From Serial CEO to Executive Coach — Richard Bandell

Serial CEO and executive coach Richard Bandell reflects on building and leading companies — and what he now teaches the leaders he coaches. Insights on decision-making, resilience, and the shift from operator to mentor.

If you want to know more about Daniele Forni, go to www.danieleforni.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

How do we show up in the world? And how do our questions shape our leadership? Meet your host, Daniela Forni. He is the self-titled data shaman and, in his own words, a high-pitched amateur podcaster and wannabe influencer. As an executive coach, he lives at the intersection of corporate life and philosophy. Welcome to the Sage and the CEO podcast. Today, we are taking a trip to the classroom. As part of the Coaching Journey's Conversations from Cambridge series, Danielle is interviewing his classmates to uncover what drives them, why they chose this path, and the leadership advice they value most. It's a fascinating conversation. You do not want to miss this one.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

The first question that uh we are I ask is usually what brought you to this program? Why do you think becoming an executive coach is something that fits into your very, let's say, very storied career?

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Yeah, it's it's a good question. And I think it uh stems from the 30 odd years I've spent in uh leadership positions in businesses around the world, some small, some large. I've had some successes and some equally spectacular failures. Uh and I think that um what uh has attracted me to coaching is the opportunity to help others who are embarking on their own journeys to maybe fulfill their own potential with perhaps uh uh a little bit less drama than I had to go through, uh, and perhaps to do that in a more um elegant fashion to find their own solutions in their own way. But um that appeals to me very much to be able to uh share other people's journeys and help them fulfill their potential.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Do you have a couple of examples of what drama beans or what are the challenges that you found in your uh in your career?

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Um I think one of the most significant m milestones in my whole career happened when I was um still quite young. So I was the CEO of a business uh at the age of late 20s, I think maybe early 30s. Uh and it was a subsidiary of a larger company that itself got acquired. And so I found myself part of a much bigger organization and being evaluated more professionally than I had at any other stage of my career up until then. So the this company that had acquired us had some professional coaches to come in to evaluate the effectiveness of the leadership. And one of the exercises they did was to take me and my team, my immediate team, away for uh an effectiveness facilitation. I think that's what they called it. And the idea was that the first morning, nine o'clock bright, we all arrived, and I was quite excited about all of this and um quite proud that we've been acquired and everything was apparently going quite well. And they brought us into a room, no chairs, no tables, quite a big room. I think there were eight of us, so myself and seven people that were in my leadership team. And they said, Right, we want you to walk around the room and uh stop when the positions that you're standing in reflect the effectiveness of your working relationships. And I thought, well, this is you know really quite interesting, so I'll go with it. And I stood still to start with, and I thought maybe everybody would come and stand around me. And they didn't, and they started walking elsewhere, and I started to follow them around, and everywhere I went, everybody seemed to walk off until in the end uh I was kind of on my own, and literally the rest of my team, all of the people that reported to me, were outside in a big group on the terrace on a lovely sunny day next to the River Thames. I mean, it was really embarrassing and um excruciating and painful, you know, and I really didn't understand what was going on anyway. Of course, they brought us all together, and it turns out that in the debriefing that I understood that my style of leadership was basically control freaky. You know, as long as people did what I wanted them to do in the way that I thought was the right way to do it, then everything was fine. But you know, if they challenged or they had different ideas or whatever, they they really actually stopped even bothering to tell me about things like that, or tell you know, they just were getting on with things and um were almost working around my leadership style. And this was really quite dramatic for me to realize that I thought that I was being an effective leader, but actually it was terribly ineffective in on almost every level, despite actually the business on the surface apparently performing reasonably well. Um, and so this changed my whole um understanding of my effect on other people as a leader, uh, and the need for me to listen to other people and to take account of other people's views, even if they didn't necessarily agree with mine, uh, to involve and engage them in decision making and all aspects of leadership, really, all the various aspects of leadership that make an effective leader, um a modern effective leader. I needed to relearn essentially. And so that uh I went into a uh embarked on coaching because the upshot of this program was that each of us individually and collectively had access to coaching, which was the first time in my career. And um, you know, I I I think and I hope, and that since then I've become a much better leader progressively, and coaching kind of changed my world. I suppose you know my interest in this goes back a really, a really long way, but it it it stems from quite a dramatic experience, if you like, early on in my career. Which which I'm glad I I'm glad happened. I mean, otherwise I would never have come to that realization.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

When especially when uh when you lead an organization, or even when you lead like a small team or a function, you always always see the see it as a spectrum between uh you know being uh directive and uh controlling and you know be a bit more pushy, coaching, guiding people and whatnot. How over the years, like how did you balance the effectively the result that the company needs to provide to the shareholders with uh, let's say the the need for a healthy human environment?

