Malcolm Robertson | Leading In A Crisis, Moving From Leader To Founder & Remembering Dunblane | EP 3

This week’s guest is Malcolm Robertson, Founder & CEO of Charlotte Street Partners, and former Director of Communications at BAA.

Malcolm has spent decades operating at the intersection of leadership, reputation, and high-stakes decision making. Leading Charlotte Street Partners, he now advises organisations and leaders through moments where scrutiny is intense, and the stakes are incredibly high.

In this conversation we explore:

• Growing up- what life was like as the son of Lord Robertson, and how an opportunity in the Scouts became a life-changing milestone
• Leading and shaping culture under intense public scrutiny
• Managing the response to the Glasgow Airport terrorist attack
• Crisis communication when everything is on the line- how leaders stay composed, make clear decisions, and protect trust
• Taking the leap from senior corporate leadership to founding Charlotte Street Partners
• Remembering the Dunblane tragedy 30 years on, and how it changed Britain forever.

Malcolm's book recommendation: Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United (2015), Sir Alex Ferguson co-authored with Sir Michael Moritz

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

How do you define relatorship? I think everybody will have a slightly different view. So I think it's about a vision and a purpose and knowing where you're going and taking people with you.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

How do you make sure you're prepared and planned in the best way possible to make sure that when things are inevitably going to go wrong, you're cool cam and you're also going to be delivering the right message to the people that need to hear it?

SPEAKER_02 0:22

The Glasgow Airport terrorist attack. I was the communications director for the group of airports that we had in Scotland at that time, so I got a phone call and he said we've got a report that Glasgow Airport's on the plan. My judgment at the time was we didn't spend enough time caring about the airports. Some of the head office team didn't spend any time at an airport. And so I basically said to my team, Well, we're just going to go back to basics. And that work helped mitigate some of the hostility that came around when you had a crisis.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

If you don't mind, I'd love to touch upon Dunblane. I read a piece that you wrote almost 10 years ago now for the 20th anniversary talking about the flowers of snowdrops. You know, I've talked about the guilt.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

What right do I have to feel this way about an event that didn't kill any of my children? I went to that school. And I guess what I do with a sort of limited platform that I have is that I make sure that if every every time the anniversary comes around that people remember Malcolm Robertson, thank you very much for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Thank you. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah, I was in the Cairngorms for two days. One day up high, which was uncomfortable but in a good way. Yeah. And then the second day I just spent a bit of time walking about the forest in uh Loch and Ealen, which is somewhere that I you know I grew up going on holiday down the road. So Yeah, so definitely you know that that's all part of you know it's part of a plan basically.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

I like to go and do things like that the week and to set me up for the week. Yeah. And we'll come on to that a little bit because I know that's a massive part of your life. But yeah, I think the weather here in Edinburgh at the moment is not reliable or very nice, so I can only imagine it's a little bit more extreme when you're up there.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Yeah. It's a bit more I mean it's a bit more predictable at this time of year because you know it's going to be pretty wild and you have to prepare for the worst and um and hope for the best. Um and I got a bit of everything on on Saturday, certainly, which which is good.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Well, listen, we'll get into quite a lot t today, and I'm really excited by the chat. We've got to know each other a little bit over the last year or so, and there's there's so many parts of your story and your journey that I want to get into. Um but with this being the Leaders on Lock podcast, I want to start with maybe an easy question, maybe not. But how do you define great leadership?

SPEAKER_02 2:52

I don't think it is an easy uh question at all. Um and I think everybody will have a slightly different view. Um you know, and I've learned an awful lot over the years from good leaders and from not not so good leaders. Um and it's not, you know, I I don't think of m my leadership certainly uh as just being something that's just absolutely set is going to be like this, and it's I think it I think it evolves and it changes as the circumstances do. But I think it it's about it's about a vision and a purpose, it's about taking people with you. Um so I've uh I've been around people who are quite good at leading people um right up until the point that they understand that the person that's the um in in the leadership position doesn't actually know where where they're going. So I think it's about a a vision and a purpose and and and knowing knowing where you're going and taking people with you. Um you know, um you know it's all very well saying this is where I'm going and I'm going to get there, but you need to you need to always be providing the encouragement, the support and the inspiration, uh I think to to to help uh bring people on that journey. Brilliant. I think it's a great answer.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Growing up and you're you're proud Scott, yeah, and you talk a lot around that as well, and you grew up and you're probably closer to someone in terms of your your father, your father was Lord George Roberts, or is Lord George uh Robertson, and he was obviously in a very public role. You talk a little bit around, I guess first of all, you're all you some of the core memories for yourself growing up, but then also how maybe that influenced yourself as a child thing over the years, and then maybe the later that you are now Yeah I I think you know I'm incredibly proud of everything that my dad's done.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Um I think like most children of politicians you would maybe look back and think, I wish I'd seen more of them. Um but I think what what I what we had a very keen sense of that uh you know the dad was off doing something that he cared about and that was for more than just more than just him. Yeah. So it was that that that sort of relentless purpose. I think what you one of one of the most I think I you know I was a difficult child and I was a difficult teenager and I've made all my apologies and you elaborate Noah There was plenty of people in my life that could elaborate but I wasn't um you know I wasn't a model teenager. I was really you know, I was difficult and I don't know if that was some kind of rebellion um against the fact that you know my dad was in a public position and I constantly had to prove that I was not necessarily him. Um I think it's it's interesting that the children of politicians often just uh that there's an assumption that you think everything that your dad thinks, and that's nonsense in every in every way.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Yeah. And when you were growing up, how conscious were you of what was your normal, but that was very unnormal for everybody around you?

SPEAKER_06 6:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

I don't know because I only ever knew that. Yeah, you know, my it was slightly different for my brother and sister, I I suppose, because they they they were just born into it. Um I hadn't really known anything else. Um you know, my dad became a a member of parliament when he was 32. Um, you know, I was just tiny at that point. So I didn't really know any different. Um what I did know was that he was completely grounded and completely normal, mm-hmm. Um, had a great way with people. He was popular in the constituency, uh he represented, he was popular in the town. Um so he was just a yeah, he was a he was a he was a good person. So in in that respect, I don't think I don't think by my closest friends I was treated any differently. He was just my dad was just had a slightly different job. He was on the T V occasionally, yeah. Um and that he you know he lived in London most of the week, whereas everybody else's parents came home came home in the in the evening.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

And again, you've gone on and had an amazing career, you've been in very senior roles in big private and public companies, um, and now obviously you run your own business as well. Over the course of that time frame, is he somebody you have leant upon and asked for advice and some some wisdom here and there? How does that relationship evolve from a leadership or mentor perspective?

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, you know, and and just the fact that he's there whenever you need him is is is brilliant and and also just the the breadth of experience that he's had. Um, you know, if you think about you know the career of a politician, you are you're not necessarily in a leadership position uh until you suddenly are. You know, so I often reflect that you know when I'm you know talking to politicians now who may at some point in the future become government ministers and they're maybe thinking, how do I do this? Yeah, I make the point maybe slightly flippantly that you know one day my father was the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, he was in opposition, he was the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland. The following day he was the political leader of the armed forces, the army, the navy, and the rail the air force. They didn't screw it up. You know, and we have a bit of a laugh. We have a laugh we have a bit of a laugh about that. I said that was a long way below that. I said exactly. I said that to him recently, and he laughed and said, Yeah, and we really didn't. Yeah, you know, we did a good job. So so I think suddenly you know leadership can just happen suddenly, but he's had some brilliant experiences and he's got uh and he's good, really good at passing on little pieces of wisdom. And some of the things that I talk about in in in my life and in my business are things that I've learned from him, things that he said to me or so or so-and-so said to me once this profound thing, and you know, and and it and it and it sticks with me. I think one of the things just going back to being a difficult um teenager, I was in the scouts and I was an assistant patrol leader, and at that time, you know, being an assistant patrol leader almost it was almost like you you you got to a certain age and stage, and the number of boys that were in the Dumbling Scout group was relatively small. And um a vacancy arose for a patrol leader, and I just thought that there's absolutely no chance it'll be me because I'm just you know the biggest pain in the ass in the room and you know I'm I'm quite you know I can be quite disruptive, I'm not necessarily a rule follower. Um and there's a bunch of guys, my peer group, who are way ahead of me in terms of you know, skill, manners, all of that stuff. And I got it, and I was absolutely blown away. And it's i i I think it's only in retrospect you look back and you think somebody somewhere saw in me potential to change by giving me a leadership res you know, giving me leadership responsibilities maybe when I didn't necessarily when I wasn't necessarily ready for them. Yeah. And that it would maybe straighten me out and sort me out. Um So taught me through that then. And it w well it was just a such a brilliant feeling. I mean there was a there was a bit of embarrassment because I felt that there were boys uh in in that group who deserved it m more than I did. Um just who were m you know better young people than than me, but it was it wasn't until later in life when I was I do I go and speak to schools occasionally just and just talk about the journey that I've had and the lessons that I've learned. And that's one moment where I I I think I look back and with a bit of gratitude for the the leaders of that group who had obviously come together to say, well actually let let's give it to Malcolm Um because I I think just giving him that leadership responsibility will change him in a positive way. And it did. Brilliant. And what age were you then? Oh I don't know. Maybe 13, 14, something like that. Yeah. Um and I and it definitely had had a big impact. And it also you know, it still influences me now in terms of you know, I coached a a a school football team, a primary school football team for a long time, and I coached little you know, four, five, and six year olds at a club in Edinburgh for a while. And just little things like that, that sometimes, you know, the more disruptive elements, it's they just need a bit more responsibility. Yeah. And sometimes just giving them that makes you stand a bit taller, it just changes the way you think, changes the way you behave. Yeah. Um so just these wee lessons that that you know that's uh and and at the time it's just like you know, I I went home and said to my parents, I said, I can't believe it.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Why why on earth have they given it to you? Yeah, all of the evidence suggests I would be the last person they would choose. I know. But they did. And that was because they had I think they they you know they it was a really clever move on their part. Yeah. And if it if it was calculated, I'm and I'm sure it must have been.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Yeah, I think undoubtedly it probably was, but it's it is funny how how all of a sudden you're in a leadership role of sorts, and you recognise straight away that the behaviour that you were kind of showing will need to change instantly because people are going to be watching you and following you. So yeah, I can totally imagine how that was a kind of shot between the eyes in terms of buck up your ideas, and that could have gone either way for the person who thought, right, Malcolm Scott's up there. Could have been anarchy, but um yeah, it's interesting. So, like, how did that then start shaping when in those years of you know your most formative years of whether it's 13, 14 through to your 18, 19? How did that start fueling ideas and career aspirations for you?

