Welcome to a podcast about leadership.
I'm Jonathan Kirschner, and today is a very special day.
Today, we have Peter Arthur Smith on the show.
And let me just say, everybody watching this knows there are
no shortages of leadership voices right now.
You can find leadership books everywhere.
You can go on LinkedIn, and there's leadership gurus and
thought leaders, and everybody's talking about leadership.
And, you're not gonna necessarily see Peter Arthur
Smith because he doesn't position himself as a guru of
leadership. And that's exactly why we
should be listening to Peter Arthur Smith today.
Peter Arthur Smith has been doing this work quietly quietly
in his own humble way for a half over half a century.
Over a half a century, out of the spotlight, he is a
practitioner. He is a scholar.
You would you would say student. I'm gonna say scholar because
we know each other well enough. And I know that you're a
scholar of leadership, and I've learned so much personally
from you. Peter's one of the sharpest
thinkers I've encountered about what leadership actually is.
Peter was in the British Army at the sixteen years old?
I started at sixteen in an army technical college.
That's incredible. So starting at sixteen years
old, Peter started at at at a technical college in the British
Army, was in the royal corpse of signals Right.
And ran communication troops in the world's hotspots.
During the height of the Cold War, was in Belize, Aden,
Cyprus, Northern Ireland. How many countries have you
you've been in? Well, not in the British Army,
but I visited nearly ninety countries.
Nearly ninety countries. And seven continents.
So he's seen a few things.
Peter left the army as a captain and walked straight into a
role as the leader, the human resources manager at a UK cash
register company. So that company, there was a
period of time when cash registers as a business, I'm
sure, was booming. You probably came in at the
peak. I came in at the peak because
Britain was going decimal. So all trans transgenitors had
to re be replaced throughout the country.
So your first role as a leader was jumping into an organization
and essentially going through a transformation, like, from the
start? Well, it it had reached
somewhat of a peak by the time I joined it.
Yeah. That's incredible.
I definitely wanna hear more about that as we progress.
Then went into consulting Yep. Spending two decades at
Mercury Irval, a Nordic cons but now global, obviously,
consultancy. And and in nineteen ninety four,
founded Leadership Solutions based in Manhattan, where he has
consulted with leaders, leadership teams, and
organizations. And, along the way, he's you've
engaged in politics. You were city councilman in
Lancashire. Yep.
Okay. And and and in your free time,
you like to write. And in addition to articles,
you have a book, Smart Decisions, and a forthcoming
book, which is really what has brought us together, and that
I'm I'm quite excited about. And so we have a forthcoming
book on leadership, and that's really gonna be a lot of what
we we talk about today. Right.
So, Peter, let's let's dive right in.
I remember when we met, about three years ago, and we met in
the context that you framed up so beautifully in an email.
You said, we have a leadership crisis.
And I said, well, yeah, duh. We have a leadership crisis.
But you said, no. No.
We have to do something about it, and I wanna get on a call
with you. And he's okay.
This is this is either going to be, like, super bizarre and
random. And I probably shouldn't take
this call, but let me let me just take the risk.
Let me roll the dice here. I've read the article attached.
It was pretty thoughtful. And and here we are today, three
years later in an incredible relationship.
And, again, I wanna reiterate, I've learned so much, not just
intellectually, but actually in the applied world of
leadership from you, Peter. And so it's a it's a really,
really huge privilege to have you on the on the podcast today.
You shared with me your bio early on, and something that
really struck me. There was a line in the bio
that said, while I didn't pursue leadership, it pursued me
through life's journey. And I wanna ask you, when did
you first notice it pursuing you?
Right. Well, first of all, I first
noticed being a leader, although I didn't really understand it
then, when I was in the cub scouts.
In the cub scouts? Yep.
As a senior sixer. Okay.
So I was the senior cub scout of that particular, and then I
went into the boy scouts Which was the next stage, and then I
became the troop leader, out of that.
And then, in fact, when I went into the Army Technical College,
there was also a senior scout troop there, and I became the
troop leader of that as well. So although I didn't really
understand what leadership was about and didn't even think
about it, I just kept finding myself in leadership
positions. And then, of course, when I was
at high school, I don't know whether you have that here,
but we have we we would have prefects Who were a few handful
of people who were to be regarded as leaders in the high
school. So I was a prefect there.
Then when I went to the Army Technical College, I became a
sergeant leader in the technical college.
And then when I then I went on to officer school and then
became a leader there. And so it seems to have
pursued me wherever I went, but I've never really gone out of
my way to be a leader or expect myself to be a leader.
Well, I mean, clearly a pattern emerged.
Right? Right.
You you whatever context you go into, whether it's the Cub
Scouts or the Boy Scouts or the Army or in in the in the
consulting firm Right. Somehow, you find a way.
You gravitate towards. You become a leader.
What compelled you to take leadership positions in those
various contexts? Other than when I, later on in
the, becoming an officer and so forth, that's when I really
started to become to understand what leadership was.
Before that, I just did it whatever it was.
I've just played the role. But then by the time I became
a an officer and really through education and so forth, really
began to understand what leadership is.
Although the reality is that since that, my my mind has come
much clearer about, in my view, what leadership is.
And I think I've shared with you that I see five elements of
leadership. One is vision To to to be a
visionary. The second is to be a person
of integrity. The third thing is to be a to
have courage. Yes.
The the fourth thing is to have humility, and the final
thing is to have wisdom. I don't know whether I portray
any of those things terribly well.
But Well, certainly humility by saying that.
But, you know, those are things that I admire in people who I
regard as being good leaders. They have those five qualities
to a greater or lesser extent because I don't think there's
many of us who have all of those absolute qualities,
unfortunately. So that's my take on leadership
and where I've arrived at at this moment in time.
