Ep27: How Customer Centricity Fuels Business Success and Innovation with Hamish Taylor

Welcome to Human Wise, the podcast that explores the commercial advantage of being human at work.

With host Helen Wada, executive coach and founder of The Human Advantage, each episode will explore what being human at work looks like across a wide range of industries, from people in senior management to those on the ground.

Why are customer relationships the secret weapon to thriving businesses in today's complex world? Listen to this insightful episode as we uncover the power of customer-centric transformation with Hamish Taylor, an acclaimed expert in innovation and change management. Discover how Taylor leverages cross-industry insights to drive success and build trust by truly understanding customer needs.

Learn how to shift from focusing on personal success to enabling others, and explore the critical role of listening and empathy in creating valuable customer interactions. Taylor shares compelling examples from his diverse career, explaining how lessons from unexpected industries like yacht design and rugby refereeing can revolutionize traditional business practices.

Whether you're a leader striving to enhance company culture or a sales professional seeking stronger client connections, this episode offers transformative insights on making business more human-centered. Don't miss this opportunity to rethink how you engage with customers and unlock the full potential of your business relationships!

Topics Discussed:

• Customer centricity as basis
• Building trust with clients
• Insights for customer understanding
• Engaging effectively with customers
• Innovative thinking in business

View Extended Shownotes here

About Hamish Taylor

• Follow Hamish on LinkedIn

With a CV that the London Times described as “takes some beating”, Hamish Taylor has an award winning record of driving innovation and change in a number of very different environments. 

Today, he is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading experts in customer centricity as a basis for Transformation, Great Service and Innovation

Hamish was trained in Brand management at international consumer goods giant Procter and Gamble, a Management Consultant at Price Waterhouse, Head of Brands at British Airways, CEO of International high speed railway Eurostar, and CEO of Sainsburys Bank – all before he was 40! In each case, he left behind a record of significant growth/turnaround triggered by a willingness to challenge industry/organisation norms and place the customer at the core of all activities.  

Regularly featured in broadcast media, today Hamish acts as an adviser to some of the world’s largest companies (and Governments).  Over 350 organizations in 48 different countries have sought Hamish’s inspiration. 

The Inspired Leaders Network even gave him the title of “master thief” due to his record of stealing ideas from one environment to use in another.

Further links to follow:

Helen Wada: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/helen-wada

The Human Advantage: https://www.thehumanadvantage.co.uk/

Transcript

Ep27: How Customer Centricity Fuels Business Success and Innovation with Hamish TaylorHelen Wada: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of human 

wise. 

I am absolutely delighted to have 

Hamish 

Taylor here with me this morning. Welcome Hamish. and For those listeners I'll give them a bit of a bit of your sort of commercial history and then maybe we'll hand over to you a little bit about who you really are. 

But 

Hamish 

has a CV that the London Times describes as taking some beating and a world winning record of driving innovation and change across a number of different environments and now widely recognized as one of the world's leading experts in custom centricity as a basis for transformation.

Great service and innovation and we met at a conference last year, and I saw how the passion for this customer centricity and really relationships 

and 

serving customers really came across. And that's why I was delighted when he accepted my offer to come on the podcast. 

He was trained as a brand management, international consumer goods [00:01:00] giant at Procter 

Gamble.

Many of us know, then as a management consultant. At Pricewaterhouse, before becoming head of brands at British Airways, CEO of international high speed rail network, and latterly 

Sainsbury's Bank. And all before the age of 40, Hamish, how did you fit it in? I wonder.

Hamish Taylor Video: It's

Hamish Taylor: only a couple of years ago, as you can see. 

Helen Wada: Ha ha ha, 

kept the hair with it as well.

Ha ha ha, my husband will join you on that. But look, anyway, it's wonderful to have you here, somebody with your Esteemed sort of background, passion for the customer. We're talking here about being human, about relationships in business. And so I'd love to hand over to you to hear a little bit more about who you are, what, what, you love, what you enjoy, and a little bit define the, hey, this is a CEO. 

Helen Wada Video: hey, I'm

Hamish Taylor: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's great to be here. Thanks for the invite as ever. Look, I think um, yes, I've had a pretty varied career, I guess, in terms of, of, of, and that kind of sums up how I approach work in many ways. [00:02:00] I mean, I started off, yes, being the UK's leading expert on housewives, toilet cleaning habits.

I think we've got, Through my Procter and Gamble days and then moved into more glamorous things. So yes, from sort of consumer goods and toilet cleaning through to Concord when I was at British Airways as head of brands there. So it was kind of a, a slight upgrade, should we say in quality of brand as I moved from that to that.

But, but no joking apart, there's, there's, you know, Procter and Gamble is very consumer focused. And, and everything you do is based on what the, what the customer wants and designing your products and services around it. But let's face it, it's consumer goods. So every bottle of fairy liquids, the same as the previous one.

So actually being customer centric is a fantastic philosophy, but it's reasonably straightforward to do when you move into service industries. All of a sudden you find that people and behavior are actually part of your product. And therefore you had to learn a completely different set of skills that was all about influencing people and all that sort of side of things.

