The real trick for any leader, but especially in business, is knowing when to leave.

Power is seriously intoxicating, and after a period of sustained success, it takes a really special leader, or those who have surrounded themselves with ‘strong critical friends’ within their leadership team, to step off whilst still at the top and still successful.

Two rock solid UK banking giants, John Varley and Stephen Green, both rather surprisingly left after successfully steering their respective banks, Barclays and HSBC, through the rapids of the global downturn, leaving a platform for on-going success.

Many might say Tesco’s super boss, Terry Leahy did a similar thing, but some doubts are beginning to appear.

Some relevant, ‘jaw dropping’ and legend forming statistics of Leahy’s leadership:

• Terry Leahy was CEO for over 14 years – a ‘tour of duty’ increasingly unheard of in modern times

• Under his leadership Tesco went from sales of £13.8bn to a gargantuan £62.5bn – an increase of 350% and delivering a remarkable 30% market share in the UK

• One out of every seven pounds spent on the British retail High Street is spent at Tesco

• Tesco became the highest private employer in the UK, employing some 472,000 people worldwide (with 287,000 in the UK)

• The number of UK stores increased four-fold from 568 to 2,482

• The Tesco Clubcard became the dominating strategy for retail in the ‘noughties’ in the UK

• He not only turned around the business, but he also turned around a failing and ugly brand

Did he leave at his peak?  Or did he leave a ship that was beginning to list quite badly?

There has been enough sensible comment about the various strategies that are and aren’t working at Tesco, but we think ‘culture’ is the major underlying issue.

Leahy’s classic ‘stack it high and sell it cheap’ approach was underpinned with the ground breaking use of customer data supplied by the Tesco Clubcard.

The increasing use and dependency on this data has created a culture that has become perhaps quite prescriptive and ‘mechanical’. This coupled with a strong cost cutting discipline in the UK, has maybe eroded the necessary inherent retail and entrepreneurial competence necessary in the stores.

The culture has become a little ‘workmanlike’ with slavish adherence to the ‘spot welded rules’. This has meant continued trimming of staff in stores, underinvestment in the upkeep of the stores, whilst struggling to maintain competitiveness other than price, with a resurgent Sainsbury’s, an ever challenging ASDA, a quality fixated Waitrose, and a stabilised Morrison’s all belligerently ‘laser focused’ on Tesco.

Both Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s needed new strategic thinking, but Justin King and Dalton Philips, their respective CEOs, have also focused on changing rather hierarchical, reactive and inward looking cultures.

It has manifestly taken time, but time is essential in building a cultural change platform for the ultra-competitive supermarket landscape in the UK.

Philip Clarke, CEO of Tesco, appears to be doing all the right strategic things, and has started to pointedly unravel the existing culture.

Many of the Tesco executives, who enjoyed such overwhelming success under Leahy’s stewardship, leading the business for many great years, have been necessarily and in the main, quietly moved on.

The next steps will be all about “changing the way things get done around Tesco”; we call that culture, and we know it usually takes nearly as long as it took to set up, and build in the first place to turnaround.

We only need to look at the recent travails at that other once much admired British retailer, Marks and Spencer. It required a powerful and visionary leader, Sir Stuart Rose, to confront the failing culture, and build a sustainable platform for change.

He had to go as far as moving the head office away from the prime location, and low cost of Michael House to Waterside House in Paddington; as the ‘immovable corridors of power’ were so synonymous with the preeminent incumbent culture.

Rose left M&S in much better shape financially, and vitally, he had eroded the ‘old culture’, and set a new approach off to a very good and solid start, but culture change demands constant oxygenation and engagement from the leadership.

This will be Clarke’s challenge; will he be given the time to change the culture of such a large and disparate business whilst the financials continue to tumble?

Addressing a culture that has been so successful through clear and unarguable instruction, strong processes and clear procedures that everyone adhered to, so much so, that perhaps the ability to think creatively and behave differently has been somewhat lost – is THE huge leadership challenge.

We call the prevailing Tesco approach ‘management’.

The move from a ‘not wanting to lose’ attitude, adopted by many strong and unchallenged market leaders, coupled with having the ‘muscle’ to constantly batter the opposition through lower pricing, is very difficult to change quickly.

A more customer centric approach with better shopping environments, are critical, but having a new generation of leadership who ‘role model’ and inspire a new culture is vital to Tesco’s continued success.

