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�: Tom Toumazis MBE � Yes, no, maybe v3(1)
So, thank you very much, Janet, for those kind words and the great introduction [inaudible
0:00:11], wow. Half of it�s true! I�m incredibly honoured to be here this evening.
It�s a very special moment for me because 33 years ago I was sitting in one of your
seats, normally at the back, not paying an enormous amount of attention or paying less
attention that I should�ve been. And 33 years passes and here I am standing here,
and it�s exciting and daunting at the same time, partly because I think I press ganged
about 100 people here this evening who had no choice, but they did say, �Yes�, but
the rest of you did have a choice, and I�m delighted that you�re all here this evening.
I � Olivia Rainford where are you? Who runs the Alumni Programme and runs Alumni Relations,
and is responsible for bringing me back into London South Bank University. Olivia asked
me to just give a quick skip through of my academic career, and it�s so much easier
to describe my academic career now that my children have all gone through their studies,
and that�s partly because I had a pretty disastrous academic career. It just didn�t
work for me. It didn�t work for me in the classroom. I couldn�t blame it on the size
of the school room, or classroom, I couldn�t blame it on schooling, parenting, I just couldn�t
connect with the practical prescriptive style of education, and was kicking around when
I was growing up. Where I responded much more, was in the playground and in the more business
playground environment later on in my career.
So, as I grew up I felt surrounded by really smart people that tended to put their hand
up much faster than me, and hand in their homework faster me, and I continually ended
up in the bottom quarter of the classroom. However, I [inaudible 0:02:20] with a combination
of re-takes, seven O Levels, not bad, and then eventually came to London South Bank
University with my one A Level in Government and Politics, and I thought I�d just throw
up this application form, and that�s it there, Government and Politics. Hold on there�s
a little � there you can see it, I�m very proud of that. By the way, I got an F in English,
and at today�s academic currency levels I think this is an E and a F, or a B and C,
right? I would�ve thought so. Something like that. And I am incredibly grateful to
this university for giving me the chance to study here because in fact, the level of my
qualifications wouldn�t have allowed me to get here, and I pleaded with the course
Director to give me a shot, and she did, she said, �Yes�, and thank God for that. And
I came on the course, and I wasn�t sure what I wanted to do. I certainly didn�t
feel like I wanted to get into the family business which would�ve been 24/7, seven
days a week, and for me it felt like I needed to try and explore something more, but I didn�t
know what it was and I wasn�t ready to get into work. And this place, the University,
gave me a little bit of time to think that one through. And through that process it gave
me the confidence to ask more questions, and get a sense of the business world. And I remember
sitting here, and some of the most engaging conversations, or some of the most engaging
talks were about business. It was people who came in who had business experience, and that�s
what really drew me into that world. So, it's even more special, if you like, for me to
be able to have the opportunity to give this talk.
So, with an HND in Business Studies, anyone HND in Business Studies here?
Thank you. Sir, I have another two HND in Business Studies. I decided to move into the
world of Business, and that�s where I had the good fortune to perform and work. And
when I was growing up, I must say, there was two things that I was addicted too, one was
television and the other one was food! And thankfully TV opened the door for me to develop
the early phase of my career. And since then, these are the companies that I�ve had the
good fortune to work with over that 32 years in these businesses, 16 roles working in teams
of, and leading teams of two and three to eight and a half thousand, and running businesses
in their low millions to billions. And so, the talk tonight is really centred on my personal
experience, it�s not an academic observation, it�s more a business observation, it�s
the things that I see that I think hopefully are interesting to you. And, I feel very strongly
that this five-letter word is a very toxic word, and a word that can get in the way of
the way in which we work together, and the way in which we relate to each other personally
as well as professionally. And increasingly over the last ten to fifteen years I�ve
seen it appear, and my question was, has it always been there and I�ve just felt it
more, or are there things that are occurring in our society that are drawing us more to
the world of �maybe� because �maybe� slows us down, �maybe� kills small businesses
and destroys large businesses eventually. And I think in our personal lives we can get
incredibly caught with frustration and anxiety, and disappointment if we keep on hearing that
word. So, my real message this evening is, I would love us all to be �yes evangelists�.