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Well, I don't think you can separate the two, actually, that a healthy human environment as you describe it is a prerequisite for long-term sustained success. Because people in any environment, you know, we're emotional actors, so we don't act on logic. So even if logically a course of action would be sensible for the business or for our careers, we act because we want to do something as opposed to because it's rationally good for us to do it. And I think once you begin to understand that human beings, by and large, and there's lots of research that evidences this, and act from an emotional perspective to begin with, and then post-rationalise what they have done, then you realize actually you have to connect with people on a human emotional level in order for them to be engaged and for them to do a good job, to fulfill their potential. So I don't think there is a need to try and balance one against the other. You know, results stem from effective human relationships in the workplace, especially between the leader and the other people in the business. So I think they're entirely compatible, and in fact, success is dependent on the other.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

I see. Then I have a bit of a rhetorical question. Then why bad managers and bad leaders still exist? What do you think is the reason behind it?

SPEAKER_03 7:56

I think it's fear. I mean, I spent a lot of my early career afraid of making wrong decisions or things going wrong that would reflect badly on me or the way people might think about me. I think humans are, you know, we are driven by fear, at least in part. I mean, not everything we do is governed by that, but it's a significant driver for people. So I think leaders, autocratic leaders, and the more autocratic they are, the more I think this is true, they are afraid of loss of control. Uh and so then it's the ultimate paradox. The more you try to control, the worse it will be when that control is relinquished, which it must be, because control is an illusion. So I think I think that poor leadership stems from a very human place, which is fear. Fear of loss of control, fear of loss of face or status. And we see it in, you know, we see it all the time, we see it in world leaders you know, right now, uh their behaviors are ultimately designed to give them the illusion of control, and for a period of time that may appear to work. But ultimately it doesn't it it's not sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

That's very interesting because again, that's the there's also like one of the when I coach leaders or team heads, I can see in some situation where their manager might be a bit of a control freak or somebody sort of like there's a bit more uh authoritative. But sometimes I would also feel that the coache behaves in that way. How do you if you see a person that has those kind of traits, how would you approach the conversation with that person? How would you try as a coach to help him or her or they to come to terms of or to change?

SPEAKER_03 9:50

I think that's a really good question because I think it comes down to awareness, s self-awareness and the awareness of the effect of behaviors on other people. I mean there's some I don't want to digress too far from the question, but I think it's worth bringing in an example of some fascinating research conducted by uh Paul Zach at Claremont University in California. So some years ago, from maybe five years ago or so. And it looked at the effectiveness of leadership from a trust perspective. So what the leads to trust in a business in an organization or in human relationships in general, and then the effect of enhanced trust in an organization on performance. And uh the reason I find it fascinating is because it goes to the heart of kind of us as human beings and how we connect with people, and it's all to do with oxytocin, which is the people maybe maybe you know your listeners may be aware is the love hormone, you know, it's what brings us together, what binds us together. And if we trust people, if we demonstrate trust, then they experience a release of oxytocin, which makes them significantly less stressed, makes them more committed to us, makes them more willing to try harder to achieve common goals. And if we give freedom to people to act in ways that they themselves choose, that trust is enhanced. They then demonstrate trust back to us, which in turn releases oxytocin in us as leaders, and you end up with this mutually reinforcing patterns of behavior. And this is not just you know, it's not just neuroscience in it from a chemical perspective, it has real-life examples. So he conducted this research over a period of time with various organizations, and some of it was arguably controversial in the sense that they took blood samples from people and measured levels of oxytocin and then measured the effectiveness of organizations based on the presence of oxytocin. But essentially, these businesses were had higher levels of engagement, less absenteeism, higher levels of retention, more energy, less stress, more productivity. I mean, these were real life, real genuine business results that came through. Coming back to your question about how does a coach help a leader realize that, I think it goes back to asking the open questions, allowing the leader to understand where those behaviors, where the lack of trust, where this control desire comes from, where does it come from originally? But if they always had that, is that at what point in their past did they first notice that they were like this? And sometimes it goes back to childhood. Other times it, you know, it might be related to a career episode or something that happened, you know, an event that happened. But I think when people become aware of the origin of that lack of trust in others, they can then make a decision for themselves as to whether or not they want to explore a different way of behaving and then trying that and seeing what the results are. Again, you're still battling this fear, of course, in all of us that if we let go of something that has helped us to survive up until now and succeed up until now, what might happen? You know, so there is always overcoming that, but I think helping people to be aware of why they behave the way they behave at least gives them a choice about whether or not they change that behavior.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Commission is something that is very important in coaching and in therapy and in relationship, which is uh self-awareness. And often find that, and I'm sure that as you explain, like you do often, is that when you ask questions, when you have a partnership with a coachy, is often about trying to find ways for the other person to be more self-aware, to understand a bit more about themselves. And this is a bit of an intro for a a bit of a cheeky question. What's your favorite question that you ask a coachie, especially at the beginning? Is there something that you go to that you think it gives you already s some answers?