They might just have something to learn from Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s time in their own large shadow.

The larger the organisation, and the longer the sustained success, the more radical and time consuming the culture change will have to be.

It is seriously hard enough to do when the business is relatively small, and the workforce is all in one place.

Tesco’s unparalleled growth means this might just be the toughest cultural change challenge the UK has ever seen.

Just maybe Leahy saw this coming as his pension pot does not start paying out for another three years, but of course, that’s just media speculation.

“Culture is still more powerful than strategy”.

The weather is great and it’s the most handsome of cities, and I’m slap bang in the midst of the race for the Republican nominations to challenge Barack Obama in November in his home state.

It’s another moment to pause and reflect on leadership.

In Western developed economies, when things are going well, the electorate can be quite indifferent about leadership, and a lot more focussed on ideology. This always changes dramatically as a downturn really takes grip. Ideology and political persuasions run quite a distant second to the search for a strong and powerful leader who can drive the economy towards recovery.

A similar switch happens in times of major conflict. Most heads turn towards a strong leader who can resolve the conflict and bring peace, safety and security back to the nation, in spite of the politics; think Churchill in WW2 or Thatcher and the Falklands conflict.

Business has moved in a similar direction; continued poor performance during a downturn, will bring down the most popular of leaders.

Warren Buffet’s seminal observation on the current recession, “it’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked” ring’s true in both business and politics.

In the USA the economic ‘tide’ has stayed out for a considerable time now. Obama’s inspiring mantra of “yes we can” has been found wanting, as the US economy has continued to tank.

As with most top leadership roles, there is very little relevant training and development available for the job of President of the USA, as success is usually defined by their ability to deal with the unexpected.

Harold McMillan, the former British Prime Minister when asked what politicians fear most, he famously responded “events, dear boy, events.”

As Obama begins to better navigate his baptism of fire, and starts to lead the US towards recovery, we see a more decisive, less partisan and less consensus driven style; which the polls tell us is beginning to ‘pay off.’

This sets a huge challenge to his potential opponents from the Republican Party.

It has been clear for some time that the Republican’s best chance is to select a strong and credible leader with a strong financial spine and a track record of turning around failing economies.

Mitt Romney appeared to have all the necessary credentials:

• Top drawer academic qualifications
• First class experience of large scale business turnarounds
• The proven ability to create wealth for his stakeholders
• Tangible evidence of a large scale public project turnaround with the Winter Olympics of 2002 in Salt Lake City
• Recent experience of running in the Republican nomination race
• Huge name recognition
• A first rate fundraiser
• A sharp intellect
• First class organisation

So why has he not been able to deliver the ‘knock out’ blow to his rivals?

And why has it been such a long, nasty and drawn out campaign?

None of his remaining rivals come anywhere near to touching his credentials for the nomination.

We would say the answer has a lot to do with Mitt being perceived more as a manager than a leader.

He is the perfect model for a ‘leader’ in the good times:

• No one’s enemy, but also no-one’s ‘heart throb’
• An inherent ability to ‘go with the flow’, but therefore not standing for anything concrete for the masses to vote against
• All strategy and process, no emotional connection or provocative ‘promised land’ dreaming
• A competent debater and communicator with little passion or enthusiasm. Everyone understands, but few get fired up or negatively worked up
• Not many are reviled, but few get ‘turned on’
• Brilliant at knocking down his opponents

His approach is all about ‘not losing’.

But this election needs to be won.

Managers focus on NOT losing, and leaders focus on winning.

The Republican’s need a candidate that:

• Is significantly more credible than Obama
• Has an inspired and sparkling view of the future
• Can connect and engage with both blue collar and white collar Americans
• Can communicate effectively and passionately
• Can bring together the extremes of the Republican party
• Can raise significant funds
• Doesn’t instantly alienate the significant groups who would not usually vote Republican, eg Hispanics, women, Blacks, Jews etc

All these attributes would be very helpful, but the stand-out winning qualities are always:

• An unshakeable belief in their ability to lead change and win
• A bold and consistent message
• An ability to connect with and touch the masses
• Sort the economy

“It’s still the economy, Stupid”, and that’s still what the electorate are guided by, but following closely behind, people are searching for a dream to believe in, not a challenging set of KPIs and a business transformation strategy.

Most of all, forget about not losing to his Republican rivals, it’s about beating the incumbent President, Barack Obama – especially as he might just have that winning habit.

