What does leadership mean to you?
As a consultant, I always think there are three worlds you have to engage with when you think of leadership. The first world is the rational. You need to resolve challenges of logic – how can you improve efficiencies by reducing journey times from the warehouse, for example. Then there’s an emotional world, where you need to manage people’s emotional ties to what they do. Then there’s the political world, which has to do with the shareholders and ensuring they are getting value for money.
What are your main leadership and management challenges?
My background is in complexity and systems, and, from it, I see that our clients are faced with ever-increasing complexity and competition. If you think about 50 years ago, a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, people had a lot of time to make decisions and they were often working in businesses that evolved over generations. That’s completely changed. Markets appear and disappear, as does the competition. We need to be able to take advantage of the fleeting nature of the world.
How does the landscape of your sector affect those challenges?
It means there is a lot more pressure on organisations. In fact, it feels increasingly difficult just to stay in business. I know of organisations that have been viable for many years and are struggling now. It’s a tough time. The consequence of this is that organisations are increasingly up for embracing the complexities that they might once have shoved under the carpet. How can they get their arms around it, look at all the evidence, and make some really good strategic decisions? Can you disrupt or adapt in complex and uncertain markets?
“We need to be able to take advantage of the fleeting nature of the world”
What are you focusing on from a leadership and management perspective?
When we’re working with leaders on installing systems and reducing complexity, it’s always about discovering the big drivers. Can we get it down to a manageable set? It’s progressively working your way through all the information you have to weed out what really matters. What are the driving forces here, and what are the opposing forces? Then it’s about trying to build models that reduce the complexities without also reducing the richness of the decisions.
How do you develop your people?
I have always tried to help CEOs be more comfortable being a CEO and doing all the things that CEOs do. Often, people who come into a role only do what they already know. I like to get them to step out of that and do other things, using different styles, different approaches. So many people make their way through the corporate world being what the corporate world wants. They’re just the purchasing person or the finance guru, or whoever. I like to encourage people to bring more of themselves to work. It’s something I’m very passionate about.
What is your biggest leadership lesson over the past year?
That we are being pushed to make decisions ever more quickly. Even today, as we’re talking, the stock market has taken a turn and interest rates have fallen. Suddenly, in the space of a day, what wasn’t viable could be viable. How can we translate all the data that comes with the changing world into useable information and make the right decisions quickly? That’s the pressure that’s going on now.
Professor Martin Parr, co-founder and owner of Guided Systems Solutions
This article is adapted from a feature first published in the autumn 2024 issue of Edge.
