The Weird CEO Read online

  CHARLES TOWERS-CLARK

  WEIRD GROUP PUBLISHING, UK

  www.weirdceo.com

  © 2018 by Charles Towers-Clark

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner; except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  About the author

  INTRODUCTION

  1. THE NEED TO BE WEIRD

  A)THE NEED FOR CHANGE

  i Technological Challenges

  ii. Business Challenges

  iii. Social Challenges

  iv. Educational Challenges

  B)BEING WEIRD

  i. Wisdom

  ii. Emotional Intelligence

  iii. Initiative

  iv. Responsibility

  v. Development (Self)

  vi. Circling through WEIRD

  2. TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

  A)FROM THE FIRST TO THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

  B)DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

  C)COMPUTERS, BIG DATA & IOT

  D)MACHINE LEARNING AND DEEP LEARNING

  E)THE EFFECT OF AUTOMATION

  F)THE DANGER OF SPECIALISING

  3. BUSINESS CHANGE

  A)SELF-MANAGEMENT

  B)COMMUNICATION & SCALABILITY

  C)COMPETITION

  4. SOCIAL CHANGE

  A)THE PURPOSE OF WORK AND LIFE

  B)WHO OWNS THE DATA IN A DATA DRIVEN WORLD?

  C)THE LITIGATION & REGULATION PARADOX

  D)SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF AUTOMATION

  E)UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME

  5. EDUCATIONAL CHANGE

  A)CHANGING OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

  i. Project-based learning

  ii. Personalised learning

  iii. Teaching Emotional Intelligence

  6. THE THEORY OF WEIRD

  A)CHANGE STARTS AT THE TOP

  B)FOCUSING ON THE THINGS THAT YOU CAN CHANGE

  C)IN AND OUT

  i. Recruitment

  ii. Conflict

  iii. Dismissal

  D)PERFORMANCE AND REWARDS

  i. Transparency of salaries

  ii. Deciding own salaries

  iii. Evaluation and appraisals

  E)TEAM WORKING

  i. Seating plans

  ii. Avoiding stars and egos

  iii. Organisation and Teams

  F)OWNERSHIP AND RESPONSIBILITY

  i. Transparency of company financial information

  ii. Company policies (eg holidays, expenses, flexi-hours, training)

  iii. Roles vs tasks

  iv. Decisions

  v. Strategy

  vi. Ownership of the business

  G)CHANGE, REINFORCEMENT AND GETTING EVERYBODY ON BOARD

  H)WOMEN AND WEIRD

  7. DESTROYING THE OLD POD WORLD

  A)THE COMPANY – POD GROUP

  B)MONEY IS A NON-MOTIVATOR – (WEEK 2)

  C)CREATING THE PERFECT ORGANISATION (OPTIMISTICALLY) – (WEEK 4)

  D)PRESENTING TO THE TEAM: GIVE NO ANSWERS – (WEEK 5)

  E)BEST IF THE BOSS LEAVES – (WEEK 6)

  F)PEOPLE HATE CHANGE – (WEEK 7)

  G)MOVING TO STAGE TWO OF THE CHANGE PROCESS – (WEEK 8)

  H)THE INITIAL PROPOSALS – (WEEK 9)

  I)FIRST DRAFT PROPOSAL – (WEEK 10)

  J)ACCEPTING THE COLD SHOULDER – (WEEK 11)

  K)CONFRONTING THE REAL PROBLEM – (WEEK 12)

  8. BUILDING THE WEIRD POD WORLD

  A)LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL – (WEEK 13)

  B)GETTING TO A WORKABLE SOLUTION – (WEEKS 14 and 15)

  C)EXPLAINING RE-INVESTMENT – (WEEK 16)

  D)SHOWING SALARIES – (WEEK 17)

  E)MANAGERS – (WEEK 20)

  F)THE FIRST EVALUATION – (WEEK 21)

  G)THE FIRST CHOSEN SALARIES – (WEEK 22)

  H)TEAL TO WEIRD AND ON – (WEEK 26)

  9. ACTING WEIRD

  A)POD AND WEIRD

  B)AUTHENTICALLY WEIRD

  C)LUCK AND PREPARATION

  D)CULTURE AND VALUES

  E)LEARNING TO TRUST

  F)TREAT EVERYONE AS AN OWNER AND CEO

  CONCLUSION

  Acknowledgements

  References

  About the author

  Charles Towers-Clark, Group CEO of Pod Group, is an entrepreneur, international lecturer and Forbes.com contributor. Charles transformed Pod Group into a WEIRD organisation to maximise the decision-making power of each person within the company – whilst minimising his own.

  Before founding Pod Group in 1999, he lived and worked in Russia and Central Asia and is now based in Cambridge, UK. Based on his experiences of establishing, running and re-inventing Pod Group, he provides advice to CEOs worldwide.