As Confucius says, “man who says it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it“.

AVB Sacked at Chelsea FC

The media is in its usual frenzy as Roman Abramovitch seeks his eighth manager in his eight year reign as the owner of Chelsea Football Club.

“It was a player’s cabal”
“The ugly excess of player power”
“He was only given eight months, surely that’s not long enough?”

We see this situation far too often in the world of business.  The new incumbent leader has brilliant credentials, has a strong intellect and it looks like the dream ticket, but something’s clearly wrong.

The top team they have inherited is clearly unsettled and we start to see some resignations, some firings, and a wholesale drop in morale.

The new leader is adamant that they have the correct blueprint, and more importantly the backing of the Board of Directors.  They will not be denied.

We would say that perhaps the most underestimated competency that a new leader needs to bring to the party is perhaps the aura of being ‘easy to do business with’, not intellect or strategy!

Think culture not strategy.

The ten things that AVB perhaps got wrong:

1. Far too many of his press conferences were all about him and HIS project – it would have served him better if he talked about the great players, the great fans and the great club.  It doesn’t help to alienate your stakeholders at every opportunity you get.You need them more than they need you.
2. He should know better than anyone that age doesn’t matter, its talent that counts.  Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs are 5/6 years older than any of Chelsea’s stalwarts but are still contributing magnificently.  And Abramovich was prepared to give AVB a chance despite being only 33 years old.In the final analysis the elder statesmen he severely alienated were the same people he became dependent on to save his career.
3. Every player who made a genuine mistake on the pitch was summarily dropped.  From Lampard, Anelka, Alex, Romeu, Torres, Essien, Malouda, Kalou and even his own recent signing, Cahill.  Some never came back; others sat festering, not even making the bench.  This is no way to build team spirit and it was obvious they felt isolated and humiliated.
4. Standing on the side-lines at every game, whistling and shouting at all the players with sharp instructions and feedback, which clearly should have been communicated long before the game started.It is clear he was a micro-manager who wanted to make every decision, and call every tactic and this was never going to work given his lack of people skills and a lack of exposure/experience at the senior levels of the game.
5. He was certainly a radical moderniser but as we all know the four most powerful words in any organisation are ‘what do you think?’Just by being human and humble enough to elicit the opinions of those around him would have gone a long way into keeping many on board. Instead, he lost all ‘corporate memory’ and any goodwill, whilst attempting to stamp his authority.
6. The moment he declared publicly that he didn’t need ‘the backing or favour of his players’, he was clearly sunk.  He certainly didn’t need their approval, but he needed to get them ‘on the bus’ but he either didn’t care or didn’t know how.
7. Some recent outbursts against the media highlighted his inexperience, his naivety and his hubris. By starting to blame the media, they helped create a feeling of ‘death row’ and he became ‘dead man walking’.  It became only a matter of time.
8. The petulant and harsh dropping of three of his star players, in probably the most important and public match of his reign against Napoli in the Champions League backfired spectacularly.It felt like he was ‘stamping his feet’, and staring down the very people who could deliver his salvation.He would later call them back into the team – and win, and drop them again!
9. He ‘rode into town’ declaring for all to hear that everything his mentor and previous boss, José Mourinho had achieved at Chelsea was now outdated and wrong. In one fell swoop he was making a huge statement, and ensured there would be many eyes watching and waiting to see what he could deliver or not.
10. Finally, ‘never bite the hand that feeds you’.  It was obvious that Roman Abramovich was trying to give him as much support as he possibly could.  It would never be vocal, and it would never be public, but it was certainly there.  Once AVB started to pine for public backing it was clear that even he had lost belief in himself.

Never follow a tough act into a leadership role, unless you are prepared for the toughest of rides. Charm, listening skills and honouring the past are key ingredients of success.

His predecessor Carlo Ancellotti was revered and loved by all, but AVB never mentioned his name or paid homage to the great legacy he inherited. It was far too much about his inherent ability. He ‘made his bed’.

Having recently had lunch with Dr Adrian Atkinson, Chairman of Human Factors International and my favourite business psychologist one of his many telling insights was “emotional intelligence is really not much more than great interpersonal skills.”

Now many may argue at the margins but he makes a terrific point.

“Good leaders create followers, great leaders create leaders”.

Time to ask ourselves the straight and unavoidable question –

“Why should anyone be led by you?”

