Inclusive Leaders & CEO Impact Podcast by DIAL Global
Bi-weekly podcast show featuring conversations with inspiring thought leaders of today, unearthing their unique stories of inclusion, belonging, equity, talent, culture and social impact.
Inclusive Leaders & CEO Impact Podcast by DIAL Global
Cultural Leadership with Duncan Garrood
Global Business Insights from Duncan Garrood, CEO of Empiric Student Student Property plc
Join us in this enlightening episode of the CEO Impact Podcast as we talk with Duncan Garrood, CEO of Empiric Student Property plc.
Duncan shares his vast international experiences, valuable lessons on cultural adaptation in business, and insights into leveraging diversity for better commercial outcomes.
Don't miss his inspiring journey from aspiring zookeeper to influential business leader shaping social impact and change.
Hello and welcome to the CEO Impact podcast. Today I am delighted to be joined by a fantastic individual. His name is Duncan Garoud and he is the CEO of Empiric Student Properties PLC. He's also non-executive for a number of organisations. His career spans literally a whole number of decades and he isn't even that old at all, but he's worked in EMEA, apac, china, the Americas, working for household name brands that include Alshire Punch Taverns, launching embryonic brands as they were then to huge household names like Starbucks, pizza Express and Shake Shack, to name just a few. And Shake Shack, to name just a few. I'm thrilled to have Duncan on the show today, specifically because he has such a wonderful personal background, as well as being a real trailblazer for social impact and change in the business world in the UK and internationally. Welcome to the show, duncan.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. That was a hell of an introduction and internationally Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Duncan, thank you so much. That was a hell of an introduction. Thank you very much, and I'm delighted that I finally got you here, because every time we speak it feels that we ought to be podcasting, because I learn an awful lot, and so pinning you down today to have your focused attention is really quite wonderful.
Speaker 2:Well, it's genuinely a huge pleasure. Always, the best way to pin me down is probably over a pint in a pub, but this is as good as we'll get.
Speaker 1:Well having a pint in the pub afterwards. Thank you very much, so that is all good, before we get into some of the business subjects for today, what I would really love is for you to share a little bit about how you came to be where you are today, duncan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, when I was a kid, I was brought up in the south of Essex in that sort of East Ender environment. I wanted to be a zookeeper and I saw my life as going to look after monkeys in London Zoo. And I saw my life as going to look after monkeys in London Zoo and I went off to university and I went to study biology, ended up doing biochemistry. Then I got my degree and then I decided that actually it wasn't quite hard enough so I pushed myself to see if I could do something a bit bigger than that. So I did a PhD by chemistry. So I set out to be, you know, the classic white-coated, bespectacled, test-tube-grabbing scientific geek and it was very boring and I'll be honest, I did my PhD and I got all that. But actually I was lucky enough to do it with a big industrial company with Rank Hovis of Dougal and I spent time with their industrial team and also in their business units and I way more enjoyed being in the factories and talking with the people than I did being on the bench as a scientist. So I switched and nothing about business whatsoever. So I'd better join a company that's going to teach me because, you know, I've been trained in doing something completely different to doing business. So I joined Unilever, who are very well known as being one of the best sort of management schools, and I joined them for two reasons. One, they gave you some formal training and plenty of on-the-job experience so that you tried every function there is going. And then, secondly, they didn't just give you the opportunity, they insisted that you went and worked overseas, and I'd always wanted to go and work outside of the UK because I just felt the world had got so much to offer. So I joined Unilever and my first experience of diversity and you mentioned the word humbling, it was definitely humbling for me was I was sent to Liverpool. Now, I don't mean to say to any scousers who are watching this that I'm being rude. Quite the opposite. I not only loved working in Liverpool, but I am now a Liverpool football supporter. Football supporter.
Speaker 2:Yes, we had a great season, um and um, you know, being a a young, um, professionally trained scientist going into a factory of one and a half thousand scousers. Uh, as your first assignment was like a piece of red meat being thrown into a lion's den and you were either going to be eaten alive or get out of it with your head held up, and I went into it with a very clear view that you had to get on with people and you had to understand them and you had to enjoy being with them and you had to be part of that team and not just sit there because you were a manager and control people. You had to motivate people and work with them. Because you were a manager and control people, you had to motivate people and work with them. So we had a wonderful experience there and that sort of kicked off my life in business and cut a lot out.