SPEAKER_02 13:09

I think if it did, it was subconscious because uh I took my foot off the gas. Uh you know, I did pretty well in my O grades, which are now nine fives, um, and then I didn't do very well academically at school after that. I just had so many distractions, um, which we all know um, you know, are are are in the way of of of of teenagers. Thankfully I didn't have you know social media phone that was useful. But I wasn't I wasn't you know, I didn't apply myself at school. So the the the theme that ran through all of my reports was must must try harder. And every time I I think we had the same report. Yeah every time and I still I'm I'm assuming that I still get them from the team. Yeah. But you know, I remember my mum coming home from parents' nights and I was you know, after I'd emerged from wherever I was hiding, yeah, um she would say the same thing over and over again, which was he's he's got the ability, he's got the intelligence, but he just doesn't apply himself. And that happened all the way through school. I had a vague notion that I might want to be a journalist. Um I I'd wanted to be a photographer at some point and I'd spent some time with a a freelance and professional photographer who had uh who had talked me out of that. Didn't see any future in it. Um I'm not sure he was I'm not sure he was right, but I was taught I was talked out of that. And then I drifted around um and I left school aged 17, so I was quite uh quite young for my year. I left school age 17 with three hires, three C's in English, French and History, which were pretty useless at the time. And you know, I ended up just you know, the only option, and I you know and I say this when I go and do this this talk that I do at schools, I start by saying, here's my journey, and I started work at the age of 17 because I'd given myself no other option. Um and sometimes it's just a case of you know, you you you either learn the easy way or you learn a slightly more difficult way. I just you know, I ended up just starting at a you know in a very clerical position in a um uh uh United Distillers in Edinburgh. Okay. Um, you know, where I did everything from sit on the reception desk and greet visitors to answer the phone to deliver in the mail to do just anything that you need to get done.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

You talked around that almost uh milestone of m in terms of your memory of being in the scouts over the next years of your career, what is there what's kind of the next anchor that you can you can kind of call upon that shape to you then became and the the the journey that you went on? Is there another one that you can kind of pull out at all? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

I think I learned a lot you know, even in the even i in those early years of work and I was a fish out of water, right? I'd I'd had I'd gone from living in quiet little Dunblane where I had a ten minute walk to school. Um if I chose to go home at lunchtime, there'd be uh five beans and chips sitting on the table. Um it was unbelievably easy. Um and maybe that's why I'd just got so relaxed about things, because everything was quite quiet and straightforward and and easy, and then all of a sudden I was having to commute to Edinburgh. Um I I'd I'd I'd sort of rediscovered this shyness that I'd been struck with you as I went from primary school into secondary school, so I became quite shy again because I was out and I was out in the world, I didn't know anybody. Yeah. Um I always remember, you know, the first few times I got the train to Haymarket to get off to get to Murrayfield, which is where United Silvers was based at the time, I wouldn't get the bus because I didn't know how to get a bus because I'd never used a bus. And and uh and I was just going to be surrounded by people that knew what they were doing and and and who I didn't know, so I would walk 30 minutes on to it was just making things so much worse.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

And then I eventually got a car, and you know, my parents helped me get a car, and that that made life a bit easier. There was a couple of guys who are still great friends now who were doing the same commute, so we all travelled together and and and and and had a bit of a laugh, but but I I you know I remember thinking that this is really hard, yeah. Um, you know, maybe feeling a bit sorry for myself. Yeah, you know, I was still quite young. Um I look at my own, I've got a 17-year-old myself, and I look at him and think, would he be ready to just be put into that environment? Probably not. So all of a sudden I was there, I was turning up in a big office, um people, lots of people doing serious things, um, everybody dressed in a different way, I had one really bad double-breasted suit, um, a couple of shirts and and a and a Paisley Pattern tie that I wore, I seem to wear every day. Um, and then I think there was just there was there was a moment at which I thought, well, I just need to make the most of this opportunity, and I just need to learn as much as I possibly can. And if this is my job on a certain day, I'm just gonna do it really, really well. Yeah. So sometimes it was on on the reception desk, you'd be sitting there in the morning, and just little things like I had a telephone directory of everybody in the building and their their name, their job title. And if I'm just gonna get to know everybody in this building, what and and I'm gonna c greet them in the morning by their name. Just simple things like that. I'm just gonna, you know, if I've got to sit here, I'm not just gonna sit and look at the monarch of the Glen all day, which was quite nice sitting under that painting. Um but um I'm I'm actually gonna make the most of the time that I've got here. So I just learned about um the pe the people in the building. Um what what they did started to show an interest in uh, you know, the some the various job titles that were around, got to know the more regular visitors, so there was quite often guys coming in who were selling bottles or packaging or whatever, and I got to know them and their business, and I got to understand the connectivity between them and the people that they were there to see. So I would look at who's that person he's he keeps coming in to see this guy, what does he do? How did he become that? So it was just there was a curiosity there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

But also real, I guess holding yourself accountable to get uncomfortable as well. Of like it's easy to if you move city or move roles or whatever, in terms of wait for people to come to you and be that yeah, kind of shrinking violet. But I think being on the front foot, and you know, I've seen it in your work, and but you're undoubtedly an amazing people person, but being inquisitive because everybody's got a story and everybody's got an incredible personality somewhere in them, so it's yeah, being able to uncover that.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Curiosity is the most amazing thing. I talk to everybody that comes in to work for us, it's like be curious, ask questions. You don't ever learn anything if you don't ask questions, and I still love learning about stuff, you know. Over the the weekend in the Cairn Gorms, the guide that that we had, Stevie Boyle from Ocean Verse, absolutely brilliant, knows everything about everything, nature-wise, mountain-wise, and all of that. And I'm constantly just hoovering up stuff, and it's the same when you know when I meet you guys and you don't you meet anybody, it's like, what do you talk about? Well, you talk about them. I know you don't talk about yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Well, that's that's been the biggest motivating factor for me to start this because I'm ultra curious, and because it's people have got amazing stories, and yeah, they do selfishly. I like to download it and learn and myself, but I also know that there's going to be nuggets in there that people can take from. I think there's so much we can cover in terms of themes. Like the day you obviously now run Charlotte Street Partners, your own business, one of the most reputable in the UK in terms of public relations, communications, crisis management. So there's a lot of different things I'd want to get into. But if we fast forward to a role where you're in a real, I guess, the deep end, if you like, and public facing. So you were director of communications for Heathrow. Yeah. Um talk to me just first of all what that role looked like and it at its most intense, because I think there's a lot of different themes to get into. But I think this is where if people start a business, particularly in services, when the client you're working with wants to know that you've been there and done it. Yeah. And I think this role that you've been in, you can kind of say, Yeah, I've done it. So yeah, you Talk me a little bit around what that role was like.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