2011 has been a tumultuous year. The world has been rocked by events both natural and man-made. Japan suffered a tsunami while the Middle East was home to numerous popular uprisings collectively dubbed the Arab Spring. Meanwhile the world’s economies, even the strong ones like Germany, found themselves in the midst of yet another storm. You could be forgiven for feeling trepidation as you stand on the brink of 2012. But here at the Inspired Leaders Network (ILN), we think you should think differently and look ahead with confidence.

During the year ILN has played host to a variety of leaders from business and beyond. One of the common threads in many of their messages was that difficult times bring opportunities to those who are resourceful, positive and prepared for hard work. There’s a major shake-out taking place and usually this results in the fittest and the most agile companies coming out of it all stronger than ever before. It would be easy to dismiss such optimism if we hadn’t been shown so much evidence by our speakers and hosts of businesses successfully swimming against the tide. They demonstrated clearly that businesses with the right corporate cultures can still go forward and get increasingly better results, despite harder times.

Here’s ten great tips for success taken from the year’s ILN event speakers and Learning Journey hosts:

ILN Event speakers:

“A measure of success is a work force that really wants to be at work and is performing to the best of their ability.”
Alison Saunders, Chief Crown Prosecutor of London

“I’ve never seen a company that focuses only on the bottom line, and not its people, do really well.”
Steve Auckland, former MD of Metro Newspapers

“It doesn’t matter what you think of Social Media, it’s there and we have to use it.”
Errol Damelin, CEO Wonga

“Focus on the customer, make them your fan and they’ll bring more customers to you.”
Craig Donaldson, CEO Metro Bank

“People define a business. Start with your people and they will look after everything else. Don’t ever start with numbers.”
John Pearson, former CEO Virgin Radio.

Learning Journey hosts:

“Work hard on driving customer satisfaction. Train current staff to refocus on the customer and only select new hires who fit this attitude.”
CityWest Homes

“Apple is honest but it is also always unshakeable in its own convictions.”
Apple

“Look after your people because happier employees can hit even higher targets.”
SKY

“A Powerful brand like Chelsea FC can be used to promote positive change wherever it is respected.”
Chelsea Football Club

“Put the right people in the right jobs, don’t try to bend the wrong people into the wrong jobs.”
The Royal Marines

In tough times people naturally look for strong leadership to guide them through. We need people of principle and conviction to inspire us – whereas during the good times we felt more comfortable without them. As I wrote in a recent blog post:

“We’re living in an age of uncertainty that is crying out for strong, confident and decisive leadership.”

Unfortunately, it appears there are still some areas where this leadership is lacking. However, even with strong people in key positions we cannot abandon our own responsibility to do our bit to help us get the economy back on track.

How’s your corporate culture? Is it conducive to doing better business? Are you looking after your employees and customers properly? You can be sure someone will and, in such a tough and competitive environment, that may be all the edge they need. What about your leadership capability? Are you and your key people properly equipped to make the right decisions and take the winning opportunities? This is not the time to take an entrenched position and make rash restructures that may mean you can no longer compete efficiently. We all need to keep a close eye on the numbers in tough times, as we should even in the good times but not at the cost of ability and attitude. Don’t scrimp on development, your people need to be well equipped to fight this battle. Be very careful you don’t risk downgrading your customer’s experience this is no time to be shedding customers to rivals.

Choosing the right team is vitally important. When the going gets extra tough, the quality of those people and their ability to interact is going to be crucial to your survival. Again, our interactions via the ILN events and Learning Journeys have provided both validation and practical examples of how to put the right team in place. The slogan, “hire for attitude and train for skill” was repeated time and time again by our speakers and hosts. Although the reality of needing the right skills in certain instances, such as doctors and airline pilots, was not lost on any of them but they still went for the right attitude but with skills paramount! However, the main thrust of the argument remains true: If you have the wrong people with the wrong attitude then no amount of training is going to get them to do things the way you want them done.

People are at the heart of your corporate culture, they are the ones who have to live and breathe it and make it happen on the ground. Culture is ‘the way we get things done around here’ and you need to get that ‘way of getting things done’ absolutely right to have any hope of your strategies delivering the desired results. Taking care of your people was consistently at the top of all of our speakers’ and hosts’ checklists. Nothing gets done with the wrong people. But don’t be too quick to show existing people the door, even in a failing business. We were given many great examples of where the current employees were able to adapt successfully to cultural changes and help transform even the most broken of organisations. It needed the right and inspired leadership. They need something to believe in and that’s why vision is so important.