Speaker 2:I was then sent overseas some years later and, given my first experience working outside the UK, in China, and I spent 10 years in china, which was another humbling experience. Uh, back in the early 90s, when china had only just become, uh, open to the west only five years since chairman mao was, so I I rocked up in china in 1994, uh, just after uh, as I say, just after it opened up. Basically, unilever asked me to go and set up the food business there. We started with the ice cream, uh and uh, uh. Unilever's brand of ice cream worldwide is called walls, so I went to set up the cornerly name to the great walls of china. Sorry about that, just the world's worst pun had to get that.
Speaker 1:I know I had to get that one in there it was bad then, it's even worse now.
Speaker 2:And so I went out there to build factories, distribution systems, recruit people, do the marketing and all the rest of it, basically from scratch. And you know, when you're a sole Westerner going out to run a business in China and people are looking at you to obviously lead the business, normally you do that from a position of some authority and some knowledge and so on. But when you turn up in a country like China to do that, you have absolutely no idea how to do anything. I couldn't even order food because I didn't speak Chinese, couldn't read Chinese, so the only way I could order food was to go to a restaurant, grab a waiter, walk around everybody else's table and point at their food and say I'll have one of them. One of them, one of them, please. And that was the only way I managed to survive. So I very quickly learned to speak Mandarin.
Speaker 2:Because of expats. There were little enclaves of Western housing where expats lived together. I didn't go there to live with a load of expats, I went there to live in China. So I lived in a Chinese house with Chinese people and that was a wonderful experience because you know, that way you really got to understand how Chinese culture worked, how it evolved and how people already got to understand all the aspects of their life, and so I stayed out there for 10 years.
Speaker 2:It was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life and you know, every day you realised just how small you were in a country that was dominated by people that didn't look like you, didn't speak like you, didn't have your history and your background, didn't have your cultural values and so on. And it's their country and you were a guest in their country. An experience, I would say, that for many people coming. You know, here in the UK we have wonderful diversity. You know it's fantastic to see that in the population, but sometimes we don't put ourselves into the minds of other people when they're visiting and they don't know our culture. They have to get used to it and we can be a little intolerant of those people and sometimes you just have to realise that their background is different to yours and you have to understand each other and I certainly learned to do that when I was out in China.
Speaker 1:What strikes me is the insatiable curiosity that you've had ever since being a youngster. I do love Liverpool. My mum is from the Wirral and it's also a really diverse place actually.
Speaker 2:It very much is.
Speaker 1:What's fascinating is this move to China and the move to the unknown as a Westerner, a white foreigner, similar in experience, as we've mused over before with my husband, who also speaks fluent Mandarin yet I am the Chinese-looking one who's adopted? By my parents and can't speak a word, but he always reflects on in a similar way than you do, that that was one of the moments in life that really almost shaped you, because clearly you went off then to explore other international territories and learn a huge amount more about diversity from a very, very different lens.
Speaker 2:Well, that's very right, that's very true, and you know if you think of yourself always as the guest in somebody else's house when you're in another country and it's your role to adapt to their environment and not the other way around. There are many, many habits of Chinese people and Chinese culture that I couldn't relate to, and some of those things you know you would sort of naturally feel as a foreigner in the country, alien to the way that you would live your life, choosing your food out of a cage or out of a tank before you sit down and eat. It is slightly odd. As a Westerner, we're used to sitting in a restaurant ordering off a menu and then the food appears on a plate. But in a Chinese restaurant in China, you go to the front of the restaurant where the food is still alive and you're choosing it, and they then take it out for you. They kill it and cook it and serve it up to you. Well, that's quite an odd experience. I always felt it was a bit like going to see a movie and then eating the actors. But that's one of those cultural things, and when you understand why Chinese people do that, they say, and it makes eminent sense, that's the only way that we know that our food is fresh and that it's good. And actually, when you think about it, what's the difference between what we do? There's just a cold chain in between, but that sort of thing takes some getting used to. So I'm getting used to. But if you put yourself in the position that you have to adapt to somebody else's culture and that their culture is the dominant one and therefore it's you with you, adapt to other people to give them the comfort, to give them the confidence that you will be compatible with the way that they are and behave, and if there are things that fundamentally you disagree on, you talk about them, but you don't just reject them in an aggressive manner. You talk about why you can't accept certain things.
Speaker 2:I'll give you an example of something that I found very, very hard to understand at the time. So I was recruiting for a secretary and, uh, I found this lovely young lady applied for the job who said, uh, I've been studying english, uh, at university, and I needed an english speaker. And uh, so I said well, what have you been studying? She said, well, I've been studying Lady Chatterley's Lover, which I was amazed at. And I said really, did you read the whole book. She said no, we weren't allowed to read chapter three and chapter seven. So I said to her.