That�s what I�m really pushing for today, and to challenge yourselves around this whole
area of maybe, and why we should be trying to avoid it.
Now, last year, I took a different turn career wise, and I decided to take a step from a
full-time corporate role and move into a plural portfolio world, and that was an opportunity
for me to take investment positions in a number of companies where I felt that my skillset
could help them get to �yes� much more quickly and I�m delighted that some of those
businesses are here tonight. And I think this world challenges me because it enables me
to draw on all of my experiences over the last 30 years and help these businesses get
there much faster. That�s the intention. And I�m really happy in the Q&A to answer
any of these questions. I keep on moving just to disappoint the camera man. Just to make
it harder for him. Okay.
Can we just put this issue to the test? I�m going to give you two scenarios, scenario
number 1 is the work environment, okay, so, some of you are not in the work environment
so let�s just call it a �formal environment� and I�m going to try and play some extremes
here, but this, if you have been in a work environment or you have been in an informal
environment, maybe some of the people you�ve come across are going to be bosses like this,
or a work environment where questions like this come, am I going to get a pay rise? Are
we going to have a party? Are there going to be redundancies? Can I come to the meeting?
One of the things that I was incredibly frustrated with in the early phase of my career is I
always felt I kept on doing the work but someone was getting the credit for it, and I wanted
to continue to find ways of muscling my way into meetings that seemed to be difficult
to penetrate. And the answers that you�ll get, you may get some yes�, of course you
will, from that kind of questioning, but some of the answers you�re going to get are going
to be, it depends, I�ll get back to you, maybe, not sure, good question, great question,
fantastic question, let me get back to you. So, I have a position which is that yes and
no and maybe, maybe is not a midway point between these two words. In fact, it�s just
[inaudible 0:09:08] at the entry of no, pushing to get in. When I hear it, all I hear is no,
that�s the way my brain thinks. And so, I think with that in mind what I�d like
to do is give you a couple of observations on why I think this is has occurred and why
I think this is becoming increasingly more prevalent, and give you some possible tips
to find ways of avoiding the world of maybe. And it�s always interesting when issues
begin to appear in society, in culture, so this is Jack Johnson who wrote a song called
�Flake� and maybe always, almost always means �no�.
So, I�ve given you a corporate work environment. I�d like to suggest that we try this �maybe�
exercise with something a little bit more personal. Here�s Ryan Gosling with Michelle
Williams, and not a particularly happy movie called, �Blue Valentine� thank you, that�s
my son, thanks, good team work. One of them who helped me with the slides - both of them
did. Now, imagine getting these questions, imagine asking these questions. Do you love
me? Well I won�t read them out, you can read them, that�s the toughest, mum did
you record the footie? You do not want to give a �maybe� answer to that. But the
point is, in our personal lives we feel an enormously more connected emotion when we
hear an answer, and you can�t unhear an answer like �maybe� to any of these questions.
You can�t unhear an answer that isn�t clear and isn�t emphatic, and isn�t strong.
And I know I�ve given you extremes but I think that what I�m trying to propose and
what I�m trying to suggest is that there are ways in which you can ask the right question
in which you can position yourself to be in a much stronger place to get the answers that
you�re looking for.
There�s a social media App that doesn�t have �maybe� anywhere. This is not my
account by the way, I just want you to know, and then I conducted a little bit of research,
but this is a very successful business that has a clear left and no, yes or no. So, I�m
arguing that �maybe� slows you down, I�m arguing that it sucks oxygen out of the room,
I�m arguing that we can take a little bit more control and find a way of getting more
to yes. And I wanted to give you one quick example of an email that we received from
one of the businesses. Let me see if it comes up on this slide. We�ve been very discrete.
Just read that if you will. I�ll give you a second to read it. What do you think that
� to me that�s a no, and what I�m saying is that in the electronic world where the
face to face has become much, much harder, we�re getting bombarded with a lot of �maybes�.