Which I loved. And then moving into chief exec roles, it was my chance to actually try and do that in organizations that were not [00:03:00] so customer led at the time. And I think in terms of something that means you describe it. I mean, I think, you know, I guess I'm an enthusiast. I love, I love getting into the, but, but particularly I love getting into new areas.

So for me, it was exciting being the non rail women running a railway, the non banker running a bank, the non airline guy going into the airline, because it was exciting to learn something new and try and bring something into it. But I think the thing you have to learn when you take a route or a career route like that, though, is recognizing that you have to respect the skills and the disciplines that are there already.

So yes, I had a belief that we could be more customer centric in whether it's Eurostar or Sainsbury's Bank, but at the same time, let's recognize that these guys that are already there have a fantastic product and are, you know, world experts at what they do. And it's not about dismissing what went before and saying, I've got a new way of doing things.

Here we go. It's, it's about building on what's already there.

Helen Wada: I think that's, I think that's right. I think it's fascinating. And, and, you know, [00:04:00] 

I can feel the energy coming across. I know that the listeners will in terms of that, you know, moving from, from one, one industry to another and what that brings with you. you. talk about relationships, talk about network 

and 

talk about understanding people.

But I always start this podcast with a question. What does 

being human at work mean to you in the context of what you've seen in your career history?

Hamish Taylor: Now, that's a great question. I mean, I'll sum it up in one statement, which usually it's not about you. And what do I mean by that? Look, it's easy when you're thinking about what does human at work mean to focus on personal traits, you know, being authentic, being honest. What's it make to be a great leader, et cetera, but, but in my work, you know, and what I've learned since I tend to focus more on how we interact with others as a basis for personal and business success.

So, you know, think about it. Humans are social animals. We don't live in isolation and we certainly don't work in isolation. So how we engage with others is actually the key to our own personal success. And therefore [00:05:00] the ability to understand the other person's world is what allows you to interact and whether the other person is, you know, a customer of your business, if you're at work, or whether it's internal, like your boss or another department, the point about it is that everything we do is actually about enabling somebody else's success.

So what we've got to do is put their success. As the basis for what we do. So in a sense, you're kind of almost turning value propositions on their head. Your value is not how great you are, but the benefit you bring to others and translating that into work situations is what customer led transformation is, which is what I do for a living.

But, but it really sums up my philosophy about what being human at work is about. It's about your interactions, your engagement with others. It's not about describing yourself and what you think you are great at.

Helen Wada: I think that is brilliant. And I. 

It's 

really interesting that you absolutely start with that because there's a lot of conversations. I think quite rightly, we've been on podcast talking about, you know, how you show up, how you're being authentic, [00:06:00] 

things 

about you, but actually, and this is where one of the lenses that I bring from a coaching perspective, why, why are coaching and sales for me, very inextricably linked? because as a

when

I walk into the 

room.

I leave whatever's going on behind me at the door, so whether that I've had a crazy time with the children before I've left, or the train is late, or I'm worried about something else, all of that, or I've had an argument with a colleague, or, you know, 

it's just 

You leave that at the door and the minute you walk in to face, in my instance, when I'm coaching a client, a client, but when I was a global client director, you're looking at customers, you're interested in what they're talking about.

Hamish Taylor: Absolutely. It's interesting. I worked for a while with a company called vision consulting and. They have a very interesting technique they use where they do a check in at the beginning. So whenever you sit down in a meeting with anybody or a group of people, they would do a [00:07:00] check in around the table and everybody would talk about what was going on in their lives or what was going on.

And you'd get stories about, well, actually, you know, and they would tell stories about, well, actually, I had a nightmare with the kids this morning or whatever. And what it allowed was to get a context for the meeting, you know. So you knew everybody was coming from. So for example, if somebody would say, well, you know, I'm, I'm actually under a bit of a pressure this morning because I've got X, Y, Z to do, you know, quite often the person would run in the meeting would say, well, tell you what, why don't you go and do that?

Because realistically, you're not going to be focusing on this meeting. You've got other things going on. You know, don't focus on, on what's important to you at the moment. And it was a way of bringing the other person's life to the fore, if you like, so that you could then manage the meeting appropriately, knowing where people were coming from.

Helen Wada Video: Yeah.

Helen Wada: And we do that with our group 

coaching 

work. You know, it's 

you, how I love the question. How are you 

arriving, Which we don't use often enough, right? There you go. You could have done it in one sentence as opposed to my two paragraphs. Okay.

Helen Wada Video: But, but

Helen Wada: how are you arriving? [00:08:00] And, and that's 

for you, and that, that sensory check in that, that, we talk about, that, that we learn through all the coaching work, is that, are we feeling stressed? Are we energized? What do we need to do to center ourselves, that moment of pause, before you go into the room, and then as you say, acknowledging how others are arriving.

If you're 

noticing 

somebody is fiddling with their phone or, you know, call it out. Is there something you need to do right now rather than be in this room, because otherwise it can be a distraction.