Speaker 2:So the professor said to you you can't read. No, we're not allowed to read that. So I read the rest of the book. Did you not read chapter three first? When the professor told you that you couldn't read chapter three? And she said no, the professor told me I can't read it. So I haven't read it. And I said now there is the first cultural difference between Chinese people and English people. The only chapters that English people would read, given those instructions, are chapters three and seven, and we wouldn't bother with the rest because those are obviously the interesting ones. But you are very compliant and you do what you're told and that is very impressive, because we are unruly and we wouldn't do that. And you know, I kind of learned that big cultural difference.
Speaker 1:I know it sounds like a small thing, but it's actually a very major thing when it comes to understanding differences between two cultures and it's like that reverse psychology thing I think we do have here, uh, over in the uk, and you know almost the how do you describe it?
Speaker 1:the, the history of colonialism, amongst many other things which actually means perhaps we are leading from a position of strength when we're going out to other countries and so being humble and respectful which is something that's really come out from the examples that you've given goes a very long way to doing business in other countries, which clearly you've taken some of that learning into places like the, the UAE, which again is another incredibly different place to work.
Speaker 2:You're absolutely right. I mean, I've made some fantastic faux pas along the way as well. I remember setting up a business in India and flying in setting up with somebody a meeting the following morning at 8.30 and turning up for this meeting with some business partners and nobody turned up at all and I was getting very annoyed that the other people had bothered to turn up. And then eventually people came in about midday and of course I learned that 8 o'clock in the morning doesn't exist. There's no such time. Nothing starts before midday. If you go to a restaurant in Delhi, in delhi, and try and book a table at uh, seven o'clock in the evening, they laugh at you. They haven't, they don't know. Before 11, you know, people have dinner at one o'clock in the morning and two o'clock in the morning, a little bit like spanish culture. Um, so if you go in just with your, you know simple things like that you go with your, your western, uh and british way of doing things that don't fit into the culture, you can't do anything at all. And much as we think our way is the right way, we do have to remember that our way is not the only way and the understanding that other people can have successful outcomes, successful and happy lives with a different set of cultural values and a different set of behaviours is incredibly important. You know, from China I go back to the UK. Then, after that, I went to work in the Middle East for seven years, as you say. Actually, I lived in Kuwait, but also had a lot of business in the UAE, for example, and there you learn that some of the cultures, if you ask somebody something and, uh, they're not sure what to what to say. They they just say yes. Actually, the real answer is no, but they cannot say no to you because that's a loss of face. Therefore, they just say yes.
Speaker 2:And I remember we were, uh, opening a shake shack, which is a burger business in the Middle East, and I said to one of my guys we've got this new bit of machinery that makes this really fancy ice cream. It's the first time this machinery has ever been brought into the Gulf, so it's brand new. Have you got a set of spares for it? And it goes wrong. And he said, yep, I've spoken to the local engineer. And he says you've got a full set of spares for it and it goes wrong. And he said, uh, yep, I've spoken to the local engineer and he says you've got full set spares.
Speaker 2:I said excellent, have you seen them? And he said well, no, because I don't need them. I said, well, ask to go and see them, okay, if I must. So he went off and he came back and he said did you ask me that for a reason? And I came back and he said did you ask me that for a reason? And I said why? And he said because there aren't any.
Speaker 2:And I said exactly, if you didn't understand when he said yes, he's got them, then actually the answer is no, he hasn't. Actually, if the machinery got wrong, there were no spares and you would have been waiting three weeks to get a spare sent in from America where the machinery was made. The fact that you actually asked to see them and you go, oh well, means that you could now get them and prepare. So don't accept everything on the face of it, because what somebody says isn't necessarily what is true, and that's just one of those cultural adaptations. It doesn't mean somebody's wrong, it doesn't mean they're trying to cheat, it's just their cultural challenge is they can't let you down and therefore they can't say no to you and therefore, when you know that you have to find other ways around it to get over the problem how did you learn to adapt in environments like this, because that again is such a different way?
Speaker 1:well, not that you know, it's not easy to say yes to things and then worry about how you let people down. But ultimately, how did you adapt? Because these cultures are really different cultures and, again, the American culture very much doesn't mind failure, actually you learn a lot from failure you talked about some of the faux pas. How did you adapt?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you start by listening, talking and learning from people. So you try as much as you can to find people that you trust, and an awful lot of people, particularly when you go to their country for the first time. They want to help you adapt, they want to teach you about their culture. You know people are very proud of their cultures cultures. So I found in the Middle East people would absolutely decide themselves to try to help you understand things and explain why certain things are as they are. You know why there are certain conflicts that are very, very deep seated and you go right back in history and you understand the origins of that, and then you can respect both sides' opinions. So I think the first thing you do is you try to learn. You actively go out and try to learn.
