Making Business Matter (MBM)

Grocery Guru Ep 5: Discussing the Deli Counter Demise

We all love them, buy a treat from them occasionally, but have they had their day? Are we witnessing the demise of the Deli Counter? Is it time to put them out to pasture?

You Can Read the Full Deli Counter Demise Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Welcome to week five with the Grocery Guru, there is Andrew Grant. Andrew, how are you doing?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Good morning. I think it's still good morning, Darren. But suffice to say I'm in mourning.

Darren A. Smith:

You are in mourning.

Andrew Grant:

See what I did there? See what I did there?

The Demise of the Deli Counter

 

Darren A. Smith:

I see that was a good double pun. I understand you're in mourning because of some news about some counters. Is that right?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Sainsbury's closing all their meat, fish, and deli counters, which was ground zero for me as a fresh face graduate buying fish for Sainsbury's fish counters. So a little bit of history ending for me so hence the small little tear of regret.

Darren A. Smith:

So the retail landscape, the high street is changing, counters are going for one of the big supermarkets. But interestingly, I also read that Waitrose has taken advantage of this and put more lines, extended their range on their counters.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I've got a sneaking suspicion that a person with a calculator and a red pen made the decision to close those counters. If you dial into their half-year results presentation to the city, they said they'll save 60 million by closing the counters. Now their underlying profits are really 300 million, so that's a good 20% of profits that will get boosted when they close them. So I think it's very much been a financial decision.

Darren A. Smith:

And I'm not surprised by that. Now, did you know that MBM used to have a sister business called MCM?

Andrew Grant:

Well, I do remember you used to be in the counter business because the other point I was going to make it all right, you're going to save 60 million in operating costs. But what do you do with all that metal and perspex and refrigeration and yeah, it's an expensive kit.

Darren A. Smith:

So we used to be very big into counters. At one point for four years, we coached all the food counter people at Sainsbury's and then made a great market share difference for them. They then took it in-house and we took the idea to Tesco, had a team of 60 people coaching all the people behind counters. So I know a bit about it. Now what one of the Tesco's guys said at the time, was the counters was the window to fresh. And if shoppers saw counters looking good and feeling good and it was intangible, they said that was something we need to keep. Because it keeps shoppers coming in, even though they didn't buy from it.

Andrew Grant:

Well, I think that was unfortunately the reality. Having spent a bit of time on fresh fish and deli, unfortunately, yeah, it's poor Mrs. Miggins or Mr. Miggins shuffling along to buy six slices of crumbed ham for their lunches. So the only stuff that ever sold was the basic stuff, your pork pies and your breaded ham and cheddar cheese, which obviously you can also get in pre-pack. So the only people who tended to buy on the deli counters were people wanting tiny, tiny portions. And yeah, I can remember doing it myself trying to launch exotic stuff, exotic hams, and exotic sausages and God knows what. It just didn't sell and then after about six weeks, you get all the store managers and area managers complaining about waste. So you took the easy decision. I think it's a real shame.

Darren A. Smith:

It is. It is a shame. Unfortunately, I see counters and always did, a bit like a turkey at Christmas. I wouldn't have a Christmas without one but I don't necessarily think about it first.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Yeah. It is going to be interesting to see whether the decision will come and bite Sainsbury's in the bum. Because I mean two things, if you think about the big stalking horse in the background that's about to go physical literally, with physical stores is?

Darren A. Smith:

Amazon.

Andrew Grant:

Amazon. And who was the first physical business they bought in the States to get themselves into physical retailing?

Darren A. Smith:

Oh. Oh. Fresh... No.

Andrew Grant:

Begins with a W.

Darren A. Smith:

World of... Go on.

Andrew Grant:

Wholefoods.

Darren A. Smith:

Wholefoods.

Andrew Grant:

Now, anybody that's seen a Wholefoods particularly in the States, and I've seen a few, that is all about experiential shopping. Lots of sampling, lots of massive displays of fresh stuff, just fabulous. Wouldn't it be interesting Sainsbury's close all their deli counters and all of a sudden, Amazon come up with a huge in your face, big entertaining displays of fresh foods?

Darren A. Smith:

Because also you can experience something there, you've also got the environment part where maybe you go up with a tub and get two pounds of olives and take it away in your own tub type thing, which is perfect. The other way that people used to look at counters and they used to say to us is if only the people behind them could upsell. But they were trying to upsell to older people who didn't have the budget but there were about a third of people that were affluent who likes shopping at the deli. What we found was that if they could see those people as their mum and treat them like their mum, they would buy more. Because if you say someone upsell who works behind a counter there, oh no, I don't want to try and manipulate my customers. But if you say, okay, it's your mum coming in, what would you do? Mum, you've got to try this new cheese, it's great.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Well, here's an interesting twist. Thinking outside the box, what are the supermarkets doing at the moment with all that big non-food space that they can't fill? They're letting it out to New Look and Primark and Timpsons. So why not turn the deli counters over to some entrepreneurial young farm shops or independent delis or whatever. Create a lot of theatres, be really good for the community. I guess our supermarkets don't think that creatively anymore.

Darren A. Smith:

Well, interestingly, you're right, they don't. Five years ago when I was heavily into this game of counters, Newitts, you may have heard of them they're from Tame. They did-

Andrew Grant:

Right.

Darren A. Smith:

... a deal with Budgens where Budgens said you can take over 200 of our counters, whatever it was. We want to pay 10% or whatever it was and Newitts run them and they made a sterling job. It is very possible if they do that.

Andrew Grant:

As I said, I think this decision is just an accountant's decision with a red pen and a ruler and a calculator saying 60 million, it'd be nice to have. Let's have that. And they haven't really thought beyond that. It's a real shame but I guess it's a massive opportunity for your high street deli, your farm shop, or your farmer's market because that's where people will now go.

Darren A. Smith:

Well, that's very true. Yeah, it is very true. I think the bit that you were saying earlier about the landscape maybe goes full cycle and comes back. Maybe it just does. It'll be a shame if it was forced by Amazon, rather than one of the produce supermarkets.

Andrew Grant:

Well, but it does sort of link back to what we talked about in episode one of this, the urban fulfilment centres. Because I mean, again, Sainsbury's results, their online grocery has doubled since March. And it's now 15% of their grocery sales are online for home delivery. 40% of their total sales are now online but that's obviously because of the Argos effect. But if everybody starts shopping at home, then why do they want to go into a physical store anymore if all it is, is aisles and aisles of the boring packed product. If you've got fast home delivery with a slot available within 24 hours, you will only go to a supermarket to experience the fabulous bakery, the fabulous fresh meat, the phenomenally not lovely produce. And if that's not there and it's just a replica of a warehouse, you wouldn't shop there.

Darren A. Smith:

Well yeah, that fills me with the emotion of sadness because Sainsbury's launched their campaign many years ago now about sleep shopping. That we just walk around with a trolley and we sort of pick up the things we normally do. If there really is nothing to experience, then you're right. Maybe we're going to either sleep shop or of course we're encouraged to order from home.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. But as I said, I think it will be interesting, you say Waitrose, possibly Amazon may actually be thinking slightly more innovatively and playing a longer game.

Darren A. Smith:

Well, this could be a place where Waitrose really win this market.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. I mean they have got the demographic, I guess that would be more likely to buy interesting and exotic products off the deli. But obviously, Waitrose butt up to Sainsbury's up-market customers so yeah, steal a few of those and you lose quite an affluent profitable basket very quickly.

Darren A. Smith:

You do. Talking a little bit exotic. I saw that Sainsbury's launched their sushi counters two, three years ago I think. I was in a Sainsbury's near here, which is Oxford a while ago, absolutely dead. Two or three packs on the counter and you just wonder the same number cruncher that has arrived at closing our counters can't have arrived at sushi counters. So you've got two different schools of thought going on here.

Andrew Grant:

I think the sushi counters are a third party.

Darren A. Smith:

Are they?

Andrew Grant:

Certainly one in the big London Colney one is a third party one so I don't think the Hoban based accountants will have got to those yet. But you're right, they don't seem to sell very much and there's nothing worse than sushi that looks like it's been hanging around a bit.

...

Grocery Guru Episode 3: How the New Normal May Impact Holidays

In this episode of The Grocery Guru, we discuss the ‘new normal’ and how this is likely to affect Christmas. Touch challenges for our industry during Covid-19.

You Can Read the Full New Normal Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Hello. We're on week three of the Grocery Guru. That is Andrew Grant. Hello.

Andrew Grant:

Hi Darren. You okay?

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. So in our first week, we talked about the UFC's, which were Urban Fulfillment Centers. In our second week, you said to us that category management is dead, very provocative, very emotive, which we had a nice debate about. And in week three, I'm waiting with bated breath. What're we talking about?

New Normal, and New Holidays

 

Andrew Grant:

Well, maybe slightly off-topic, I'm not sure. But Christmas, and what are you buying me, Darren?

Darren A. Smith:

Oh.

Andrew Grant:

Front of my mind.

Darren A. Smith:

I was thinking of a big pair of those monster slippers.

Andrew Grant:

Oh, with Garfield on the front?

Darren A. Smith:

All right. Why is Christmas on your mind? Apart from it's coming up in-

Andrew Grant:

No, just thinking. What is it today? The 27th. So it's the end of October. We are ... in two months' time Christmas will be done.

Darren A. Smith:

Yes. Yes.