I I love that, Peter. What did you learn about
leadership, both, like, the positive, but also, like, what
not to do, as a function of your experience in the art?
Well, you know, the the the one of the things that key things
that was important to that I learned about being a leader
is that you take care of yourself last.
You take care of your people first.
You take care of them and make sure that their what their needs
and so forth are met. And then in other words, if it
came time to to sit down and have food and so forth, you make
sure that your people are fed. And then at the end, okay, maybe
it's time for you to be fed. You're the last in the line.
So that that was one thing. Another thing that I learned
is that real good leaders don't lead from the front.
Most people have this idea that to be a leader, you have to
be out front. And I learned, from various
instances that, in fact, that's not a good role for
leaders. One thing I tell people is
that in bringing into Americana is that Gettysburg, which was
that very vital civil war, the opposing sides, the thing they
focused on was the leaders. If they could kill all the
leaders, then they would have control over the situation.
And that's what the snipers concentrated on.
They cons the leaders at that time felt they had to be at the
front, and the snipers would kill all the leaders off.
Oh, wow. And that way, then they they
would destroy the enemy. The idea is if you do get to
the front, you'll get shot. And therefore, you're not gonna
be an effective leader anymore. Right.
So Right. Leaders have to think ahead
and be looking ahead, but not necessarily acting ahead and
being out front. Wow.
When you think about the things that about leadership that
don't work, you know, was there anything in the army in in
your army experiences that you saw in terms of, like,
ineffective leadership or bad leadership that that that
informed how you decided to Right.
Well, to another thing is I I found that, be careful of the
adage that you have to set an example because none of us are
perfect. And if we try just too hard to
set ourselves as an example, then we're we're gonna
eventually be denigrated by the people who we're leading.
So we we have to be sensible about what we what we, the
example that we provide, and and perhaps, it's not a good idea
to be charismatic. I mean, one of the things I was
reading about recently is that how during the last century,
we've changed our focus from character leadership to
personality leadership. You know, where, and places like
Harvard, they very much focus on personality leadership
where you have to be the extrovert, the person who's
the life and soul of the party. Lots of charisma.
Right. All the charisma and so forth.
And, certain books I've read show how that model doesn't
really work. And from my point of view,
that model has encouraged, us to pursue a degree of narcissism.
I I believe that we have too many narcissists leading both in
in in the world and so forth, and that is creating a crisis
in my view in because we have these personality types who,
are there, and they don't really give a damn about the people
that they're supposed to be leading.
They only care about themselves. Yeah.
It's almost like a little bit of a trap.
Like, the follower feels compelled by the charisma, the
energy, you know, the sort of, implicit hope, in in all of
that, in all of those positive messaging.
But, but in terms of the actuals, the substance, they can
sometimes or oftentimes even be disappointed.
Right? So right.
So my my whole thesis is more about involving your people and
getting them on board as much as possible so you can
encourage them to take the lead rather than you take the lead,
and then you become the orchestrator.
I mean, I I tell people another example I had was when we were
on patrol, we were I was in in the North Yorkshire Moors, and
we were on patrol on a on a sort of a a mock exercise.
In fact, they were American green berets out there, and we
had to find our way to capture them if we could.
Okay. Okay.
So I and I had a troop of soldiers that we were out during
the night, and trying to look for these green berets.
And, suddenly, at some point, it was a moonlit light.
And at some point, I was aware that all of my troops were
behind me, and I was the person out front.
And there they were looking at what looked like to be the
specter of a soldier up on the hillside looking down on us.
They were all behind me, you know, waiting for me to take the
lead. Whereas, in fact, what I in
fact did, I encouraged them all to get down, and I
encouraged them to get around me and say, okay.
Let's see what we can do to do to take this to deal with this
situation. So we agreed that they would
break up into contingents, and one would go one way, one would
group would go the other way and so forth rather than you
know? And we would stay where we
were to keep that person, whoever it was, focused.
We ultimately found out, in fact, it wasn't a person at all.
It happened to be a tree. Yeah.
That's interesting. That's fast.
That but if I if I'm reading the story right, it it sounds
like, the way in phase one of this pursuit, you were sort of
at the head, and they were behind you.
Right. But in phase two, you said,
actually, I need you all to disperse in a coordinated way.
I'm your orchestrator. Right.
I'm not the at in the lead. Right.
I'm sort of I think you mentioned, like, in the middle.
I'm the catalyst here. The catalyst in the middle is
orchestrating. To to orchestrate.
Okay. That you one group goes one way
and one group goes the other way, and we'll keep the the
enemy focused on us while you go and maybe, you know, capture
him maybe. But, of course, it happened to
be a tree instead. It happened to be a tree
instead. No.
So, that's a great story. Well, I I would love to, you
know, bring it into the context of, say, organizational.
Let's let's go into civilian Right.
Context for a moment. You know, after the army
Right. You you moved into the role of
head of of human resources for the cash register company called
a grow gross cash Gross cash register.
Gross cash register in in Brighton.
Right. Yeah.
Brighton. Yes.
Brighton in England. Yes.
And and it was just you know, times were booming for cash
register machines. Because everybody had to throw
away their old ones and get a decimal one.
And get a decimal one. So you saw a lot of adaptation,
and then you presumably saw I mean, did you see the decline
of cash registers? People didn't need the cash
register anymore. They didn't need it anymore.
And this company had about two and a half thousand people.
Of course, there was no market for them.
So they they started innovating the next generation of cash
registers that time, more digital computerized.
But they didn't need all of these these people, so they they
decided they had to downsize. So they had to downsize.