Speaker 2:There is then, of course, a big dollop of trial and error where things just go wrong a lot and you realize that the root cause of something isn't quite what you thought it was, and then I think a big piece of the sort of responsibility for people like me that have had these experiences is to pass that on to others. So you know, these days I spend quite a lot of time mentoring people so that you can pass on your experience to others, because if you can help people avoid issues, to have a more comfortable existence and a more fruitful and fulfilling existence through teaching them about the things that you got wrong, then surely that's a very helpful thing to do and I like to be able to do that. But people have done that for me plenty of times.
Speaker 1:Let's talk more about that, because there is a huge amount of power in sending the lift back down inspiring, educating, motivating others to ultimately not just make the world a better place, but also to make sure that we are doing great things for the world of business, and right now it is a really challenging time.
Speaker 1:So, developing talent, mentoring, nurturing, as you do really well, not only for female team members, helping elevate leaders, but also giving back and some of the reverse mentoring you've been talking about. Tell us more about the talent landscape, because it's something that we touched on the other day and it was a fascinating conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know one of the great things. I worked in this absolutely amazing company, alshire, based in the Middle East, and we had 120 nationalities working in one business. Now, if you just think about your own context and your own business, you know most of us are lucky to find people of three or four different origins, but 120 is honestly something else. You know, I remember talking to the ambassador for for bhutan and, uh, lovely, lovely gentleman, and he had a staff of three people in the embassy and he told me that they actually only had one citizen in the entire country and that citizen was working for me. So I was his entire focus of his four diplomats for one working person.
Speaker 2:Uh, now, okay, that's a little bit of overkill, but nonetheless, the diversity. Honestly, most people say this in a very trite way and I'm sure they mean it well, but they say diversity enriches a business and helps you succeed. But it genuinely really does. Yeah, and I certainly found that the reason for that is that people come from different viewpoints, have different ways of looking at things and, you know, in most businesses you've got very diverse customer bases. You know, some are very linear, fine, but an awful lot are not, and be it ethnicity or gender or neurodiversity or age. There are all sorts of aspects of talking to those people and appealing to the customer bases that are better served by having people with the experience of those diversities in your team. Of that there's no doubt in my mind at all In your team, of that there's no doubt in my mind at all, no-transcript, and that's always a better outcome in my view.
Speaker 2:And now when I look at the talent landscape, as you rightly say, across the UK, I think we're one of the luckiest cultures that there is. This is a very diverse country that, on the whole, assimilates diversity better than most. We have our tensions, of course we do, but you know we've come from such a multicultural background and you know empires and so on are very bad things. I mean there's no question, going out and conquering other countries is not a good thing. Would not recommend that as a way forward for anybody, including those trying to do it at the moment. But some of the good things that come out of that is, if you act in an appropriate way, you learn and you bring some of that cultural benefit back into your homeland, which I think in the UK we genuinely have, and personally, I feel more comfortable in the UK than I probably would do in any other single culture.
Speaker 1:I like how you've articulated this and it makes me think of a smorgasbord of cultures. Now, of course, there are impending factors geopolitically at the moment which are really challenging and difficult to ignore, but I think this is one of the reasons why we really need to shine a greater light on why social impact, diversity, inclusion, culture all have a strong lever to drive economic outcome.
Speaker 2:Well, that's absolutely right. So, as an example, my day job now is to run a brand called Hello Student. Our company's called Empiric Student Properties, but our trading brand's Hello Student and we have a beautiful smorgasbord I like that word of customers from all different parts of the world. 70% of our customers are not British and when we are looking at how we deliver a really enriching customer experience for those people, we have to look at all sorts of elements. You know just a simple thing. For example, we all know that in the UK we think the number 13 is unlucky and so many apartments won't have a 13th floor. There'll be a 12th floor, there might be a 12A and a 12B sometimes, or there might be a 14th. Often, 13 is missing.
Speaker 2:In China, the number four is unlucky and you know, in Chinese language, in Mandarin, the word for four is si, and si also means death. So the reason is that four is unlucky because people associate it with death and therefore nobody wants a car number plate with a four on it because that's very unlucky, and nobody wants to live in an apartment that's on floor four. So now, that's a simple fact that if you're hosting Chinese students in your accommodation, don't put them on the fourth floor. Or if you have a fourth floor, don't call it the fourth floor, call it 3A, 3B, whatever you want to call it, but just be sensitive to those things. They really do make a huge difference.