Andrew Grant:

And I'm just thinking back. If we think back to sort of the 23rd of January, two months on from then, 23rd of March, when we got ... Boris locked us all down. Did we really expect on the 23rd of Jan, that what happened to us was going to happen? I mean, we knew something was going on in China. There was a city we never heard of called Wuhan, and some people were getting bad colds. Could you ever have expected two months later, us to go into what we've now had for six months?

Darren A. Smith:

No, no, not a chance. Something to do with a bat as well as in the story, wasn't it?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Yeah. Some strange seafood market and doing strange things with bats. But yeah, whatever.

Darren A. Smith:

All the people out there talking about grocery. Why are you thinking about it now?

Andrew Grant:

What is the link? Well, I'm just thinking that this is traditionally the time, post-Halloween, when the retailers go into, and I'm going to use the phrase actually, go into Christmas lockdown mode. 1st of November it is all about the home run to Christmas. They start counting back to Christmas Day. So it's Christmas Day minus 56 days, 55 days. All their plans.

This Christmas, we have no idea what might happen. And it was interestingly the COO of Tesco on Monday saying, "There won't be a problem, but we really do suggest you start shopping early." So I think quietly they are petrified that will they be able to supply Christmas? I guess more importantly for them, what sort of Christmas will they supply? And I can imagine the best-sellers are going to be two-meter long Christmas crackers. Socially distanced Christmas crackers. If you want to make some money, get yourself into the two-meter Christmas cracker market.

Darren A. Smith:

Only you. Interesting, I was talking to a client earlier today, and she said that a supermarket was talking to them about contingency. Would they go find a similar supplier like themselves, that should they get COVID, could they then turn on a similar supplier? They were ... Well, the chest was out, the head was back. "No, we're not doing that." But then the supermarket said, "Yeah, you got to."

Andrew Grant:

Well no, think about, and you've been there, think about fresh foods. So grocery and non-foods, the stuff's been ordered for a long time. But you remember the days of making sure all the gate codes hit the 25th of December, and you can only order the cream seven days ahead, I think. The pigs in blankets, four days ahead. The turkeys, eight or nine days ahead. And you're right. I mean only this week, was it, another couple of factories got shut down because this COVID runs rampant in a cold, wet factory environment.

Darren A. Smith:

Super.

Andrew Grant:

Absolutely. You're planning to have however many tens and hundreds of thousands of pigs in blankets produced, and the factory factories suddenly shut down.

Darren A. Smith:

So let's say you're buying direct, as you once were, from one of the big supermarkets. Eight weeks to go, what do you want from your suppliers? What are you asking for? What are you demanding? And, what are you thinking about?

Andrew Grant:

Crystal ball, I think. I mean, just the ultimate flexibility that, as I said when we started, that we don't know what it is like in two months time. Will it be complete lockdown? Will the rule of six become the rule of one? I think we can be pretty sure there's not going to be big family gatherings. So all the big party food, I imagine there won't be a lot of demand for those big platters of party food, particularly for the New Year.

Doesn't look like there'll be New celebrations. So you can almost bet the bank on that. But nobody's got any idea as to what restrictions we may face, and therefore what that's going to do for orders. Because in a traditional Christmas, as I said, they all start counting down. The only big change at Christmas is when the Christmas day changes by a day. And that just changes the ordering pattern. But again, think of that fresh food shop where traditionally people descend on the supermarkets two or three days before Christmas Eve, and you can't get in the car parks, and it is pandemonium. Can't see that happening this year.

Darren A. Smith:

So when the COO said, "Shop early," do you think the shape is going to be very different in the next eight weeks? People are going to start shopping, what, early December more to get stuff in? Panic shopping?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. And we could be back to panic buying of Christmas puddings and Christmas crackers and stuff like that. It only takes one of our esteemed rack top newspapers to put out a story saying that, "No more Christmas crackers," and you'll have stampedes.

Darren A. Smith:

We will. One of the things we've used in the past when we're not sure of planning forecasting, is P-R-O, PRO, Pessimistic Scenario, Realistic Scenario, Optimistic Scenario. And with those three scenarios, everything sort of falls between. So you go, "Well, we think we need to produce 100,000 pessimistic pigs in blankets. Realistically, maybe it's 150,000. Optimistically it's 200,000," and have those three scenarios ready. That's what I think a supermarket would expect the supplier to handle.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. All I can say is I'm glad I'm not part of it. It's going to be a very, very difficult Christmas. I guess the only thing you can say is, as we saw back in March, UK supermarkets are preeminent at getting their supply chains right. So if you wanted to bet any industry or any industry in any country that will actually make it happen, it'll be the UK supermarkets.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. Yeah. Very true. Okay. Let's take you post-Christmas. What does the landscape look like then? What do you think we've learned? Or should a supplier do?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Well no, unfortunately, the other great unknown, and it is now only nine weeks out, Brexit.

Darren A. Smith:

Yes, of course.

Andrew Grant:

Straight after the most disruptive Christmas ever, we still don't know whether you're then going to have the mother of all disruption with trying to bring food in from the EU. So that's ...

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah.

Andrew Grant:

I think my only top tip, and we are out of time, my only top tip, if you are a supplier, or particularly supplying one of the big supermarkets over Christmas, is don't book any time off.

Darren A. Smith:

Right. Okay.

Andrew Grant:

Because your phone and your email are going to be busy.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. It's going to be. So those buyers that maybe normally you couldn't hear from them during the lockdown over the next eight weeks, maybe they are going to contact you, but it's about Brexit and not about Christmas.

Andrew Grant:

Or about emergency production, or cutting production back, or trebling production, or now supplying Scotland when you used to supply Cornwall wall. Goodness knows.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. It could well be. So, all right. The two things I'm taking out of that is absolute flexibility. They probably knew that. That moves into PRO, Pessimistic, Realistic, Optimistic scenarios, to have those planned out. Because if you're a planner at the moment, yeah, crumbs, you get that half right they're going to pay you a million pounds. All right. And then we've got Brexit coming up in nine weeks as well, which is going to change the landscape once again.

Andrew Grant:

And what was it Barack Obama said? Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. Oh, talking of which. Well, in four days time we've got our cousins across the water doing their thing.

Andrew Grant:

Well, that could add a little bit of spice on top of everything too, depending on which way it goes. So who knows?

Darren A. Smith:

A little bit of brandy in your Christmas pudding.

Andrew Grant:

Absolutely. Right.

Darren A. Smith:

Andrew, Grocery Guru. Thank you. We'll see you next week.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Cheers. Bye.

Darren A. Smith:

Take care.

Grocery Guru Podcast | Episode 1 - Urban Fulfilment Centres

In the Grocery Guru's pilot episode, Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith discuss Urban Fulfilment Centres and how it will affect the UK grocery industry. Find out what UFC’s are, and how they will impact the grocery industry. Tesco is first with Asda hot on their tail.

You Can Read the Full Urban Fulfilment Centres Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Andrew, how are you doing?

Andrew Grant:

Good morning. I'm very good. A cup of tea. All ready for a few minutes' chat.

Darren A. Smith:

Cool. So, we're here with the Grocery Guru, the man that is Andrew Grant, and this is our weekly slot for about 10 to 15 minutes, let's see. We're going to ask him what the latest is going on in the world of grocery. We wanted to call him Andrew Gandalf, but he won't let us, so it's going to be Guru. So, Mr Grocery Guru, what's going on in the world of grocery at the moment?

Urban Fulfilment Centres

 

Andrew Grant:

Well, a test for you Darren. If I said to you UFCs, what springs to mind? It's the latest happening thing.

Darren A. Smith:

Ultimate Fighting Champion.

Andrew Grant:

That's a good one. Not unidentified flying curry?

Darren A. Smith:

Oh okay. Yeah. I like that.

Andrew Grant:

That's what happens if you leave the microwave on too long. Any more guesses? The latest happening thing in the world of grocery that every national account manager needs to be aware of.

Darren A. Smith:

I'm on the spot now. Urban depot thing.

Andrew Grant:

Well, you missed the F and the C out, but you were close with urban. Right, urban fulfilment centres, the latest buzzword in the world of grocery, UFC.

Darren A. Smith:

UFC. Yeah.

Andrew Grant:

Everyone's probably heard the stats, it's been very well documented over the last few months. But as a result of lockdown, obviously, a lot of people decided they weren't going to go to supermarkets anymore, either because of the restrictions of going round those supermarkets or the fact that they were worried about catching the virus. So as a result online home delivery grocery has grown more in six months than it did in the previous, I think 10 years is the stat.

Andrew Grant:

We've got some of the retailers now up to 30% of their orders are online.

Darren A. Smith:

I didn't know that. So a third of their sales are online now?

Andrew Grant:

I seem to remember that stat. For goodness, don't hold me to it, I'm sure you will.

Darren A. Smith:

No. It sounds plausible.

Andrew Grant:

But they're basically certainly 10 years' worth of growth in six months. Now, obviously, anybody that knows anything about home deliveries, there's two basic models. You got the Ocado and the Amazon technical model, whereby they have huge, massive, great automated warehouses, cost gazillions in capital spend to get them up and running. Or you've got the route that Tesco pioneered, God, what, 15 years ago I think now, maybe longer than that, whereby you pick in store. So you use the quiet times in-store and you send somebody round as almost like a phantom shopper filling up a trolley with all the stuff. That's a very cheap route in, but it's labour-intensive and it's slow, and it's expensive from a cost per pick basis.

