Finding the Right Mentor Fast

Introduction

0:04 Mid-twenties, standing in a chemical lab looking out of the window, he asked himself one question, am I going to be doing this until I'm 65? He said no way and left. Five years later, he was a managing director at 30, thinking what on earth do I know about running a business? Somebody mentored him through it, and he's been doing the same for other people ever since. So here is his question for you, what is the thing you need help with that you have not admitted yet?

0:31 My guest today is Peter Lynagh.

Meet Peter Lynagh

0:35 Peter has been a mentor for me for over the last nine months. He is a one by Uspire peer group chair, facilitator, coach and mentor to communities of CEOs, business owners and C-suite executives. As a passionate advocate for leadership development, Peter believes the finest leaders are not born, they're built. For his 35 plus years career, he has witnessed how powerful coaching, mentoring and community can be for all types of people.

1:01 Peter runs a peer group in London, and is also a director of Kingston Chamber of Commerce. He lives in Surbiton, Surrey. Peter, it's so great to have you on the show. Well, thank you for having me, Shaun. So it's so interesting to have somebody on that's been mentoring me, but then that's been one of the things to really want to bring you on, to really understand your journey in going from technical to sales and marketing, and into wanting to become a mentor.

1:31 So maybe we could start off with that with a little bit of a little bit of a potted history of your journey. Okay, well, thank you for that.

From the chemistry lab to sales

1:41 I started my career in a lab with a company called Cerakol, developing inks for plastics and electronics industry. And I was in my mid 20s looking out the window of the lab and I realised, am I going to be doing this till I'm 65? And I thought, no way. So I took my father's advice and interview many, many, or set up a lot of interviews.

2:11 And one of these was an American coatings company in southeast London. And I went along, met with their MD, which I thought was a bit short and strange. But he didn't reckon I was a chemist, but he thought I was more of a sales and marketing man. I thought, oh, that's interesting. And I just fell in love with it. And I just felt if they had the confidence in me doing this, having met their sales and marketing director, that I'd go for it.

2:36 So I negotiated a way out and I started with them.

Managing director at 30

2:41 And in five years, I became the MD. And coming back to your point, Shaun, that's when I realised, what the hell do I know about running a business? I was 30, 31. I had no idea. But my American boss. He had confidence in me and he mentored me and coached me and also led me down the track

3:09 of getting involved with a peer group. And that had a fantastic impact on me because I then saw the benefits of that and then start to mentor and coach my leadership team. And that's really how it evolved. I went from being a chemist to being a salesman. I went from being a chemical to another American outfit called Morton Fire Coal, who acquired Bee Chemical.

3:38 And they were very famous for the booster rockets that blew the shuttle up. And the morning that that happened, I was planning to close the plant and move to a brand new plant in Swanley in Kent to help our distribution around Europe. And when the shuttle went, they panicked in the USA. They stopped all mergers, acquisitions or any relocations, moved their HQ and decided

4:10 at the end, they merged my business with a sister operation in Hounslow in Middlesex that made dye stuffs. And I always felt there was more dye in the ground than there was out in the marketplace. And that, again, led to another strange area in my career. Because as I mentioned, I was in my thirties and I became a member of the board of the new company and I was surrounded by 60 year olds and they just viewed me as a young pup. What do I know?

4:43 So that then became a challenge to work with these older people, but still doing my own thing. But it became frustrating because we were the most profitable business. And in the end, I decided that they're just milking my profits. So I decided that I would close the manufacturing and go to a toll manufacturer. My American bosses thought I was a lunatic, but it worked.

5:11 We made more profit and we carried on for another four or five years doing extremely well. Then the Americans decided to pull out of the UK altogether. And that was a little bit of a... A little bit of an issue because we had a close relationship with our sister operation called Nippon B Chemical in Japan.

The Japanese joint venture

5:38 And this coincided with Honda putting their new car plant in Swindon. And Nippon B Chemical, we wanted to be part of that. So they asked me to persuade the Americans to allow them to set up in the UK and we set up NBC UK. I became vice president. And merged my business with the Japanese business.