Hamish Taylor: Absolutely. And I mean, I think what you've highlighted really is the whole starting point of anything about customer centricity, which is understanding the other person's world, you know, because that's where it's got to start. And. And I think the mistake a lot of people do is they think that when you're trying to understand the other person's world, you're just trying to understand what they're trying to do.

You know, what is it they're trying to do? What's their list of objectives or whatever? And how am I going to help them? But actually what you find over time is that if you really want to influence somebody else's world or [00:09:00] engage with them properly, it's about much more than that. You know, and companies talk about, you know, put yourself in your customer's shoes, for example.

Well, yes, it's good to understand the journey that a customer's going on. But where do they make their decisions? Where do they decide if they like you or not? They don't make those decisions in their shoes. It's in their head. So what you've got to journey you've got to understand is the customer's mental journey.

And that means lots of things. I mean, give an example, Sainsbury's bank, okay, was a, you know, Sainsbury's supermarket chain launches into financial services. And, and try to do what a retail bank would do by having, you know, great displays of leaflet racks and things like that, like you might see in a bank crotch and it didn't work. The insight, the understanding that turns Sainsbury's bank around was understanding what mood are people in when they walk into Sainsbury's not what's their list of financial product needs. But what mood are they in when they walk into Sainsbury's? And when you understand that, you understand they're in a hurry.

They want to get in and get out. They want to you know, they know what they want to buy. They want to put it in the trolley and go. They don't want to sit down and have a 10 minute conversation about your credit [00:10:00] card while the ice cream is melting and the kids are running up the aisle. You know, it's just not going to happen, is

Helen Wada: I can imagine it. And I've been there before.

Hamish Taylor: the whole, so the whole business model had to change. You know, we had to get to really simple, really easy to understand products. And it's things like that, that me are the real insights that enable you to build those relationships, to understand your customer expectations. Customers don't judge you on what you do.

They judge you on what you do relative to what they expected. Have you understood their expectations? What else? Understanding the person, you know, you're not dealing with another company or another business. You're dealing with a person in that business. So what do you know about them that might help?

In fact, one of the best relationships I had was a guy who ran one of the major advertising agencies. And he used to come and see me in my Eurostar days and we'd have a conversation and the conversation was not about how Eurostar was losing 200 million pounds a year and how he could do X, Y, Z to help me get there.

He would actually ask about me as a person. He'd say, right, you've been here kind of a few months. How's it going? And what do you know about me? You know, my background's [00:11:00] in brand management, so there's been gaps in my knowledge. I'm 50 percent owned by government, so I've got to deal with senior government officials that never talk in their own language.

I've never had to do that before, so maybe that's how you help me. I'm new to this industry. I've come from airlines and toilet cleaners. What do I know about railways? And it's my first chief exec role. You know, I really don't know what I'm doing. And by understanding me and my personal challenges, rather than just the business challenge, it's what built up the relationship, which still goes on to this day.

So this business about getting inside the customer's head, nothing in the person is really, really important.

Hamish Taylor Video: Yes.

Helen Wada Video: uh, 

Helen Wada: It needs it to my ears, Hamish, because it's, it's, it's the human, but for me, it's about looking 

at 

the person on the other side of the table, the fact as a human being. 

Um, because 

business these days 

is 

increasingly complex. It is increasingly uncertain. The geopolitical landscape, none of us quite know where it's going to go next.

You then [00:12:00] overlay technology, all the things you do there. The only constant for me in all of this is that we are a human race, and we are people trying to serve other people in whatever business that we do.

Hamish Taylor: Absolutely. And, and, and the thing about it is as well is I can't influence the geopolitical situation. I can be aware of it and I can scenario plan, but I can't actually influence it. What I can influence. It's the way I'm real relationships with other people. And therefore, you know, I get, I get a bit disturbed when I hear, you know, lots of chief execs like to go onto news night or something and say, you know, Oh, I really let's talk about, you know, the world economy.

What can you do about that? What you can, what you can deal with is how you interact with both your own people and your customers. And that's the bit that you can influence to make a difference. And that's why it's so important to understand their world first. And actually, one thing we didn't touch on a minute ago is one of the parts of customer understanding.

Is understanding their customers. If you like almost the customer's customer, because if what's influencing our behavior is [00:13:00] understanding our customers, what's influencing their behavior, their customers. So if you understand what pressure they're under from their customers, you've got a better flavor for them.

Helen Wada: I think that's so true. 

And I was, 

I, 

Had a great guy Phil Smith on, on the podcast just, just a couple of weeks ago, and he was talking about not, not thinking about what you would do next is talking from personal perspective, but what you want to do. After the next, right? So I'm thinking of that long term and 

it's a bit like that, not thinking just about your immediate customers, but, but what are they trying to do?

And what, what impact does 

that have? I'm curious. You've obviously moved from industry to industry that you're, you know, you're master of taking the something from one area and moving it to the other. I work with a lot of people that are experts, that are absolutely experts in what they do, they have built their career on being an expert.