  INTRODUCTION

  “What we fear of doing most is usually what we most need to do”

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  On a recent flight in Canada, I was jolted out of a reverie during the mandatory safety briefing by the flight attendant who informed us that, although we were in the air, if we weren't happy with the service we were free to exit the plane at any time.

  As I was researching for this book at the time, it made me wonder how replaceable the job of a flight attendant is.

  Imagine a robot handing out food and drinks, telling people when to sit down, dealing with frayed nerves or being able to handle an emergency. To create a robot with the necessary dexterity as well as the compassion of a human being would be incredibly difficult. So, flight attendants are probably safe in their job for a long while. Pilots on the other hand may have cause for concern – if we have autonomous cars, it is only a question of time before we have passenger planes flown by computer (the military already uses pilotless planes).

  Unfortunately, pilots will not be the only ones losing their jobs. The speed of technological advancement due to Artificial Intelligence and more especially Machine Learning will create a major upheaval in the number of jobs available, the way we work and the type of work that we do.

  Any task that consists of a series of processes will, in the near future, be automated by a computer or robot. Not all tasks within each job can be processed, but the speed of automation (and therefore a reduced requirement for human involvement) will grow exponentially. This isn’t something that will happen at some undetermined point in the future – it is already happening. Within the next five to fifteen years, a huge number of jobs will be destroyed. Many argue that, as with previous industrial revolutions, others will appear but finding alternative employment for millions of jobs that have been replaced by computers and robots will be impossible until we fundamentally change the way we think of work.

  An interesting documentary entitled 7UP, which charts a group of children from all social classes every seven years until they are fifty-six years old, showed how their lives changed over those years and how that compared to expectations. Most participants followed the course expected of them. However, one pointed out that, although he had followed the journey envisaged by his parents when he was seven years old, the future of university choices and careers is far more uncertain and impossible to predict for today’s seven-year-olds. This change in personal uncertainty is also reflected in the business world. The necessity to scale and the speed with which new competition evolves have intensified such that we cannot continue to run our companies in a traditional manner.

  These are not the only problems that we will face in the next fifteen years. We have (unwittingly) created the perfect sociological s
torm, including the social havoc that Artificial Intelligence will create, an increasing need for instant gratification, and an education and training system that is not preparing us for the future of work.

  At my company, Pod Group, we generally employ young people, train them and promote internally where possible. This hasn’t been without its challenges. At the risk of making some gross over-generalisations, candidates from the millennial generation have been told that they should go to university on the promise of a great job at the end. Instead, they got the 2008 financial crisis, unemployment, student loans and deflated expectations. They were brought up by baby boomers and educated for a world that no longer exists. If we are to believe the stereotype, they represent a generation that feels entitled (through no fault of their own) and is afraid of making decisions without the approval of others.

  Social media is either the symptom or the disease of this need for constant approval. Either way, the need to be liked (and the dopamine rush that accompanies each like[i]), combined with the feeling of potentially missing out if you are not online at all times, has created a society which expects instant gratification in many aspects of life. Unfortunately, work doesn’t often provide a constant stream of gratification; satisfaction possibly, but not gratification. This expectation is, however, driving positive changes in the workplace. Is it possible to create an environment where enjoyment becomes the overriding characteristic of work?

  As a new generation appears, so does a new way of working. Older[ii] millennials’ greater sense of entitlement and expectation[iii] has driven a new approach to gaining a better working life. Younger millennials value soft benefits such as company culture, social responsibility and flexible working. For many, money is a secondary issue. Companies ignore these benefits at their peril as the best employees will go elsewhere. This is why so many talented graduates prefer to work in a start-up; because founders often have soft benefits at the core of the business.

  However, are these soft benefits ingrained or just on the surface? At a meet-up in Cambridge, UK, a city full of entrepreneurs and start-up companies, I expressed the view that CEOs in Cambridge would be very good at using soft skills to run their companies. Several people disagreed, pointing out that most founders have good intentions when their businesses are in start-up mode. However, once the company is selling products and creating revenue, the CEOs and managers revert to management by diktat. This is especially true when investors’ goals are focused on the financial success of the company, soft benefits are not regarded as core to the business, and the company lives and dies by its financial success alone.

  Strangely, a modern-day contract of employment is similar to a contract of employment in Roman times (assuming that you weren’t a slave).[iv] In both cases, the contract outlines an exchange of time for money. What was missing in Roman times, and is still missing, is the employer’s commitment to provide satisfaction to the employee. Contracts state that the employee has to undertake their job responsibly, but they do not designate ownership, authority or responsibility to the employee. I am not referring to legal responsibility, but rather personal responsibility to own the task or role that needs to be accomplished. Only when employers and employees understand the correlation between satisfaction and ownership will it be possible to replace legal contracts, that focus on the exchange of time for money, with contracts of mutual benefit that will facilitate employee engagement. Ironically, employment law in most jurisdictions is making this type of shift increasingly difficult.