Yeah. And and and you being the head
of HR In HR, with my small team that I had, we had to, preside
over all of these people leaving the company.
And many of them had been in the company a long time.
They were very talented many of them very talented, very
loyal people and so forth. And, I can assure you there
were a lot of tears. There were a lot of tears as we
saw those people going through and the procedure we had to
take them through to, end up their their finances and
everything so they could leave the company.
And that was a that was a major impact on me.
And the the sad part is that even here we come today, and
we're now talking because of AI.
We're now talking about many companies are gonna be laying
off a lot of people. I mean, that Amazon have just
announced in the last few days they're gonna downsize by twenty
thousand people. That brings me I mean, I was
just dealing with two thousand people, but, and and the the
from my point of view, the enormous waste of doing that,
And I believe that we need to find another way to deal with
it. And to me, when you downsize
by that, to me, that's a leadership failure.
That's a failure of leadership that you have to downsize by
twenty thousand people instead of of somebody like Amazon
knowing full well that they were gonna come to a point where
they were gonna put robots in and so forth to take the place
of people. In my opinion, they could have
ten, five years ago started looking at other business and or
looking exploring other business entities that would
need the talents of some of these people that they had, and
they could start growing other businesses so that those people
didn't then have to be laid off.
Basically. And I believe this is where we
we this shows that we have a tendency to we get so focused
on today and making money today. We're not looking ahead to
say, well, you know, how are we going to, make take advantage of
all this talent that we have at our disposal instead of just
throwing them out under the bus.
It's it's a it's a it's a real tricky trap.
Right? Right.
Real successful, and and that success really, like, encourages
short term thinking in in some ways.
Right? Yeah.
In some ways, by necessity. Right?
Like, you've gotta fulfill the demand, and and you have to
focus on, like, how do we how do we fill all these orders?
Like, we need to hire more people.
We need to and and so you get very focused on the immediate,
but you do that too much, and and it become it gets it's at
the expense of, like, your strategic thinking, your longer
term thinking, and your creative thinking Right.
Presumably. And and making time to be
thinking about tomorrow as well as today.
Management too often focuses on today, as you said.
Yeah. Taking care of all these
things that we have to do, get the products out of the door,
and so forth. That's what management tends
to do. But leaders are thinking about
tomorrow as well as today, and that's why they're leaders as
opposed to just managers. So when you think about, you
know, when you go back to, the the days at at at Grosscast
Register Right. You know, obviously, there was
a huge disruption. It it created a lot of, you
know, layoffs and and and reduction in force Yeah.
Which is which is, no matter how you look at it Right.
An awful experience. Yeah.
You know, what was your takeaway from that?
Like, what did you learn from that experience, particularly
around, you know, leadership or or how organizations adapt
or don't adapt? You know, curious what what
your takeaways are. I I I was just I mean, I I I did
at that time and still do think a lot about that whole
issue. And that's where one of the
drivers that's got me to pursue the leadership side of things,
you know, to pursue thinking about tomorrow as well as just
thinking about today. And that means then building
up the right talent around you that it's not just you
thinking about tomorrow, but you build a leadership team is
also thinking about tomorrow. And, you know, I I know
something that we've talked about is and I'm writing about
in the book is bringing up the whole idea of periscope time.
Periscope time is something that I, developed an idea about
a a long time ago, and I I pursue periscope time myself,
okay, Where I take time out on a regular basis to look above
what's going on today and looking out on tomorrow and say,
where am I going, and how am I positioned to where I'm going
and so forth. And I think that teams,
leadership teams should be if they're a start up, maybe they
should be meeting once a week or every two weeks thinking
about where are we today, but where what things look like
ahead the next month. But then when you get to a a
growth company, maybe you're doing that once every month.
You get the leadership team and thinking about where are we
today, what's it look like for the our opportunities for
tomorrow, and positioning ourselves.
If you become a really big company, well, maybe you do
something once a quarter. You know, you take a day out
with your leadership team, and you think, well, where are we
today? And let's talk about where
we're going to be tomorrow. Yeah.
I love it. It it and it periscope just
like, a submarine, you know, that's that's underwater,
submersed, and you're so focused.
I mean, you do one thing wrong. It could compromise the whole
mission or or or everybody's lives on the submarine.
Right. So so it it it necessitates a
very operational tactical, way mindset and way of of of
behaving. Right.
But if you really want the comprehensive sort of
perspective, you gotta put the Periscope up.
Right? Right.
And and so I just love that metaphor used in the context of
leadership because it's really no different.
Like, we get so consumed with our day to day.
There's so much pressure on leaders.
Right? And and that pressure just
increases as a function of all the change and and uncertainty
in the world. And so to be able to poke your
head up as an individual or as a as a team unit Yeah.
As a team unit, very valuable. I think something I've learned
from you is that you don't just, like, do it when you need to
do it. The there's a discipline to
Periscope time. Right.
Right? Right.
And you gotta commit. You gotta commit.
Whether it's weekly, monthly Right.
Quarterly, you've gotta commit to Periscope time.
Right. And if you're gonna do
Periscope time, the other thing is that, and certainly if you're
gonna do it, say, monthly or is I I advocate that you
encourage your team to take the weekend off.
Do they end they finish early on a Friday because they're
gonna have periscope time on Monday, and then they they use
Friday to discharge and relax and relax with their family
over the weekend. So by the time they come to
Monday, they're really fresh and ready to think about tomorrow.
So a four day week. Yeah.
So take so take Friday, like, use that on us to prepare.
And do this once a month. You know?
So but by the time you come to Monday, your mind is much more
clear and ready to think about tomorrow because you know, and
and and the company should, in my opinion, should have a
bucket so that as you're going through the month, if anybody
thinks of something that should be brought up in
Periscope Time, they're able to put it into the bucket.