6:03 And that went extremely well. And then the Americans decided to pull out altogether. So the joint venture became a single venture with Nippon Paint. And that's when it became another part of my learning journey because working with the Japanese was great, but now I was working for them. And that was a struggle. And at that point, I thought I'd had enough. And I thought I'd had enough.

6:28 I had four children. We lived in Southwest London. And I was travelling to Swindon daily when I was in the office. And I decided I've had enough. So out of the blue, I got a call by one of the headhunters I was dealing with. And they said that they've got a job that would ideally suit me. And I met with them. And it was a Swiss-owned chemical distribution business.

6:57 And they wanted someone that had... Someone that had Japanese connections. So I joined them as a board member. And within 12 months, became the managing director, which is another challenge in its own right. But again, keeping the same principles that I had before of coaching and mentoring my leadership team, that helped.

7:23 And then what then happened? Well, I got a job. I got a job. And what happened is that I decided I'd had enough. I'd spent so long in the chemical industry, I wanted out. So I mentioned to my wife I was going to take a sabbatical. So I left not knowing what I was going to do. And out of the blue, I got a call from a guy who actually coached and mentored me as part

7:51 of the peer group that I joined some seven years earlier. And that was the Academy of Chief Executives. And we hadn't kept in touch, but we had dinner. And he suggested I join. And I took on a licence to become a chair of the Academy of Chief Executives. And that was back in 2009.

8:17 After a couple of years, the owner of the business decided he wanted to sell up. And at that point, my coach, the director, was there. He had a coach that I had. And at that stage, I had one mentor and two coaches. He said, well, Peter, why don't you do it yourself? So I'd always have to hankering over my years of business to run my own business. And this was the chance. So I set up the Academy of Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs, brought my group with me,

8:46 set up two more groups. So away we went.

COVID and rebuilding the business

8:50 And that continued merrily until we got to COVID. Yeah. and unfortunately that was a problem because uh the business was very much face to face and all of a sudden we couldn't um we couldn't uh meet now 18 months prior to that uh in my role as a Kingston Chamber board member we were hosting the Kingston Expo and we had a

9:18 radio station there they said Peter can we interview you i thought a bit of free publicity let's go for it so um uh we interviewed it went well at the end he said Peter have you ever thought about running your peer groups virtually and i said absolutely no way we're hugger muggers we're kissy kissy no chance and of course fast forward 18 months that was the only thing that we could do but you couldn't as you can imagine having lived through it as well Shaun that you

9:48 couldn't run a zoom meeting all day with CEOs so i decided that i'd have i'd split it in two we'd have one half day early in the month with our speaker session and then two weeks later we'd have another morning session and we cover off what we used to call my Able clinic where we go through all the potential issues and challenges that they have and in a very private and confidential environment help each other and then later

10:18 in the month over zoom i'd have my coaching session with each of the members um

Joshua and the foundation

10:25 so that went on okay but as a side issue to this a few years earlier we'd lost our grandson Joshua to congenital heart disease and the morning he died i had him in my arms and um i i made a promise to him that i'd set up the Joshua Liner Foundation which i did and of course during COVID i was concerned because my business supported the charity so i started to look at all the other

10:53 areas that i could get involved in and i started to look at the other areas that i could get involved with with a view to generating additional income um and most of them didn't work and it was a struggle but just kept it going i'd lost members because most of them felt that they couldn't pay me for their personal development when they've got to lay people off so that period of COVID was a bit of a struggle we kept on going and at the end of it um i said well um we've got to really

11:23 turn this around to make some money and that's when i met um Pippa Dunsford who was the um uh managing partner of Youspire and they were a training consultancy company but they offered a peer group learning programme and they shared that with me and i thought this is much more better value than what i'm doing so i suggested

11:48 to them i'd run Able and i'd help them support the Youth they said no no no no you're we're we're competitors so it's either your Able business or us so i decided to close Able and join them and that's what i've been doing now for the last two and a half years and we're now currently going through a reorganisation of our peer group programme where we're taking up on board a lot of learning

12:17 of what we've done over the last two years to make it even greater value and we're relaunching in january of of next year which is exciting times and again part of that is that the the programme is one where i coach and mentor each of the members but a big big advantage with youspire is that we have many many coaches and mentors in the organisation so being a generalist there were times when i coached my