Andrew Grant:

So the Ocado system, once you've spent your gazillions, the cost per pick is actually very cheap, but you've got to spend the gazillions. The Tesco model, the Sainsbury's model, the Morrisons model, doesn't cost any capital investment but costs you quite a lot in terms of having one person picking the stuff for one store.

Darren A. Smith:

I've seen them in stores, like personal shoppers going round with trolleys like customers and they're doing the shopping for it. Yeah. Okay. Get it. Yeah.

Andrew Grant:

And think about it, if you like, how we've been duped for the last 50 years, because if I came along to you with a concept for a new consumer-facing business, and I said, "Darren, we've got this fantastic business. All you need to do is drive five miles out of town, you need to find yourself a parking spot. You need to get out of your car, find yourself a metal container on wheels where the wheels don't actually work very well. And then, I want you to spend 40 minutes wandering around with this metal container getting your grocery shop. And once you've done that, you need to then queue up, empty everything from your metal container onto a belt, stand at the other end of the belt, pick all the stuff up again, put them in a metal container, wobble all the way out to your car again, take them out again, to then take them home to take them out again." So I don't know how many touchpoints that is, but how does that sound to you? Does that sound like a good consumer concept that's going to take off?

Darren A. Smith:

I've never heard it put that way, but you're right, you're right, we do a lot. And also, at that conveyor belt you've got to take them off one end and put them on the other end bloody quickly because the checkout operator's [inaudible 00:04:55].

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. And if you're in an Aldi or a Lidl they just don't... they throw them at you.

Darren A. Smith:

Yes.

Andrew Grant:

So yeah, we have been duped, the Great British public, to basically grocery shop. Whereas, what makes much more sense if somebody says, "You place an order by phone or internet, and we'll deliver it to you." Because if you buy a telly or a fridge, that's what happens. So what the pandemic has done is actually just got everybody back to probably where it should have been originally which is you get your food delivered. So now, the grocers are grappling with just uncontrollable demand for home shopping. They've basically all come to the conclusion that this is not temporary, that the pandemic has changed people's behaviours forever. And basically, they can't afford to keep on doing the in-store pick operations, it's just too expensive.

Andrew Grant:

They've got to grapple with do we go Ocado and spend gazillions, not good for the old shareholders, or do we find another route? And very, fortunately, they have got the perfect answer. Do you remember when you were in the store, because you were in Sainsbury's, weren't you?

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. I was.

Andrew Grant:

When you wanted to disappear from your manager's site to maybe have a quick fag or maybe get friendly with one of your assistants, where did you go? I'm sure it was the latter, Darren?

Darren A. Smith:

Warehouse.

Andrew Grant:

Into the warehouse, because in the good old days every supermarket had a great big stockroom where you could go and hide. And then in the, what was it, the '90s, they turned all those stockrooms into non-food areas and started stocking videos and magazines and health and beauty and all of this sort of stuff, which now Amazon's stolen.

Darren A. Smith:

That's true. Now, a quick story because my brother was a store manager and he got fed up with meetings, he hated meetings. So he said, "We're having no more meetings in the canteen or the meeting rooms," wherever they previously were, "I'm holding all my meetings in the walk-in freezer."

Andrew Grant:

Yes. Okay.

Darren A. Smith:

His meetings were 10 minutes and people spoke very quickly.

Andrew Grant:

Absolutely. Probably now not allowed under health and safety and he'd be fined a lot of money, but fair enough. As were a lot of the stuff that you did in stockrooms, you'd be fined and probably locked up.

Darren A. Smith:

Warehouse on Amazon. Yeah.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Right. So yes, what the supermarkets have discovered, and guess who's front of the game as always, the big T. They've discovered that they've got these warehouses underutilised in perfect locations, which are basically these huge out of town superstores, all conveniently located on ring roads with easy access into the town or the city, the relevant town or the city. So Tesco has already started this, first, one's opened in West Bromwich, I think. An urban fulfilment centre where they take the excess space of an Extra and turn it into a dark picking store so that all the vans turn up, it's semi-automated and all customers orders are picked in dark, and then very rapid delivery given the fantastic location most of these big out of town superstores are. So that's the model.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. So how does that compare to me shopping at Ikea 15 years ago and still seems to be I wander around a warehouse racking and grapple to get something from Ikea, is that the same or different?

Andrew Grant:

No, because the physical store stays there. If you still want to shop 50 years ago and get a metal trolley and have to unpack your own stuff, the store is still there. But this is a picking depot not open to the public. But if you place an online order, rather than somebody going around with a trolley and pushing it into your knee as a real shopper, they do it in the dark in the other half of the store.

Darren A. Smith:

Got you. Got you. Okay.

Andrew Grant:

Which makes it much more efficient, much lower cost per pick, it will make home shopping potentially break-even or profitable for them, and it gives them the massive capacity. So here, another question. I've mentioned the big T who will be one of them, who is going to be the other biggest winner as a result of this, and who will be the losers? So here we are, I'll put you on the spot, final question for today.

Darren A. Smith:

I don't know. I'm thinking supermarkets that have a lot of retail estates, but a lot of white elephants, so is that going to be-

Andrew Grant:

Which supermarket group has the biggest average store space?

Darren A. Smith:

Cor. I would go to Sainsbury's.

Andrew Grant:

No.

Darren A. Smith:

Asda?

Andrew Grant:

Asda.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. Of course. Okay. Yeah.

Andrew Grant:

Asda is effectively a hypermarket operator, and under Walmart was the hypermarket model. Now being bought by Euro Garages....

Grocery Guru Ep4: Discussing the New Grocery Code Adjudicator

Mark White has taken-over from Christine Tacon. What will the new grocery code adjudicator want from the named retailers? And will he name Amazon in 2021?

You Can Read the Full New Grocery Code Adjudicator Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Welcome to week four of The Grocery Guru with our grocery guru, Andrew Grant, hello.

Andrew Grant:

Hi, Darren, how are you?

Darren A. Smith:

I'm good. We're not even going to talk about L-O-C-K, up or down. Not mentioning it, not allowed.

Andrew Grant:

Okay, day one, 26 to go.

Darren A. Smith:

He mentioned it. Okay, moving swiftly on. So we've talked about Urban Fulfillment Centers. We've talked about Category Management is Dead. What are we talking about this week?

Andrew Grant:

Oh, you missed week three.

Darren A. Smith:

Oh God, we did.

Andrew Grant:

Well, we were talking about what we can't talk about, and how-

New Grocery Adjudicator- Mark White

Darren A. Smith:

Yes.

Andrew Grant:

Yes, and how difficult Christmas is going to be. And if you think about it, we spoke about that last Thursday and it was on Saturday morning we all found out, that actually our worst fears, even worst fears were coming true.

Darren A. Smith:

I know. Do you see what I did there? I didn't even talk about it. I just went straight over it. What are we talking about this week?

Andrew Grant:

Okay. Let's say how up with the latest grocery-news you are. I want to talk about the latest grocery kid on the block. A gentleman by the name of Mr Mark White. Any ideas?

Darren A. Smith:

I think you'll talk about the GCA or the Groceries Code Adjudicator, also known as the Grocery [Tsar 00:00:01:22], am I right?

Andrew Grant:

Oh, very good. Yes, you obviously read your industry news or you've got the right alert set up on your phone. Yes, Mark White took over as the UK's second Groceries Code Adjudicator on Monday [crosstalk 00:00:01:41]-

Darren A. Smith:

Okay, so the previous one was Christine Tacon, is that right?

Andrew Grant:

Christine who we all know very well. She had spent what? Five years, actually, five years in the role, essentially defining what the code was. Because when she started, it was just this big blob of legislation that was completely new to the UK. Nobody quite knew what it was, what it would do. And she put, breathed life into it, and breathed form and focus into it, I guess.

Darren A. Smith:

All right. So just for everyone who thinks, "What the hell are these guys talking about?" And if you're in the world of UK grocery, you really need to know this stuff. So I'm just going to test my knowledge a bit and check with Andrew, who is the guru? So I think the order was passed in parliament in 2009? And the order was 16 pages of law that contained [GSCOP], did I get some of that right?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Part of the Enterprise Act, which went legal in 2010, although it went through parliament in 2009. So you are correct.

Darren A. Smith:

Cool, cool. So it's roughly 16 pages, GSCOP was five pages of this order. GSCOP was the bit we all talk about and GSCOP is a piece of law that encourages suppliers to, sorry encourages supermarkets to look after their suppliers more, fairly?

Andrew Grant:

I wouldn't say, "Encourage," because it's a law, it's mandated. But yeah, the reason it was essentially brought into existence was this perception, whether it's the perception of reality, that supermarkets would use their buying power to exploit suppliers needlessly.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay.

Andrew Grant:

And-

Darren A. Smith:

What ... Sorry, go on.

Andrew Grant:

No, I was going to say, you only have to read the press over the years about bully boy-tactics, et cetera. You and I being in the industry, probably in typical tabloid-fashion, slightly exaggerated.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah, slightly. All right. So the other part I wanted to dispel, is the myth. Now, when you and I do training, and we do training with a lot of people on GSCOP Competition Law. One of the big myths is that suppliers are bound by this. They're not.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, that's the number one, the number one myth, are suppliers think they're covered by the code and get all scared that they could be in some legal dispute as a result of breaking the code. The good news is no. Only 13, currently, 13 named grocery retailers. So those 13, you can run off your fingers the usual suspects, Tesco, Aldi, Sainsbury's, Asda, Iceland, Waitrose are all covered by the code. And only those 13 can break GSCOP, break the law if you like when it comes to GSCOP.