Speaker 2:Other things like celebrating the national and religious holidays of people that are not from this culture. So we make a big deal of Chinese New Year. It happens to be lots of fun as well, which is great, and the great thing is that we get to celebrate all sorts of things Diwali and right the way through all of the religious holidays that you can imagine. What does that do? That does a couple of things. It makes the people for whom that is directly relevant feel comforted and at home, which is really important. But secondly, it allows everybody else to understand and enjoy the culture of somebody from somewhere else and get the benefit of learning about it, because then you've learned what are the characteristics behind it. And there are probably more Christmas trees put up by muslim customers than there are by our christian customers. Um, because everybody just enjoys that period of christmas.
Speaker 1:But it's it's something that you have to be sensitive to in making sure that you embrace, provide for and encourage the celebration of things that are important to other people, and not just your own culture well, the cultural sensitivity to your point and that feeling of belonging is far more prominent in buying decisions than I think often people realize and when we're looking at shifts of wealth and incoming revenue from other countries it absolutely makes sense. It would be crazy not to be tailoring things to make sure that the customer experience is exactly right.
Speaker 2:That's absolutely right. I'll give you an example. We've got a couple of really good sites in Birmingham who do incredibly well and about the first time I visited there and I went to speak to some of our customers, I said what is it you like about them? Because, to be honest, at the time, we've since refurbished them, but at the time they were a bit shabby, they weren't in the best of conditions. Yet our customers, they absolutely love them. And I said I said what is it? They said well, we've got an asian supermarket on the ground floor. Um, and in this whole district, uh, near in sally oak, so near the university of birmingham, this was the largest asian supermarket. So all our asian customers could just go down there buy all the food that they were familiar with. You know they don't eat kellogg's cornflakes and sliced white bread. They want to eat the food that they're brought up and familiar with and they could buy it there.
Speaker 2:Now that gave not only a good cultural experience, but when I spoke to most of the students as to why they were living there, they said because the previous students had told us that's the place you have to live.
Speaker 2:So we had a really strong commercial performance there, simply because it was very popular, because the students had such good experience there Simple stuff. So one of the things I came to realise very quickly in our business was we have a lot of commercial property that's below our accommodation, on the ground floor, as it were, and you know, in the past we were just leasing it out to anybody that would pay us the highest rent, and I soon realised that was a mistake. What you should be doing is trying to rent it out to people that will give your customers, the people that live there, the best experience themselves, and then that would encourage them and future generations to want to live in your accommodation. That was far more commercially powerful than just getting the best rent off a bathroom showroom or a tattoo shop although maybe some students like tattoo shops, but uh, but generally speaking they they'd normally prefer a pub or a convenience store or an Asian supermarket.
Speaker 1:What's fantastic is this is a direct, a great simple, as you said, example, but it literally shows the correlation between purchasing power, cultural sensitivities and greater revenues. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on the whole notion of business for good, because the archetypal view is can you have both? Do we believe we can have both when markets are more challenging, when things are becoming, you know, margins being squeezed and business leaders and shareholders are putting CEOs under pressure and shareholders are putting.
Speaker 1:CEOs under pressure. Why do you think it's so important that we continue to focus on social impact?
Speaker 2:And how much do you think it has actually made a difference to your business? Well, so I'm a big fan, a bit of an acolyte, of Richard Branson. It's often very popular for people of my age to say that Richard Branson is their icon, but he genuinely is mine for a variety of reasons and he's not a conventional character at all, but he is an extraordinary street businessman and he has a huge heart in him. One of the things that he said was that the purpose of business is to make people's lives better. Now, most business people will speak to, particularly in the city of london, will say to you the purpose of business is to make money. Actually, what branson is saying is right, because if you make people's lives better, then they pay money for their lives to be better and therefore you make money. But so, intrinsically, your job as a business person is to serve people and through serving people you get paid and through that pay you pay back your investors.
Speaker 2:Now, if you take that through to its obvious conclusion, if you're in business and you're doing bad or you're doing nothing, then you can't be, in the medium to long term, as successful as a business that's doing good, because in the end customers will migrate to the businesses that do do good and do good things, so they will migrate away from those that don't. So whilst in the short term you can exploit and you can have monopoly positions and you can take advantage of these sort of things, in the medium and long term you can't, because people find a way around that and they break the model and you end up losing out. So I think it's just a very obvious notion that if you do things that are good, the end, if not immediately, you're going to have a better business outcome, because I can't see what else we're in business for other than satisfying people, because else what are we doing?