SPEAKER_03 14:14

Not not really, because a favorite question, because I think every context is different. So uh people are present even people who coaches that are maybe presenting fundamentally the same theme, if you like, or the same broad topic, their starting position often is it can be very different. So yeah, some people um come to coaching aware of a lack of confidence, for example. Others come already aware that actually it's a lack of confidence that may be an obstacle in helping them to move forward. Others come to coaching perhaps without that awareness, and actually the underlying problem is a lack of awareness. So I think the starting point could could be very could be very different for different coaches, even if the problem is the same. So I think coaching relies on a very open approach to using the appropriate correct questions at the right time with the right people. And so I don't think there is one killer that's start with this question and that will open the door, and then everything will, you know, uh three sessions later we've miraculously solved all the problems. You know, it would be great. If you find one, let me know what it is, and then I'll start using.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

I'm still looking for it, but uh I will not stop asking this question because maybe someone will have one. Yeah, another another person I was interviewing, he said, Have you been today? Which is like, yeah, that's that is getting closer to something that you can use all the time, and actually you can maybe scatter up for me. But as you said, I really appreciate and it really resonates with me that each situation, each moment of the conversation is different and it needs to be tailored and bespoke to the particular context. As we are reaching the end of this conversation, is there a skill that a leader in 2020 seeks should have? Or it what are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_03 16:27

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I personally I don't think the leadership skills or approaches that are required today are all that different to what good leadership has ever done. I think it starts with of course there's huge uncertainty at the moment, but then there's always been uncertainty. Maybe it's a little bit more visible at the moment, maybe the pace of change is faster, arguably, than it's ever been. Who knows? Maybe we're just seeing it more. But I think it's having a really big, clear, unambiguous vision that everybody can understand and commit to, assuming they choose to commit to it, you know, assuming that people come to an organization or at least stay in an organization because they buy into where you know where that what that business is trying to do in the world. So a you know, a really significant vision that's very, very clear. I mean, the one I like uh the most that I often come back to if I'm trying to help a business work through its own vision is the UK Outsimer Society, which is a world without Alzheimer's. That's what they dream of, that's their vision, that's what they want one day. It's big, it's huge, it's you know, it may take decades, who knows, hopefully not, but yeah, but everybody knows that that's what they're trying to do. So there's no ambiguity about that. So coming up with that big vision that everybody can buy into, and then the next big skill is get out of the way and help remove all the other things that are in the way of your people working towards that vision. Because as a leader, I think often you know, because of that, sometimes desire to control, sometimes the ego gets in the way, sometimes technically, maybe you or from an experience point of view, maybe you do have more experience or knowledge historically than everybody else in the organization, perhaps who knows. But but actually that desire to kind of influence things gets in the way of people dynamically and in an agile fashion in response to all the change that's going on, coming up with their own answers and their own solutions, which it comes back to trust again, doesn't it? You know, so it's this so it's vision and trust, you know. So have the vision, be the compass when people maybe lose sight of that, always reminding people, inspiring people to come back to the vision, but get out of the way and get other things out of the way that are stopping people being successful. So I think it's that removes fear, I think. If the leader is seen to be trusting, then people in the organization stop fearing things quite so much because they feel in the end, they trust in the end, that this is gonna work, you know, that that this will work out. And I think when you sent me the invitation to do this, you sent me thoughts. There was one thing that you uh referred to uh uh you in in that brief, if you like, which was you know what would be a final reflection. And I thought about that, and then what came to me quite strongly was that yeah, as I went from a child to an adult and from an adult into the working environment and from working to leading, again, it was this what I I started to fear failure in a way that I didn't fear when I was a child. Children do not fear failure, they that they fear missing out on having a go. So if they're watching, you know, if there's one bike and six children, everybody wants to go on the bike first, right? And the one who goes last is worried they're not gonna get a go, or they're only gonna get one go when everybody else got two goes. They don't think about what it would be like on the bike or if they fell off the bike, or if you know if they hurt themselves if they fell off the bike. You know, they don't they just think about that. So I would say that if you're a leader, or frankly, anybody really in in business, never lose the joy of wanting to have a go, have a go. I mean, just have a go and reconnect with that excitement and trust actually that it will be okay, that it'll work out. And if you do fall off the bike, have another go. You know, but but I think you know, I spent too much time as a leader worrying about what would happen if I fell off the bike, rather than really wanting wanting to get on it. And so reconnecting with that kind of childhood lack of fear is probably um the the one thought I would leave anybody with in this kind of discussion.