Darren A. Smith:

All right.

Andrew Grant:

Suppliers can't.

Darren A. Smith:

And if they break the law, the potential fine is big, isn't it?

Andrew Grant:

It's not as bad as Competition Law, being caught trying to fix prices or manipulate retail pricing, which is 10% of your global turnover. You breach GSCOP, it's 1% of your UK-turnover.

Andrew Grant:

Still a pretty big hit for the likes of a Tesco or Sainsbury's or an Asda.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. All right, let's come back to the original point then. So we've got a new tsar in play, in the chair. What's his background.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, interestingly, so Christine Tacon, the previous adjudicator, had a retailer and farming background. So she was the Co-Op's farming manager and basically was that link between the Co-Op's farms and the Co-Op. So she was pretty well ingrained in all the supply chain practices that a food supplier would go through to serve one of the big grocers. Mark's background is very much legal background. So he was, I think, his last role was a legal counsel to Compass Group, the big catering group. So, inevitably, a new set of boots on the carpet, there will be some form of change I imagine, and it would be interesting to see.

Darren A. Smith:

Now we had a quick catch up before we started this, and you said to me something about all house-training. What was the term you used there? I thought, I [inaudible 00:06:21].

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, just really interesting. The press release that the government put out on Monday, confirming his appointment. Yeah, pretty standard stuff. "We welcome Mark to the grocery code. We pay tribute to the fantastic job Christine did." But then Mark said amongst the usual stuff, "Delighted to be joining this and a great time to join, and lots of challenges," is, "I look forward to driving a whole-house approach to retailer compliance, including training.

Andrew Grant:

So that's an interesting choice of words for me because, in terms of compliance for retailers, it's their commercial teams that are the people who have to comply, formally, legally, have to comply and be trained every year in the code. So that's a legal requirement of the code, are all commercial executives in those 13 named retailers have to be trained in GSCOP, when they're appointed and every year and repeated. Mark seems to be signalling that he wants to take whole of house-approach. So I assume that means supply chain, logistics, marketing, not checkout-staff because otherwise, there are 200,000 odd people that work at Tesco.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, quite an opportunity for training actually, given what we do, Darren.

Darren A. Smith:

You're going to get a thumbs up from me. So if I put that back to my language, if I'm a Tesco-buyer, I get trained in GSCOP every year and an I have to be by law. Mark's potential approach is that my colleague inside the supply chain might also now need to be trained every year. Might. And that may even go slightly wider from buying to supply chain to other functions within supermarkets?

Andrew Grant:

I guess. And it's this extension of what Christine Tacon called, "Her collaborative approach." I don't think Mark will be able to change the law, to say everybody that works for a Tesco or an Asda or a Sainsbury's must be trained in the code. I don't think that will happen, but, I think, I could see an argument where he says, "Look, okay, at the moment, you have to train your commercial teams, but actually somebody in supply chain or marketing could inadvertently break the code, because of honest ignorance. So actually, retailers, it would be in your interest in a collaborative way, if you trained much more, particularly of your support, central head office-functions so that they don't accidentally break the code."

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. All right. That's a good point. And let me just extend that, because I'm just aware of our time. If I'm a supplier, now obviously I can't break the code. We've said that. That doesn't change. What do I need to do to get ahead of this?

Andrew Grant:

Well, I think, Mark said in one of his joining statements, there's still circa 50% of suppliers to the UK supermarkets, who've had no training in the code. Which in theory means they don't understand what protections they have under the code. And if you do understand the code, if you are trained in the code as a supplier, the code does give you some relatively important protections from some of the more extreme buying practices that some retailers, historically, have got up to.

Darren A. Smith:

Also by understanding the code, a supplier can help encourage a supermarket if they might be going outside the code, to come back within.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, I guess, yeah. Flag up as a yellow card, rather than go straight to a red card, I guess. Yeah, if you want to use that analogy.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. Okay, all right. That makes sense. So GSCOP, wider, suppliers. Okay, and the other bit that I was thinking of, just last bit, was the other fact, is the written supplier agreement. Now I can't remember the facts, but how many suppliers still don't have one?

Andrew Grant:

Oh, thank you for that. I can't remember.

Darren A. Smith:

I think it's roughly a third, but I thought you might know-

Andrew Grant:

I was going to say a third, I've got 50% for not having trained....

Grocery Guru Episode 2: Category Management is Dead

Is Category Management Dead? In episode 2 of Grocery Guru, Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith talk about how the pandemic has affected Category Management. Is it completely dead, dying, or changing into something else to adapt to the needs and demands of consumers? The age-old question. If Category Management is about meeting the shopper’s demands better and quicker than the next guy, then it’s a ‘No’.

You Can Read the Full Category Management is Dead Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

This is Week Two and we're here with the Grocery Guru that is Andrew Grant. Hello? How are you doing?

Andrew Grant:

I'm good Darren, how are you?

Darren A. Smith:

Hey, I'm good, I'm good. This is Week Two of our Grocery Guru and last week, we were talking about UFC, which I thought was Ultimate Fighting Champion, but you corrected me and said it's urban for Urban Fulfillment Centers.

Andrew Grant:

Right. Second time. Yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

I remember, so would you just give us 30 seconds on UFC? What was that all about?

Andrew Grant:

Right. Well, if I can remember a week ago, right. The future really of retailing and what we're going to talk about today, I think carries on from there. But basically, grocery home shopping has grown faster since March than in the previous 10 years. Because clearly so many people at home, people not wanting to go and wander around a Superstore because of the physical distance rules. They've all ordered home shopping.

Andrew Grant:

Category Management is dead

 

Home shopping is now, I hope I've got my numbers right, can be up to 30% of the supermarkets turnover. And it's only going one way. As a result, we're having to find ways to pick stuff more efficiently. And the likes of, I think I said last week, Cardo has spent gazillions on massive, great automated factories. People like Tesco, and Sainsbury's use people in-store to pick the stuff, and if you've got 50% of your business you're going to have more people picking than you have customers.

Andrew Grant:

What they've very cleverly done and we talked about the good old days where stores had stock rooms. They're taking the biggest out of town stores, which we all know are slightly white elephants now, and turning half of them over to picking spaces for home delivery.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay.

Andrew Grant:

These are now called dark stores or Urban Fulfillment Centers. Tesco, I think I've got 17 planned in the next year.

Darren A. Smith:

I remember you telling me about the winners and the losers. We're looking at Albi and Lidl possibly losing and Tesco, probably winning and Asda. Is that right?

Andrew Grant:

A big opportunity for Asda because they've got the biggest stores in the out of town locations, new owners who are convenience experts, not necessarily Superstore experts. Yeah, you could see those massive Asda stores, half of them going dark and becoming a picking centre.

Darren A. Smith:

Right. Okay. Okay. And then you left us with a cliffhanger last time, very good film, very old, maybe for another time, Sly Stallone. And you talked about category management is dead. Now I've heard that term before and it's quite a provocative... category management is dead. What did you mean by it?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, I think it's demise has been well-publicized probably for the last 15 years. I think when shopper loyalty data first came in they said category management was dead. But I think finally it is. And this move to home shopping and these Urban Fulfillment Centers that will be the nail in the coffin of traditional category management.

Andrew Grant:

If you are a traditional grocery supplier selling tins and packets that are relatively undifferentiated. Because if half of the business is picked dark-

Darren A. Smith:

Yep.

Andrew Grant:

... then all your cans, all your packets of cereals all your tins of stuff will be in the dark side of the store. And who's going to come in in future and want to browse the canned veg aisle. Yeah. If you go around to Superstore now, which are the aisles which are the emptiest? It's the pet food aisle, it's the canned veg and canned fruit aisle. Everybody's in the ready meal aisle or produce or the meat department.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah, the sexier aisles. Yeah.

Andrew Grant:

It's experiential do they call it? Where people want to look at the tomatoes and buy the tomatoes that are just the right ripeness for them. I like slightly green bananas. You probably like very ripe bananas. I won't buy a steak online because how do you know you're not getting the off cut? You want to be able to choose the rump steak that you want for your dinner.

Andrew Grant:

I think the future is literally category management will split in half. You'll have half a store where people go in if you like for the experience, they want to see the fresh food and they want to see the meat and the produce and touch and feel, and smell, et cetera. But then who bothers, everybody knows what a can of beans is.

Andrew Grant:

Why not have that hidden, picked and delivered to your home because it's a can of beans. I think this major challenge going forward for the like... some of the big branded manufacturers in those categories, your Heinz's and your Kellogg's because you don't have physical placement anymore. And category management is all about physical placement.

Darren A. Smith:

All right. Let me just take you back a bit because a few people over the years have said to me, category management is dead and we interviewed a guy, who wrote a book. Andy did actually, Category Management is Dead. And I get to a point where I go category management is simply meeting the shopper's needs. That's never going to change. Isn't category management a lie, because you're saying it's going to change?

Andrew Grant:

Okay. Yeah. Maybe it's not dead maybe it's like one of those mutant creatures that just morphs into something different. Yeah. I feel like Alien, it doesn't actually die, just turns into something else. You're right. Category management as somebody once said to me is about disappointing the fewest customers.

Darren A. Smith:

Because I remember when I was a Sainsbury's Ready Meals Buyer, we put in our diaries Category Management on a Friday afternoon.

Andrew Grant:

You joke...

Darren A. Smith:

That's crazy. But that was in the 90s. We did Category Management three hours a week. The rest of the time, we don't know what we did.