And so the thought of. 

Helen Wada Video: of

Helen Wada: Moving out of their comfort zone 

is 

actually quite scary. And I'm just curious to maybe unpick that, you know, your ability to create [00:14:00] insight in an area where it's not your first principle. Does that make sense in terms of, you know, we are, I'm a lawyer and I I know commercial law, but actually to be a broad service to to, to, my wider organization, I need to understand what else is going on.

I'm. And that is sometimes uncomfortable for people. Same applies to engineers, accountants.

Hamish Taylor: yes, it can be. But I think. The key there is if I understand how it's going to help me to be a better lawyer or better accountant. So it's not about taking ideas from other places for the sake of it. It's putting them in the context of what you're trying to do. So the way I, the way I, the way I've developed it over time when I've tried to do it is, I mean, aside from the personal things about, you know, whatever you do, don't trash what's there already.

They're a very successful company to get to where they are. Or a very successful lawyer or accountant. So the, this is about bringing a new perspective and adding value. It's not about trashing anything before to get that across. Yes. They've got to understand why it's relevant to me. So I [00:15:00] start off with once I've got all the kind of insight, if you like, all the understanding of the customers, I then start talking about what I call the customer promise, which is.

Let's build a goal or a value proposition that's based on the benefit we're going to bring to the other person. So for example, at British airways, instead of talking about how great our seats are or how great our catering is, it became, we're going to be better than any other airline at helping customers or business travelers arrive ready for business.

Cause that's actually what they want. They want to get off the plane at six in the morning, be ready to do a day's work. So that's actually what we're going to build around their ability to do arrive, ready to do business. How would it show up for them? If they got more sleep, if there was less hassle, if there was refreshment.

Now that's a statement about the customer benefit and what success looks like for the customer. You then use that as your basis for bringing in any extra thinking or new thinking, because you're now saying, well, how else could you bring refreshment? Who else is good at helping people get sleep? Where else could we remove the hassle?

And you're starting then to think in the context of that person's goals for their customer, [00:16:00] bringing in the new thinking that way.

And that's the way you do it. So for example, one of the less hassle things was about, you know, the check in processes, check in processes and queuing basically the airport was a

terrible, 

Helen Wada: none of us like hearing even though the, 

the books are, 

are 

renowned for it, right?

Hamish Taylor: love it, 

That's why I like telling my queuing stories when I'm overseas, to be honest, they're going down really well in Germany. But no, I mean, don't keep on me queuing, you know, yes. You know, airports used to be, you'd have a queue at every individual check in desk and you'd always get in the wrong one because there's always a family of 13 going to Azerbaijan right in front of you.

Or whatever, you know, it was a problem. Yeah. And so where, so what you do is you then say to yourself, well, where else could we find world class examples of people that do curing really well? Well, I spoke to Disney because Disney do things, you know, their theme parks that we certainly weren't doing in the airport and they showed us and it was simple stuff because it's their day to day business.

So it's simple things like, you know, not having a queue at each check in desk, but introduce us to the idea of the zigzag queue, one queue, and then you go to the first available desk.

Making it really narrow. So it moves [00:17:00] faster. Even though it's longer, it moves faster when it's only one person wide.

If it's going to be a 25 minute wait, tell everybody it's going to be 30 minutes. And then when they get to the front, they're so happy. They've beaten the system, you know, simple stuff. When we want to put the beds in aeroplanes, where did the product, the product team go? They went to a yacht designer, because if you went to an airline seat manufacturer, they're so steeped in airline seating principles.

That they'll give you the reasons why it won't work. Safety struts, wiring, and impact resistance, and all this sort of stuff. But a yacht designer said, no, what we know about is luxury, but in a small space. Let's play. They were the ones that designed the first iteration of beds in airplanes for us. And we were the first airline to do it by, you know, a couple of years or so.

Why? Not because we were smarter. You should have met my team. No, no, the reason we got there first.

I'm joking, guys, if you're listening. But no, seriously, the reason we got there first was because we were taking it from somebody that was already doing it. And it's a principle that you can then start to take forward if you like, I mean, I think things like I worked at one point with some risk and compliance managers where it's [00:18:00] very much about, you know, if they're not careful, they become the business prevention officers, you know, the guys that say no, what they want to do in the bank or, or wherever it is.

So I took them through and put them through a rugby referees training course. Why? Because rugby refereeing is all about keep the game flowing. You know, you're not just blowing the whistle every time somebody does something wrong, or there'll be no match. You're trying to keep the flow going.

, if a good ref though, in rugby is talking to the players all of the time, you know, number four, you're getting offside, move back for me or whatever it's going to be. And if they do that, then you keep the game flowing. And I said to the risk and compliance guys, you know, what if you saw your role that way?

You know, what if your role was actually to help people to make the strongest claims they could, rather than seeing yourself as the, as the, almost like the person who's going to say yes or no about whether you can do something. And it's just a different philosophy that you can bring in. I just worked with the National Lottery a while back on trust, about trust, building trust with, with the, in that case, it was with the regulator.