Well I was at you know I was at BAA, which is the you know, the which was the privatised British Airports Authority, and I was there for twelve years and I often reflected that I got about you know 30 years of experience in in that time, an embarrassment of riches, if you think about you know, crisis communication and ish managing issues as well highly political, uh a regulated business, um, you know, from a safety perspective, but also when I went down south from an economic perspective, and then you know, every major crisis that you would associate with Heathrow over the last you know, 20 years pretty much happened while I was while I was there. Um I'd I'd I spent more time in in Scotland in the airport business. Um and I had a bit of experience, you know, the Glasgow Airport terrorist attack. I was the communications director for the the group of airports that we had in in Scotland at that time. So I took the first call from the media on on that incident, which was you know you know, as intense as these things get. So how does it how does that play out then in your role, like from it happening and what's the timeline there in terms of and that that I mean the these airports are just such public things, you know, they're they're filled with people all of the time. And so there's no hiding place for for for the business. What happened there was I was you know, our middle son my son James, he was just a few months old, I think, at the time. And we'd Jane and I had had a very rare day out um without him. Um and we'd gone into Edinburgh and having lunch and doing a bit of shopping, and I got a phone call from a guy called Derek Lambee, who then was the editor of the Sunday Express and he said I th if we've got a report that Glasgow Airport's on fire. And at the time I said, Well, I doubt it, I probably know about it if it was, but let me get back to you. And I made a call um to the airport and uh the reaction I got from the guy that I spoke to suggested that the airport was on fire. Right. Um so I phoned Derek back and said, uh yeah, I think you might be right, but I don't know the facts, I'll need to establish the facts and we'll we'll keep you posted. And then from then on it was just a paste, uh taxi up the road. Um and I think I, you know, for the purposes of telling the story in the future, um I think I took some took or made something like 300 telephone calls in the next four hours. Um which if you think about it, it's just almost almost impossible to manage. So it was just absolutely constant. Um and only the following morning was I able to actually get out of my house away from my desk and to the to the airport, so we had a team on on the airport. Um Is that you fielding calls, just everybody wanting to speak to you, or is that a combination of uh hundreds and hundreds of inbound calls from everywhere in the world. Primarily just media outlets, just what's going on? Mainly media, but then you throw in uh uh you know, shareholders, yeah, uh you know, pe people from elsewhere in the group, politicians, just everybody coming in in into you, and you know, and it's just like kind of you're just basically thinking on your on your on your feet. There's a bit of a adrenaline keeps you keeps you going. And then, you know, and I went um you know, I went down south initially on a sort of part-time basis. The company had been acquired, um, they were going through a really difficult transition from being a PLC to being a privately held company. Um I think even the even the shareholders would accept now that they probably didn't do enough um in in the early days. And there were two or three big events that happened around that time that that that made things really difficult. So there's three of us asked to go from Scotland to London just to help out. Um Joe, I described it as a kind of stop stop the bleeding, uh, you know, and when you've stopped the bleeding, you can start to think about what the recovery looked like. So so I went down with these uh two other guys, it was an HR guy and an operational guy. Um and we just tried to to to help out, and then I moved to area. I was I was the deputy communications director for and for a long time, um, and then I became the comms director, and you know, we dealt we had to deal with the you know the the the opening of T5 which was fairly well publicised. The royal opening was nice and easy because there were no passengers. Uh we just had to deal with the Queen. Um but the operational opening was really really quite uh really quite difficult. Uh we had volcanic ash, cloud uh stuff, we had weather-related incidents, we had select committee investigations, we had regulatory interventions, there was a competition uh review going on in the background, which would ultimately break the company up. So, in terms of the issues that we had, it was just everything all all all at once. So it was an incredible training ground. I always there was one there was one day I was sitting at my desk and somebody drew my attention to the Life TV feed in the office, and there was a uh I think it was a Greenpeace protester abseiling down the front of the House of Commons with a banner that read BAA Head Headquarters, and because the the you know the the Green lobby thought that we had the government in our pockets, which is it couldn't have been further from the truth. But I looked up and without being blase about it, the first thing I thought was that's that's the wrong logo. We've changed our logo since then. Um maybe somebody would should send Greenpeace, the updated brand guidelines. Um that that's frustrating. But but but in the hierarchy of the things that we were dealing with, ha having that was just a distraction that you know I'll give a one-sentence comment in media and then we'll move back to the things that that people actually care about.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

For sure. It's it's interesting that it's most companies you talk around trying to be proactive, you know, and ahead of things. And in your role there, I guess it's the real epitome of being really reactive, of things coming in, and there's obviously going to be a balance, but as you said, your phone's ringing there 300 times in the matter of an afternoon, and you are gonna be reactive. How how do you make sure you're prepared and planned in the best way possible to make sure that when things are inevitably gonna go wrong, you're cool, calm, and you're also gonna be delivering the right message to the people that need to hear it?

SPEAKER_02 29:10

I think I mean it's a kind of core element of what we do now. Of course. Um so you know, if your house goes on fire, you'll phone the fire service and they'll come and put the flames out, but you'll still be left with a damaged house. Yeah. And they talk and we talk about prevention. Um and and the way you do that is by building your reputation in the good times, um, in the knowledge that the bad times will will come along. So yes, we were reactive, but I think we became very reflective and we became much better at managing the reputation in in the lulls between the crises. Because you knew that uh when you're operating certainly Heathrow, um, you know, having spent a bit of time with the operational team, you know, the guys that run the place on a daily basis, it's a miracle that they get from one end of the day to the other end of the day without something very significant happening. So it is a you know, it's an extremely hard job. But I think there was a for me, there was a bit about being focused on the right thing. So when I first went to London and talked to the public affairs team, what are you talking about? What are you out talking to politicians about? Airport customer service didn't appear on the list anywhere. Right. It was runway capacity, it was about climate change, it was all all important issues. And my argument was we have no credibility on any of these issues until we can prove that we care about running our airports better than we do right now. So a large part of your reputation is determined by how well you do what you're there to do. And the judgment, my judgment at the time was we didn't spend enough time caring about the airports, we didn't spend some you know, some of the head office team didn't spend any time at an airport. Um, we weren't as close to the customers, be that be those passengers or airlines, and there was always a big confusion in our business about who's the customer. Was it is it the passenger or the airline, as if it couldn't be both of those. Um and so I I I basically said to my team, well, we're just gonna go back to basics and we're just gonna go and spend the next six months talking to our stakeholders, mainly politicians, about what we're doing to fix the airports and which are not, you know, performing as well as as as they could do. So Yeah, so and and you know, and that and that work helped mitigate some of the hostility that came around when you had a crisis because people had much more and much more of an understanding of how these things, how these airports functioned, yeah. And the challenges that we faced day in, day out. So it was a bit of just educating people, not just saying, come and have a look at us because it's really, really hard, but come and we'll show you how it all operates. I used to go up the control tower at Heathrow um to show people what Heathrow was, and it was a bit of a mess. You know, if you have you ever wondered why it took you ages to get from the gate to the runway, you just got that control tower and have a look down and see the reversing and the cul-de-sacs, and yeah, I think you know what one of the problems with that that place is that every time they needed a a bit more terminal capacity, they built a bit more terminal capacity. There was nobody ever taking that long-term strategic view of like, well, this place is only gonna get busier and busier.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah. I was gonna ask about that in terms of like the inside that that the core of the team, both you were leading and you're part of at a more senior level. You kind of touched upon it there, but in terms of that strategy and what you're part of, and in terms of almost the I guess the the plan and the you're delivering and what that looked like in terms of the the team you're obvious, it's high stress, very public-facing. Obviously, you've got the stakeholders and politicians all all looking in as well. What does that look like in terms of that that team and the strength of that and being all on the same page and deli and delivering the same messages?

SPEAKER_02 33:10

There was a consistency about the team in in terms of the people. Um and we were we were all in it together. Um and it was a really brilliant team. You know, I'm still good friends with some, if not, you know, most of them. Um So it really was a team effort and we became we just became so used to it that when you know when a crisis happened, when we got the phone call to say, look, something's happened, it's go you know, we were able to judge whether it was going to become a crisis or not. Um we all knew we all knew our roles, you know, we were good, you know, there was a maturity about the division of responsibility. So I never you know I I wasn't necessarily having to say, right, you do that, you do that, you do that. There was there were two or three of us in senior leadership positions and we just worked really, really well.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

How did you form that then? Because it's it's easy to say that, and people listening to this, whether they're part of a team or part of a leadership team, getting people facing in the right direction is you kind of said it in your first answer of the day in terms of take people on a journey and take people with you. How how'd you go around doing that? How did you?

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Um I think it was uh uh it was finding the time, making the time to think beyond the immediate. Yeah. So being able to look up and over what's in front of you and imagine, you know, like I've sometimes listened to golfers talking about how golf uh it doesn't seem to apply to me, but if you imagine the shot you're gonna play, then it's much easier to actually execute in it. Um like quite often I'll hit a golf ball and think that's definitely not how I might I imagined that that was going to grow. Um but I think there was there was for me, I became I I think one of the things that I again I look back on and think I became a really reflective person, quite a deep thinker. Yeah. Um so there was the you're finding the moments to reflect on your your individual performance. Am I behaving well, am I doing well here? Am I making the right decisions? Having a bit of external perspective around me, putting external perspective around me to give me that. So not not only people who do what I do now in terms of agency support, but also just people in my life that were able to to say you might want to think about doing things slightly differently. So so for that that Heathrow team, I think for quite a lot of it it was this crisis will be over. It will be over soon. You know, we have to be absolutely focused on the here and now, we have to be, you know, empathetic and and and on the side of our customers and and and passengers mainly. But we're going to get through this and you know, you have we have a choice. Do we come through it, you know, stronger than we went in or do we not? Um so I was I I I I think I became better in that period of my life at imagining, right, three, four days down the line we will we'll probably be out of this. How and then you can work back from there. So how what does that look like? What what are the things that we need to do? And I think it was the same with my the same with my career that I guess one one of the most significant interventions in my career was from one of these assessment centres that you get sent on when you work for a big company. And and I had a I had a boss, uh absolutely brilliant boss, but he was very he was an ex-journalist, he was very close to the end of his uh career, and I was going to succeed him and all of that, and he said, Look, there's a CD assessment centre. And he said, You like you need to go on it, it's compulsory. And I always remember he said, It'll be shit, but you need to go on it. And so I was you know, 32, I think I was at the time, quite gallous. Yeah, I was like, Yeah, yeah, probably will be rubbish. Um and I went went there and it was uh uh I mean it just changed everything in terms of being able to look into the future and imagine the future and I still do it now, I still have my life broken down into sort of 10 year So how did they do that? They basically said look, you're um I think they took the edge off me in the you know the the this maybe the swagger that I went in with, I didn't leave with the same uh with the same poise. Um I was 32, I was doing really well. Um I was communications director for the airports in Scotland, running a team of about 10. Um and they basically the the starting point was yeah, you're doing okay, but what are you gonna do with the rest of your life? Because you've probably got as much time in work as you've been alive. Yeah. Um what are you doing with the rest of your life? And I th I remember thinking at the time, I haven't got a clue. I don't really know. I'm just I'm on a journey and I'll see what happens. And they what they what they made us do, and if my team are watching this, some of them will just be uh have their head in their hands, but then basically they made us draw a line across a piece of paper, and you on the left hand side it was like they put put an age like 15 or 18 or whatever. So I put 15 down and the right hand side of the page, you've got the age at which you would like to retire.