I think this could still convert by the way to a business and a partnership. It could
still convert to a business and a partnership, but clearly this kind of thing affects businesses,
because small businesses have a tremendous way of adapting, and that�s what they�re
really good at. And many of you in the room, and I�ve met some of you this evening, run
small businesses, and you can deal with �no�, I�ve seen entrepreneur�s and I�ve seen
businesses deal with �no�. They get on with it. Something doesn�t work, they find
another way, but this world it�s much, much harder to react because you�re waiting,
you�re not sure what you�re learning and that�s part of the challenge with this issue.
So, I�d love us all to be �yes� evangelists. That�s what I�m pitching for. Ditch the
word �maybe� and accept the word �no� but with some conditions, and I�ll come
onto those conditions later on.
So, I would like to suggest that there are three things that I�ve observed over the
last 10-15 years that I think have precipitated this issue, and one of them is to do with
data, and data worship, and data, just the overload of data that we�re facing. And
it�s not just in our normal business world, it�s not in our work environment, it�s
in our personal environment, the level of mail search, social media. We all have the
opportunity to be creators, curators, we can critique. So, this information that we�re
all being asked to consume and digest, and in many regards become experts at a position
at a particular debate you�d think is giving us a much better chance of getting to a solution
much more quickly. But I don�t see that, I see data that overload creating more noise,
more confusion, more debate, and it�s proving harder and harder for people to have a very
clear opinion and a clear conclusion.
Now, I don�t know how many of you have heard of this acronym �Gaffer�, but the four
largest global data brokers are these four businesses. In fact, they�re four out of
the five largest companies in the world, and this is their business. It�s all about scooping
up data, presenting data, controlling data, and using that data to get a greater insight.
Not only do we love it because a lot of the tools that we use in our daily lives are free
at the point of use, and what�s not to like about that, but so does the investment industry.
And just to give you a sense of how these businesses have grown over the last ten years,
if you include Microsoft in the top five businesses and is market cap, US Market Cap, they�re
the largest companies in the world. And the transformation over the last ten years has
been pretty significant. So, the investment community love what they do. We consume data
like we�ve never done before predominantly on mobile devices. It�s giving us all an
opinion, and we�re seeing these organisations setting the agenda. For some of you, you may
have noticed the Facebook news agenda with the US Election, and how there�s been quite
a lot of criticism around how Facebook have drawn a news position with the Trump campaign.
Now, I also wanted to make some reference to Management Consultants, and I hope I�m
not going to be critical of any of you if you�re management consultants in the room,
but management consultants have played a very significant role over the last 15-20 years
in designing organisational shape, and those organisation shapes particularly over the
last 10 years has been to find ways of capturing this data. And many businesses have been told
that data is the oil of the 21st century revolution in the same way as oil was in the industrial
revolution in the 18th century. So, businesses are being advised by management consultants
to design their structures to capture it, and in many regards, find ways of organising
themselves that they listen to the data. And part of that - restraining part of that structure
has meant you�ve begin to see Governance appear, procurement appear, outsourcing appear,
flatter structures appear, and I think that has pushed us to a much more of a harder environment
where people can express themselves, opinions can be formed and the individual can get things
to happen, can make things happen.
So, what I think I�ve seen certainly over the last 10 years is a very different shape
in what a company looks like, always on working, shallow problem solving, a flatter structures,
careers that appear to be projects rather than long-term opportunities, outsourcing
a lot of the component parts of the business, and making it much harder to get things done.
The other thing that I would like to say is, something around the decline of the gut, and
the decline of the gut feel because in a data enabled world it�s quite unpopular to say,
�I�ve got this feeling about this particular opportunity and I think we should be going
left rather than right.� And I�m arguing that actual gut feel is something that we
should be recognising as a skill based around a set of experiences that all of us have irrespective
of our age, and that we should be listening a little bit more to the gut, and it seems
to be, to me, to be increasingly more suppressed and substituted by this data pressure that
I think we�re increasingly seeing. And I would like to suggest that knowledge has a
number of different phases, and I think when you start your career there�s an undeniable
truth which is, you know you don�t know, you have a clear path of a lack of knowledge.