And we looked at simple things like where can we find new ideas of building trust? Well, why do you trust a doctor? Why do you [00:19:00] trust a pilot? Why do you trust your car to start in the morning? Why does your dog trust you? Why do you trust your partner? You know, I had them all looking at the floor at that point, but yeah. It's, you know, it's very easy, it's very simple to just move your mind to thinking about other places where the same thing that you're looking to do, you know, is a skill set. Actually, I have to say when I did the first time I ever did the why do you trust your partner one, the first thing on the flip chart said, because the private investigator told me I should, and I kind of thought, well, maybe you haven't quite got the right the right principle here.

But no, I think it's exciting to do as well. You know, you can really get people. If you spend your whole day doing one thing and you've been doing the same thing for the last few years, you know, if an idiot like me comes along and I'm asking you to think about, you know, rugby referee and all pilots or whatever, it just, it can be an interesting, just new way of looking at what you do.

And it's amazing how it can help sort of put things up a little bit.

Helen Wada: think there is 

absolutely something in that. It's like, it's taking yourself out of your comfort zone

Helen Wada Video: zone 

Helen Wada: to be thinking [00:20:00] about others and you're right. You know, once you dip your toe in the water, you may find that actually you enjoy it and you're learning yourself. There were two things that you spoke about there, which, which I want to kind of pull back on is creating insight, 

which 

I think 

is hugely important and also trust, 

and both of those are absolutely critical.

I'd almost say the other way around when you're trying to build new business relationships, when you're trying, whether it's within your team, whether it's external. 

This 

new business development is having that trust, being able to look somebody eyeball to eyeball, but they can look at you and say, we will trust you so that whatever insight you're able to create for us.

We are able to have a robust, challenging conversation that may take thinking forward. 

It

Hamish Taylor: absolutely. And to build that trust. So what interests me is if I look at even some of the outputs that came from the trust exercises have done, it's things like, you know, if you think about, you know, why do you trust the doctor? Well, you trust the [00:21:00] doctor because one of the reasons is because they listen to you.

You know, they don't, they don't just start writing the prescription as you walk in the door. Now, they may be right, and maybe they have spotted your problems when you walked in the door, but unless you won't trust them, unless you believe that they have listened to you. So again, you know, you translate that back into the work environment, building trust, and it's saying the other person's got to believe they've been listened to.

Well, they're not going to trust your advice, you know, it's very easy to translate these things into the different environment.

Helen Wada: isn't, and you touched on another one there of listening, and again, it's one of the fundamental skills I have as coach. I, I used to think I was good at listening. I speak to a lot of people that go, why on earth do we need to think about listening? And the truth is, I think if hand on heart, Most of us are not as good at listening as we would like to be.

I have certainly made progress over the last 10, 15 years 

as 

an executive coach. My kids would sometimes tell me that I don't, when I'm trying to do something and [00:22:00] and not listening to what they're saying, which is, which is still a downfall of mine, but at least I acknowledge it.

Hamish Taylor: Actually, because I, one of the things I've discovered in this whole bit about listening, and I do quite a lot of work with teams that are, you know, engaging with their customers or whatever. And one of the things you learned at Eurostar was that every time you write a questionnaire or every time you write an interview checklist or whatever, you've actually got in the way of listening because you've got the list of questions and you've got, you know, you've got your agenda, if you like.

Whereas that may not be the same as your customer's agenda. So sometimes going in and just observing your customers. Well, with a blank sheet of paper actually gives you a better picture. Because you're actually then trying to understand their world and listening rather than sitting there thinking, when do I spot the buying signals that when I can leap in with my next comment or my next question and, and having going in with that, you know, often our own mind of trying to get to where we want to go or the questions we want to ask or the selling, you know, I've got this product that's wonderful for you actually gets in the way of that listening.

So unless you can train yourself to go in [00:23:00] with a blank mind, you know, And, and be prepared to listen into conversations. It's quite a difficult thing to do. So, so I always say, look, separate selling, separate persuading from listening. Do the listening is a task in its own, right? And if you let the other one encroach on it, you stop listening.

Helen Wada Video: Yeah,

Helen Wada: I, I, I wholeheartedly agree. And that's where, again, this is interconnection intersection for me of coaching skills with commercial focus. Because it's not about what we bring in is where we started the conversation. You know, we, we have to adapt to what's in front of us. The number of times that I would make, you know, you can make a plan.

You can think about what you know, you can prep to your heart's content. But the minute that you pause, going back to what we're talking about, re center and enter a room for conversation, whether that's with your team or particularly when you're talking to customers. 

Yeah.

Your

focus is 150 percent [00:24:00] on that conversation in front of you, 

because 

actually, again, I was talking to somebody who researched my book yesterday and, and he was saying, and actually I, you know, senior partner in a professional services firm. 

Helen Wada Video: It's like,

Helen Wada: I know the one thing that I constantly need to work on is my listening.