Speaker 1:long-term sustainable prosperity. 100 ultimately, you can't.
Speaker 2:You can't destroy your environment, you can't destroy culture. You can't destroy your environment. You can't destroy culture. You can't make people unhappy and hope to make good business in the long term. You know, of course there are times when people can exploit their position and they might have monopoly positions and so on, but in the end life always finds a way and those businesses don't succeed over time way and those businesses don't succeed over time. And therefore I'm an absolute philosophical believer in doing the right thing, because it makes people's lives better, will be better business, and every time that's the case.
Speaker 1:So do you think that we're finally in the business of doing well by doing good?
Speaker 2:Oh, you'd like to think so, wouldn't you? But you know, look, we could all sit here and come up with probably a thousand and one examples where that is not the case. And you know, sadly, there are continuous learnings where things are not done the way they should be and corners are cut, and you know, people exploit others, and so on, genuinely. You know, I've worked in regulated businesses. I used to work in a company called BAA who owned all the UK major airports Highly, highly regulated business.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're a business person, normally you're allergic to regulation. You know, regulation is the kind of antithesis of what you really want to do in a free-flowing entrepreneurial thing. But the truth is, good outcomes come from good regulation and good business people, and you need both, because unregulated markets and unregulated behavior does not work so much as one would like to reduce levels of red tape and so on. A policy framework and good enforcement is absolutely essential. I think it will be fair to say we see that with water companies, for example.
Speaker 2:Today. Water companies cannot all be about just making profit. They have to be about doing the right thing in the right way, as many are finding out right now. So I think there has to be a framework. There has to be oversight and scrutiny, but the business people themselves have to look at that as being a positive way of setting an even playing field level playing field for themselves and competitors, and that's always a better place to be than a slightly biased playing field where you may win but equally you may lose. So I think you you know my experience has been much as we all hate red tape regulation. Certainly appropriate regulation is essential.
Speaker 1:Frameworks and policy makes me absolutely essential, you are right and ultimately nuancing those as per the country, because we're seeing lots of different things. Legislation is changing quicker than you know. The speed of light, yes sadly so.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know, I I take a perhaps a slightly strange view on some of the challenges to uh, the progress that we've all made, uh, that we see, you know, particularly emanating out of other countries at the moment.
Speaker 2:Uh, and that is at particular moments in time, we we look at those challenges and we look at the pushbacks as being very negative, and no doubt they are at that time.
Speaker 2:However, one of the things that they do achieve is, in the majority of cases, they show most people that they're a bad thing and that they're wrong and that those intolerances that come out of it actually are not a good thing. And again, going back to, you know, life finds a way. People will react against those in time and those lessons get learned and you don't tend to revisit that, at least not for a very long time. So much as it's painful to watch some of the things that are going on at the moment and hear some of the language that's being used and some of the pushbacks against the progress I think we've all made for, particularly inclusion, I think it's no bad thing to shine a light on that viewpoint and show you that it's actually not a sustainable way and that in a not too long period of time. Following that, people will rail against it and probably then take us to the next level that we need to do. Sometimes it takes a revolution to achieve your own.
Speaker 1:You've just articulated that beautifully. Oh, thank you. Well, I love it because it is easy to get into a spiral as a business leader, as an entrepreneur, as someone who is often in a quite lonely place battling against whether it is trying to bring back profits, bring businesses back into the black and such. Actually, this pendulum swing, as you've described it, almost when it goes so far that way everyone realises you do end up with a bounce.
Speaker 1:you do back, but ultimately, nothing is ever steady state, is it? And so actually demonstrating the what happens when situation exactly leads us back to where we hopefully need to be, despite it sometimes feeling like it's two steps back, one step forward. It's every cloud has got a silver lining, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm afraid I think that's true. So if you talked about something like war, for example, luckily we're all incredibly grateful to the people who fought for our freedoms back in the 1940s. We haven't had a significant war that we've been involved in now for nearly 100 years. But that means that there's a lot of people now who've been born that have never known how bad it is, who've not experienced how you know the traumas and how awful that thing is, which probably at some point means that it's more likely that another one will happen until that generation learns how bad it is and then stops. Now, hopefully, we all look across to other countries that are in that place and say we don't want to be there and we learn those lessons. So that would be fantastic.