SPEAKER_04 38:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

So put 40. I didn't I didn't I put as I put the the the the national retirement age. Um and and then it was just like what what what job do you want to do next? Just imagine the job you want to do, and it was easy in a big company because I was able to say, well, actually, I know what all the jobs are. And if you're not in that position, it's it is slightly harder. But what I guess what that taught me was okay, that's the next step, and these are the things that I need to do to to achieve that, but I can also look above that and beyond that and think, well, actually, there's two steps beyond that that I would quite like to do. So what are the things that I would need to pick up along the way to in order in order for me to achieve job number two and job number three, and you know, and and I I always remember I ran out of jobs in the company that I would like to do, and they were saying, But you what are you gonna do after that? And I don't know. So I just wrote down setting my own business, yeah. And I made it up. I had no intention at that time in my life of setting up my own business, but I just had to think of something, so I just put it down. And what I say to people with when I'm trying to encourage them to do that exercise, which is why the team would have the legend iron, is that everything I put down on that piece of paper that day came true, and it didn't come true because I wrote it down on a piece of paper, it came true because it changed the way I thought about my life. It gave me a bit of momentum, it gave me a longer term aim, obje objectives, um, and it just it just that and that and that reflection as well. So actually I went back from that 3D assessment centre that I was told would be terrible. Yeah, yeah. Thinking it was it was it was profound actually that the the difference in me and also it applies as much to your personal life as it does, and it's not about it's not about wishing your life away, it's just about having a little bit more of an order. Um and I f I found that as I you know you talked about an anchor. Um, you know, at the first at the end of the first year of the pandemic, I was uh you know, I'd I'd got I'd hit a brick wall basically and you know I was just I was low in energy, I was low in mood, I wasn't a great person to be around, so I took myself out of the This is in your business. This is in the business I'm in at the moment. Took myself out of the day-to-day for a while and I was just chatting to a woman about how I felt and you know how it was all going and and I told her that story that I've just told you about and and I as I was getting towards the tail end of it, I could see the pennies dropping in her mind and I could predict what she was about to say. She has a bit of paper. She said that's really interesting. What's on your plan now? Yeah. Um and I wasn't one. And so lo and behold, I just become detached. I was you know, I was alone, I was adrift. Yeah. Um so that that was a point at which I thought, right, and there needs to be there needs to be another plan. And I've got, you know, I'm in my early 50s then, and I've got something that resembles the same kind of plan that takes me, you know, 10 years, 10 years down the line.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

But I think it's so important, and I say this from a position of not doing it regularly enough myself, because everybody's on that treadmill, aren't they? Of just running hard and year on year, quarter on quarter. Day to day, yeah, existing, surviving. Whereas like taking a pause and being able to kind of look up and think, why am I doing this and where am I trying to work towards? It can just it can have a bit of that realization. So I think um you might inspire a few people to get a bit of A4 paper out there.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

A bit of paper out. If you want to come and talk to me, I'll uh bore the back side of it.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Um it's great. But I wanted to touch upon something you said there, and it's around the the personal side because everybody handles stress in a different different way, and I think you you maybe touched upon it in terms of the way you're communicating to your team and saying this will pass, or in four days this crisis will pass, and that takes a real skill and also using perspective and being here before and that experience. But how did maybe some of those most challenging and stressful moments then impact the Malcolm at home, the dad, the husband? How did how does that kind of materialise and has it changed over the years as you've you know gained more scars and scar tissue?

SPEAKER_02 43:11

Yeah, I mean I think I I'm kind of I I sometimes reflect it, I got I I became addicted to adrenaline, really. Um and I really, really enjoyed it, but I was also aware that I was completely engrossed in it. You know, you can't have that type of job and not be seven days a week, and sometimes it's the middle of the night. So I do I probably wasn't especially easy to to be around. You know, I spent most of my week at at at Heathrow or around London, and then I spent Friday locked away in my room demanding that there was silence outside it, and then Saturdays and Sundays were usually just a kind of you were at the mercy of whatever was happening. Um so yeah. I think you know, I've I've n I've not been you know, I've been uh it's been quite challenging for those around me and I'm conscious of you know, I'm much more conscious of that.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Just just thinking just again, it's just from the conversation I've had today. Has it ever resonated with the fact that you're almost in a very similar situation to your father there in terms of London five days a week. Yeah. Has that kind of ever hit you or reflected upon that in terms of?

SPEAKER_02 44:29

Yeah, I th I think I in my mind I was only ever gonna do it for a certain amount of time. Yeah. Um the novelty wears off. London's a great place to be. The job was absolutely uh uh amazing, you know that it was like a roller coaster, you didn't know when to get off because you could see some twist or turn ahead of you. Um but when I made my decision to to stop doing it, it was it was final and it was immediate.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

And what were the why what's the why behind that?

SPEAKER_02 44:59

I think there'd be there there there would been one crisis in the winter of 2010 where I felt the organization uh despite all of the you know, almost all of the rehearsals that we'd had, yeah, um I think the organisation didn't um live up to you know the the standards that people would have accepted uh you know expected at the time. I think the organisation turned in on itself a bit. There was a bit more a bit more blame being thrown around um the team. There was a big commission, a big investigation um that everybody had to appear in front of almost like a select committee. So it was adversarial. Um and I think I'd you know I I I described it as a time at the time as being I said I'd you know I've I've just done it you know three, four, five times now. You you nearly get to the top of the mountain and you slide all the way back down to the bottom, then you go again, and then you go again, and then you get to the point where you think, well, I'll go I'll go and try another mountain. Yeah, yeah. Just go and try something different. Yeah. Um so it wasn't uh you know, it wasn't a falling out, it was just a very rational, I went home that it was at it was at Christmas time, and I went home at Christmas and I thought myself and and I and I you know and I went to my boss at the time, the chief executive, who was very understanding and just basically said, My heart's not in it anymore. I've just I've lost the I've I've just lost the kind of hunger to be that person that's defending this organization day in, day out, sometimes when it's ridiculous to do so. Yeah. Um and you need somebody in that position who's been like me over the last few years, which is like a dogged defender of the organization. If my heart's not in it, you need somebody that that that you know, you maybe just need somebody that's fresh and new and not as cynical as I have become. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Um But we'll we'll come on to it, but I think a core part of whether it's crisis management, but also that communication side, you were you were the face and the throat to choke, if you like, for all media outlets, whether it's you know you're facing off to the BBC, down in the street and things. When you've in a crisis like that and uh journalist or presenter's got a microphone, you know, under your mouth and a camera, what's some of the key messages or key for whether it's people listening to this in crisis, whether it's a mini crisis or a large crisis in terms of just being able to communicate in the right way and to when you're handling that?