Because actually, what shows up in the first part is very often not the biggest thing on their mind.

I'm 

Hamish Taylor: Absolutely. No, I totally agree. And one of the other things I find is, I mean, in, in, in the sort of customer led transformation stuff that I do. I've got a way of, there's a way of summarizing what you've learned from your listening as well, that I think just enables people to just get beyond, as you say, the first answers, of course.

And I tend to break it down into, into three parts. I say, look, there's, there's, there's insights you pick up about what they're trying to achieve and what success looks like for them. And, and, and the, and the, you know, the, the, the, the, the kind of the challenges in getting 

Hamish Taylor Video: there. 

Hamish Taylor: a second bat of insights, [00:25:00] which is about the how rather than the what, which is, what are the things that are enabling them to get where they want to get?

And again, what are the things that are working? What are the things that are not working? And then you get to the third area where you, you, you try and say, what have I learned about how they feel? How they feel now, how they might feel if they get successful or whatever. And when you've got the, kind of the, what they're trying to achieve, the, how they're trying to get there and the feelings bit, you've then got a rounded picture that's going to enable you to have a meaningful conversation with the person, but by deliberately splitting it into the three, it sometimes just makes people really have to think, Oh, I need to understand how this person's feeling.

You know, you just makes you listen that meet harder. I think,

Helen Wada: going to put a little bit more on that. 

How do you do that? How do you, you know, tap into the feelings? I can say obviously how I do it, 

but I'm just curious how you do it. What works 

for you

Helen Wada Video: for 

Hamish Taylor: of the way you go. I mean, I, I tend to, when I, when I go around the sort of questioning, if you like, or the, the, the, the, the interview, the [00:26:00] discussion, you know, I mean, I start off by talking about the business. So I will talk to them about, you know, what does success look like for you?

You know, what are the key challenges you're facing, et cetera. I then move on and talk a little bit about the pressures around this. I'll talk a bit about, well, who are your customers and what are they demanding of you and whatever. I'll then get into talking to it about you and what are you, what are your aspirations?

And how do you, and then I will, I will use the field word. I don't mind using it if it's in context. So, you know, how do you feel about, you know, your team? How do you feel about this, this particular thing that's been happening in your, in your world or whatever? And, and all of this, before you get into the specifics of the, the, You know, the individual task or whatever they're looking at and, and by going around this, and I think if you get into a conversation, if you get an authentic conversation, and if you have built up some sort of relation, people will talk about how they feel.

People like to talk about themselves and it comes down to, I think your first point about trust, if you've built up that trusting relationship, they will not, they'll be quite happy to talk to you about [00:27:00] how they feel. Why wouldn't they? You know, it's I mean, I found it really, I mean, let's say the guy that from Richard Heitner is now at London business school is a guy you should talk to at some point, actually, I'll introduce you.

He was not, I mentioned that used to come and see me at Eurostar and, and, you know, within our second conversation, I was talking about, you know, exactly how I felt about in this new job. And, oh, it's horrible. I'm the only non rail women here and I don't get this and I don't get that. And I'm really not sure what to do.

And it was, you want to sound in board, you know, you want someone to talk 

Helen Wada Video: And 

Helen Wada: it's, it's really interesting you pick that up because 

I, 

um, I'm preparing for a program that I'm running next week and, you know, ultimately we're talking about building better business relationships and stuff, but actually what we're doing is we're starting with who you are. We're starting with the human, which is the human advantage.

And so there's some for me around these feelings, these senses. 

I wholeheartedly agree with absolutely everything you've just said there, but for me, for individuals to think and recognize their own self, [00:28:00] their own feelings, and what's really important to us, because it's a way of acknowledging, regulating, acknowledging that things are going on for us.

Once we appreciate that and are open to it. We can then understand where others are coming from. So for me, taking time to really think, what is my value here? What do I enjoy? What's my purpose? What, what am I worried about? That, that little bit of vulnerability, that little bit of humility. You know, I talk about having a window into yourself.

So when you're building new relationships, you have a window and the curtains can be fully closed, 

but also they can be fully open or they could be in 

the middle 

between the two. And actually, how much of yourself do you sew is a question that I ask 

Hamish Taylor: Yeah. But it's also, I think essential in terms of building your team as well, because if you don't understand your own weaknesses, if you don't understand your own strengths. You're not going to build a team around you that's going to be totally [00:29:00] effective. So for example, you know, if I look at my BA team, you know, yes, you know, I'm the enthusiast.

I'm quite happy to stand up and say, we're going this way guys. Are you with me? You know, I like to think I'm pretty good at that sort of thing. What I'm not good at is project management, attention to detail, unless it's numbers, which I quite enjoy, but more importantly, getting tough when you need to get tough, you know?

And so I had I've, I've called them this to their faces before now, but I had a couple of rottweilers that worked for me, you know, and it meant that they could fill the gaps,

you know, and it's quite funny. I used to do an exercise where I used to get people to map out their own kind of strengths, not weaknesses, but strength and things that they were stronger at than other things.

