, as a wannabe rock musician. That sounds really exciting, but I suspect it was a lot of um yeah, possibly not exciting stuff.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Well, well, Dan, I mean, you are a rock star, and I'm not, so so so I I'm I'm careful sort of how how I talk about this. Um uh but the the um I mean I've always loved music. I I can't, you know, I can't play, I don't I don't have a sort of a talent in that area, but as a consumer, absolutely. And um my longtime mentor was appointed chief executive, and there was a connection with financial service because essentially the music copyright is a a sort of the or their organization is a machine which collects all the amounts that are due, and in in this case to songwriters and music publishers, and then make sure they're fairly calculated to then pay out to the creators and publishers of music. And you know, it's it's a in at the time it was about a 400 million turnover in in the UK, I'm sure it'd be a lot more now. Um, and it was in the days, it was a really interesting time because it was music streaming was just starting to so we were just starting to look at how disruptive that would be. There was a big discussion about the fairness between classical and pop music because at the time classical had a uh a booster, so they were paid twice as many royalties per minute as as uh as pop songs. Um so there were these kind of you know crunchy, kind of difficult questions that were being grappled with. Um, and the key thing from a business point of view is we went through a merger with a related business that was using the same kind of algorithms but in a s was more biased towards the rights of music publishers, which was called the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society. Um and and you know, John and I and the rest of the of the management team and the board managed to put this merger together, which we'd been talking about for decades, and really I was there to help him push that through and make it work financially. Um, and and and we pulled it off, and that was um, you know, it meant that we were able to give better value to the creators of music, which was really the the point of the organization.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

So important and probably even more challenging now with the advent of AI and what that's doing to indeed.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

I mean, the whole world of of intellectual property, copyright, and so on is is now being really challenged by by you know the arrival of our our digital um cousins in AI. Sense of fairness, I guess, in that role as well, doing the right thing again. Yeah, and it was uh you know, John as a mentor, I mean that he he was one of the people who who I learned from. Um so all of these things were kind of adding up to something, and and you know, and even back, you know, reaching back to you know, my dad was a he was a broker in the fruit and vegetable market in Spittlefields, you know, not not too far from here. And he he used to talk to me about the city, and he used to talk about the London Stock Exchange, my word is my bond is their motto. So he looked up to the city, and then I worked in the city, and I thought this is not quite what my dad told me about, you know, because he saw it from from outside, you know, that's where the posh people worked, and he was, you know, he was just a broker trying to, you know, uh sort of earn a living as a self-employed person. So there was this mystique about what ethics looked like, and I think that was part of it for me. And so when I saw things that didn't add up to that ideal, there was just a seed planted in all of those uh working um experiences where and the things that I related to were the things that were not about money. So I was a finance person, but there was things that are not to do with money. I was thinking, you know, giving customers peace of mind, and you know, my word is my bond, and you know, what's really fair here? That that's the bit that was just I suppose bubbling up, and and you know, has now become an obsession.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yes, right, okay. But you do make a change at this point, uh, a fundamental change to going to sort of social enterprise. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it was uh it was uh it was it was uh you know, another of a colleague from your sector, you know, headhunter ringing up and saying, look, there's an opportunity to work in education. Um, and you know, we'd completed that this merger in the performing rights society. It was a lovely place to work. Um, but I got this call and they said, look, we want somebody with finance skills, intellectual property skills in a startup in the education sector. And and I I heard this word education, and I thought, I get to work in education, which had been so important for me as a you know, as a young person, and and had really sort of made everything that that meant that I could, you know, earn a living, you know, make a contribution, so on. Anyway, so and it was an awkward conversation. This was a mentor I'd worked on on and off for 15 years to say, John, I've I've been here three years only, we've done the deal. I think I want to go. And he was wonderful, you know, the way a mentor should, he said, uh great. Well, you know, is it is is it really what you want? Make sure that's it, and then I'll support you completely. He was he was wonderful in that sense. Um, and that was it, and that the you know, 26 years on from that, I stayed in education. So I was an organization called Learn Direct, so it was a government initiative, and I was one of the the three the first three people to join as the CFO, there was a CEO and an IT director, and we saw it through. Well, I was the only one. That survived till it was privatized. So back to the kind of nationwide story. So I was there for 12 years, and we went from government agency to public body, and they're all subtleties of what a public body is. We went through those changes. Then, and we built it as a charity with a commercial subsidiary. And that's something that felt right to me. And that was, you know, something I had to persuade the board of this is the right structure. So as a charity commercial subsidiary, we can, in a sense, look up to government and say we are working in the public good, and look out to our supply chain and participants, you know, students, and say, but we'll work in a commercially effective way to give you the best education. So it was it was a nice kind of hybrid model. And then by the end, the my end there, which which was uh 12 years later, we figured out that the government, you know, with these initiatives too, they kind of got a bit bored with us, you know, that we'd done what what they intended to do, and now we need to find our own way in the world, and that was fine. We said, okay, well, we'll privatize, and again, that was a big discussion. Um, and the way that worked is we sold the commercial entity to private equity, which was was uh a private equity investor that that knew that sector well, and then the charity got the windfall. We were we also got incentives as the management team to make that happen, and that was the point where I got bitten by the education bug and by the startup bug, and at the point where I was in a good financial state, it was time for me to say, okay, well, you go off to private equity, because I know that's a world, I get why the organization needs it, but I've been there before and that's not where I want to go. And I just started setting up, I started with a consultancy, then um worked with the college to set up a business school, then set up visionaires as a uh a training ground for early stage entrepreneurs. Um and you know that that and that was all entirely social enterprise work. It was about a social impact, helping people get up the ladder, apply my expertise, um and uh and also build teams that could carry that on into the future. And I mean that they've all had sticky moments, you know, it it's the world of entrepreneurship, um, but they've all they've all survived in one shape or form, even learn direct that went into private equity because they they had they had a really tough time about three years into that, where the the balance of money and purpose got a bit confused in the eyes of the private equity investors, sometimes happens, but you know, they managed to pull out of that and all all those initiatives that are still going and still adding value to people's lives.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Brilliant. Okay, so that must feel great. It's like a purpose of all this sort of uh his history uh career history in terms of what you're building and feeling good about stuff, and many of those uh individuals went off to have successful careers and built businesses. Indeed, indeed. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