Okay? So by the time the team comes
together on that Monday, they can look at what's in the
bucket, and then they can have a discussion about which of
these things do we really need to focus on today to take our
comp our unit forward. I love that.
A Periscope bucket. Yeah.
Right? Because because ideas happen
all the time Right. In you know, through the the
the flow of work. And so to be able to just time
to think about things very often, but you can say this is
something very important. Let's put that this in the
bucket. I like it.
So so, Peter, in twenty twenty three, you wrote an article
called the world leadership crisis Right.
Which was, really a powerful piece.
And, you know, you talked about, you know, various
dynamics that are converging and essentially leading to a
leadership crisis, you know, not just in the US or the UK, but
you're saying it almost like pervasively around the world.
Right. Help us understand that.
Like, on if you could just unpack a little bit of, you
know, what you're seeing and why are you calling it or
thinking about it as a crisis? I'm thinking about it as a
crisis because there are so many forces building up and bearing
in mind there are some enormous narcissists Yes.
Leading us. These are people who seem to
be intent on just, yeah, just asserting their egos in such a
way that it doesn't really matter to them about what's
happening on in the rest of the world.
You know? And, I I'm concerned that we're
allowing ourselves to go along with it, you know, rather than,
and I I start saying to myself, well, we've we've got to
change the dynamic because we can't have narcissists.
As as all as much as they're compelled to be leaders, we've
got to somehow get away from that that type of character.
Otherwise, we're we're gonna be perpetually in in difficulty,
from my point of view. And I just feel that even from
that time, two thousand and twenty three, I think things are
coming to even more to a boiling point than they were at
that particular time. How when when you I mean,
because you've been at this for over a half a century.
Okay? That's since longer than I've
been living. That you've been studying
leadership, writing about leadership, consulting to
organizations about leadership, and then, of course,
being a leader. Or trying to be Or trying to be.
I I think trying to be is is is is is the best way to
describe it, like, always. You know?
Yeah. Well Because it's that part.
Never stop learning. Mean Leaders never stop
constant development. Have leaders always been like
this? Like, do you describe, like,
an an increase in, like, narcissistic leadership today?
You know, when when you roll it back fifty years, you know,
is is that the are those the dynamics you saw then?
And I I didn't see it in that way then.
I mean, I was such a so naive when he came to the leadership
of that time. So it's it's just been a it's
been a growth. It's been something that's
grown along with me. I mean and bearing in mind
that, you know, whenever I I do get caught up with people
talking about leadership, it distresses to them very people
that I meet very much that they don't see the leadership in
the world that they want. It and that causes me a a
great deal of pain that, you know, that so many people feel
that they don't have haven't had the experience of working with
a good leader. Good leaders, unfortunately,
are in a minority. Yes.
And a lot of people don't have
a good work experience. They don't have a good life
experience or whatever because they're very distressed about
the leaders around them or so called leaders.
Yeah. It's very scary to think about
that, especially like, it's scary in general because you
need to have good leaders for for any successful system.
Right? Whether it's an organization, a
nonprofit, a startup Right. A government, a a
civilization. Right.
And you you need good leadership, right, for for to to
thrive. Right.
But but I especially right now, you know, when we think about,
you know, the advent of of agentic AI and and robots and
where things could all go if we don't have great
leadership. That's a it's kind of a scary
Well, it thought. If we don't have good
leadership, then I think we I I hate to think about it, but if
we don't have good leadership, we're gonna have enormous
problems with AI. I mean, it it keeps coming
back to me how after World War one and where things were in
the twenties and thirties, how things got so I mean, they
went chaotic and so forth, and they got so discombobulated, and
then we ended up with World War two because the pressure was
there. I I just feel that if we allow
if we allow AI to take over, I just can't see how humankind
is gonna accept that. And I'm just wondering what
sort of distress that's gonna create in the world, whether
there's gonna be all sorts of outbursts of rioting and so
forth because people are not gonna accept it.
Yeah. I mean, the the the certain view
of the world that a the robots and AI is gonna come in and
gonna take over and take care of everything for us, I just
can't see people being willing to accept that.
Yeah. And I I I believe that will be
another, crux of another world war, basically, in some form or
another. I don't know how it's gonna
evolve, but that's my concern. It's when when you're more of
a historian than I am, but, just before World War one, there
was a world fair, where they were you know, everybody's
bringing, like, their innovations, and I think, there
were a lot of military innovations.
It'd be like, wow. Look at this.
This is so, you know, compelling, so fascinating.
Why you know? And then, you know, just a few
years later, you know, that's being used to to wreak
destruction on a scale that nobody ever could have
possibly conceived. Right.
Exactly. And and, you know, the the
megalomaniacs that existed at that time, they just couldn't
wait to have a war, basically. I mean, it just took one spark
and and Right. It went.
Yeah. And and potentially, that's
what could happen now. I know.
Could be having our world fair moment right now.
Right. Where we're like, wow.
This is so cool. This is amazing, powerful
technology. Right.
Yeah. But to what degree people are
gonna be willing to accept it, accept it in the way that
certain people visualize, and they visualize that, you know,
that that they envision a big underclass.
Yes. We're gonna have a big
underclass, and I don't wonder how long that underclass is
gonna just sit back and accept it.
Yes. I mean, Peter, at this stage in
your your life, you could easily be, you know, kinda living on a
golf course, sipping tea, you know, reading your favorite
books, playing golf, enjoying the retired life.
Right. That's not the life you live
right now. I mean, you do travel a whole
lot and Yeah. I do.
And and you're having a good time.