Through kind of thinking, leadership, achievement, communication, all the different things. And they used to sort of draw an up and down graph. And I used to say to them, wouldn't it be great if you could just join all up the peaks rather than having to worry on improving the bottom ones. And the way you get where you are, that is by having other people that can fill your gaps for you and your team.

Unless of course you're working with the sales department, in which case they draw a line across the top of the page because they're brilliant at everything, you 

Hamish Taylor Video: know.[00:30:00] 

Helen Wada: it's, it's, it's why I left spreadsheets behind in my, in my days as a journalist at a camp. 

Despite many years of 

running and publishing and forecasting and goodness knows what, I was like, you know what? Me and spreadsheets aren't really the best of friends, so let me go and do a job.

Hamish Taylor: Oh, no, I love, I love spreadsheets and I love the numbers. I'm just not good at getting, you know, when, when a project's going wrong or somebody needs to be, you know, you need to cheer somebody up or something. I'm just not very good at that.

Helen Wada: that humility that you were saying there about, you know, as the CEO sitting there and going, Oh, it's the first job, what do I do? How do I do it? Wherever you are, whenever you're old, it's 

opening up a little bit. And I find the more that I open up, the more I show of who I am, the more people on the other side feel that they're, whether it's people in your team, whether it's with customers, whether it's suppliers, the more they then open up about what's really going on for them.

So I, I, I do sometimes get challenged by people I'm working with. It's like, well, how do I do that? How do I get them to open up? And actually. I think [00:31:00] it's within our control in terms of how we show up, and the humility, that vulnerability to be able to get the 

conversation going and being 

Hamish Taylor: gets right back to what you were saying about being yourself, you know, at the end of the day, stop, don't, you will never get ahead by trying to pretend to be something you are not, you know, you are you. And if you don't come across as yourself, then you will never build up that rapport and that trust and that, that engagement that allows the person to relax.

Right. I remember at

Procter and Gamble, I had a great time because Procter and Gamble is quite a hard school and, you know, and there are some quite tough characters there and it's not a culture I necessarily wanted to stay in forever, but it was a great training school, but I, you know, given the kind of personality I am, I used to get sent on, you know, assertiveness training courses, you know, you need to get tougher or whatever.

And I go, well, why do I need to get tougher? Because you're going to be out there to drive things forward. And I go, well, wait a second. I'm the first of my year promoted. So I'm obviously doing something right. You know, come on guys. So I used to get quite upset, but I went on the course or whatever. And it was hilarious cause I'd go around cause I built, got things done by [00:32:00] building up relationships.

So it may was market research department trying to get my projects near the top of their list or whatever. And I did it by building relationships. So I go and talk to the head of market research and we'd have a conversation about what he was doing with his church refurbishment that I knew he was particularly keen on and stuff like that.

And we build up a relationship and they go, Oh, by the way, I've got projects a bit urgent. I don't suppose anything you can, you know, cause I did it by relationship. So I went on this assertiveness training course came back and people actually laughed in my face at meetings. You've been on research of this training, haven't you, Hamish?

I have actually. They said, yeah. Funny that. And it was just so obvious it was not me,

you know, and that's the thing for me. You've got to be your, be yourself. And if yourself doesn't fit with where you are at the moment, maybe you're in the wrong place. Rather than trying to pretend to be something you're not

personally. No, so it's great. I'm conscious of time. We are rapidly. I mean,

Helen Wada Video: we been, we,

Helen Wada: we could talk forever on this subject. I'm just curious along the subject of, you know, customer focus, serving customers, being human. Is there 

anything 

else that we should [00:33:00] cover before we kind of go to top tips and a question for the listeners?

Hamish Taylor: Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, I think we've covered most of it from my point of view. Yet the first bit is about that insight and really understanding the customer. Then it's recognizing that your value proposition is about a statement of the benefit, like the British Airways example I gave you.

And that can work on a personal level as well. I mean, I had a boss once who built his relationship with me. On the idea that his job was to get me promoted as quickly as possible. You know, it was all about my success was how he was going to manage me. So I think that the, so the, so yeah, the, the insight that the customer promise bit, the whole bit about bringing in fresh thinking, then the only one we didn't touch on, I guess, was, was how you then engage.

And I'm sure that's a big topic in its own right. And there's lots of obviously models around, you know, communication and you can take. Even the Procter and Gamble advertising model and, and tone of voice and being positive and keeping it simple, all that sort of stuff. The one I would share with you though, as a last thought is and it, it kind of ties into this business about getting people to think differently or, or embrace, you know, new thinking is how [00:34:00] you set the ambition.

I found particularly important, particularly as a leader we're all creatures of habit. We've all done things, as you said earlier on, we've all done things a certain way. We've been trained that way. It's what brought us success.

So we want people to behave or to do something slightly different. That's not an easy thing because we'll create, we'll just go back to home territory.

So if I give you a new task, the first thing you're going to do is bring it into the world you already know. So what you discover is that setting, how you set the ambition actually has a big impact on whether people behave differently or not, so set the ambition in a way that from day one or word, the word go, people realize, gosh, this is about doing something slightly differently or doing something very differently.