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SPEAKER_02 25:45

Okay, so it's really interesting to hear that journey, Pablo. And I know what happens next, and we're going to talk about it. But actually, when you look at it in reverse, it makes perfect sense. Those building blocks lead to the next.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

It's a perfect narrative. Yeah, yeah. Yes, it does, it does sound like it, and I probably make it sound more logical than it was. Um because you know, in truth, it's it's not like that at all. You know, what one of the things I've done a lot of mentoring with with uh young people and people in mid-career as well, and I think people look at at careers near their end, like mine, and think, right, there must be some you know, some plan and some sort of magic kind of way of you know doing this because it kind of all comes good in the end. And honestly, I don't know anyone, including me, where there was a plan, all of those uh key moments of change, of uh of changing jobs within a sector, of changing sectors, which I've I've effectively done twice, um, of that I look back and they were all small decisions at the time, which um actually many of them made no sense whatsoever. So, you know, when when I when I moved from music into education, we just you know, we had a young family, we had a kind of a a one-year-old, another one on the way. Um uh this was a job which would be 200 miles away from home, it would be really tough going, um, it was less money than the job I was in. There were all so all decisions like that. Um, it wasn't a plan of oh, I want to work in education, it was I've got this opportunity and uh uh you know a conversation with dearly beloved about how does this affect our lives. And just I suppose what what what's interesting for me about it now, looking back, is there was a little voice in there which was um getting more and more influential in how my career was going, which was steering me in you know where where I finished up, and I managed to listen to it enough at key moments that it took me in a in a direction which has been hugely personally satisfying, even if at the time it was by far from the obvious thing to be doing. And you know, and a lot of the colleagues that I were you know back in the city, you know, they you know, they made a lot more money than me, they retired a lot more earlier than I did. Well, I haven't retired, I mean, you know, I'm still going because I love what I do, and and I sometimes think, what would what would that track have been like? Um and what I find interesting now comparing notes with you know old friends from university and from those early days, is that the the the the driver of doing something that felt right and worked for my for for my gut was uh for me seemed to be a more important driver than other old friends, you know, and they've had wonderful careers as well. But the the yeah, the hindsight's a wonderful thing, and I can make sense of it now, but it was it was just it was going back to music analogy, it was improv all the way, really, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