But but, there is fire in your belly, right now that is burning
pretty hot in terms of the urgency that you experience
and feel as a result of this crisis in leadership.
Right. I share that with you.
I think that's Right. You know, you and I spar a
little bit on different Right. Things.
There's there's things that you, you know, there's premises
and thesis you have that that I disagree with and and vice
versa. We are one hundred percent
aligned that the future is going to be very bleak if we don't
get this right with leadership. Right.
Yeah. And I'm very concerned about the
political leadership, in my opinion, is not taking enough of
a leadership role in this to formulate, okay, if we need if
we have AI, and it certainly has advantages and capabilities,
but let's find the right way to work AI along with people that
I mean, we just had the pope Put out that, you know, that he he
felt that the way AI is, right now is antihuman kind.
Antihuman. Yeah.
Interesting. Antihuman.
Well The way it's set right now.
And you if you listen to some of the people from Silicon
Valley, they've pretty well written people off because they
believe these systems could be more superior than people, so to
hell were the people. Yeah.
You know?
Well, of course, I know my position, our position at Air
Consulting, and and and I think you and I share this this sort
of ideology as well, is that it's not AI.
It's not human. It's the hybrid.
Right. It's the partnership between
AI and human Right. That ultimately is the path.
Right? And But that's gonna require
leadership. But it's gonna be it's gonna
require leadership. Right?
Because we're always going to, you know, default to the path of
least resistance, which is just delegating something off and
and and not using our brain. Right?
Right. And and saying, alright.
This AI can take care of all this.
It's gonna do and and then we will, you know, consciously or
or accidentally or unconsciously, seed our control
to Well, because as somebody said way back in the
eighteenth century, there's no expedient that man will not go
to avoid the labor of thinking. Okay.
You know? Yeah.
Which is true when you think about it.
I I I presume that is more relevant than ever right now.
Right. And that is that conversation.
That's that's the that's the lure of AI.
Okay. We don't have to think.
AI is gonna do it for us. AI's got it.
But, I mean, unless we work with it in a in a smart way,
we're in for a lot of trouble. I do have a lot of curiosity
around the distinction between management and leadership.
And that's something that you talk a lot about in the book.
Yeah. You call it conventional
management Right. Conventional management.
Yeah. Versus enlightened leadership.
Right. And I guess maybe you could
help us just you could frame up those two concepts,
conventional management, enlightened leadership, and
just help us understand, like, what should leaders strive to
be doing in order to become more effective, more enlightened?
Right. Well, the thing is that, with
conventional management, I I talk about they follow the
what I call the SIG FAM system. And SIG FAM.
Yeah. Which is With a s or a c?
Sig It's c I g f a m. Okay.
K? SIG FAM.
So and Sigfam, and the c stands for competition.
Competition. People to compete against each
other. Okay?
I is incentives. We give people incentives all
the time to make them work harder.
Okay? We we give them g, which is
for goals. Goals.
Constantly giving them goals, And f is for fear.
We use an element of fear to to mobilize people.
And then the other thing is the m is for measurement.
We're constantly measuring everything, measuring people
against things. And so SIGFAM, when you think
about it, competition, incentives, goals, fear, and
then oh, I've I missed out one a, which is accountability.
Accountability. Okay.
And then, m, which is measurement.
These are all extrinsic motivators.
They're things that we bring to pressure people who work as
hard as we want them to work. Yes.
It's like beating up people, whipping them all the time we
use. That's what the conventional
managers use. They they use that to so that
people have to do what was required.
Okay? Whereas, so to me, conventional
management is about, getting people to to do things, and
they have to do it. But it's all through, these
sort of external forces pressures.
That we bring on people. And that, of course, creates
tremendous dissension within society.
I mean, we have tremendous dissension in society right now,
and a lot of that is because all the pressure that we put on
people as opposed to enlightened leadership, which is
using ex intrinsic Okay. Motivators, which come in the
form of PCAM. P is for purpose.
You give people a real purpose that they can really identify
with. And then e is for equality that
you treat people with respect. You treat them as as equal and
and and, decent people. And then a is giving them a
sense of achievement and accomplishment because
everybody wants to achieve something, accomplish something.
And c is for camaraderie, okay, that they're in an environment
where they enjoy working with their colleagues.
That's the c. And then we get the a, which is
which we which we give them a sense of autonomy.
We delegate, and we give them an empowerment, autonomy and
empowerment. And then, of course, the final
m, we we give them the the knowledge that they need, you
know, that they need to do what they they have to do.
Okay? We use these intrinsic
motivators because these PCAM factors are factors within
people That naturally motivates them to want to do it.
So now we create an environment where which is a want to
environment versus a have to environment.
And that's really what my book is gonna be about, creating a
culture which is instead of a have to culture, we create a
want to culture. And through that, we will then
get an optimum performance from our organization because
everybody wants to be very best. Yeah.
A want to, not a have to feeling as though they're forced into
it. How do you so so SIG FAM is a
have to culture. Right.
PCAM is a I want to. There's intrinsic motivation.
Is there ever a situation where you could have a hundred
percent PCAM with zero SIG FAM, or is it about, like, eighty
twenty or seventy thirty? Like, should should a leader
be striving to have some conventional management?
Like, is that necessary? No.
I do accept both dimensions. Yes.
I do accept both my men an extreme sig fam is when you're
in an emergency, when people really, you know We're in a
crisis. There's a crisis, and you really
gotta everybody's gotta focus. And whether they want to or not,
they've just gotta buckle down and get it done.
Okay? And that's probably an
extreme, sig fam situation, but then there could be situations
like that. But I think on on by and large,
I would like to see companies working where the PCAMP is more
than the SIGFAM. Yes.