You enter into a job, and you absolutely know you don�t know, but over time you know you
know. And at the later stage of a career you amass so many things that you never think
will help you solve problems in the future, and that�s all about you don�t know that
you know. And I would like to suggest that this kind of gut feel experience is something
we should be much more sensitive towards and recognise as an important component, but it
seems to be declining to me. And I think the other thing that we�re beginning to see
is the rise of the entrepreneur, as organisations stifle people, prevent them from expressing
themselves, and pushing them towards other opportunities in this country, certainly over
the last five years has been very pro building new businesses, encouraging new businesses,
there�s tax incentives, there�s opportunities for young people to launch their own businesses.
And when I was at the early stage of my career there were entrepreneurs were few and far
between, but increasingly we�re seeing people seeing and using a gut feel, and not having
a data set, a complete data set, but believing that there is something over there that is
an opportunity and an entrepreneur seeing it, and attempting to tackle that market.
A lot of big businesses approach an opportunity in a very sequential way, read, aim, fire.
They think about something, they plan, they execute. Entrepreneurs don�t think that
way. Most entrepreneur�s think of a solution as ready, fire, aim because there isn�t
the data set there. And so, that�s why I�m thinking I�m seeing increasingly people
who feel restricted inside organisations and moving out of those organisations because
the opportunities are there for them to take advantage.
The last point I�d like to talk about is interfaces, and the incredible deluge of mobile
interfaces that we�re having. The way in which communicate with people with each other
has really changed, and social media and particularly Facebook has got a lot to do with this. And
so, we�re giving people choices that 20 years ago, I don�t think we used to give
them. And here�s an example, my son was not sure about coming tonight, but he was
given an option, and you know it. For all of you who have experienced this on Facebook,
maybe really isn�t, �Oh, I�m working on coming.� It�s, �I don�t know how
to say, �No�, and I�ll get to it�, and again I think it�s beginning to appear
in culture, and this is a clip from an animated series called, �American Dad�, and when
you get a lot of tentatives, how many of you get tentatives for meetings? Do you experience
that? Thank you, Simon, I�ve got one over there. You�re positive, you expect people
are going to turn up. How do you get out of the world of �maybe�? Three simple suggestions
I�d like to make and then I�m happy to take some Q&A.
The first one is, tell people how much you hate it. Talk about it. Talk about it. Certainly,
in your business world, in your personal world, this is not the word that you are a fan of,
and you want to propose some solutions. So, if you�re struggling and you can�t say
a definitive �yes� or �no�, say �no� for now, �yes� if, �no� unless, put
some conditions on it, but all of those answers are much better than the world of �maybe�.
The second is, become a much better person at asking questions. Really interrogate question
not only the outside world, the business world, but question your organisation. Apply the
concept of first principle, how do I know that is the case? Just because I�ve heard
it from another colleague. Really challenge yourself, and inside an organisation, inside
your work environment, find a way of challenging each other in a positive way. For a number
of companies, I�ve suggested where I�ve worked, I applied this at Disney and at Endemol
that we as a team take a truth pill, and it was our ability to have permission to challenge
each other without retribution. To really find ways of getting to the best answer by
being much more candid, so I really suggest if you�re doubting asking a question 20-30%
of the rest of the room or the business wants to know the answer to that question. It�s
so important to really become much more stronger and much more engaged in asking questions.
And then lastly, you�ve got to put time limits on things. You cannot let things slip
too long, so really put things into context. Make sure you�re much more disciplined on
how you can affect that change. But you have to live by those time limits because otherwise
it just won�t carry the weight that it needs. So, we�ve spoken a lot about this word.
Many of you are in careers, many of you are in work, but also many of you are students
here, and at the beginning of your journey, and lots of you are going to be thinking about
what�s my career path? As I did 33 years ago, and I had no clue, and you�re going
to be worried about whether you�re going to get a pass or a fail, or an A or an F,
or whether you�re going to be lucky or unlucky, or whether things are going to work for you,
and there�s going to be huge challenges, and I�m sure incredible highs. But I wanted
to just leave you with a couple of thoughts, and that is that to me there are two things
that I would to always leave people to think about when it comes to the working environment,
and that is, how do you work with people? What kind of person do you want to be in a
work environment, or in a relationship? How much do you give? How much support can you
give? How many times can you say �yes� to help people? And, how do I make that work
meaningful? And I think they�re two very important things for us all to think about
when we�re working around people. Thank you very much.
[Clapping]
.
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