I guess there's some of those people though who may have thought that little voice was there and they should have gone to do something a bit different, and maybe they there's a few regrets there, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Maybe. I remember one conversation, it wasn't a frame, somebody I was in the in a uh at a at a dinner where pretty much everyone else there was a an investment banker, and there was me, and you know, and we and I was chatting to one of them uh saying, Oh, what do you do? What do you do? And he and this was mid-career, and he he he said to me, Oh my god, you're doing something useful. And I thought, uh, yeah, but don't you think you're doing something useful doing investment bank? Isn't that you know, isn't that the point? Yeah, and but for him, he was saying, Yeah, I'm doing it because I'm earning a lot of money, and yeah, and that yeah, that wasn't my driver.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

No, no, it is a useful thing, I think, particularly at mid-career, to actually just stop and try and locate that inner voice. And I think a lot of people, whether they're blinded by money or they also feel it's the only thing they know and it's the only environment they're going to be comfortable in, is the one they've known for 10, 15, 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

There there is that. There it there is a sense of how you see yourself. If you see yourself as the the sum of the skills that you've built up in as that keeps you on a particular track, but I always saw myself as uh the all that plus the things that I'm dead curious about. Because I've always been curious about you know what do people do, how things work, how the world works, and so that's always been a driver of what have I done, what can I offer the world, and then what could I do if if I put my mind to it and and and that was so that's always stretched me to believe I can do something that I've got no competence in, but could build it.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

That's confidence, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

I suppose it's great.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Yeah, okay. So this next chunk of journey is about this book. So we we've talked about ethics through your career journey up until now and the importance of it. Why write a book?

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Um well actually funny, it's it's it's one of those things. I mean, I I've you know, my I was a numbers guy, not a words guy. And writing a book is really all about words. Um so I think it it was it was a few things and one and one thing that kind of tipped me over the edge, which was um those experiences, you know, from being in the city and being slightly uncomfortable with that kind of greed culture, um being nationwide and hearing that business leader saying it's not about the money, um working in education, which was was a was a real a real kind of night's move of of change because it was it was two things, it was a changing sector um and but into a sector which had a deep meaning for me personally. All of those things kind of built up to a sense of I think I've got something to say about the pursuit of uh how you uh convert your skills and your organization, if you're a leader, into something which is not just commercially successful, and you know, I'm a capitalist, I'm uh I'm you know, I believe in in the power of business to create prosperity, um but also the obligation of business to do good. And I thought I think I've got something to say. And what what really tipped me over the edge was uh about eight years ago is when my sister passed away, um which was a devastating moment. She'd been ill for a long time, and and it was one of those moments where in the grief I was thinking, you know, life life is short. I've got you know, what what how do I make sense of you know the years I've got left to uh to be a sort of you know a productive member of of the business world. And and it was really two things at that time, two things bubbled up. And it was very clear, and I remember the conversation with my while we were on holiday, and I was you know, I was a bit you know, I was I was very sad at the time, but also just finding solace in these ideas I was having. One of them was to create visionaires, which was to to help um new entrepreneurs, and the other one was the germ of the idea for and it was at the time it was what's the point of business? That was the question I was asking myself, what is the point? Um so those two two ideas came out. So that was eight years ago, the visionaire thing kind of took off and that and I did that, but this the book was still was was waiting in the wings and and it was really three three years ago. I was I j I just I just couldn't help myself. It was and you know, I was doing you know, I was a CEO at the time, you know, with not a lot of time on my hands. Um and it was I have to write I have to start writing it now. So three years ago in the mid in the job, and then you know, I made changes to what I was doing, and I've I've now given up all my executive, actually my non-executive roles, I've stopped in order to during that period write the book, research it, I interviewed 50 leaders, uh th there were four hundred references, in fact, more than that, there were four hundred in the book to back up and support the arguments I was making for ethical business and ethical leadership. Um and now having published the book, now talking about it, you know, as I as I said earlier, it has become an obsession and a very deeply satisfying one.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

I I think when we talk about ethics, they're often deemed as aspirational want-to-bees, and we'd like to be this. But actually, your book makes it operational and encourages operational thinking around ethics. Is that right? Is that fair?