Okay. That's And the SIGFAM does, of
course, create a certain amount of structure, systems, and so
forth. We need that in order to keep
things relatively stable. If we had too much PCAM, things
could get a little bit out of get a bit chaotic, basically.
So as I've said with with, with leadership and management,
it's the same as driving a car. To me, management is the brake,
and leadership is the accelerator.
So if you really want to build momentum, you bring leadership
to the party. If you wanna slow things down,
you bring management to the party.
Okay? Just the same as when you're
driving a car. Wow.
And if I could get if we could educate from my point of view
executives to know the difference between the two, so
depending on what they want and how they want it to be, they
know when to they know when to ply the gas and when to put ply
the brake. Yes.
We don't have that clarity
right now. Right.
Now so one thing is you you do
need stability and structure. Right.
But that is not how you thrive.
Right. That's not how you you grow
sustainably. Right.
You grow through the PCAM PCAM and that enlightened leadership.
Momentum that that builds. Yes.
Tell me that sir sir, that's, like, very instructive as far
as, like, individual leadership and how to be, you know,
essentially, like, a highly effective leader.
When you step back and look at organizations and successful
organizations versus unsuccessful or declining
organizations, You you bring up something in your book about
the five the five curses. Right?
So the five curses. I guess the five curses of
conventional management, or is it five curses of They're very
they're very compatible with conventional management.
Tell us about these five curses. And then and then presumably,
are are there five antidotes as well to the curses?
Yeah. Just help us understand.
You know? Well, from my point of view, the
five curses are bureaucracy, hierarchy, efficiency think,
negative messaging, and, corruption.
And corruption. Those are the five curses that
we have in in in business and, organizational life today.
That's what we've grown up with. And I would like to see that
through enlightened leadership that we have antidotes to that.
So instead of bureaucracy, we put much more emphasis on two
way communication. So we don't need a bureaucracy
to force people down. We we cause people to go in the
right direction because of the communication.
Have real dialogue. With with the tools that we have
today, AI and all all computers and everything, we
have tremendous communication tools that we can work with
people in a much more dynamic way rather than put them into a
structure, a bureaucratic structure.
So hierarchical communication would be you would think of that
as, like, one way communication?
Well, in today, in in in a conventional management, I do
believe it's one way communication.
One way communication. I need you to do this.
Yeah. Right.
I want this done. Okay.
That's one way. Two way communication is where
you get together with a group of people and say, what could we
achieve together? What would we like to do
together? Where where would we like to
go together? Where would we like to be
tomorrow? And you can have an enormously
wonderful discussion out of that and then come to some
consensus. And then if you do it in the
right way, I mean, you as a leader will be left in the
room. They'll all be gone to go and
take care of it, basically. You're you're left behind to
watch and see what happens. Okay.
So that's one antidote is two way communication.
Right. Give me what what are some
other ones that Well, then we have with hierarchy, I talk
about instead of having having heterarchies.
Het okay. Okay.
A hierarchy is where people sit on the pinnacle, and they
drive the organization. Okay?
With SIGVAM, obviously, that's how they make that's how we have
been doing it for a long time. Whereas I'm talking about
heterarchy is where the leader is at the center and is
orchestrating rather like an orchestra leader is
orchestrating the the, the music, if you like, is
organizing the working with the people around them to say,
okay. Let's, let's talk about we're
gonna focus outside of ourselves.
What is there out there that we could do, and how can we
collaborate together? It's a much more collaborative
rather than trying to drive. It's an orchestrating role
rather than a driving role. It's beautiful.
Yeah. I mean, when I think about an
organizational chart, you know, traditional organizational
chart, you know, you got won't see that.
Leader at the top and, you know, your next level, next
level, next level. This is leader in the middle.
Middle, and then the people around them all facing outwards
to the market or the customers they're gonna be serving.
Wow. That's a that's a beautiful,
very, very illustrative of the concept.
Okay. So that that would be antidote
number two, heterarchy rather than hierarchy.
Right. Okay.
And then we have, we have,
efficiency. Of course, the the opposite to
efficiency is effectiveness. And efficiency is, to me, from
my way of seeing it, is very much about squeezing, cutting
costs, minimizing, not doing things on the cheap and and so
forth, whereas effectiveness is much more about innovation,
elegance, breakthroughs, how we you know, what what because
organizations are constantly as they grow, they come up against
obstacles And difficulties where they can grow, and they
have to find a breakthrough. Yes.
Efficiency won't get you there.
Effectiveness will. And effectiveness thinking
will help you to create the breakthroughs that you need to
make to go to the next phase, basically.
Efficiency important, but but it's not gonna get you to the
breakthrough. No.
I mean, in fact, if you have too much efficiency, in my
opinion, you will drive the organization to its end.
It will you it will go gradually.
You will kill it. Like, squeezes the soul out of
the organization. The thing that hurts me most
is some a country like England where I'm from, if you we we
know what England was, an empire, and so forth, you
know, a hundred years ago. But, because of the two world
wars, it cost them so much money and and people.
I mean, we England lost so much talent in two wars as well
as lost so much money. Okay?
And since that time, all we've been trying to do is
everything on the cheap so that we can survive.
That's what the English and that's why the English economy
is going down and down and down. It's not going If you if you
were to read some of the things I read coming across on
LinkedIn by people in England that are so frustrated at the
country going nowhere because England's been trying to do
everything So what's the curse then out of the five curses
that they're sort of, falling prey to, would you say?
It's, I guess, efficiency. Efficiency.
Right. Trying to do everything As
opposed to effectiveness. That's the that's the antidote.