2012 is ahead of us. We can’t be certain of what it might bring to our doors but we can be sure of our own response to whatever does come. We need to stay focussed, dedicated, positive and motivated – this is no time for failure of nerve.

All of us here at Inspired Leaders Network hope that you have had a great 2011 and are looking forward to an inspiring and successful 2012.

John Pearson’s inside view of Virgin’s corporate culture, revealed at November’s Inspired Leaders Network event, proved both fascinating and inspirational. Glenn Le Santo was there as René Carayol chatted to John in front of a capacity audience at the BPP Business School in London’s Square Mile.

John Pearson, the former CEO of Virgin Radio and current Chairman of Shazam, was our sofa guest at November’s Inspired Leaders Network event. At perfect ease as he was skilfully interviewed by René, John gave us a fascinating glimpse at Virgin’s unique corporate culture. A special buzz was generated as we all listened intently to John’s views and stories on what it takes to make people and companies really excel. It proved to be a genuinely inspirational and highly entertaining evening.

John reminisced about the birth of Virgin Radio and we saw a man who was obviously passionate about his work, totally focussed and yet relaxed and friendly. Perhaps this is no surprise as John has spent a good part of his life working closely with Richard Branson, the man John himself describes as ‘an enigma’.

“Richard’s greatest legacy is that he has shown us all that anyone can do anything,” John told René and the 120-strong audience. “He’s a great guy to work for because he is so inspirational – and the role of a leader is to inspire.”

This can-do attitude is firmly entrenched in Virgin’s corporate culture and it’s a mind-set that has helped propel them to success in even the most difficult of markets. Flexibility is another vitally important aspect of the culture of both Branson and the brand that epitomises his spirit.

“Richard said to me that the great thing about working for Virgin is there are no rules,” explained John. “The culture there allows you to use your own initiative and to follow gut feeling.”

One can almost hear those working in command and control cultures gasping with shock at the thought of employees operating on their own initiative. For them it sounds like a recipe for disaster. But John explained why and how it all works and actually, it’s all remarkably simple: Start with the right people.

“I always employ for attitude over aptitude,” says John.

The reasoning behind John’s choice of attitude over skill sets is simple; if your people have the right mind-set then everything else is going to be possible – just train them with the skills you want them to have.

Getting the right people is vital but even good people will under perform, or even move on, if you don’t handle them right.

“I want my people to feel very valued,” said John. “People define a business. Start with your people and they will look after everything else. Don’t ever start with numbers.”

This is a clear message but one that some companies obviously fail to hear as, once again, troubled times are bringing the accountants back to the fore.

“Tough times make accountants rule,” John observed. “But you can’t measure everything. If I ask my wife how much she loves me do you think she’ll answer ”87.86%? No! Because somethings, and they include really important things, simply can’t be quantified.”

Given there are yet more stories in the press about big bank bonuses and excessive executive pay awards, René and John’s chat about how renumeration effects motivation was both very topical and highly revealing.

“Is there a correlation between financial reward and motivation?” asked René.

“No. Money is the last thing that motivates people,” was John’s emphatic response. “It is passion that drives people. You must find a way to create passion in your people. Find a crusade to unite them behind it.”

Communication is a key part of getting the best from your people, nobody likes to be in the dark, and openness brings great rewards.

“Honesty is so important in business,” urged John. “Always tell everyone everything the way it is. You owe your people that, you must treat them as you’d like to be treated yourself.”

The three-hour ILN event was jam-packed with valuable insight, information, wisdom and inspiration. It was obvious that the delegates were left feeling very privileged to have shared in such a great evening.

However, with the shadow of recession over us, it was John’s closing words that perhaps carried the most important message of the entire evening:

“Times might be tough but this is also an era of huge opportunity. We need to empower people with clear, confident and decisive leadership.”

Amen to that John!

Here’s a message from Inspired Leaders Network alumni Errol Damelin, founder and CEO of Wonga, who needs your help to raise $100,000 for charity: water.

I’m trying to raise $100,000 to provide clean water for 5,000 people – by running a marathon in the Antarctic.