SPEAKER_01 35:53

That that that's exactly right, and that that's the insight I got from talking to um to 50 business leaders and presenting their case studies, and they and there's a whole range of examples of how you do that, and some examples of how you don't do it as well. Some were very open about um they were the anonymous ones. Right. Um and and the and and I think you need both. Um, you know, we talked earlier about the nationwide example, the sense of uh, you know, giving peace of mind, and it's you know, it's not about making money, you need to make money, but that's not the ultimate purpose. So that's one of the insights right at the top end of having that that clear sense of of what many organizations call purpose and values, but in a way that's crunchy enough that when you come to the key decisions, and you know that what what I learned was every single business decision has an ethical component to it. You just have to look at it to see it. Doesn't mean you always choose the highest ethical path, but being aware of that, every time you set pricing, every time you hire somebody, every time you make an investment decision, um, you know, every time you're working out what the dividends should be to shareholders or which suppliers you work with, all of those have got an ethical load, some more than others. Um, and that's what I learned from the the best of the examples. And you know, let's be honest, we're not always all at our ethical best. And that's yeah, and having some understanding that having a bit of forgiveness for because the the higher you set the bar, the more out of reach it becomes, eventually, you know, that that can be a risk as well. That well, we can never be that because it doesn't work with our business model. But when you connect that up, that high level, and what I I talk about a purpose beyond profit, when you connect that up with the day-to-day decisions and behaviors, and it's not about a poster on the wall saying we stand for integrity, respect, and honesty and those things. Of course, those things are important, but it's when you connect it up with, well, in this example, there was a nice example, let me give an example of that, how that that works. So it was this was an example from uh Simon Rogerson, uh founder of Octopus Energy. Yeah, and he gave this something he does routinely in his big organization, thousands and thousands of people, global organization. Um, and they have a notion of outbehaving the competition. So, and that that's an important idea for them because that connects their vision, their higher purpose with their business model. And the clues in the name of the book, it's business ethics, it's both. You've got to keep them both in view. So his example was was a nice one, which was um uh the the it was the story of a smart meter installer who goes to the house of uh an elderly customer who is not feeling very well that day, but she's there fixing the meter in. And the customer has a funny turn, um, collapses, is still awake, and you know, she's the only other person in the house, and she's fixing the smart meter. What do you do? Well, you know, probably most people would might ring for an ambulance or say, you know, is there a relative that you know can look after you? You know, they they'd look to find a lifeline to help that person, you know, get sorted out, but actually they've got a job to do because they've got to fit the smart meter and they've got another seven to do in the rest of the day, you know. Um so she didn't do that. She just went, right, it looks to me like you need the hospital. Made the meter safe, walked him to her car, drove to the hospital, because she'd worked out that, you know, I don't know, an ambulance takes 20 minutes, and then this guy looks like he's in trouble. Drove him to the hospital, took him straight into accident emergency, spoke to the people there and said, This one better be top of your list because something's going on with this customer. Somewhere on the way back, and left anyway, he was fine, happy ending. But he was, you know, he he'd had some kind of, I know it was hard to tackle stroke or something, it was something quite serious. On the way back, she rings her supervisor and says, By the way, you just need to know I've done this. So didn't seek permission, just did it because it was the right thing to do. That's an example. There's a load of those. That's an example. So somebody like Simon Rogerson, that happens in his business. What does he do? He tells that story to everyone else in the business and says, that's what I want you to do. So it's not a story about, you know, how's our margins going or what's our bottom line and how much we've grown this year and what the competition uh sort of doing that, you know. It is this is how we this is this is how we behave. And he's and he's giving two messages. He's saying, because it's the right thing to do, you know, it's it's it's I I want you to do that as well. Um and we're out behaving the competition here. This is good for our business.

unknown 41:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

This is okay, we've you know probably lost you know a day of smart meter installation on that day, but that's okay, because this is about thinking long term, and and that those kind of insights, and you know, often there are often short-term, long-term trade-offs, that's a good example. You know, you're saving someone's life or you're fixing seven smart meters. Which one can you choose? Well, you know, you'd hope we'd all make that right decision, but the way that person made, the way she did it, the way he repeated it back to 16,000 people, that's the the insight, and your your word of operate operate operationalizing that vision. Um, and he you know he talked about people remember stories, not spreadsheets. So you need the running gear of the organization, you need the KPIs, you need to watch the bottom line, you know, you need to be efficient, you need all those things. That's fundamental to any business. But on top of that, having the ability to know what you really stand for, that's where the competitive advantage comes in. It's not just about being good, it's being about good and good for business.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Yes. And and that story works on multiple levels because if we feel we are working for an organization that's ethically aligned, we kind of feel good about ourselves, don't we? Yeah. And we go home and we tell our partners and our kids what a great day at work it was, and this happened. And that's got to be good for attraction of talent, and it's got to be good for retention of talent within these organizations.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