SPEAKER_02 47:47

I think I say this a lot to clients. You will the the chances are you will know a lot an awful lot more than the person who's asking you the questions. So you have an intimate knowledge of your business that they don't have. And that's not to say that you should be relaxed about that, but it should give you some confidence. So I knew going into those most hostile interviews that I knew more than whoever it was that was talking to me, and I'd um and that wasn't um something that I'd you know that had just happened. I'd I'd learned, you know, I was sitting in these big operational meetings, so I knew intimately what was going on operationally and what was going to then happen in order to then inform the advice that we were given to the outside world to passengers mainly. Um so um you know, I took a I took a lot of confidence from knowing that I was, you know, I was going to have the facts at my fingertips and they might not. So some of the the really hard interview uh interviews could have been a lot harder had I not been as prepared as I as I was. And then there's and then there's just they're going to try and catch it out. Gotcha, yeah. They're going to try and trip you up. I mean, there's you know they were all I mean what what people don't see is this super friendly conversation you have at the beginning and at the end when you're not being recorded. So I I did a I think it was a seven-minute interview for the PM programme with Eddie Mayer, who I regard as one of the best um and most forensic interviewers that that we've had on in the media for for years and years. And I had no time to prepare for Eddie Mayer because I'd said our strategy at the time, or part of our strategy at the time, was to accept every single radio opportunity because we figured that radio was the best medium to get to as many people as we could. We we pretty much accepted every TV request within reason, but we had we were accepting every radio request, and we had a studio, uh sort of makeshift studio that we were able to create every time there was a crisis. And I got hauled into this room, told it's Radio 4, put the headphones on, and this producer said it's um I'm just gonna put you through to Eddie now. And and I had that moment where I thought, oh, nobody told me it was bloody him. Yeah, okay. He comes on to the line. Malcolm, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us. You must be having a you know a horrendous time. It must be really, really busy. I can't thank you enough for making the time. And then he said, Right, well we'll we get going now. Um and we got going and he basically was like we punched in the face right for seven minutes and then it came to an end, and then he said, I can't again thank you so much for it was just the the the contrast. So and then and then there's just little little little bits and pieces. I was doing a live uh interview into the BBC studio about five o'clock in the evening to what was then BBC News 24, which was just uh then just BBC News and then news channel. And I had an earpiece in and was no nobody in front of me other than a camera and a camera operator. And as I I was as I was being counted down in my earpiece by the producer to five, four, three, two, one, um at round about three, the cameraman said something along the lines of there's a couple of million people watch this. Thanks for that. And um and I just sort of flashed into my head and and then and then I did the interview and it w it was it was fine. Uh it was just one of these kind of like tell us what's going on, or what's going on, and there was a little bit of back and forward, but and at the end of it I sort of laughed, I had a bit of a laugh with him about it, and I just figured that you know we were making these guys have a pretty miserable existence standing outside of hotels, yeah. A heathrow in the middle of winter in a snowstorm, freezing cold. He obviously thought he'd have a bit of fun with me at the time. And then there's also uh Eamon Holmes tried to catch me out with a bit of a a curveball at the end of a conversation, and again it was just uh you know, speaking to him, he was on the sofa in the studio, I was standing uh what we called the grassy knoll outside the Renaissance hotel at at at Heathrow and I just explained everything that was going on and then there's this technique that some of the best better broadcasters use whereas they you they tried to they almost tried to get you to feel that the interview's done and over and then they hit you with a a sucker punch and his was basically he said he just said uh He said you you don't you don't sound like you're from around from around Heathrow do you I I'm assuming you'll get home for Christmas Um because at that time there was quite a lot of passengers stuck and we didn't know if we would get them moving by Christmas and that was the sucker punch. I didn't fall for it, but that that's always be wary of sucking if it's just you until you take that earpiece out in the microphone, you can hear that the boat ram's moved on. And I always remember that as I was taking the earpiece out, I heard him turn to his co-presenters and say, He's a very serious man, but then I suppose he has to be job done, yeah, for sure done.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

And I didn't fall for that question at the end of that.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Yeah, yeah, and it still baffles me now, and maybe people are a little bit bro on it now, but you hear about those situations where is the phrase where the mic's hot still hot? Is that yeah, yeah, and obviously Gordon Brown on, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, there's a few of them, and you think like, okay, there's a how'd you manage that crisis? But um I want to take you used the word early on in terms of when a bigger crisis hit, and you you said no no matter how much we'd rehearsed. What what does that look like in terms of are you always scenario planning and rehearsing? What could go wrong, what will happen if it goes wrong, what will we do, or how does that look?

SPEAKER_02 54:12

I g I guess what I meant was we we'd had so many rehears live rehearsals, so it it it happened so often that in between times we you know we tended to do a kind of like we would all sit down and reflect after the event. Sometimes we got professional facilitators in, sometimes we did it ourselves. So it was just making sure that as we went through one crisis there were things that we'd learned that you know would would influence the way that we dealt with whatever was going to happen next. Um so it was more about that and um but also just Yeah, just how how did that make us feel? I think it was quite you know useful for people to to have a moment after an intense event. So the Glasgow Airport terrorist attack, for example, forty-eight hours of in fact probably longer than that, of just really, really hard, constant inbound um added to the fact that our place of work had been attacked. Um and you know, I remember afterwards talking to one of my team and he was you know he was really emotional about it and he didn't he couldn't really explain why. So I think that point that you made earlier about having actually done it and having actually felt it, yeah. The bit that you that you can only learn by being in it is how it makes you feel, and the emotional roller coaster that you're on, and quite often it's the adrenaline and the focus and the phone calls and the the dealing with issues that keep you going. But I I talk about uh being at Heathrow absolutely you know, under the kosh, quite rightly, um high high pressure stuff, and I got a text from my mum that just said, I hope you're okay. Yeah. And I nearly started crying there and then. Yeah, mum's will do that too. Aye. Yeah. And it was just I and I and it I was really I was like, wow. I wasn't ready for that. And I had to go in just right, I'm gonna have a couple of minutes of just composing myself. Yeah. But again, it reminded me at the time that those that worked for us in the leadership positions, everybody was dealing with things in a different way. Some people are absolutely unbelievably good in a crisis. Yeah, some people who you might expect to be really brilliant in a crisis are not. Um and who and they just fall apart. You know, peep people are complex. Everybody's different. For sure. You don't know until you know, and sometimes you don't know until it until it actually is is is right there in front of you. And quite a lot of the time it's I had to say it's like deciding who's actually you just go and focus on something else. For sure. Or or just go home. Yeah. You know, um and there's a lot of a lot of I mean a lot of our stuff, it's i it was unusual when that it would last like four or five days, and sometimes you didn't know when it was gonna so you were able to make sure that you know how I was having to make sure that people were getting the you know enough sleep.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

Yeah. It's uh it's interesting because I think a lot of whether you watch documentaries or podcasts and things, it's so easy when you speak to leaders and high performers, and you you focus on the bright lights and the the easy times, and I think high performance and it's it's how you react when you actually don't know how you react. Yes, and and almost being at the the cool face and just figuring it out and are you staying calm? So yeah, I think some unbelievable insight there, Malcolm. So take me to the you've obviously decided very self-aware of you can't give your best to that role anymore. Are you then straight away thinking, okay, I want to have my name on the door as it were, and set up your own business? Are you thinking back to that A4 bit of paper or how's that kind of playing out when that uh No.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

In short, I I made the decision to leave with no plan. Um I just knew that it was time to go and do something else. I didn't know what that something else looked like. Yeah. I did imag I I tried to imagine I didn't I didn't think I would miss what the job. I would miss some of the people, but I didn't think I would miss the job. And that and I was right about that. But what I was going to miss and I was absolutely sure I was going to miss was that sense of excitement and adrenaline. And er I remember that you know a few headhunters are in touch and you've you know I'm sure the headhunters would agree with me. You have to sort of play the game of it. Of course. You know, you have to engage. I used to work in recruitment and it's yes, you gotta play the game, yeah. If you keep if you say no to absolutely everything, they just stop opening you up about the really exciting ones. So so I had to sort of feign interest in a few opportunities that were around at the time, but I remember thinking I can't imagine anything more boring than than than that. Um so I didn't really know at all what I was going to do. Um I had a you know I had a period of time off. Um, you know, towards the end of my time at BAA, I'd done everything I needed to do. My boss very kindly said just go and take the summer to work out what you're gonna do the rest of your life. So So I did a little bit of scooting about Scotland and you know uh and then suddenly I thought, right, I need to get my act together and think about what I'm gonna do. And I started just going out and yeah, I was getting dressed up, I was putting a suit, shirt, tie on again, so I'm gonna dress like a business person today and be like a business person, but getting myself back into character, yeah. Um and taking all these people by surprise, so meeting people for a cup of coffee and they're saying, So what are you all dressed up for? And I was saying, I'm meeting you, yeah, and I need to get my head back in this in this game. Um and then one day I just got I yeah, I was phoned up by you know the infrastructure fund that went on to buy uh Edinburgh Airport, and they just said, Look, we're looking for we're putting together an acquisition team for quick getting it by Edinburgh Airport and would quit would have a conversation with you about potentially joining that team as a consultant. So in order for me to do that, um, you know, I went to London, met the partner, really interesting guy. They said, Yeah, happy for you to to to be working with us. I then had to set up a you know, I had to set up a company in order to for them to, you know, have some commercial arrangement with me. I didn't know anything about that. So I was running about Edinburgh talking to my pals who had done it before, saying, How'd you set a company out there? How'd you choose a bank? Yeah, um, how'd you do this? How'd you do that? They're just asking people for help and everybody's really, really helpful. So basically set up a company in an afternoon, got a bank, um, did that consultancy work for them, and you know, another client came in, and another client came in, and I thought I quite like this. Sense of freedom, yeah. Um, a sense of ownership. I'd never I'd never you know I was say I'd never really had an entrepreneurial bone in my body. I still I still don't describe myself as an entrepreneur. I don't know why that is. You you know David Duke. Yep. Funny story about David, um uh I was speaking to Belinda Roberts We Do group and it was a dinner and she'd sent out this big email saying still a couple of places at the dinner uh talk with media entrepreneur Malcolm Robertson and David screen grabbed it, sent it to me and said, Look, mate, there's a guy with the same name as you and I th I still think that's hilarious because I've never ever thought of myself he's the only person that calls me and he's he's taking the piss when when he when he does. But I think I just I just it just it just happened. I think I um I shared an office with a woman called Elena Torres who is as you know entrepreneurial as the days long and and and was absolutely brilliant. And we were just like she she ran a private jet broker company, I think she still does, and we're still good pals. Um I credit her with keeping me going because we would we just shared this little room in George Street, yeah. And it was just chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, a bit of work, chat. And you know, the the the the few moments where I would say this is all just about hard, I'm gonna go back to just try and find a good in-house job. She was the one that was saying no, don't stay with it and and and and keep going. And then, you know, so I did that for two years, and then I just I guess I guess got a little bit lonely and and thought, well, what more could I make of this little company that's you know, just me, a laptop and a telephone. And from that was that Charlotte Street Partners then? Or was that No, that was just um you know, I just had some random company name and uh people contracted with me and it was j it was just me, and then there was a piece, a big piece of work that came in from the Green Investment Bank that required me to hire a couple of people, so I just got a couple of freelancers um who were brilliant, uh both of them Debbie Byers uh being one and Chris Sibald, who's now doing brilliantly in in London in our in our line of work. Um and the three of us worked on that team, and that was the sort of beginning of that process. Andrew Wilson, my former business partner, Andrew and I had been getting together a bit more in London. Turned out we pretty much, you cut a long story short, we pretty much wanted to do the same thing, which was to take a sort of London quality agency into Scotland. Yeah. Um we had just had a hunch that there was a gap in the market, but we did a lot more research ourselves than maybe people imagine we did. Um so that you know that that period where I'd hired this small team to help me with this big, bigger piece of work was really the sort of precursor to Charlotte Street Corners.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