And then, of course, we have negative messaging, which is
about allowing people in the company to run down their
colleagues, to run down their company, being negative about
why this is not right and that's not right rather than
having a more optimistic flavor.
And there there are those people who who like to be negative,
and perhaps we have to weed those out of our organization
because they they will they they're a curse on the
organization. And then eventually, of
course, we get to corruption, and corruption is not just
about money. It's corruption in decisions
and taking care of yourselves. And, and so not that we can be
perfect, but we need to have a decent level of integrity in a
company. Yes.
In order to succeed. When you think about these
five curses and anecdote Right. Let's call them, like, pairings.
Well, they're not pairings. They're, you know, I guess,
opposites of each other. But but is there one in
particular that comes to mind as being, like, most damaging or
consequential in terms of the antidote?
Well, from my point of view, I I I believe efficiency.
Efficiency? Yeah.
So Because I feel I feel, I I constantly feel frustrated
that all we hear about is efficiency, efficiency,
efficiency. In some cases, of course,
they're using the word efficiency when they should be
using the word effectiveness, quite frankly, but we've just
got obsessed with the word efficiency.
But, but, you know, to me, efficiency is also a euphemism
for the word profit. We don't talk about profit
anymore. We talk about efficiency
instead. Yes.
So it's a it's a much more acceptable word because, you
know, when you think about it, efficiency is a euphemism for
profit. And and not that I'm against
that. I mean, any any company needs
a degree of profit to get the sort of support and investors
and so forth that they want, but you you can overdo it to the
point where you're killing the company rather than helping
it, basically. Wow.
So that that I that to me is one of the the biggest curses
and which, of course, goes along with another thing that I
is is the the whole issue of numbers and peep over people.
Numbers over people. Right.
That we are obsessed with numbers.
We've become obsessed. Even in from my point of view,
when I think back to thirty or forty years ago And where we've
come since then, we're much more numbers as obsessed now than
we were forty or fifty years ago.
And that's because, in my opinion, we've we've allowed the
financial people to to take the helm.
Yeah. Well, it's it's it's it's
really, like, tricky because an organization, you know, grows
to a certain size. And, you know, for for many
reasons, an organization will will choose to IPO and go on to
the public markets. And, and then what you see is
is in order to keep being successful, you have to engage
in in some of these curses. Right?
Especially the efficiency piece.
Right? Like, you've got to you've
gotta be profitable. And it See, I'm not I'm not so
sure about that because, in fact, when you see the way
that companies grow, they grow in a spiral fashion.
Okay. Say more.
Right? They grow in a they it's like
a growing spiral, or if you have efficiency, it's a downward
spiral. If you have effectiveness,
it's an upward spiral. But the thing is as it as it
goes through each loop, it comes to a point where, you know, the
company feels it's not growing anymore.
And, of course, we can use some of the conventional management
tools that we that have been used downsizing or rightsizing
or some of those things rather than, and each one of those
cycles is what I call a reinvention cycle.
Companies have to go through reinvention cycles.
They have to reinvent themselves.
They come to a point where they're not growing, that things
are not going in the way they want.
They have to reinvent themselves.
And by reinventing themselves, they find new strategies.
They find a different way of working.
They upgrade in certain areas and so forth so that they can
now move forward again. I see.
So so it's never a company's never just growing in a
straight line. No.
Right? It's it's more like these
spirals, and they they get Bigger and bigger.
Right.
Like this. Okay.
And, and so that that would imply then that an organization,
you know, is successful today. Reaches a point where it's not
growing anymore. Okay.
So now they have to go through this reinvention cycle.
And there's a reinvention cycle. Reinvent reeducating your
people, re looking at the products that you're doing and
say, do we need to come up with different we we need to
reinvent. We need to come up with
different products, different services that, the market has
changed to some extent, so we have to adapt ourselves in a
different way. But, again, if we educate our
people, they will work with us to find the next cycle.
And in fact, one of the things that I talk about right at the
beginning of my book is how, in fact, we we have a very
structured way of of growing whereby we we project what we
want to do, then we plan, then we organize.
Yes. Then we direct everything
appropriately, and then control everything to make sure that so
we project the numbers that we want.
We plan for the numbers that we want.
We organize for the numbers that we want.
We direct for the numbers that we want, and then we control
everything to make sure that those numbers are accomplished.
Okay. It's all around the numbers.
Okay? Yes.
Whereas with the leaders, they they have a different, thing
where they envision opportunities.
Yes. And then they position
themselves to take advantage of those opportunities, and then
they engage their people to pursue those opportunities with
them. And then they get then they go
to other people. Who else do we need to
collaborate with to pursue these opportunities?
And then eventually, they will orchestrate everything to
pursue those opportunities. And now you create a cyclical,
approach where the company, from my point of view, in in all
of the tents and purposes, is winding itself up.
Wow. Is winding itself up.
That's that's beautiful. It's I you know, when you
describe that, the first word that came to my my head was
energy, right, in that latter model where it's these these
loops that that continue to grow.
Grow and right. It it's there's there's like
this flywheel momentum Yes. That gets created Right.
Through intrinsic motivation. Right.
Whereas in the former, you know, where it's very sort of
conventional management, it's like, here's what I need you
to do. Here's how we're gonna measure
it. Here's how the the cadence of
our check ins and accountability.
Right. And force you to do this to to
some degree. And if you don't do it Right.
Then you're right. You know, that's the fear in
in in SIG FAM. So very different approaches.
And And that's what in line leadership is about, taking
this, more cyclical approach to building a company rather than
a structure. Well, I'd rather be on that
ship. But I will say that, you know,
in all the organizations and leaders that I work with, it is
at least a fifty fifty, you know, balance.
But usually, it's flipped. Right?