At the end of this month, I’ll be attempting the Antarctic Ice Marathon, near the South Pole in one of the world’s driest and most inhospitable environments. The event comprises 26.2 miles of treacherous snow and ice at an altitude of around 3,000 ft. I’ll be running in sub-zero temperatures on an active glacier, not to mention the potential bone chilling Katabatic winds that can bring the windchill temperature to -30C. Only 100 people have ever completed this mammoth event and this year is  especially significant as it marks the 100 year anniversary of a person first reaching the South Pole.

Why? Every year people in Africa spend over 40 billion hours walking to get water. Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all disease and kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. 90% of the 30,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are of children under five years old. Many of these diseases are preventable. Women and children usually bear the burden of water collection, walking miles to the nearest source, keeping them from school, work and putting them at risk.

charity: water is a brilliant charity, they passionately believe that technology can make the world more efficient. Using the best of digital technology and social media they are aiming to raise $2bn in 10 years. Backed by many tech entrepreneurs, charity: water has a lean start-up mentality and has a separate operating budget. I’ve covered all my travel and event costs which means that 100% of everything raised will go straight to building water projects in the field, even the credit card fees. Then, when the projects are complete, charity: water will show us just where they are and who they’re helping (with GPS coordinates, photos and other details). We’ll be able to see the communities we’ve impacted.

Please donate here: http://mycharitywater.org/icemarathon

We’re trying to get to $100,000 so I need your help. Any amount will will help massively and will also help to motivate me in whats going to be a somewhat challenging event.

Do we only want our leaders when times are hard? In this video René Carayol talks about national leadership and observes how in the West we only really care to be lead when we’re in a jam, when the economy is slow or our security is threatened. René suggests this is not the case in developing nations. Watch the short clip to get a taste of René’s views on leadership.

Media man John Pearson is back working with Richard Branson and Virgin – having previously been Virgin Radio’s CEO during the company’s most formative, turbulent and successful years.

After launching the national station and winning a prestigious London FM licence, John was part of the management buyout with Chris Evans that created The Ginger Media Group. Subsequently he played a significant role in the sale of The Ginger Media group to Scottish Media Group for £230million. However, he left shortly after the sale the SMG.

Now back as MD Europe at Virgin Radio International, John talks about Virgin’s corporate culture when he’s speaking at business events. He believes that great corporate culture can be taught: “Virgin has a unique set of values and behaviour that empowers staff to act in a Virgin way,” explains John. “These values define the invisible code of best Virgin practice and form the unique strand of Virgin DNA.  By understanding the Virgin Values and how they work, not only are they transportable – you can identify the core values already working within your business and start to use them for competitive advantage.”

John is also chairman at Shazam, a digital music business with a special focus on the burgeoning mobile market. When he joined the group back in 2006 Shazam’s CEO Andrew Fisher told the press:

“His track record of establishing world-class market-leading consumer music offerings will prove invaluable, particularly as we enter a significant growth phase in new markets, while also concentrating on strategically enhancing our long term integrated position.”

John Pearson’s ideas on business culture are undoubtedly influenced by his experiences working with Richard Branson and Chris Evans. But nonetheless he’s very much his own man and his views on how to do business in a recession are typical of the way he thinks:

“In a recession accountability becomes the ultimate KPI,” says Pearson, “but the best things cannot be measured. How do you measure the value of your staff – their engagement, commitment, motivation and trust do not appear on your balance sheet but will give you a competitive edge as things improve.

“There seems to be a belief that in today’s complex business market, being in business needs complicated solutions. Ask yourself – is your business making progress or engaged in time-wasting process? Now is exactly the right time to look for simple transforming moves – there may never be a better opportunity”.

His story is a valuable one to hear, it’s the sound of success in action. Sharing the knowledge and experience of people like John Pearson is an essential part of our personal development, it’s both instructional and inspirational.

Andy Jonesco, CEO of AOL UK has said of him:

“John has a unique ability to make everything appear simple that engages his audience and inspires thinking without boundaries. His energy and warm style combine to deliver a great message.”

John Pearson will be joining Rene Caroyal to discuss life, success and business culture at the next Inspired Leaders Network event in at the BPP Business School in London on November 22, 2011. Register using the link below if you’d like to come along to see their chat.

Register your place here

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortuitously) it was limited to just 700 words.

See the article here.

After it appeared on October 4th in the Entrepreneur section of the Financial Times, the feedback has been both heartfelt and passionate.