What was again, because I came from a a role previously in a large multinational corporate and then came into the small business now and running that. What were the biggest differences that really opened your eyes from being a very senior executive to then being a a founder? And yeah, what taught me through that and some of the the moments and realizations? Things like how do you set up a bank, how do you set up a company, and it's um it's interesting. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:15

I like to think I've always been pretty down to earth. You know, all my closest friends are still the guys that I went to school with in in in Dunblane. We all we all do different things, none of us really bother too much about what it is what it is we do, so I was always fairly grounded. So it didn't bother me that we were build we the fact that we're building something from the bottom up and that we were all just having to roll our sleeves up and do things that we might not have had to do in in our previous life. But I think the thing that stuck sticks with me now is and I talk to the people that we bring into the business now, we're not ever going to be that big company culture. Um So all of the things that I disliked about big companies and the culture and the way that they manage people, and maybe they would argue that they do it by necessity because of the volume of people that they have, the amount of process that's surrounded, we will never be that. You know, there's a very simple philosophy that you just treat people like grown-ups. And and more often than not, they will they will respond and they will behave like grown-ups. And if they stop behaving like grown-ups, then you treat them s you treat them slightly differently. But actually you don't have to put your hand up to ask if you can go to the toilet. You don't fill in a form necessarily to to take a half day to go and watch your children perform at a school or or to go look look after a sick relative or that. You just let your colleagues know where you are and and we all trust one another and to to to get the job done. So so I you know I'm quite proud of the fact that we're not that we're not that big company culture, and we never will be.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:58

It's funny the way people listening to this thinking that sounds so alien in terms of that, and but it's just those small things of you know, treat people like people like adults, but if you were them, how would you want to be treated? And I think it's that's definitely where you can unlock a great culture in a very easy way rather than yeah, what what the thinking about the scenarios and the environments you've been in that you liked and then didn't, but then the amazing sense of ownership to I get to create this, I get to decide that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:28

Yeah, absolutely. It's just it's like liberating people and and actually just understanding that they they have a perspective, they're they're adults, yeah, they're they're intelligent, and you get more back. Yeah, you absolutely do. You think about how how do I like to be motivated if if somebody came in to me every morning and said, I don't I don't really I'm not that interested in what you had planned for the day, do these five things by lunchtime. You're demotivated, you're flat. And I think you know, going going back to a customer service environment, the people who are on the front line understand what your customers want and what your customers like and what they don't like better than people like me. So even now I'm you know, I like to talk to the you know the t the the team at the sharp end, the ones that are having the client engagements every day. How are we doing? Because they know what what clients like and what and you know, as I say, what what what they don't like better better than I do. And it it is alien, but why should it be? You know, we used to I remember in various leadership styles that you would get in in in in the big companies, it would be parent and child. You think about it, it doesn't even work with a child. You know, if you just bark at your child to do something, they tend not to do it. But if you actually sit down and explain, yeah, this is the bigger reason that I want you to do this thing. There's up there's far more child. So I so I I won't even talk about parent and child leadership. It's just but at the same time everybody's different. You are gonna have people who are who need more direction and who actually uh thrive on understanding the three things that you want from them. Yeah, whereas there'll be other people and you being able to identify those be other people who just just give them the freedom to do what they what you know that they can do. And I I don't sit on top of people every day saying, What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:24

Yeah, yeah, but I think it's so important and easier said than done, particularly during those tough times. Um so what was the level of ambition when you started to realize okay, you wanted there was that maybe sense of loneliness and you wanted to create something and you founded you know Charlotte Street Partners. How's the level of ambition changed? I mean, if you if you use your example from your personal life and that bit of paper in the line, yeah, where are Charlotte Street Partners on that journey now in terms of what you want this business to become and and stand for?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:00

That's a really, really good question because I'm I I think I'm probably at a moment now, so we you know we've been around for about 12 years. I would always argue that there's the the there's been about four iterations of the company in that time, so there was the long period of the time at the beginning we were making it up as we went along. You know, we had we were lucky that we had Sarangus Gross as our chairman and having somebody like that available to you at all times was just incredible, and I miss him uh I miss him a lot. Um but we we we completely changed the way the company uh is run. Uh I think it was 21 into 22. So we'd come through the pandemic, um, we'd performed, I think, pretty well in really, really difficult circumstances. Um but we did a sort of top-to-bottom review of the business and thought, right, we need to, you know, professionalise quite a lot of what we've done. Um Andrew uh chose to go and do something different in I think it was 2022, 2023, um, which was fine. Um and that was all you know, that was all agreed. And then I guess for me, for first of all, it was about simplifying things and just going back to just being what we can be the best in the market at, which is just sort of um, you know, corporate communication, reputation, risk, management, public affairs, all that stuff. So not trying to do things that um just because there's a little bit of money available, of course, or something, you know, pretending that you can do it. So just simplifying things, steadying uh things, and then you the I would say the last two, three years have been the hardest in terms of the market that we've ever faced. So the economy, everybody knows that the world's a bit more chaotic. Um so everything's a little bit harder, and it's not you know, I don't say that you know, to elicit sympathy, it's more just uh that's just the way it is. And I don't mind that. I think it's just that you know and I'm not saying that it was it was easy at the beginning, but it was economically more stable, the market was more predictable, it's just got a little bit harder, but that's fine. You just of course you just adapt and you just and you just go for it. There's no other way. I I say a lot. You can either in uh in when when times get hard, you can either curl into a ball and hope that the worst of the storm passes you by and he you're able to get up at the at the end of it, or you could just get right into it and of course face into it and look for the opportunities because yeah, you know, there's little moments where you know on a on a big Zoom call with a client that runs a private equity business out of the States. And he did, you know, you I wouldn't go as far as to say he looked excited about this sort of period of crisis, but he was certainly energized in every downturn there are opportunities. Yeah. There's just these little things that that that that you think about. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:10

Were you on that in terms of scale of ten level of being content as a founder at the moment?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:17

I think with the with the business and with the team, I'd be like nine or eight or nine. I think you you but you know you you're on a journey of continuous improvement. You can always be better tomorrow than you were today. Um and I never I'm I'm I'm never ever going to be wholly content. I think I would probably score myself lower than that. I think um that we're at a point now where I'm much more reflective right now on what's what's the entrepreneurial move now. So the entrepreneurial move at the beginning was to set this thing up. Yeah. Um with no, you know, uh real, you know, no certainty that it was going to succeed. Yeah. So that that that was that sort of big unknown and a big risk. When you've got young children, family, mortgage, all that stuff, that was a big risk. I didn't really think of it as that at the time because I was just enjoying it so much and I was it was a bit of confidence that it would uh that it would work. And you have to have that. Of course. You know, if you ever doubt yourself, then you've got to be a bit mad. Yeah, you did you definitely do, and but also just single-minded, so it's in terms of you know, we're gonna make a success uh of this. But I'm not I'm much more reflective like right now on what is the next entrepreneurial move that we might make. And then you know, and then you know, f further down the line it's like who like who succeeds me? Who takes who takes it on? Yeah, but I want to be part of it forever. I've said that to the team, yeah, brilliant. Whether they like it or not, um shambling about in my slippers, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:00

But you get to sit there again, you work with some of the well globally some of the most reputable and well-known companies and logos. But whether it's a small company or companies on that huge enterprise scale, when you sit down and have that first conversation and you're kind of asking questions to discover current state, challenges, opportunities for maybe you to support them, what are the most common themes that you're hearing from organizations that in in the in your world of work that you can support with?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:29

They've I mean they've always got I mean they've always got a challenge of some description, um, whether it's you know policy change or winning a big contract or um or just changing the way that stakeholders think about them. So there's a commonality there. Um I wouldn't say there are any you're quite you know, every everybody uses us for something slightly different, I would say. You know, within the of course the parameters of of of what we do, so there's not you know, the I guess the common theme is just uh a sense that they need to be better represented in the outside world. They either need to better represent themselves or they need other people to think differently about them. So there's always a a specific challenge, but sometimes it can be just hitting a fundraising target or winning that argument or winning a license to build you know something.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:30

Yeah. I love your example and almost the metaphor of um when your house is burning down, you phone the fire brigade. Yeah. In your line of work now, how have you seen a kind of shift from almost that proactiveness of companies being doing this as almost a risk management and insurance versus on a weed to phone Malcolm and Charlotte Street Partners because you know the fire alarm's going off? Like what's what's the the belt?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:56