Andrew Grant:

I don't remember the nineties, Darren. So you'd have to remind me about that.

Darren A. Smith:

All right, so what then about my other challenge, which is we've got a whole bunch of suppliers that split into three. They split into those that sort of getting category management, whatever we call that, meeting the shopper's needs, embracing it. Those that have bought the data, but sort of wince when they pay the bill and don't use it. And then those that go [nyeah 00:06:22] category management still a bit odd. Are we really going to leave most of those behind now?

Andrew Grant:

Well, some of them potentially have already been left behind. Your big branded players have been putting money into shopper insight probably for the last 10 years. And you see somebody like Gillette, Gillette now has the Gillette club where you sign up to get your razorblades direct. I think they bought... was it Harry's Razors they bought as well? The home of subscription razors.

Andrew Grant:

People like Procter & Gamble, Gillette are already trying to get direct to the shopper so that they have that insight. For me, yeah, the big branded players will have the money to pump the money into shopper insight rather than traditional category management. As ever, it's your secondary and tertiary brands and to some extent, your home brand players, who, as you say, either need to see the light and that's what we're for, or they don't do it.

Andrew Grant:

And you will get left behind if you don't embrace, as we call it, shopper insight management or shopper-led insight management, SLIM for short, yeah. [crosstalk 00:07:40]. You need to embrace that.

Darren A. Smith:

And so if we take traditional category management and those suppliers that were in, I think this middle group of those that buy a huge amount of data. But wince when they pay the bill and don't do much with it, actually what's going to happen is not only do you need the data but you need data on e-commerce on those online shopping sites and you've got to embrace it. Oh, crumbs, you're going to get left behind twice.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Well, people that buy the data and don't use is a bit like buying a sports subscription for your telly and never watching a football match. What's the point?

Darren A. Smith:

Well, they do it because they think they should, they need to be seen to have it, but we've over the years, worked with many, many clients who have spent a quarter of a million pounds on data and done chuff all with it.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, there are the insights for this week. Category management is morphing. Maybe it's not dead. It's certainly morphing into something very different and it's been accelerated by what we've all had to go through the last six months.

Darren A. Smith:

And interestingly, a client who won't be named has just asked us to set up an e-commerce training program for category management, because they want to get right ahead. And they're setting up a team of 10 people as well.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

I think they're one of the ones that are cutting edge, putting aside the Cokes and the Gillettes who are obviously doing it anyway.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. I see. You are quite right.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. Category management is dead, Urban Fulfillment Centers. All right. What are you going to tease us with for next week?

Andrew Grant:

Cool. Have I got a cliffhanger for next week?...

Episode 30 – Inclusion: Interview with Derek Bruce

Derek has a great background in leadership and people development, consultancy, and business communication. Which he gets from working with market-leading global organizations in the Financial Services, Media, Retail, and Engineering industries. He knows the business culture and well as world culture. Born in the UK, and living between Amsterdam and Milan right now he also hosts large scale digital and physical events for industry-leading organisations as well as speaking at global seminars and conferences. He also prides himself on building trust and long-term relationships to help people to accomplish their goals. These are also the principles of his own organisation, Derek Bruce Associates.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts, and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to this Sticky Interview with me, Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter. I've got the great pleasure of interviewing and having a conversation with Derek Bruce. We've already had one connection conversation and I got to dig into a little bit about his history, his experience. A phenomenal buy and I love reading some of this stuff.

Nathan Simmonds:

Background in leadership and people development, consultancy and business communication, which he gets from working with market leading global organizations in the financial services, media, retail, engineering industries. But not only that, he knows business culture as well as world culture. Born originally in the UK, in Brixton, he's living between Amsterdam and Milan right now, hosting large scale digital and physical events for industry leading organizations, as well as speaking at global seminars and conferences. That in itself, Derek, is pretty phenomenal. It's, I guess, some of the life that we all wish and aspire to get to, being able to do some of that stuff.

Focuses on leadership and people development, consultancy, and business communication

 

Nathan Simmonds:

The best bit about him is this bit, I love it, and I know this because I feel this in the conversation we have, he prides himself on building trust and long-term relationships to help people accomplish their goals. We're going to dig into some more of that later on in this conversation, because there's some really critical, vital pieces of work that you're bringing your attention to, which I definitely want you to put the lens on today. And it says, these are also the principles of his own organization, Derek Bruce Associates. Absolutely 100%, Derek, welcome to here, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for being here.

Derek Bruce:

Cheers for the invite.

Nathan Simmonds:

Always. First question for me, for anyone that I'm interviewing, why do you do what you do?

Derek Bruce:

It's kind of a funny story. I kind of fell into it. So years and years and years ago I was working for Prudential, and applied for many jobs, got into there and started working, believe it or not, on an IT help desk. I was helping people do computer thing, turn it off, turn it on again, worked wonders.

Derek Bruce:

But I kind of then fell into learning and development because we as a team were helping people with IT systems, and through my career at Prudential, and they gave some awesome development, it's a great environment to work in, they really supported their staff. In my almost 13 years there I kind of moved from IT, presenting IT, into presenting solutions for sales, and then into learning development, and then into leadership development and change. So I do what I do because I like it but I kind of fell into it. It wasn't a plan to get to this point, unfortunately.

Nathan Simmonds:

For me, that's strange in itself because most people end up going into IT because okay, There's a stereotype of people that go and work at IT help desks, I can't get away from that. And most people go there. I'm a nerd, I'm a geek, I'm a reformed geek, I used to play Dungeons & Dragons and those sorts of things. It tends to be those sort of people that go to work for IT help desks, and it's very rare for my view of the world that you see people coming out of that space to go into more learning and development and people spaces. But the part you highlighted there, which was phenomenal, was it's kind of about that Prudential creating that right environment for you.

Derek Bruce:

Yeah. It's a company which, if I now look back at where I've worked, and I've worked at some great companies, but it was probably slightly ahead of its time in terms of the way they cared about staff, the inclusion of making people being able to be the best they can be.

Derek Bruce:

They invested, for example, in my CIPD qualification. They paid me to actually be qualified to do learning and development while I was working there. They then helped my career move from learning and development to get experience with doing sales stuff as well, experience with doing project management, and this was all part of how almost the DNA of the organization was, which was to get the most out of people, by creating the right environment where they could do the best. And quickly we realized that I could tell people to do the IT stuff, but it wasn't really what my skillset was. So that's why I moved into the L&D role.

Nathan Simmonds:

That's phenomenal. Especially when you look at the financial sector, and I don't know if it's a historic thing or it's more a recent thing, is a lot of the financial industry is purely about the numbers, not necessarily about the culture. I certainly didn't feel a lot of that when I was in the financial sector. It's about how many sales, how many numbers, because that's what they're selling at the table, money, which is a number. Whereas Prudential created this right kind of incubator to support understanding actually where your best skills are, where to develop you, and how to support you making that journey as well.

Derek Bruce:

Yeah. It's funny because if I look back at some of the experiences which were provided to me and the fact that they would develop people, it was... The development was key, they wanted you to actually be the best you could be, as I mentioned, and the environment and inclusion piece was really important. But also the engagement of the employees was important. So everything from... I worked in 142 Holborn Bars, which is this beautiful old building in the center of London and it's one of those places you walk into, kind of like your Harry Potter building, and you feel the history, you feel what's happened there before. My first day I remember vividly, I was only like 18, 19, I was taking a tour around the building and it had an underground theater, it had a gym, it had all this stuff from god knows where and when, financial services had all been started.

Derek Bruce:

And on my first Friday a lady came around with a drinks trolley, with alcohol as well, and was kind of like every floor people could just have a drink, Friday afternoon, just kind of stop and talk to your colleagues, unwind together. And for me as an 18 year old going into an organization and that environment, it was kind of like okay, this is kind of surreal but it's awesome.

Derek Bruce:

And it kind of gained also, because people who worked for Pru, we used to call it Pru, would also go above and beyond because the environment was so good because you felt you were part of a huge team and huge organization which cared about you. We kind of made sure you did more to make sure we were channeling success as well. So yeah, it was an amazing experience.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's interesting hearing you say that. A Friday afternoon, everything kind of winds down, people get together and actually have a conversation. And it's not that you've wound down and you want to go to the bar and you want to do happy hour just to kind of drink your problems and your frustrations of the week. You stop and you have a social interaction with people.

Nathan Simmonds:

I know at Holland or certain areas in the Netherlands when I was living there, they were very big on this kind of four day work week and finishing at a very specific time and you don't take your work home with you. And there is a big focus on business is going to four day weeks, in some places three day weeks, and we're experiencing this with COVID-19, people are getting more work done because they're at home and they're getting it done in shorter amounts of time, they're getting more attention to it.

Nathan Simmonds:

And like you say, you're willing to give more because you know when you get to Friday afternoon, "I've done my work, I've contributed, I've added value, now I can actually have a moment and enjoy this social interaction." Which you just don't have.

Derek Bruce:

I think one of the things which you just reminded me, it also was the first company I worked for but it also didn't have presenteeism mindset. So lots of organizations, and I've got lots of friends across London, Italy, Amsterdam, suffer from organizations which feel people have to be there to make sure they're doing the work. This was back, as I said, in the later '80s, early '90s, and still the focus was on what you did, what you produced, how you contributed, and it wasn't measured by you being sat on a seat with a screen in front of you doing stuff, it was measuring the contribution to the work, to the experience of our customers, to the project, to the team. And again,...