At first reading, there was no obvious disagreement but on reflection, it was fascinating to read the different shades and colours of ‘sugar coated agreement’ – very quintessentially British.

On occasion, especially when the prize is so vitally important, an open and challenging argument can be the lifeblood of finding the way forward, so excuse me whilst I share the best of the politely put ‘agreements’.

So let’s start with the bankers:

• A strong consensus on ‘no run on liquidity’ but increasing difficulty with wholesale banking (high value banking services between banks and other financial institutions), consequently the cost of loans will be going up – and soon
• The banking high street is ultra-competitive but perhaps many of the banks’ central loan-sanctioning teams are still remembering the pain of the large number of recent ‘distressed’ loans. Therefore rejection is less personally damaging on their KPI’s (key performance indicators) than the inherent risk of approval
• They have witnessed the demise of customer loyalty, and now just focus on encouraging repeat behaviour through ‘de-personalised’ automated processes and systematised credit scoring systems
• The Government’s much heralded Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) looks attractive for both SME’s and banks, but when an SME defaults the civil servants start nit-picking at the far too complex process and endeavour to wriggle out of providing the agreed 75% of the defaulted loan

Views from Private Equity (PE):

• They are still a strong and viable part of the mix for funding SME’s
• There needs to be much better business management amongst SME’s
• The Government could assist in making it more attractive for PE to get involved, perhaps through ‘enterprise zones’ – Ireland has bounced back after near financial oblivion, by establishing compelling enterprise zones that encourage entrepreneurial activity and subsequent investor participation
• PE have not become more risk averse just a lot more ‘discerning’ in keeping with the challenging economic environment

Views from entrepreneurs:

• They totally agree with the article but point out that there was no mention of the desperately penalising tax situation in the UK
• The Government’s Enterprise Investment Scheme is rarely voluntarily offered by the banks, they will always try and sell you one of their far more expensive loan products, overdrafts or invoice finance instead
• They feel they are the only ones prepared to take a real risk, EVERY potential funding agent demands a ‘guarantee’ and behaves increasingly like a new age banker
• Directors of SME’s who have their homes on the line tend to make the wrong decisions for the business

What this tells me is that everyone has a (differing) point of view when it comes to moving out of the downturn and driving growth.

In my strong view, every interested party needs to better understand and accept that there is no risk free approach when it comes to driving growth – neither for them, or indeed, their prospective partners. Strong, transparent and trusting relationships where risk is shared and owned by all is still the only way forward

What is not needed is ill-informed and patronising advice about what is a good business or what is a bad business from those with limited exposure to the pressures and challenges of ‘backing themselves in the toughest of times’ to attempt to create prosperity and vital employment opportunities.

Ed Milliband’s simplistic ‘predator’ or ‘producer’ business approach is both banal and unhelpful.

What is very clear is that we’re living in an age of uncertainty that is crying out for strong, confident and decisive leadership.

It would be great if we got it from the Government but it’s probably not a good idea to wait for that to happen, despite the Prime Minister’s spot on messages from his recent conference speech of “can-do optimism” and “right now, we need to be energised not paralysed by gloom and fear”.

Therefore, it would be far more useful, if the SME’s and entrepreneurs along with the banks and the investment community realised they are in the business of unavoidable collective risk, and the current stance of caution, cynicism and austerity just doesn’t ever foster growth.

There is no ‘divine right’ for any business to survive, let alone thrive, but with the right trust based relationships and a better understanding of risk, the successful ones will always more than compensate for the unfortunate but necessary failures.

With a collective and more tempered but still risk ready approach, we might just drive the economy beyond recovery and back to growth.

This takes us back to confident and decisive leadership again, from all the necessary participants.

Nothing worth having was ever achieved without enthusiasm or overcoming inherent risk, just witness at Apple’s extraordinary rise and stellar profitability after nearly going out of business on more than one occasion.

Without accepting some failures along the way, success will no longer be so energising and sought after and what made the UK the natural historic epicentre for enterprise and economic growth will continue its sad and avoidable demise.

Many would say the new management buzzword is ‘Engagement’ and tend to decry it as yet another HR fad.

This could not be further from the truth; in an era of uncertainty our people are desperate to be part of something special or just to be given a feeling of belonging.  They have no choice but to have to learn to live with ambiguity however, progressive leadership through employee engagement can remove the growing doubts and anxiety.