There's still an awful lot of organisations I think that don't imagine it'll happen to them. It always happens to somebody else. Yeah. Um I think the more enlightened ones get it. You you build up your reputation over a long period of time and you can lose it in no time at all. Um but there are still those organizations that will just phone you up on usually on a Friday night, yeah, um, to say, you we've got a we've got a problem. And you know, and we're always really good at engaging and and and you know rising to whatever challenge faces us. I'm not sure what the what the split is. There's still cyber risk's a good example of where um despite the fact that Jaguar Landrover Marks and Spencer, there's all these high profile stories of cybercrime and it's happening all the time. If we're being honest, it's happening all of the time. And it's sometimes it's independent hackers, sometimes it's 17-year-old guys sitting in their spare room, sometimes it's foreign ac states that that are doing it. There's still a quick there's still too many heads in the sand, I would say, in terms of are you properly equipped? Yeah. Do you understand all of the component parts of your reputation? What are you doing to engage with the outside world? What's your you know, your resilience really comes from the strength of the relationships you have. Yeah. Um beyond just your own organization. So it's it's difficult to say what the what the actual split is, but yeah, you know, we still probably see an equal number of on either side.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:35

Yeah. I always think, you know, when you get exposure to different worlds and you're always a lot more alert to it. So as an example, when I'm I always think in your line of work, you maybe watch the news and you know, when there's celebrity scandals and crisis, I always think then I wonder what's going on behind the scenes there in terms of what um publicist or media manager is what phone calls are they fielding? Do you how does that kind of you've obviously seen it both firsthand as well as an advisor, but um yeah, how does that kind of play out in your mind when you're watching things that are coming across the news and social media?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:12

I think I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:14

I mean uh I try not to overanalyse or critique what you see on the news because one of the things that drove me mad was reading people's opinions of how we were dealing with crises because they had no idea what we were actually dealing with, and quite often there were these were guys that had never been in a crisis, they wouldn't know a crisis if it jumped out of their suit. Um so I've always been reticent to sort of look in and and and and criticize, but I am I'm curious about how well prepared were they, who's advising them, why did they do that? Um so there is a bit of again just curiosity, and we do as a team, we sort of you know, internally we will analyze how's you know when Mars and Spencer's handled that crisis, their cyber crisis, really, really well. And that's a kind of our unanimous view. What did they do so well? Well, I I think what they'd done was the you you're the brand building over years and years and years, just and and the and the good customer relations and the quality products. So back to that point I made earlier about do do the thing that you're there to do really, really well, and that's a large part of it. And then the strength of your relationships and how you engage when things get difficult. As a Markson Spencer's customer myself, because I'm now at that age where it's uh it's at the top of the list. Um the communication I was getting was was really good. Um I felt yeah, I felt informed. But things like you know, I mean you you like the Beckham stuff that's going on at the moment, I I don't spend a huge amount of time wondering what's going on there because why would you?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:05

Yeah, it's funny. I had that realization. I said to my wife, I was like, one of two things are happening. I'm either getting old or Marks and Spencer's got really good cool stuff in the past.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:18

That's my narrative as well, Lewis. I've convinced myself that uh you've got a really young, cool buyer. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:26

Um if you don't mind, I'd love to touch upon Dumbling. You're very proud from there. And I read a piece that you wrote almost 10 years ago now for the 20th anniversary talking about the flowers of snowdrops. And I'd love to just if you don't mind, just talk a little bit around that, what it what it means to you, and um because I might even I'll put an attachment to it under under this, but it's an amazing piece and hugely powerful. But I'd love to kind of hear you just your thoughts on it and what it means to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:57

Um I think like most people in the town who were not directly affected um by what happened over over a period of time there was a sort of disorder around the way we felt. You know, couldn't I couldn't really articulate it. And the piece that I wrote ten years ago was i it was it started off as my attempt to just go away myself and write down the way the way that it made me the way that it made me feel and the way that it still makes me feel. Um and I I've I say in that piece that I can hardly talk about it and I can't yeah, I find it really, really hard to talk about it. Um I've talked I I guess uh as the years go by I've opened up a little bit more, but I mean again the the you know I've talked about the guilt what right do what right do I have to feel this way about an event that didn't kill any of my children um or or relatives um and and just struggling with that thought over the years but um but but I think you know it was it was incredibly tough uh you know obviously not necessarily for me but for the for the people most directly affected it was horrific. Um and it was in Sac you know it was in Sakham on our on our village, our our town. You know Dunblame was a smaller community than it is now at that point. There was a you know quite a lot of us who had who had only ever known that I'd I got moved to Dunblame with my parents when I was two years old, so I went to that school. Um I you know that was my gymnasium, that was these were all my memories that were being that that that were being undermined. And I guess what I do with a sort of limited platform that I have is that I make sure that if every every time the anniversary comes around that people remember. Um and and you know, social media being social media, the pretty much everybody I know on social media that's from Dunblame will change their profile picture to a snowdrop at some point at the beginning of, you know, around the anniversary and and leave it there for for a few weeks. And it's just these little things. You talk a little bit about that, the snowdrop piece because Yeah, I mean the s the snowdrop campaign was you know, it was named after the only flower that was kind of in bloom at at that time and it was uh you know, it was a transformative campaign in terms of the changing the gun laws. Um so from that horrific act you know, we now have probably the best gun laws anywhere in the anywhere in the world and n nothing like that has happened has happened since. And that was the power you know, the power behind that campaign was largely the parents of those who were most intimately affected, and it was an an and it's an incredible legacy for sure that they've given you know the rest of the country. And I still uh it's funny I I I still feel the same every to every time I see the first snow drops, it j there there's something there's you know, and I can't I'm not sure I can articulate how it makes me feel, but it's like a bit of a boom there they are again. Yeah. It's that time of year again. I've the way where I walk my dog in the west of Edinburgh, there's a there's a patch of ground that becomes completely covered with them. Um and I was just out one night last week and I saw them for the first time and it's Yeah. He just put it all puts it all back in back in back into your mind, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:50

You talked in your article about the I don't know if I can't remember if you use the responsibility or the class of the media, the day of the funerals. Yeah. And which is which is really interesting because you know the media get bashed a lot and um but talk a little bit around the way they acted that day and you know how you refer to them off the back of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:10

Um I I think they've the the the they showed a you know, they showed an enormous amount of kind of self-awareness, I guess. So they came into the town in in huge numbers. I writing that article about coming out of the cathedral. Um one or maybe the following day that there'd been a big service and the cathedral came out of the cathedral and just remembered just being astonished at the number of journalists and photographers and camera crews that were there, and just kind of that sense that this was the the whole world was was watching and then I you know I and I don't know how it happened, but there was a request made to the media that they they just left before the funerals started, and they did I mean there was a few stragglers as there always will be. But on mass they kind of they left, and I think that was you know that that was the right thing to do. The the other thing that I've argued, um you know, I've had conversations with editors over the years is the use of the image of the individual that was responsible. There's no need um the the these people do those things to haunt their communities. Um there's no there's no need for that the image of that man to be seen anywhere. Um and you know, th I've had conversation with editors where they've basically said, Well look, we're editorially free to do what we can see fit. But certainly around the twentieth anniversary I made a bit of a I made a bit of a fuss about that and I d I maybe I was looking for it but I didn't notice as many as there there might have been and I'll probably do it again for the thirtieth anniversary. Because there are so many more ways of remembering what happened and Dumbling than having a look at that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:08

Um you're having got to know you over the last year or so, you're incredibly purpose-led, values-led, and have a huge focus on social impact as well. You're obviously the chair of uh Street Soccer Scotland and also UNICEF UK as well. Or Scot is it UNICEF Scotland. Um talk to me a little bit around that and why you know both those charities are so important to you and that bigger picture of the the social impact and your purpose.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:36

I think the f the first role I did like that was I was asked to be on the development board of Bernardo's years and years ago, and it hadn't really crossed my mind to do anything like that. Um and the development board was basically a fundraising organization. And it was really good. Um there's some great people um there, and but I got a sense that I found when I was doing that work and hearing about the challenges that that organization faced and the people that needed that organization faced that I kind of I don't know, I just think we all owe it to society to just put a bit back in, not just take. Um so I get an enormous amount out of you know the work that I do with street soccer, which is largely governance. David gets all the he gets all the good stuff hanging about with all the celebs and um but but to be fair to him, he he's built this thing from nothing. Yeah, and he's an utterly remarkable guy, and I've learned a lot from him, and I hope he learns bits and pieces from me about how to dot the I's and and cross the T's. Um and it's the same with UNICEF, it's just but it's about perspective as well. So it's first of all, you're making you feel that you're making a difference and that you're you're you're positively impacting the lives of people that don't necessarily have a voice. So I think growing up in a political family, I didn't want to be a politician, I was quite clear about that. I'd seen politics from a different angle, didn't like it as as much, didn't think it that that that's not really for me. Don't have the temperament. I mean I'd be getting chucked out of the House of Commons every other day, I always thought. Um but um but so this is as close to politics as I get. I get the opportunity to I've got a platform to say things and do things and help these organizations achieve what they want to achieve in in in a different way. And uh and but also just uh it's a perspective thing. So it's about being able to step out of the day-to-day and imagine that whatever I might think is a problem over there isn't actually a problem. Yeah, you know, what's a problem is not knowing where your next meal's coming from, not knowing if you're gonna be able to pay the bills, um, and that's what being part of these organizations gives me, and I'm you know, I'll be there up until the point that they feel that I'm I'm useful to them. But I just I I think it's just something that people should do.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:14