Episode 29 - Virtual Classroom Learning: Interview With Helene Bejjani

For the last 15 years, Helene Bejjani has been empowering people to learn and grow through her focus on 3 key areas: the corporate culture and work environment, leadership development, and employee development. With a brilliant career history to date, L&D BP for Newell brands and HO L&D for Antalis she is uniquely placed to influence significant change that supports business growth, in multiple locations in multiple ways. Including delivering a training program that touches 5000 people in 40 locations globally across a virtual platform. Today, the topic of discussion is virtual classroom learning.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmons, Senior Leadership Coach and Trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership, development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts, and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you, in the work that you do. Welcome to the show.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to this Sticky Interview with me, Nathan Simmons, Senior Leadership Coach and Trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. And today, I have the great pleasure of interviewing Helene Bejjani, I hope I'm pronouncing this right, I didn't check this last time, just to make sure. Digging into the depths of creativity and understanding around virtual classrooms, so yes, we've experienced some unprecedented times, I'm not sure how many times that works been used across the internet in the last three months. This has really challenged us as trainers, it has really challenged us as L&D professionals, it has really challenged us on a social level of how we connect with each other virtually and physically. And having seen some of the work that Helene's doing and the environment which in which she works in, what is it, 41 different locations. Was it 5,000 employees across 41 locations, I seem to remember something like this?

Helene Bejjani:

Yeah, something like that.

Nathan Simmonds:

That's a huge spread of people in a huge number of places, it's not just one or two offices, it's multiple locations. So I wanted to have a conversation with Helene. I wanted to find out what she does and how she's coped in these situations. But she's bringing with her 15 years of empowering people to learn and grow while focusing their work in three key areas, corporate culture, work environment, and leadership and employee development. And her experiences have been previously at Newell Brands as a HR Business Partner, and then more recently as the Head of L&D for Antalis as well. So in this conversation, we're going to dig into all that, that experience in all these areas and we're going to be digging into virtual classrooms, getting creative online, and how you use these tools to your advantage in a global arena, such as you do. Firstly, thank you for being here Helene, it's really appreciated.

Helene Bejjani:

Thank you Nathan for having me, it's a pleasure.

Helene focuses on empowering people to learn through the corporate culture and work environment, leadership development, and employee development

 

Nathan Simmonds:

First question for me always is, why do you do what you do?

Helene Bejjani:

So that's an important one. When you know your why, everything falls into place. For me it's something that I've been thinking about for a long time that, drove my career. I'm lucky that I found my why early in my career and I was able to work towards that. So I always think that, we spend so much time at work and wouldn't be great if people came to work passionate about what they do, feeling like they are adding value. And this is actually what drives everything that I do, it's helping build better workplaces, helping empowering people like you said, helping them learn and grow. And I found that through learning and development, we can do a lot of that. Of course, it's not the only area that touches upon that, but it's one of the ways that we can help build better workplaces for people to come, to be happy where they work, about what they do and feel that they add value. So I think that from the learning perspective, so I love really identifying needs, whether it's people's needs or just the business needs and come up with solutions.

Helene Bejjani:

And when I say solutions, sometimes it's learning, sometimes it's something else. So this is where our added value comes into place and yeah, helping people, helping design experiences as well for people, it's something that we're hearing more about but I truly believe in that. And virtual learning is part of that so I, like you said, work in global environments, I enjoy that very much. And when you work in global environments, you are working with people from different cultures and most of the time the structure is very matrix-like, it's cross-functional, and it's also very diverse. So this difference is something that for me is incredible because it drives so much value, I use the same word value a lot, but it drives so much, the difference is so enriching. So yeah, I love tapping into that and helping people see how it can be impactful, and this is where virtual learning can be very powerful as well.

Nathan Simmonds:

Yeah huge. That prime thing that kind of jumps out to me, when you know your why I can't remember if it was Nietzsche said, "If you can understand why, you can survive any how." Or at least...

Helene Bejjani:

Exactly. You can. Any road will take you where you want to go. If you don't know your why, any road will take you.

Nathan Simmonds:

And this is the thing, a gentleman I kind of interacted with a little while ago said, "Your purpose is never unknown, it's either unclear, unfocused, or unstructured," So it always exists underneath whatever you're doing, it's just whether or not we have the focus to understand what it looks like and the structure in order to make it happen on a daily basis, and luckily for you and the people that you work with, you find that in L&D in connecting with people and helping to increase that level of understanding. The other part that kind of jumps out for me is, there was a post from Darren, the founder at MBM, we go to school, we learn all this stuff, and then we go to work we have no idea how to manage our time we have no idea how to sell a product we have no idea how to negotiate a better deal on something. Now all these things are really, really important to life and we spend the first you know 20 years of our education or whatever it is not learning these things.

Helene Bejjani:

Exactly.

Nathan Simmonds:

Then when you come into L&D, it's just like, "Ah, now I've got an opportunity to share this stuff that's really important with people. How do I make it work and how do I get to more people." So it's phenomenally powerful.

Helene Bejjani:

Yeah and I mean today, to be honest, we have so many new jobs, new roles, that are going to emerge, that are emerging, so traditional schools cannot keep up with that. There are so many things that people really will need to learn on the job, through experience that you can't have degrees for everything and yesterday, I was actually having a conversation with a friend who wanted to go into something specific to e-commerce, and this is not something that you can find a degree in so there's this company that trains people on the job and helps them learn the skills, and I found it really interesting.

Nathan Simmonds:

[inaudible 00:06:58] the sound on the computer for two seconds. And that is the interesting thing, because it's a new world that's coming, that is here and, as you know, it's starting to materialize. We home school, we opted to home school sometime before this situation. And I know of people that are using virtual classrooms, so they're already using virtual classrooms to help homeschool their children in certain specific subjects that they want them to learn or their children want to learn more about. And actually now, more teachers are having to do that. These guys that were doing this virtual classrooms, literally for school-aged children, they're already ahead of the curve because they were doing it three, four, five years ago, whereas all of a sudden these teachers over here, are suddenly pushed into this camera, oh we don't know how to use Zoom, we have no idea how to deal with this, and we have no idea how that's going to affect our thinking or the brains of our children, whereas these guys are ahead of the curve already.

Nathan Simmonds:

So there's going to be new job titles coming out, as you say, whether it's for teachers, online teaching assistants or whatever it is, actually there's this new world that's coming out of it and no, there won't be degrees for all of it, but there's definitely going to be some very specific skill sets that are going to make a difference for that.

Helene Bejjani:

Yeah and the pandemic forced people learn new skills that no one could just teach them. It was a new setting, it wasn't a normal setting, so even old courses that you could find on how you can do that we're not totally relevant to the situation, we're all learning together.

Nathan Simmonds:

Yeah and correct. And this phrase that I view several times, it's the intensity of proximity. So it's the intensity of being with your family 24/7 is like, "Holy cow, I need some space." And then it's the intensity of your work it's just like, okay actually, there might have been these courses to help you teach online but they weren't there to help you understand what they would feel like if you're doing it eight hours a day, every day, for the last four months.

Helene Bejjani:

Exactly yeah, with all the pressure and the mental stress about w

Episode 28 - Employee Experience: Interview With HR Expert, Caroline Shine

Caroline Shine is a strategic Head of HR & L&D with an amazing track record of leading employee engagement strategy and HR. Caroline has worked with GANT, Rush Hair, A.S. Watson, and Austin Reed. In this interview, we get to dive into her wisdom of upgrading the employee experience.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts, and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to today's Sticky Interview with me, Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. And today I have the privilege and honor as well to be interviewing Caroline Shine. She's a HR head of with an exemplary career history in a plethora of well known brands, organizations and companies including Austin Reed Group, Rush Hair Limited, AS Watson Group, which you may not know from that name, but from some of their brands on the high street in multiple countries around the world, you definitely would though, and more recently GANT Global as well. With her successes there being numerous and illuminous, by leading a complete culture change, helping them to get more focused on their values and behaviors, she has reduced absence cost by 60K in one year and reduced recruitment cost by a further 70,000 pounds. And at the same time improved employee engagement from plus 11 to plus 59 points in the time that she was there.

Nathan Simmonds:

With this level of experience I wanted to dive into all things employee engagement talking about culture, talking about the ideas and implementations to make this work. And I wanted to dig in and share her experiences in this interview. First and foremost Caroline, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for being here. Really appreciate it.

Caroline Shine:

Thank you for having me.

Nathan Simmonds:

Look, first question with me is always the same. Why do you do what you do?

Caroline Shine:

I think I do what I do because I'm absolutely passionate about all things people. But it's also about seeing results from all my interventions with people. So to see somebody go through a leadership program for example, and to get the feedback from that individual who has been with the business 19 years, never had any training, and to see his leadership score go up and up. But not only that, he tells me that his relationship with his wife has even got better. It's those kind of personal what they do, not just at work but what I see people improve on a personal level. And that's amazing to hear.

Nathan Simmonds:

It is. And I know this feeling because I've been in training rooms and sometimes it's the most difficult person in the training room. And you're having that conversation. You're just, "Really bloody hell. It's like pulling teeth in this conversation." And then for some reason you go back maybe a month later, it's me when I'm in the training room, or two months later or whatever, and it's, "Ah. I remember you," she says. And she says to me, "By the way I'm having less stress at home." And I'm, "That's the best thing in the world ever."

Caroline Shine:

Yep. Yeah.

