Mark has been made redundant 4 times at key brands and yet kept his direction and self confidence to keep going, and decided to address the Insurance industry and the way it marketed itself completely differently. Turning around the ‘protection’ concept that’s been around for so long, to the actual truth of ‘fixing’ led to them becoming the market leader once again. Great stuff.
Some things he’s learned along the way;
- Know the leader that you want to be. See being a leader as a privilege. Discover the kind of leader you wish to be, emulate it, become it, strive for it.
- Have “bounce – back – ability”. Be tough and resilient. And read “Oh the places you’ll go” by Dr Seuss
- Appreciate success vs significance.
- Deal with loneliness. Helps to be able to deal with that, despite the cliche ‘It’s lonely at the top’, it’s about recognising success vs significance – getting rid of people who aren’t going to make it.
- Build great teams. Are you trying to build a “Ryder Cup Team” with individuals and at most duos, Cricket team with individual specialists and others that fill in where needed, Rugby team where it’s all about the difference cogs coming together, or an orchestra that’s perfectly synchronised? Need to be clear on the type of team you wish to build otherwise you can be blamed for them not achieving their goals.
- Connect up the organisation. Get key stakeholders to believe in your vision and create the momentum that makes it impossible to go back on this vision.
- Look for the judo move. The theory on this is you use your aggressors weight and use it against them at the right time.