And that's brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:15

Yeah, it's and it's um it's interesting. I think it's that's that bigger sense of why you do what you do, and being able to have that sense of perspective, and you know, you kind of realize that day-to-day when you're running businesses or part of a business, you tend to be, although in the moment it's the big stuff, you are sweating the small stuff. Yeah, definitely. Particularly the topic we've just talked about is almost a real realization of it's it's not important in the grand scheme of things.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:43

There are lots of things that matter. Uh there's a smaller number of things that matter really when you boil it down than the things that don't. Yeah. Um, so quite a lot of the stuff that we all get umptight about that doesn't actually matter. And I've got one of the best leaders I ever worked with is a guy called Stephen Baxter uh at BAA. Uh he ran this he ran the Scottish Airports, and then for a short period he was the chief operating officer for the whole company. And he's still one of my best pals, and he's he's from the garbles originally. Boy. Yeah, yeah. Like the boy's done well. And um and he can turn the garbles up and turn it down. And when I was having some of these No, I've been having conversations with him a few years ago about frustrations and you know this and that and the next thing, and he just kept saying, Doesn't it matter, doesn't he matter, doesn't it matter? And then like, for God's sake, write yourself a list. So I've still got a book, a notebook that's all about me and personal reflections and just when I say all about me, it's not like you know, full of I did this amazing thing. It's much more the things that I've learned, the reflections, but but on the left hand side of the page, write down the thing all the things that really matter to you. And then on the right hand side of the page, all the things that you're getting uptight about that don't actually matter. And the list is about the list of things that don't matter is about f four or five times as long as the one that Yeah, well of the things that do and once you get that perspective, it just changes it it kind of changes everything. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:21

Just like that Yeah that doesn't it's funny though the power of writing things down, yeah. And just taking some of that noise out of your your head and just simplifying it.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:31

Yeah, no, I mean I prepare a lot for events. If I'm speaking at an event, I don't necessarily want to just read out a you know, some kind of a speech. I'll write it all out. Yeah. And then I'll maybe just have it there as a sort of crutch. Yeah, yeah. But I tend not to need it because I've in the process of writing it down, I've remembered it. Maybe I should have thought about that when I was done.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:52

I was doing my higher. Yeah. Um listen, Malcolm, we're gonna finish with a few quickfire questions. They're not too quickfire, so just don't worry if you want to elaborate. Um but we've started the Leader's Unlocked Library. So what I'd love to ask is what's one book or it could be a podcast or uh a resource that's impacted you the most that you'd like to add to our library.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:16

Alex Ferguson's book about uh leading. Um I I just loved her. So it is perfect. I didn't see that. I didn't see that when I came in, so it's already in your library. I don't it's one of these books where I've you know, I don't think I've ever read it cover to cover, but it's one of these books where I've got placeholders in at different points, and uh he I just think he was a remarkable leader. I was always fascinated by what made these people, what made these um and it was and it uh and it was men like uh Bill Shankly, Jock Steen, Matt Busby, Alec Ferguson, and it was that you know they were they were born into hard environments, yeah, um real life, yeah, real lived experience. But but somehow they had this sixth sense when it came to being leaders of teams, and Ferguson was just remarkable the way he he would he would lead a team, he would then dismantle a team and then he would create another one and he did it over and over again. And I I watched him being interviewed by Hazel Irvine at a street soccer event a few years ago, and she asked him a question at one point about how you would the team that's won everything, how on earth do you motivate them to go again the following season? And he looked at her as if she had two heads, and that she'd ask the most ridiculous question, and he just you know, with that you know, look on his face, yeah. You know, the the old press conference where you used to say to people, you're testing my patience. Yeah, he would he would never have said that to Hazel Ivan. But he looked like he'd lost his patient, and he just said, Well, how do you how do you not? Yeah, you know, in any walk of life when you have a success, you don't just say, Well, that's it, yeah, job done. So it was just it was the relentlessness, but also just little bits about you know that you will always have people who are up, man you'll have people who are down, and it's the people it's the job of people who are up to lift the people who are down. So just little things, but also just if I had a guy over here that had bags of talent but the wrong attitude, and I had a guy here who had sort of limited talent, but absolutely a grafter, I'd want that guy every day of the week.

unknown 1:36:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:41

And I think just just little things like that. So that that book, that's I know you're trying to do quick firing.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:46

No, no, that's great. Um are great leaders born or can they be developed?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:51

I think so. I think both. Um I think ever I mean, how do you know that that that somebody's going to be as good a leader as as as they can? So I think it's about yeah, they I I suppose they can be. Yeah, they have to be, but um they just emerge over time, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:11

If you could go for a coffee with one leader and pick their brains, who would it be and what would you ask? It would be Alex Ferguson. Yeah. And it would just be about that. How do you how do you keep going? Yeah, unbelievable. Um what's your most important non-negotiable as a leader?

SPEAKER_05 1:37:30

It's a really non-negotiable togetherness.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:38

Love that. Really? One team. Um what's one word that defines your leadership style?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:45

This is my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:47

Yes. Relaxed.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:50

Relaxed. Nice. Uh when you're leading a team, which behaviour are you least tolerant of? Uh undermining uh colleagues. Really good. Um what's the most underrated leadership quality in your eyes?

SPEAKER_05 1:38:09

Being relaxed, huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:38:10

Yeah, I think undoubtedly. Um What three words were your teammates, colleagues or counterparts use to describe you?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:19

Um I ask this question in almost every interview of other people. And then when it's when it's thrown back at me, I think of all of the answers that they have given over the years that I've then gone away and thought either that's absolutely brilliant or that's the opposite. Um I would I would say that they see me as being supportive, engaged, and and driven.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:50

Great. Um who are two people that you've had the biggest influence on you both as a person and as a leader?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:57

So the the the guy I mentioned there, Stephen Maxter, um a bit a bit of both actually in terms of personal personal stuff and because we became really good friends. You know, we were colleagues and you know, in the hierarchy he was my he was my boss. But certainly in terms of leadership, he's the best he's the best m people manager I've ever worked with, and that was something that I studied. Um so I would probably say he was the most influential. And then and then I would have to say like my wife is is is an is the hardest worker I've ever ever come across in terms of just graft the in the house. Um and and she's you know she's slightly older than me, she'll kill me for saying that. But she's studying to be a nurse. Amazing. Um just a complete handbrake turn on her career, and I'm gonna be a nurse. And then she just goes for it and the what like I I'm constantly saying to my two younger boys who are still at home. Yeah. That's the work ethic. Yeah. Unbelievable. That is the work ethic that you to which you should aspire. Yeah. Yeah. So phenomenal. Um what's the best team environment you've um been a part of? This one. The one the one that I'm in right now. Great. Um see I've been in some great I've been in some great team environments. I think we we've worked really hard over the years in terms of culture. So there's there's lots of cliches there in all the books about how culture's more important than anything else. But it is it's just true. And it has to be true if you think about it. It's common sense. Like quite a lot of leadership is just common sense, I think. Um I think the the the the team that we have at the moment, um, you know, we have we have really good fun, but we do brilliant work. Yeah. So the quality of the output is as is as good as it as it's ever been, and we've got each other's backs. So togetherness is one of our values. Um I it was the only one that I was really adamant was in there, so the rest of the creating the values was a democratic, sort of big team engagement discussion. And it's not to say that there were people arguing against togetherness, but I wanted it to be explicit that we're all in we're all in the same boat and some some days we'll be up, some days we'll be down, but keep going.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:25

Brilliant. Um if you go back and have a five-minute conversation with that 15-year-old, so you walk into the Scouts Hall, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:34

Get your finger out. Um, yeah. Stop being a dick. Um that's it's as simple as that. You know, what I yeah, I think the last school conversation I went to, I basically said, I started off by saying, um, here's my career journey, right in a line. Started work at 17 because I didn't give myself any other options because I was a dick when I was your age. And I got a bit of attention, but it was true. I mean, uh you know, so so it would definitely be be that, be just to be a bit kinder to your the people that are around you and get your finger out and work, work hard. Foundation of you're and I say this to my boys that unless you win the Euro millions, working hard's the foundation of every successful leadership story that exists, or every successful business story or sporting story, it's hard work. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:27

Final question: uh, what's the best piece of advice you've you've received that you'd like to pass on to our audience?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:34

I think so. This is a piece of advice that was passed to me uh via my dad. So it was a guy called Lewis Robertson, and people of a certain generation will remember this guy. He was like a company doctor, he would go in and fix big companies and bought for stachis. And Sir Lew Sir Lewis Robertson, and I was lucky enough to just have a bit of a relationship with him towards the end of his life where I was able to phone in occasionally and ask him for little bits of wisdom. But he'd said to my dad, and my dad passed it down to me, uh always ask for all of the tools that you need to do your job because you will only ever be judged on outputs. And so I say that again, I say to the people that work with me, you must ask me for all of the things that will facilitate great outputs. Yeah. So have you got all of the you know, and sometimes it can be if you got all of the tech equipment that you need to succeed, but it was just and and again, quite a lot of the advice I give to clients is that you can have a you can have an unbelievably beautiful strategy, really compelling, but if it just sits on a shelf, you actually do anything. You know, when when the chickens come home to roost, yeah, you don't have the you don't have the outputs, you haven't actually done anything, so you haven't achieved anything. So I I think that's great is just something that you know I I think about quite a lot. We're all only ever judged on the outputs.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:07

For sure. Malcolm, thank you very much for joining me this morning. Pleasure. Thank you.