Speaker 2:But I I think there's a lot of things in in in society where, um, generations have to learn for themselves, um, you have to experience it, you have to see how bad it is, and then, when you see how bad it is, you do everything you can to prevent it ever happening again and you buy yourself another several, hopefully, generations of appropriate peace or appropriate policy and so on, and I think for inclusion. At the moment we're probably seeing a bit of that globally, sad as it is for those of us that really passionately believe that it's not just the right thing to do but it gives the right outcomes. There are those that don't, and perhaps the demonstration of that isn't the right way is what the thing we have to just bear with until the rest of the people there get that it doesn't work, and then we all move on again, sadly.
Speaker 1:Which is exactly why conversations like this and impactful CEOs like yourself are so pertinent to ensuring that we do the right thing and we shine a light not a perfect light, because we're all human, we're all fallible but shine a light on the importance of business for good and keep pushing those commercial outcomes, because in any situation business can be such a brilliant force for good oh absolutely. Contrary to all these headwinds and you know lots of trends we're seeing AI talent, lots of generations in the workplace, customer buying behaviour, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Well, let's hope some of these things get rid of boring jobs and create even more fun jobs, because we'd all like to get boring out of the world as well. And you know I look at these technological advances and uh sort of new opportunities as being, uh, you know, providing this regulation and appropriate regulation, which there must be um, as being huge, uh opportunities for us to enrich the way we work, because I passionately believe you are completely right. You know, the work environment, the business environment, is an incredibly rewarding one. It's very social. Obviously, it gives the obvious things like it sustains people, so it provides the wealth that allows us to live in the society that we do. So it's absolute cornerstone of our society. But more than that, it gives us the social experience. You know how many of us have met our partners, best friends and so on through work? You know many, many, many have. You know me, you, you know, and so that's an important part. We dedicate so much of our life to it and if it's fulfilling, it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:You know I am past state retirement age, as you kindly mentioned at the beginning. I've got many decades, more decades than I care to remember. Age and wisdom. Well, thank you. But you know, I maintain the passion and energy for what I do because I love it. It's thoroughly enjoyable.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm constantly in awe of David Attenborough, for a whole variety of reasons Great role model. But you know, there's a man doing probably some of his most important work at 99. Well, you know, I'd love to be still doing something useful at 99. You know, I know most people want to, you know, put their feet up and play golf all the time. There's nothing wrong with the occasional game of golf, but there is something about keeping a purpose in you and doing things that are valuable to you, uh, and if they're also valuable to society as well, um, I think it keeps you young and I think it keeps you energized and I think it keeps your brain, um, stretched, um. So to my mind, you know, the idea of just saying, well, I've reached state retirement age, I'll let everybody else support me, is, uh, no, uh, I shall, I shall plow on talking of age and wisdom as we come to a close.
Speaker 1:If you you could reflect. You know it's the classic rocking chair test, as they used to call it.
Speaker 2:I haven't bought one of those yet. No, I really must get one, isn't it?
Speaker 1:So you're reflecting on your life. You're reflecting on your life and you're giving some advice to your younger self. Or it could be an aspiring CEOo who's listening, watching in, going you know what. Hey, I would love to do that. Not only do I want to go to liverpool, and then china, and america and uae afterwards, but I would love to be a ceo who's making a difference yeah what advice would you give to your younger self or someone who is really trying to climb up that ladder right now?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, I think I think when you, when you look back and you know I look today and I spent quite a bit of time, my time now, helping others to achieve just those sort of things that's very rewarding to do. Um, two things I probably say. I think the first thing is um, you know great, great movie. If people haven't watched it, I thoroughly recommend watching Dead Poets Society with Robin Williams. Carpe diem, seize the day. And many people ask me I've had this opportunity. Do you think I should take it? My view is don't even ask the question as to whether you should take it, take it.
Speaker 2:When I was asked to go and work in china, it was a very daunting prospect. Would you like to go, pack up, leave your family and go live in a culture that you don't understand and a part of the world that you can't even speak the language or understand anything about, and immerse yourself there for an indeterminate number of years? Hell, yes, um, there's an awful lot of people that will go. Hell, no, or maybe, or, or so on, and I'm not just saying about those sort of things, but if those opportunities present themselves, you always enrich your life one way or another by taking them, even if they're rather seemingly uncomfortable at that moment, they are always enriching. So I would say firstly, take the opportunities where they present themselves. I think the second thing is get advice, get advisors I don't mean paid advisors and so, but people around you who motivate you, who help you, be a bouncing board that you can just say to them I've got this situation, or I've got this opportunity, or I've got this conundrum. I can't work out. What's your thoughts on how I could do it? Should I take this up? Do you think this would be a good thing? This idea of bouncing things off other people and sharing with somebody that you trust is hugely important. You quite rightly said CEOs are a lonely role. Well, yeah, they are, because you're the most senior person in the company.