Caroline Shine - strategic head of HR and Learning and Development

 

Nathan Simmonds:

And the other thing that comes up for me is do you know what? I hear a lot of people that the common [inaudible 00:03:33] response is when people say, "I'm in HR." "Why?" "Because I like people." And actually for me personally I've met a lot of HR people where actually it's not about the people. And then I suppose why. But then to drill it down the example. But do you know what? Actually it's about this and hearing this and getting this. That to me, that's not the words, it's the stuff that comes out of the good things that you do.

Caroline Shine:

Exactly.

Nathan Simmonds:

Phenomenal.

Caroline Shine:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Nathan Simmonds:

And it's not about numbers at the end of the day. It's about the people.

Caroline Shine:

Exactly. Always is about the people. But, I think HR can show a return on investment. So when it's not just about people but actually, "Look, it's also about the business. Improve the business. But it's improve people's lives."

Nathan Simmonds:

Massively. And I think if you chase the numbers you don't get the people. But if you grow the people the numbers come along all by themselves. And it's not a chicken and egg scenario. You can't have one without the other. It has got to be that way first, which is phenomenal.

Nathan Simmonds:

So I wanted to talk to about all things employee experience and employee engagement and I wanted to get your take on this. Like I said, with your experience, I think it's worth digging into that. So for you, what is meant by an employee experience?

Caroline Shine:

For me an employee experience starts with the candidate but it's about the perception that they personally have about the company, its values, it's how they feel that they've got a safe open environment with good technology, being able to do their job, but also that they understand what's their purpose in the business, and that's where for me it starts with the candidate experiences. "What's my perception? Based on the consumer brand, what's my perception of what this company is like to work for?" And then going through that experience, does it live up to those expectations on a personal level?

Nathan Simmonds:

I think it's interesting when you get to the personal level because I think a lot of organizers, they paint a picture and you go through the doors and it's, "Well okay. This is all well and good. And kind of do I want to work here?" But then kind of does the video and the audio sync up? Does what they're saying actually match up with the reality?

Caroline Shine:

Absolutely. And I think I introduce people, my leaders in training, I've done lots of training that I've wrote and delivered myself. But one was all about recruitment. So I'm relying on store managers to do their recruitment. And some of them have never even looked at Glassdoor and looked at, "What's the reality?" And there they were. I said, "You can't get away from it. People will put their experiences on there and GANT was on there." So it's all about, "You are the brand. You represent the brand. These are our values and our culture." So when you come to treating that candidate, that's where you'll get good employee branding. They've got to be the brand and act accordingly from the candidate perspective.

Nathan Simmonds:

You've got to be the ambassador. It's a constant dialogue. And I also had the pleasure of interviewing James Kerr and he wrote a book called Legacy. And his phrase that he used was about getting values off walls and getting them on floors and helping people to really live them. I think it was a statistic that I read when I was writing some content is, actually 27% of people, and that is only 27% of people actually agree and believe in their company values.

Caroline Shine:

Yep. Yep. I went through a whole piece of work around that, which was if you're going to embark on creating a values culture with the behaviors that match them, you have to be tenacious and not let go of it. I started off by doing a values workshop with all mixes of people from all over the business, brought them around to groups of about 10 people and the first thing I did was talk about, "What are values?" And asking people, "What are you passionate about?" And not just work but other stories. And what we got was some great stories of people's experience of life that made them passionate.

Caroline Shine:

For an example, I had people that walk over hot coals, I had other people loved scuba diving. But then I distinctly remember some people who came to this country not knowing how to speak any English at all. She put herself through university and she now speaks fluent English and has a very good career with GANT. And she's passionate about that what she achieved.

Caroline Shine:

So what we first all decided is that we are, our passion or our values are based on our own personal feelings. Then we dived into the values of what GANT are, which were authentic, passionate, and innovative. So we then had to decide, "Well they're just a set of words. What do they mean?" So what I did is I wrote out to help the groups along, just strips of written paper about a behavior that would be what I then called GANT Great, GANT No Thanks.

Caroline Shine:

So what we discussed with the group for example, authentic. What does being authentic actually look like? But actually what doesn't it look like? So for example, "I won't gossip. I won't bring my bad mood into the office and be the mood hoover of everybody else." So the people themselves then chose, "Yeah. That's what passionate means. Yes. That's what authentic. That's what it does mean, that's what it doesn't mean."

Caroline Shine:

And then I went into something called a values dilemma with them and I gave them some dilemmas just to discuss. And I got quite interesting and heated. One of the questions I asked him is, "Would you give money to beggars?" And just let them discuss. What we got back is people saying, "Nope. I'd give money to the people selling The Big Issue." Or, "I'd give money to a charity." Or, "I'd buy them a sandwich instead." And then because some of them felt very, "They're going to spend it on drink and drugs." And everyone had a different view. But the outcome was there's no right or wrong answer but we asked,...

Episode 27 - The Meaning of Trust: Interview With Csaba Toth from ICQ Global

Founder of ICQ Global, an organisation that helps leaders make sense of why people behave, think, and feel so differently so they can unlock their own potential and lead others in a way that they feel engaged and inspired to create synergy. ICQ Global has combined the latest business data with academic research to develop the multi-award-winning, internationally accredited portfolio of assessments, training, and coaching that has already benefited Fortune 500 companies, national governments, universities, and local businesses. Additionally, to this, he’s just released his already acclaimed the best-selling book Uncommon Sense in Unusual Times collaborating with the likes of Marshall Goldsmith and John Mattone. Today, we discuss what is the meaning of trust?

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts, and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to this Stick Interview with me, Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter. Now, I have, I would say, a fairly longterm friend, acquaintance in a man by the name of Csaba Toth, who is a phenomenal mind around creating and developing the mindsets of businesses and understanding what the group intellect is. He is the founder of ICQ Global, which is an organization that helps leaders get ahead on understanding not just their own mindset, but the group mindset, providing a complete range of services that help businesses understand how their people are communicating with each other, departmentally, as well as geographically, which I think is a phenomenal thing, in itself, when we look at this assessment.

Nathan Simmonds:

Additionally to this, he's just released his already acclaimed bestselling book, Uncommon Sense in Unusual Times, which is beautiful, by the way. I love the cover of this. Collaborating with the likes of Marshall Goldsmith and John Mattone. And those people that don't know who John is, he was Steve Jobs' coach. And that's just to name a few people that are contributing to this and collaborating on this book, which is amazing. Really looking forward to getting in depth with some more of this conversation. Why? Because Csaba actually trained me in this assessment process and in this profiling. We haven't seen each other for awhile, I don't think. There's been a lot of stuff going on for him and his business and also me and my business. And we're now bringing this conversation together to get a deeper understanding of what's been happening and share some of those new insights with the likes of yourselves, as well.

Nathan Simmonds:

So Csaba, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Csaba Toth:

Thank you for inviting me.

Csaba Toth - Founder of ICQ Global

Nathan Simmonds:

It's a pleasure. Look, before we get into the next set of questions, the first question that I always ask people on this interview series is, why do you do what you do?

Csaba Toth:

I think the answer is pretty simple because I think the best solutions are born out of pain and frustration and [inaudible 00:02:29] is a prime example of that. I studied international management at Sussex and my dissertation was about the implications in Eastern and Western Europe in joint ventures. So it was really specific. I got a good grade. And then, as soon as I finished, I started my own company, which was a restaurant booking site. We started with 35 restaurants here in Brighton and, in one year, we had 5500 all over the UK, became the fastest growing and biggest restaurant booking website in the United Kingdom.

Csaba Toth:

So on paper, everything made sense. It became a joint venture with a software company and that's where it went wrong because I just couldn't work with the other CEO, who was French. And I'm not saying there was a problem, but definitely I couldn't stand him. So on paper, we were getting the results, we were growing, but on a personal level, I thought, "mm-mm (negative)." So we got to the point where we had to get out of the business. We sold the shares. The business is still online. And this is when I started my research. I didn't understand. How come that was the exact topic of my dissertation and that department, itself, is number one in the world in its category, I had years of experience, but I couldn't put that theory into practice? It just didn't make sense.

Csaba Toth:

So I got certified in a lot of different things; psychometric assessment, leadership models, intercultural models. And I wanted to understand what went wrong and how we could fix it. And the result of that research is something called global DISC, which is now ICF accredited and we won six international awards in the last 12 months and we have certified partners in 29 countries now. So that's the story behind it because I realized that it wasn't only my problem. It was the people that had the same problem, but they don't even know about it. They don't know they have an issue. They don't know how serious it is. So they are not actively looking for a solution or, when they do, they don't realize that most of the solutions are outdated or incomplete. And this was a really painful journey, but it seems to be working now.

Nathan Simmonds:

Yeah. It's not just because they're from so on, and so on, and so on. I think we use that as an excuse. "Oh, there's Bob. Oh, it's just because he's French. Oh, there's Yan. It's just because he's Dutch. That's the way they work." Well, actually, yeah, there is some cultural stuff here. There are some potentially kind of cultural biases that sit in there, but then when we get to understand how people work, we can say, "Okay, that's why they're approaching it this way." When we understand how we're approaching it, we can see the world a bit differently. We can then collaborate more clearly and we can include people because we can understand how they're seeing the world and get those two viewpoints, which actually makes a better outcome in the long run.

