Empowering Delegation and Leveraging Diversity with Tony Harris

Empowering Delegation and Leveraging Diversity with Tony Harris

Sean: You brushed a little bit about hiring and culture. And this is something that a lot of people still struggle with and it’s a big area. I’m sure you have some case studies that you work with a couple of founders who have had problems with attracting talent.

I wonder what is it with attracting talent? Why would some companies not attract talent? Was usually the problem and what’s usually the solution?

Tony: Well, the first thing I always say to people who are leaders and I’ve always felt it myself, is that if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’ve got a problem because you shouldn’t be the smartest person in the room. You might be the most well-rounded person in the room. If it’s if we’re talking about this, there should be somebody else in the room who’s smarter than you are on it. Hiring is very difficult.

It’s very difficult at the moment because there are so many new dynamics that you have to bear in mind working from home. You know, the hybrid model that people want work-life balance, which is a particularly important aspect. When I started, it was all about higher, faster, and stronger. We stayed up later, we worked harder.

And that’s how you beat your opponents. But the new generation working in that, that isn’t what motivates them. They’re not necessarily motivated in the same way. So one of the things that can put people off is if you’re still working to that kind of model I was CEO of, I would still be there if I had to be there at 1:00 in the morning working to get That’s how I was trained to be. 

But very quickly, you realize I can’t go and expect that of everybody. In the old days, people expected me to stay later than my boss. And it’s not right. And what you have to do is listen. One of the things that’s interesting is that we still think and I’m as guilty of it as anybody. We still think sometimes in running our businesses in terms of almost military. We talk about campaigns. We talk about people who walk toward the gunfire. We tend to think about it in that sort of slightly confrontational, aggressive way. And that isn’t how a lot of the newer entrants into the job market want to think they want to advance.

So I think the companies that fail are the ones that are not thinking about what it is that the new job entrants would look for. They want to know that you have a purpose. They want to know that you’re thinking about more than just profit.

What are your environmental policies or charitable endeavors? How do you keep us together? How do you entertain us? What is your culture like? You know, and I do feel for many current leaders because I find that a sort of odd paradox of workforces that desperately want enlightened cultures, good working experience team they like are rewarded properly with the flip side of they want to come in when we have to or we want to do hybrid working because it is very difficult to create a culture when there is minimal contact.

But we will find a way through it. At the moment because we never legislated for it, it’s going to be difficult and there are all sorts of wonderful experiments going on all over the world. A company I know called Hutch, which is a sort of production company that has gone four day week. Everybody is on four-day weeks. We have three-day long weekends.

And they did it well because the people who worked four days already had some. Well, I’m a part-time worker. I work four days. Their salaries went up, then paid full-time as if they were on five days. You know, I think we’re going to see some best practices and we just all have to be prepared to learn from it.

But I think this whole thing about, Oh, millennials are terrible and Gen Z and we can’t work, that’s nonsense. You just have to listen to what they want. So I think the difficulties come from if you’re still a fairly unenlightened employer, they can smell it on you.

Sean: Tony One of the things that kept coming to my mind, as you were discussing earlier, about some of the challenges of these leaders who are facing a plateau is they still do some problems that they shouldn’t be solving and they’re still going doing the things that they shouldn’t be doing at the level of growth that they have in the company or the position that this person should be managing and being more accountable about. So I have two questions here. What’s the reason why these people are stuck doing that? And number two, what’s usually the problem, why don’t they delegate?

Tony: It’s because they know they can fix it quicker. You know, I can do it. I’ll do it. Because, you know, rather than you coming back three times and me remarking it three times till it’s exactly the way that I would like it done, you kind of go, just, I’ll do it.

Sometimes you have to be off everybody’s shoe and we’ve all got to get forward and let’s just truncate this and this is it. I talked about the person who had failed as an MD because they were pitching themselves down.

The real failure of it is it disempowers the people who should be doing the job. My view is you can do it your way, you can do it my way, but have a way, and then you’ll get through it. As long as you know what you’re doing, I have to trust my judgment that your way may not.

Highly reflecting the way I would do it will still bring the same result in the same time frame. And it’s just about trust. The problem is that many of the leaders who are in that situation have done it. They’ve done every aspect of the job up to the one they’re doing now.

And they just go, Well, I can do that. I’ll do it because they just want it moving. But sometimes you must take the time and train somebody to get it right so that you don’t have to do it every time you go and do it yourself.

You’re denying one of the people the training opportunity and a training opportunity with the best in their organization. And suddenly when you put it in those terms, it’s like, Oh, well, I don’t want to do that. You know, you go, okay, I can do this in two minutes.

But if I spent ten minutes just sitting down with you and telling you how this might be done better and what you need to think about, that is a training opportunity that is worth its weight in gold, because I’ll never forget it.

Sean: And you mentioned as well about hiring someone expensive, right? You hired someone expensive to do it. Why do it yourself? You burst through that and this is a real problem. As I talk with a lot of entrepreneurs who are still doing it, I’m Filipino-Chinese, so we call it the Chinese way, doing it the Chinese way. You still always want to be hands-on. So the problem is a lot of people I know have gotten burned.

They hired someone expensive but just didn’t deliver. How do you hire someone expensive and at the same time get the right person? What’s the best advice for that to happen?

Tony: Check references because some people become very expensive because they move before they get found out and they can accumulate a very impressive CV without necessarily the achievements on it. And some people were nearby to things that would claim them.

Advertising was a great thing that was often the case for us in advertising. People would say, Oh, I did that campaign. And you go, Well, you did one bit three months later at the end of it, Yes, but not the progenitor of it. My best advice is always to check the references.

And if you have a doubt, you’re probably right. If there’s any doubt in your head, you’re probably right. But you also have to say to yourself, I could bring this person in. They will not do it the same way as me.

They’re expensive and they’re highly regarded because they can do these things. It’s not necessarily in my style. I haven’t created these people, so I have to let them get on and do it. The only way is I believe you set them tasks and deadlines and KPIs that they need to meet.

Now they may not meet them in the same trajectory or through going the same direction as you would, but if they meet them, it is on budget, it is on time and everybody is happy. Why are you upset about it? They did it a different way. You’ve now got two styles of doing something.

The problem is that you just want them to do it the way you do it. But if you’ve spent big, they’ve already got their style, like I said, your way or my way, but have a way. They’ve already got a way and it’s not your way.

And that tends to be what it’s because you go, I’m paying you all this money. Why aren’t you just like me? You’re not because I’m paying you all this money. Because you can do what I want you to do. If you check the references, you’ll know whether you’re taking a risk. I don’t think people often do.