Speaker 2:For some unknown reason, everybody else seems to think you have the answer to everything, um, and you know, guess what? We don't um, but and all we do, if you're a good ceo, all you do is go and ask somebody else, um, you know, you might have a notion as to what the answer might be, but you go, seek advice, um. So I I would always say to people get yourself a mentor or two or three um people that you trust, people that will challenge you, people that will call you out, people who will tell you dead straight you're being a numpty, you don't do that, um. And people that you listen to um, and alongside that, this might sound slightly strange learn from people that do things wrong and who are not necessarily good people.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll be honest, I've worked for a couple of people who are not good people Uh, I won't go any further than that, but they're not good people and I'll say thank you to those people. Even though I didn't enjoy the experience at the time, I probably learned more from those people than I did from good people, because I just learned all the things not to do, and you know so. It isn't necessarily about surrounding yourself with a great role model.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's about looking and learning from people that are not good role models and just making sure you don't do the same thing, but constantly learn, listen, listen, adapt, try things out and, when the opportunities come, go for it some great advice, in particular, the peer network and the fact that diversity of thought, no matter what it is, is something that you can learn, something from which leads me perfectly into a brief, uh, last few words on the ceo impact council, of which you are part of and I'm thrilled that you're a part of because actually having a cohort of rich minds, ceos, leaders who can share the what's worked, what's hasn't, and the peer network is valuable. Why should other leaders join us on this mission that we have to create social impact for good through our ceo impact council?
Speaker 2:well, one big reason is actually what we've talked about is it is actually good for you to come in and learn and you know, if you believe, like I do, that doing things right and doing things better and doing things that are good actually is good business, then learning from others, all the things that they've done, just shortcuts your own journey. So that in itself is important. But let's be honest we mentioned that business is such a force for can be a force for good, should be a force for good. Groups of CEOs together can really influence. You know, one of the things I've learned is sort of being upside government on many areas of business I've been involved in is sensible politicians. Listen to business people, understand Business people.
Speaker 2:I came out of hospitality. Hospitality is the single biggest employer in the UK after the health service. It employs over 3 million people, so a 20th of our entire population works in hospitality. Now, if you're in government and you don't listen to a bunch of people that run big hospitality businesses, you're very foolish, because those people know they're responsible for the lives and well-being of those 3 million people, all of whom are voters for government. So listen to them. Now you can imagine the more broad you can get the base of that CEO group across different sectors, the more impact that can make on policy, on behavior, sometimes internationally as well, and if they're all focused on doing the right thing, that's pretty powerful.
Speaker 1:Duncan, thank you. Thank you so much. It's always a joy speaking to you truly, not only because you're hilarious, but also you bring this wonderful, insatiable curiosity and sense of logic to everything that you do. I'm going to do my best to summarise into this camera and say thank you. My name is Leila McKenzie-Dallas.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the CEO Impact podcast with the fantastic Duncan Garoud. I'm sure that you've taken away as much as I have, but a couple of the highlight learning points for me were the reflections that Duncan had on cultural nuances, and not just cultural nuances from a personal perspective, but also how they can influence better outcomes and decision-making, not only when it comes to the variety of different stakeholders, but, in particular, the customer, and how we can utilise that diversity of thought, the cultural nuances, to not only make our customer feel they belong, but drive greater commercial outcomes, and that is something that we desperately need, even more so in British PLC. Today. We are a smorgasbord of rich cultures, and looking at how we can be nimble, we can adapt to the individuals that we have, not only through a customer perspective but also through a talent perspective, is what will keep us as one of the great employers in Europe, and I think that's something really to take away from today. Also, being humble, being curious and not necessarily thinking that you know it all.
Speaker 1:I almost want to call this podcast the accidental CEO podcast, because listening to Duncan talking about the early days wanting to be a zookeeper, ending up in a highly commercial arena, but actually making greater social impact and change and hopefully doing some great things to work with the government and change the future of our nation, not only locally but also globally. Because we can all learn from one another and ultimately drive greater prosperity and economic impact and pass the baton on, because it's all about our future generations of leaders and how we can foster an environment that makes them be able to thrive. We want to leave this world in a better place. Thank you so much. Hope you enjoyed the podcast. Visit us at wwwdarlglobalorg. See you again very soon.