There's usually more conventional management than
enlightened leadership. Right.
And I think, you know, I think the call to action here is,
hey. Let's let's flip that from
seventy thirty conventional management enlightened
leadership. Let's flip it seventy percent.
When you look at those companies that are really
successful Yes. And there are companies out
there, It's it's because the leadership is there.
There's more leadership in the company than management Yes.
Basically. Well, Peter, we're we're we're
coming towards the end of the podcast, and you were you know,
your experiences as a boy scout, a soldier, a captain in
the British military, a a very successful consultant and
entrepreneur because you built up, like, a huge part of the
practice. Right.
And then and then, you know, founding your own practice,
writing tons of articles, a book, and now a second one on
the way. Yeah.
When you take that over a half a century, experiential wisdom,
and I ask you the question, so what is leadership actually?
You know, what comes to mind? Well, to me, it comes down to
those five characteristics I've talked about earlier, which is
is about leadership is about vision.
Yes. Leadership is about integrity,
you know, that people can trust you and and go with you.
And even in difficult times, they trust you, so they still go
with you even in in in more difficult times.
Courage that, you know, that if you're if you're pursuing
tomorrow, it takes there's a lot of uncertainty out there, and
it takes a certain amount of courage to pursue things when
you don't clearly know absolutely this is the way
it's gonna be. Yes.
Okay. And then, of course, humility
to not believe that whatever you've come up with, that that
is it. That's the holy grail because
there's always gonna be things that you haven't considered and
and, you need to be mindful of.
And then, of course, wisdom being able to draw off
whatever experiences that you've had to be able to say, well,
this feels right or that feels right or that feels wrong and
so forth. Yes.
Yeah. One of the the the most fun
parts of of, kind of collaborating with you, you
know, as you're as you've been writing this this incredible
book coming out. And and just for the listeners,
what the title of the book. Well, the the the title of the
book is The Enlightened Leader The Enlightened Leader.
Transform from have to to want to cultures.
Ugh. Have to to want to cultures.
Cultures for optimum venture performance.
Beautiful. I love that.
Going from have to to want to. Cultures.
One of the most fun parts of
our conversations has been, you know, me kind of pressure
testing and and you saying, you know what?
This is where I'm not changing. Like, this is one hundred
percent. But then other other parts of
you saying, you know what? Let me give that a think.
That's a really good point. And seeing how you have, sort of
negotiated between sort of the, like, core aspects of of
of of your thesis and and ideology around leadership and
where you're very compelled to adapt.
And, given the vast knowledge and wisdom and experiences that
you have over the last half century, to be still a learner
is inspiring to me, but also speaks to your humility, which
is one of those five core core leadership capabilities.
I guess, you know, Peter, when I think of you, you know, I
think of so many things, and there you have so many
concepts. PCAM, SIGVAM, conventional
management, enlightened leadership.
Enlightened leadership is really you know, if if you say
what's, like, the the buzzword?
What's what do you know Peter for?
Enlightened leadership is what what comes to mind For me.
And, you know, I guess, you know, as we kind of wrap on this
podcast episode, what is one practical piece of advice you
would give to our listeners? You know, we've got a lot of
leaders, scholars of leadership, emerging leaders who who watch
this podcast. What should they be doing on
Monday? Well, I mean, the the one of the
things is to have a very clear idea of what management is and
what leadership is. The distinction.
That distinction. When you have that distinction,
is it comes back to the metaphor of driving the car.
You can do amazing things with the car when you can use the
brake and you can use the accelerator.
You can get it to perform in the way that you want it to.
When you clearly understand what management is and what
leadership is, then you have that possibility as well.
You know when to apply leadership and when to apply
management. One of the things that caused
me to write the book is I constantly saw would hear that
management was a very concrete thing, but leadership was very
soft. Yes.
You know? And I don't see it that way.
I mean, to me, leadership is just as concrete as management
is. And until we get people to
understand leadership is is a vital concrete thing as much
as management is, and that we have these two capabilities.
And if we can use those in the right way, I believe we could be
much more successful. My feeling is even if we had
learned to do these things, we may not have even needed AI.
But we're we're AI has come along because organizations
don't think they're getting the performance they want.
Fascinating. So they've so AI has become a
tool because because I believe so many executives find it
frustrating to work with people.
That's fascinating. Yeah.
I am. And so something like AI to
them is a godsend that they can use this to deal with this
awkward character called people. And but on the other hand, if
you can lead people correctly, they they are a wonderful
resource. They are a marvelous resource.
They can do incredible things if you give them the opportunity.
Peter, that is a big thought. I I mean, you know how much of
a proponent I am of AI. So now I have to think I have
to sleep on this one. I can't agree with you outright,
but it is a big thought, this idea that AI in some ways is
like it compensates for the inadequacy Lack of leadership.
Of leadership. I gotta I gotta I gotta you
know, that's like, you know, a a smoke a cigar, walk around the
block kind of Right. Big deep thinking Yeah.
Idea there. That's that's really
interesting. Yeah.
Wow. Okay.
Well, I just wanna thank you so much, Peter, for for being
here, for coming out to Philadelphia, to join us on a
podcast about leadership. I'm excited for the world.
I'm excited for myself, selfishly, to get my hands on
the book, and to continue in the lifelong pursuit of
effectiveness. Yeah.
Which is, as I like to say, it's a muscle, and you stop
going to the gym, that muscle goes away.
Very good metaphor. So so I'm I'm looking forward
to to having your book in my hands Right.
As soon as possible. Right.
So thank you so much again, Peter, and thank you everybody
for for enjoy for joining us on this incredibly engaging,
thought provoking session on a podcast about leadership, and
we'll look forward to our next time.