Csaba Toth:

Yes, but it's not [inaudible 00:05:19] and this is the problem, that we see the world from our perspective. And that's why I believe that cultural differences are clashes of common senses, hence the title of the book, Uncommon Sense in Unusual Times. Because if that's how you approach the topic, then it's not a binary option. You don't have to win so the other person has to lose. That's not how it works. No. You're right from your perspective. I'm right from mine. We have a disagreement, so let's find out what the reason is. What do you know that I don't? What can you see that I cannot?

Csaba Toth:

And I also fully agree with you that most people think that culture equals nationality, or maybe generations, or maybe now they talk about gender. So when a company focuses on increasing diversity, these are the main three culture groups that they focus on. But if you look at the research where they compare 17 different culture groups in terms of practicality, in terms of range of differences, then these were the bottom three, the most unreliable ones, the most impractical ones. And if you think about it, it makes sense because you don't choose your gender or generation or country of origin, but you learn how to navigate in that environment. Culture is not who we are, it's what we are used to. And country of origin is just one of the 15 or 20 culture groups that we belong to at the same time. Maybe that's the most visible one, the most easily disclosed one, but if you focus on only the country of origin, it's almost like just washing your head and not the rest of the body. It's okay for awhile, but for how long?

Csaba Toth:

So when you talk to someone, what are the chances that the other person belongs to the same 15 or 20 culture groups like you, even in your family? It's next to zero. Every single conversation is a cross-culture dialogue, but most people don't know about it. And even if you Google inter-culture or cross-culture, then you find a lot of counter briefings. But culture shift doesn't happen because you don't know how to celebrate Christmas in the UK or in Germany. It happens when you interact with people and they react differently to what you expect. So you cannot run on autopilot. You have to use your neocortex constantly and it is draining and people are burning out. That's the problem. But intercultural equals interpersonal, not just international. If you have a team with more than one person, it's already multicultural, even if it's not international, and that's the key to our topic and that's exactly what I discovered doing my research, that it was completely ignored.

Nathan Simmonds:

As you were saying that, the thing that was coming up for me is you have this generational gap. So you see your grandparents or parents and then you see the children. And then maybe the children are gay, lesbian, transgender, so all of these kind of gender stereotypes or differences go out the window. And then, even in a family environment, which is geographically in the same location, have no idea what's going on because there is such a safe divide between the cultures, the understanding, and that interpersonal relationship because the parents can't understand what's going on for the children. So the communication breaks down.

Csaba Toth:

Yeah, because they have different conditioning. And that's why I mean by culture, that this is something we are used to. When we grew up and it wasn't polite to talk about,...

Episode 26 - The Role of Learning and Development: Interview With Lorna Gamman, Head of L&D for Krispy Kreme UK

With over 15 years of L&D experience, Lorna Gamman comes with a wealth of experiences including her current role as head of L&D for Krispy Kreme. We ask, What is the role of learning and development? What is L&D strategy? Where does L&D strategy fall down? What does L&D need to do to overcome this? We also look at where Lorna's career is headed to next and her role in supporting SME's with her experiences.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts, and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to another Sticky Interview with me, Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. Idea with these interviews is help you be the best version of you. I feel like I rushed that, but that's because I'm really enthused, energized, and kind of really, really enjoying this conversation that's been happening before this recording and what we've had before. Today, I have the privilege of speaking to Lorna Gamman, the head of L&D from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, which in itself is prestigious enough for such a large company that's been around for nearly 100 years now. Lorna will correct me on that in just a minute. She has a phenomenal history with just over 15 years of L&D skills, hands-on practical skills, and is through this current situation, transitioning from this environment to a new world, potentially HR consultancy, L&D consultancy. Taking all those wonderful experiences that she's got from these incredible people and these incredible spaces, and helping to package that, and giving it to new people that need that support in a different way. So it's an exciting venture that I've been having a conversation, an exciting new venture ahead of Lorna as she moves into this space. Welcome to Sticky Interviews, Lorna. Thank you for being here.

Lorna Gamman:

No worries. Thank you for having me.

The Role of Learning and Development

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Look, I want to dive in because I want people to hear as much of what's going on in your head. I love asking you questions because, and I say this with absolute love and respect, you've got a lot to say on these things. You bring an enthusiasm and energy with it that is infectious and I want you to share that with people. For me, the first question is always why do you do what you do?

Lorna Gamman:

Yeah. I think for me, I love people and enabling people to be the best version of themselves. I love the selfish part of knowing that I've had even a teeny, little part to play in that because I think gives you the best feeling. That might be a simple conversation that changes the way that somebody views something through to some longterm leadership development programs and coaching sessions. I think for me, a win's a win, no matter how big. So I think, for me, it's just enabling people to be the best version of themselves. If I can have a bit of a part to play in that, I just get a really big feeling and a great buzz from that.

Nathan Simmonds:

I don't think that's selfish. I think it's wonderful. I talk about what we give to people, and it's the law of contribution. It's about what you put in first of all. With L&D, and leadership development, and all those elements, it is about what we put in first. We know that as leaders, the point it falls down is when it's take, take, take when it's all about me, me, me. That most people, as they're moving into the L&D space or the service industry, it's kind of in personal development. It tends to be, "Okay. What can I give to this person? What can I give to them?" The idea is not to live through their successes. It is to enjoy their successes from the work and contribution that you've made to those individuals.

Lorna Gamman:

Yeah.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's a wonderful thing. Thank you for doing what you do.

Lorna Gamman:

I enjoy it, and therefore, it's not a major pain, is it, to do it. I think it's lovely, and I can probably still name people that I think I had a little bit of a hand in where they are now. I've also had some bits as a manager where I think, "God, if I had of carried on what I was doing, I would have had a part to play in where they are now." Thankfully, I've learned from those as we've gone along and learned in the moment in those. I think it's a lovely feeling to have when you can look at someone's career and go, "You know what? At that moment in time, I helped them." Because, certainly, I've got names of people where I look back and go, "Do you know what? Vicky Harris and Andy Cross, they were instrumental in helping me be who I am now." If I can be that name for somebody else, then it's great.

Nathan Simmonds:

One thing that I've said is words change worlds because I still remember things that were said to me in my first job when I was 15 for the right reasons, for the wrong reasons, but it's something that's been encoded into the fabric of my thinking and the way that I approach certain things. It's the same when you put those names out there. Vicky and Andy, I think it was you said. It's about what do they give to you. Okay. What is it I'm now saying to someone else? Potentially where are their words am I repeating to someone else and passing that down the lineage or what else am I including and what do I want that person to say in 20 years' time? Because I know my outer voice is going to become my inner voice as the aspiring leader. What do I want to come out of their month in 20 years' time that's going to help the next generation of leaders coming up behind them?

Lorna Gamman:

Absolutely.

Nathan Simmonds:

What do you think then the role of L&D is in development?

Lorna Gamman:

It's a difficult one because you positioned earlier on as we provide a service, but I think that I'd into that that if we can become the strategic consultant within the business, then you can be an amazing service provider. I think the risk that you always have is if you're perceived as just an internal service provider, you get a department shopping list of training, and you just go off and deliver that. Whereas for me, that role of L&D is to really challenge the business in terms of where they're going, where they want to be, and how L&D can help them get there as opposed to be the order taker. I think there's a real opportunity to start to ask the why and delve into that to make sure that you're going off the things that really make a difference.

Lorna Gamman:

Sometimes I might get random requests. You think, "Actually, if I went after A, we'd fix B, but if we go off to B, we won't touch A." So you have to challenge. So I think being a strategic consultant is what the role of L&D is. Whether that's an external consultant coming in or an in-house consultant, I think we need to play that part of questioning, and challenging, and really getting to root causes to understand what's driving the business and how we can really drive the development of our people to deliver against those business objectives.

Nathan Simmonds:

What happens then when you end up being that order taker as an L&D function?

Lorna Gamman:

It's really unfulfilling to start with. They'll be times where you have to pick your battles as well within L&D, and sometimes it's not a battle that's worth fighting at that point, but at the beginning, we said, "We want to see people being the best versions of themselves." If fundamentally you know that what you're doing as the order taker isn't enabling that, it's really unfulfilling. You want to add value. You want to see change. You want to see improvement. Actually, by just being the order taker, you may not get that sense of fulfillment. Then I guess that the outputs of that is that the business doesn't see the value that you're adding because it wouldn't have been what you would add if you had the choice.

Lorna Gamman:

Then almost your role comes into question because actually why are you here? Because I come up with the idea. You come in with a bit of a plan. My team thought it out. So what's the point? I've had many conversations in my time where I'm like a, "Really? Is that truly what you need? Let's talk about why. Let's talk about the learning platform. Let's talk about what you'd like to see at the other side of this. What are those measures of success?" When you get to all of that stuff, you can then go back to the beginning and go, "Is it really that? Or if we go after this..."

Lorna Gamman:

I've had conversations where I've said, "Can you just put a bit of trust in me? If it doesn't go right, I'll eat my hat. It's fine. I don't mind going back on much if I've got it wrong and putting my hands up, but can you just give me the freedom to explore this? And give it a go in an area. Either prove it or disprove it. Sometimes you have to pick those battles in that way instead of trying to convince somebody to allow you the space and the freedom, but I think definitely the thumbs down for it, side of it is that it's just unfulfilling because you can't see the value you're adding.

Nathan Simmonds:

The words that jumped out to me was that strategic consultant. Do you think people in organizations when they have the L&D function there as a go-to mechanism don't give it the credibility that it's actually due?

Lorna Gamman:

I think that there'll be a mixed bag out there. There'll be people that absolutely, intrinsically have L&D at the table and at the heart of ever