It that's exactly that. And it's and I think it does, it does work, you know. The most um insightful stories for me were to do with the relationship with between the business and its and its employees and its and colleagues. Um, because that has a multiplier effect out with your customers, clients, supply chain, partners, and ultimately shareholders. So, you know, if there's one place to start, somebody would sometimes people ask me, you know, where do I start? What should I be thinking about? I say, well, start about your relationship with your with your colleagues, because that's where you, as a leader, that's where you multiply your influence. Because you know, you can talk to them directly, and because you have authority, they kind of have to listen to you. They don't necessarily have to follow what you say. But and and also, as you say, the deeper effect is well, I'm I'm working for you know an organization that they actually care about people, they care about me, they care about others, and I will do the same. The challenge in this, if I can say this, because this all sounds lovely, why wouldn't you do this? And and I'm not sure I've got all the answer to this, but but sometimes people ask me, well, if this ethics malarkey is is good for business, is good for why isn't everybody doing it? And you know, one person said, you know, 90% of organizations are sociopaths. They, you know, I was I had an experience this week, you know, speaking to trying to talk to an organization about a service they're providing to me, and you get caught in the you know doom loop of chatbots. Yeah. Yeah, where that kind of, you know, we we all know that experience. That's an example of a sociopathic organization. We care about our customers, but we don't care enough about them to actually want to have a conversation with them somehow. And um, and so we've got to watch for that. So, why does that happen if we're all good, lovely people? And I think that the part of it is to do with how we've set up and created businesses, and it goes right back, you know, the first uh um joint stock company in the world was the East India Company, which is an arm of the British Empire back in 1600. And if you look at the history of that of that business, that was all about the money. You know, that was trading in slaves 30 years after slavery was made illegal in this country, it was doing things, horrific things. It was incredibly commercial. If you're an investor in 1600, you know, boy, you know, would would you make money. So I think part of the reason is there there are temptations in the way, yeah, which are hard to resist. And if we're honest, and there, you know, there's a there's a there's a there's a section called temptation in the book, if we're honest, those are there in front of us quite a lot of the time, and business gives you the opportunity to give in to those temptations to profiteer or to take advantage of a contract that's not particularly well worded and is in your favour, to you know, put a bit of um disrespectful pressure on a colleague when you know really, you know, they're right at the end of their tether and they can't take on another piece of work, but actually you need it because it's going to make your quarterly results look good. Those temptations are always there, and you know, it's just part of human nature. We're imperfect, you know, it's it's it's uh it's it's it's it's not about ethical perfection. There are laws we've put in place, um, and for example, modern slavery. We worked out, we tried to abolish slavery 200 years ago, we worked out 10 years ago that there are more slaves in the world than there were 200 years ago. So uh let's put in the modern slavery act, you know, that's fine. But that's not been particularly effective, if I'm honest. Um, it's it's relatively straightforward to comply legally with the act without actually driving slavery out of your supply chain in a global context. So, you know, the law isn't not enough, the the sense of what a business is there to do isn't not enough. So we have to reach to our conscience, and that's the hard part, and that's why it doesn't always happen. There's too many temptations in the way, and if we reach for our conscience, you know, well, what's the right thing here? And we are able in the business insight, if you're able to think long term, if you realize that you are in the business of trust, we all are, any business in the business of trust, and the organization I've highlighted in the book are able to convert trust into commercial performance. That's the insight, and you can do that, but there are other ways of achieving commercial performance. That's the challenge.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

And why is trust so important in this modern world with our commercial corporate institutions?