My old behaviors won't get me there. So when we wanted to, for example deal with the checking processes at at the airport, a BA, the goal we set the it team was not, can we have a better checking process, please? It said. If we challenged you to remove check in altogether, what would you do? Beds in aeroplanes was called project slingshot.

It was called how do you take first class so far ahead of business class that people will actually pay for it now instead of it [00:35:00] being full of upgrades and repositioning pilots, you know? So the ambition bit is particularly important. I do some exercise on that sometimes in some of my workshops where you actually get them to do a task.

Ask them to do it, you know, take some 20 seconds. Ask them to do it in 19 seconds and do the same thing over again. Ask them to do it in three seconds and all of a sudden they start innovating, you know, and it's all because of how you set the ambition. So that would be the only thing I think we've left out is, is that that's quite an important part of engagement.

It's not just about communication, but how you set the ambition is quite important. And also, if you're asking somebody to do something new and different, how are you making it easy for them? What are you doing to give them the tools for it? Classic example is how do you get check in staff to control cabin baggage, people turning up with bags that are too big at the airport?

The answer is not by sending them on training courses about how to be assertive with customers. What you do is you give them a make it easy tool. In our case, it was the boxes that you see at the airport. You know, the bag fits. I'd love you to take it on board. If it doesn't, I'm really sorry. You know, we're going to have to tag it and put it in the hall.

Helen Wada: comes back to, are you asking the right question, I think for me, [00:36:00] and that, and that is a lot of it, what is that big ambitious question that you're asking yourself? 

You 

Hamish Taylor: Yeah. And, and, and making it ambitious enough that it prompts, prompts new thinking. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Helen Wada: Amazing. So much, so much richness in there. Hey, miss. Could talk all day, but, but you've got things to do and I've got meetings to go to, but we'll leave the listeners with maybe sort of one top tip and then one question for them to. to think about maybe a big audacious question for themselves.

Hamish Taylor: Okay. Right. Let's think tip. Okay. I think the one insight I will tip I leave with people is, is this business I started off with almost about, it's not about you, everything you do, you're always an enabler for somebody else. So build your personal and or your business value proposition. On the benefit you're going to bring to other people.

And if you can do that, that allows you to think totally differently about how you bring value to others and therefore how you build that whole engagement and how you build your relationships. So [00:37:00] have a customer promise that's about that. But to do that, you've got to have done all the insight stuff we talked about first and really understanding what's going on in their head, et cetera.

So that would be the one thing I would say as a, as a kind of thought, I'd love to leave

people 

Hamish Taylor Video: with. 

Hamish Taylor: And as a, as a way of kind of getting into that, I guess, the one question I'd like to leave people with is this, let's assume we're 

15 

years ago or 20 years ago, and we still have a business card. Not everybody I know has a business card nowadays, but let's pretend you've still got a business card.

Okay, underneath your name, it's got a job title. Normally chief executive manager of this relationship manager, whatever it's going to 

Hamish Taylor Video: be. 

Hamish Taylor: What if, what if you crossed that out and replaced it with a statement of the benefit you bring to others because you're brilliant at your job, what would your new job title be now?

What would it be? Because that's the thing that's going to change your behavior, is when you start thinking of your job role as being a different role to the way you see it at the moment, which is a description. It's not a description of what you do, it's a description of the [00:38:00] benefit you bring to other people.

Have a go at it and see what new job title you can come up 

Hamish Taylor Video: with.

Helen Wada: that. I I love that. I used to say to people all the time, they write about that in exclamation, it's like, forget the title, act as if you are, and then see the change. And it's amazing what what that does. 

Hamish Taylor: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Helen Wada: It's been wonderful to have you on, on the podcast. Hamish, you are a regular on the speaker circuit.

I I've seen you speak in person to a large audience and I can see and feel the energy in the room. Where can people find you if they want to follow up after this conversation?

Hamish Taylor: Right. I would say go to HamishTaylor. com, but unfortunately it's under redevelopment at the moment and will be for another month or two. So the best thing to do is probably look me up on LinkedIn. You'll connect, connect me with me on LinkedIn. It's very clear who I am when you get to my pro there's a two or three Hamish tailors out there, but I think you'd be able to work out which one's me pretty quickly.

We'd love to talk to you as I say, yeah, the work I do is either a lot of it's conference speaking and getting the principles and then quite often there's a follow up. I mean, a lot of work I do is in house with companies or [00:39:00] teams or individuals helping them to actually do it, how to put, actually put that customer at the center.

So yeah, absolutely. We'd love to hear from anybody that might be interested in a further conversation.

Helen Wada: Wonderful. Thank you, Hamish. It's been a real pleasure to have you on the show and I wish you a good rest of the week.

Hamish Taylor: Thank you very much indeed for asking me. It's been a great pleasure to be with you. See you again soon.

Helen Wada: Take care. Bye 

bye.

Hamish Taylor Video: Bye.