  Futurists sometimes argue that the world would be a better place if people could have a life of leisure and computers and robots did all the work.[v] However, for many of us, the salary we earn, the job we do and our job title reflect our value. Therefore, the act of work (whether paid or voluntary) provides a measure of our self-worth. If we remove a purpose for being – whether that is bringing up a child or being part of a company – how do we encourage the feeling of responsibility and ownership?

  As we will see greater technological changes over the next fifteen years than have been seen in any other fifteen-year period, we need to change the way that we think and work. Part of that change may include the introduction of Universal Basic Income. This form of guaranteed income breaks down the assumption that all people should work and offers citizens a level of choice as to how they want to live – on the presumption that people are able to take responsibility and ownership of their own lives. However, Universal Basic Income (as with government social security today) relies on the payment of taxes, including income taxes – and so there needs to be a working class.

  On a global level, we must look at how we educate children and train adults to take ownership of their lives so that they can enjoy, and are encouraged to become part of, that working class. I belong to a multi-cultural family and a multi-cultural workplace and I have had the opportunity to experience various educational systems in different countries in Europe. While there is no question that change is happening in many schools, we are still educationally spoon-feeding children and the input today seems very far away from the output required tomorrow. We need a radical change in the way that schools inspire and grow children. In the future, we will need individuals who can think for themselves, motivate themselves and resolve problems for themselves. In general, however, our educational system does not provide the training to accomplish this. Much of the solution lies in the need to encourage Emotional Intelligence. According to a study by TalentSmart, Emotional Intelligence influences 57% of success across every type of job and plays the biggest role in performance when compared to 33 other workplace skills.[vi] Many schools are starting to use Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), but certainly in the United States where SEL preparation of teachers in a recent study has been shown to be low – there is a long way to go.[vii] This should be a major focus of schools. A 2015 report on the economic value of SEL calculated a cost-benefit ratio of eleven to one.[viii] Investment in Emotional Intelligence at school not only improves academic results but also reduces negative behaviour and emotional stress. This improvement in attitudes, leading to greater commitment and motivation, is required within our children today at school to help them tomorrow at work.

  Companies need to evolve continuously in order to stay relevant. Some of the business and social changes covered in this book would have been required even without the effect of Artificial Intelligence. However, Artificial Intelligence adds another dimension of complexity and urgency as roles will become redundant and technology takes over. To overcome this, employees need to utilise those characteristics that cannot be replicated easily by computers. Passing more responsibility and ownership to employees promotes these characteristics and, by fostering company ownership, a secondary advantage arises – the ability to make use of each and every brain rather than resting power solely in a CEO.

  In our company, Pod Group, we have started a change process using various tools to encourage employees to take ownership of their jobs and indeed of the company as a whole. As a technology company, we are both threatened and excited by the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence and know that we need to change. To manage this, we focused on the following characteristics:

  Wisdom

  Emotional Intelligence

  Initiative

  Responsibility

  Development (Self)

  and brought it into, what we call, the WEIRD methodology. We all work where and when we like, we speak nine different languages (sometimes in one conversation) and we choose our own salaries. But we don’t drop the ball and we feel responsible for our work. Some of us like to talk to machines, some to people; some know our partners, some our platforms; but we all control our own destiny. This is how WEIRD works – oddly enough, if you let people choose how to do their work, they actually want to do it.

  By encouraging employees to act as owners, not only can the changes that will be forced by Artificial Intelligence be used to positive effect, but the need for a CEO can be reduced. The
ultimate success of a company practising WEIRD is to render most of the role of the CEO redundant.

  I’m trying!

  1. THE NEED TO BE WEIRD

  “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”

  George S. Patton – US General

  A)

  THE NEED FOR CHANGE

  “Change before you have to.”

  Jack Welch – Ex-Chairman General Electric

  09:27 4th May 2017

  I walked into the office – everybody went quiet. Not the contemplative silence of thoughtful discussion; nor the uncomfortable ‘we’ve run out of things to say’ silence, but rather an icy silence which says: ‘We don’t like you at the moment and we definitely don’t like what you have done.’

  This is going to be a fun day.

  What had led to this less than balmy reception was that I had taken a profitable company, with great people and really good employee interaction and said, “We need to change – I am going to take you all out of your comfort zone and make you all – well – really uncomfortable”.

  So why did I do it?

  For two reasons – one personal, one professional. First the personal:

  Some years ago, I grew a company with 120 people across 7 offices. I was young and inexperienced and didn’t know how to delegate. As a result, I spent all my time on personnel issues and worked 16 hours a day. When I started Pod Group, my original intention was to employ only myself and one or two others. However, as an entrepreneur I couldn’t resist the temptation to grow – and I came to realise that, in order to avoid being overworked, I needed to manage the company in a different way.

  One of my sources of inspiration was Ricardo Semler of Semco who, over a period of ten years, managed to avoid making a single professional decision. His colleagues threw a celebratory party to mark this event (granted he had been removed from the CEO position by the employees, even though he is the major shareholder of the company). I realised this was a measure of success, how few decisions need to be made by the CEO and managers.