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Well, it's I I think it's becoming I think this is I'm I'm seeing this in a positive light because I think trust is becoming more important because we know that uh the trust is in short supply. The the there's something called the Edelman Trust Barometer that that asks it's a 30,000-person uh survey done globally. 60% of those that they ask, it's a global survey, believe that business leaders purposely mislead. In other words, they're doing the opposite, you know, mislead is the clue, the opposite of what leaders should be doing, and that's getting worse. So there is a sense, um, and it's not just business leaders, but business is the bit that I I know about, that we are losing trust in leaders and how they're making decisions, and that only goes one way. It goes one way because we get upset, we get uh active in a negative way. You know, there's there's a lot of work showing that people are now more comfortable being actively disruptive, you know, at a low level on social media, and at a high level we've seen things like Extinction Rebellion and other other changes, which are are you know are socially uh challenging by people saying, I'm gonna break the rules to teach you a lesson because I don't trust you, and that is a pressure that's building up, and you can see it in all the indicators reducing trust. So I I think it's it's both a risk and an opportunity. We don't even so say, oh, we're in a bit of a cycle, I'm sure it'll all calm down. Or we can see say that actually this is in my self-interest, my long-term self-interest as a as a leader in a business, I'm gonna go the other way and I'm gonna start building trust. But you have to pedal harder because we're in a very transparent world. If you're saying one thing and doing another, as we're seeing in political worlds, for example, you get found out. There's no there's no carpet to hide things under. So all of those factors are leading me to the conclusion that we we we shouldn't, it shouldn't just as a because it's the right thing to do, it's actually in our self-interest, and the pressure is building for us as business leaders to lead the way. We can we can hope that leaders in other worlds, in other parts of our society, will do that. Um, but actually we have an obligation because we we have power, we have authority, we have an organization that can that can decide at that fork in the road which way they go.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

Yes, yeah. And we all sit both sides of the fence on this because from a corporate point of view we all have a role to play. Yeah. But we're also consumers, aren't we, as well? We are, yeah. Yeah. And I think possibly we make commercial decisions, purchasing decisions too frivolously.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

I mean, most of us will have used a telephone today of some description, and how was that put together?

SPEAKER_01 51:28

Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely. It was I I mean, it was, you know, uh a month or so ago, I was in a room with with a hundred people talking about this. My question of the audience was how many of you routinely check that the businesses you buy from, whether as consumers or businesses, but it's really a consumer question, um, are actively, and this is the slavery question, it's it's a it's a really good example for this, are actively driving out slavery from their supply chain. Do you routinely check that? Because you've got a choice. You can choose, you know, to buy from, you know, there's hundreds of organizations on my personal supply chain. Five people put their hand up out of a hundred. And this was a very informed audience. And when you look under under the bonnet of that, and I've started doing that personally, I mean, I have not been checking that because I thought, well, we've got the Modern Slavery Act, that covers it, and everyone has to be compliant, so that's fine. Do you know it's not fine? It's not, it's not, it's not biting, it's not making the difference. So now when I am making personal decisions about, you know, buying my phone, getting my streaming service, getting my packages delivered, I'm making different decisions now to what I was a couple of months ago.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Because I can.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

Yes, yeah, yeah. Could this be a start of a movement, Pablo? Or we get some real sort of um transparency on some of these organizations. Well, you know, the the transparency is there.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Um it's um it's kind of a fight between so I've received something something called the the ethical consumer app. Little app you can buy, it costs you about 30 quid. And it that lifts the bonnet. It's very challenging, and it's got some ethical views you may not agree with, because of course ethics is is a is in the eye of the beholder. We don't all all agree on everything, but it does give you a readout on just about every organization that you buy from as a consumer. Wow. And it will tell you do they use tax havens? What what's their um what do they pay their chief exec? Um, what's their supply chain look like for how they operate with with partners in their supply chain? Whole you know, what are their environmental credentials really? Gives you a whole set of readouts, gives you a score, you get a score out of 100 on that, and you wouldn't believe that the organization scores zero out of a hundred on the ethical apps. Um I say, you've got to use it, you know, you've got to measure it against your personal values and go, well, what do I really think about that? The transparency is there, but of course, the larger the organization, the bigger the marketing machinery to protect the message that says, we're good, we're fine, we've got a great service, and we're it is a kind of David and Goliath problem because the ethical consumer sort of is you know it's a little tiny organization which is is not going to attract a great funding stream by you know poking the big bears, saying, Well, you're not very good at this. Yeah, they rely on us, and so that's why I choose to subscribe to that and I choose to look at it, and sometimes it informs my decisions. Um, but it it's it's um so you know, is there a movement? I I think I think I think there is, I think it's happening around us. Um, and if that taps into that in every sense and gets businesses to do what they should be doing in their long-term self-interest, you know, that's what I'm about now.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

So during this conversation, you've talked about many ethical situations, dilemmas potentially, going back to mid-80s. Yeah. Are we getting better or worse, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 55:25

I think we're um I think it's a mixed picture. I think we are getting more transparent. So that's the good news. I think we can see there were probably things going on behind the scenes in the 70s and 80s in the world, in the world before social media. This is a positive part of social media. You know, now we've got Trust Pilot, we've got Glassdoor, we've got, you know, the the um you know, the good shopping guide, got a whole set of ways where we can look inside the workings of organizations, which then gives us a choice. Um, I think we are in a world where very large organizations wield an enormous amount of power because the other side of it is we're getting very global. And so now 12 of the 40 biggest economies are companies, not countries. Um and you know, they don't work under democratic control because if they don't like the tax in one country, you know, they move to a tax haven, and you know, they can do that. So I think that that that means that there are there are more opportunities to behave, either, depending how you look at it, either unethically or ethically neutrally. And I think neutral ethics is is the wrong side of the line for me. I think that's where danger lies. Um is it is it getting worse or better? I think overall, and I'll come back to the measure of trust, it's getting worse because we trust organizations less. And I think that's a wake-up call for us.

SPEAKER_02 57:11

Okay, Pablo, the book is fantastic. One might assume it might be this sort of sort of lofty tone about the idea of ethics, but actually, it's got real toolkits in there which organizations can learn from and put into practice almost immediately. So it's very specific in what people can do to improve this situation and hopefully, as the business part says, make a commercial difference for the organization and the consumer. I've got one last question before, and I want to take you back to your career journey again. If somebody, let's say they're in their mid-30s, is sitting in an organization somewhere, and either doesn't understand how they make that jump to leadership, yeah, yeah, or alternatively, they're in an organization where ethically they feel it's the wrong place to be, and they would like to actually give something and move into a different direction and show their true purpose. Yes, yes. What would your advice be to them?

SPEAKER_01 58:09

Yeah. Um, well, that there's there's probably two sides of the advice. One of them is read chapter 16 in the book, which is um a and it's deliberately written for people who are not leaders. And it's saying, because you know, my message is put your conscience to work, and then but if you haven't got decision-making authority or partial decision making, and you see things not quite right around you, it gives you a map of how to go about influencing around you, um, mindful of the personal risk attached to that, because that's you know, you've you've got to be aware that sometimes organizations don't like people kind of stepping out of line. Um, so that's a bit of a toolkit for for how you go about influencing in your immediate environment. Um the I think the wider bit of advice is that if you've got that little voice as as I had and has grown louder uh during um during my career, um, and it's telling you and it's asking you questions that are slightly uncomfortable. Um I I think it's about taking a step at a time, um, discussing that, you know, with people who you love and love you, that you can test out, you know, I'm not very comfortable about this, or I wish I were doing that, or here's an area I prefer to be working in than what I'm doing now, and start building out, because sometimes it's about building out a little bit of courage to take that step and take the step to look at your career and your future differently. And if you start from the endpoint backwards, and that you know, the the rocking chair test, what do you want to be looked back on and be known for? You know, that's that's that's one way of doing it. But for me, it's me really more about those early steps, so that when that some for me it was about opportunities turning up, I was lucky. Sometimes you have to make them happen, which is more what I'm doing now. Um so it's being putting yourself in a position when the opportunity turns up, or you could push at the door that might be half open, that that voice has built up a bit, but it really is about a little bit of soul searching. That's that's that that's where it started for me, and allowing that, because you know, in the end, we spend a lot of time working, and if you're doing something where where you're you know not looking forward to that, you know, sort of first call in the morning, and you're you know, kicking the cat sort of sort of in the evening at the end of the day, thinking, well, that wasn't very satisfying. Do you know you've you hurt yourself to at least think about doing something, and by thinking, then the actions follow. That's great stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:06

Great feedback. So, this is a brilliant book. Everybody should go and get it. We will put the link in the description underneath this video. And uh, thank you very much for taking your time today. It's a wonderful story, and long may ethical businesses reign and prosper uh um across uh our society. It's a wonderful story. Thank you, Pablo. Thank you, that's been a real pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Working Lives, the Morgan Hunt podcast, driving positive change and helping you to grow your career. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next inspiring conversation. For more insights, opportunities, and updates, head to morganhunt.com.