12:48 members that i might get into a topic that i didn't really have that knowledge of so i'd bring in one of my buddies that did have that to do that and pay them a fee but now there's no need for that because we've got that within the youspire group so we've got a really attractive package to offer people and forgive me shaun i seem to rattle down for england as usual so forgive me i'll i think i'll take a stop there well thank you that is uh i think it's great that

13:18 you you kind of started off with that example of being mentored yourself and the impact on that but um as a mentor you've been in trouble for quite a long time has it had something to do with it well i think that's been a really great experience and i've been in trouble for quite a long time so i think it's been just such a really great experience to be with you and to be in trouble and to be able to to speak with you and to be able to to listen to you and to be able to talk

13:44 and to talk and and to share your stories to the community and to to talk to you and and and also and also to to talk to me about where i've come from and how that has been have people have the idols don't they you know i want to be i want to be elon musk or you know mark zuckerberg or you know sam altman you know that that actually it's just they're too far away from where you are a lot of the time unless you're not you might be they might be you know you're not that far away from them and you need some mentoring from them but reality for a lot

14:12 of people is looking for that mentor who's who's a little bit further along than you that can actually then help you get to where the stage that maybe they are at so how would you how would

How to find the right mentor

14:24 you encourage people in terms of finding the right mentor what does that look like well i i think the first point on that shaun is is that i would thoroughly advise people in the first instance to accept that they need help and to seek help and i think that's one of the biggest struggles that people have to begin with is to seek help and as you say who do they go to for that help um i i suppose in my case

14:56 it's very much referrals that people i've coached mentors before and people then refer me but i think the the the biggest thing for me is joining the institute of directors mentorship scheme um i was invited to uh join some uh years ago by the director general and i just felt well wow that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that this is something i really wanted to do because i am a strong believer in giving back and the the process there is and

15:25 this is obviously how i met your good self is my key prerequisite of this is that when i'm introduced and obviously people check out your linkedin profile is i always suggest i'm very much a people person so i like to meet so let's have a meeting and during that meeting you just develop the conversation with the people that you like um better and but if you become a frustrating person that you think not choose will the if he will decentralise without you levels of lab. The important thing is to have chemistry. If you don't have a chemistry between the

15:52 mentee and the mentor, I think it's going to be very, very difficult to carry on. And I'll give you a classic example of that. Some years ago, I was asked by one of my members to mentor one of his friends and colleagues. And when we met, it was very obvious to me that we didn't have the chemistry. So after a little while, I felt, well, I've got to

16:20 bring this conversation to an end. So I brought it to an end. And I just made the point, I said, with great respect, in order for this to be successful, we've got to have some chemistry. And I don't think we got it. And the guy just sank into his chair and said, thank God you said that, because I felt the same way, but didn't know how to say it. So we both laughed and parted on good company. And I think that's...

16:45 I think that's the important thing is people relationship. So coming back to your question in terms of, well, how do you find that mentor is that it is through people you know, through referrals, and through the Institute of Directors, organisations like that, that are offering mentoring programmes. And then go and meet people. But in the back of your mind, always make

17:12 sure if you don't feel the chemistry's there. Say so. Because without the chemistry, it will have an impact irrespective of how important the individual to you is with their experience in the area that you're specifically involved in. Without the chemistry, it just will not work. Yeah, absolutely. And I totally agree that as you say, we met through the Institute of

17:39 Directors. And thing that I would, I think, add, so I mean, you mentioned three great things in there. Well, one is the accept that you need the support. And something else, and that, you know, thinking about the chemistry. And the thing that, well, you said two, the third, what I would add is also don't

Mentoring doesn't have to be expensive

17:59 dismiss it because you think it can be expensive. So you did mention it, but through the IOD, that actually through the membership of the IOD, the mentoring is something that is, you can get within that. And I think that sometimes can be a barrier when we look at, oh, we need help. In whatever area it is, it's coaching, mentoring, or something like that. And I think that's something that we need to do. And I think that's something that we need to do. That we stop at the, oh, well, that's going to be expensive because like your journey and you spoke about with their COVID, you had to keep looking for different things. You had to keep

18:26 trying different things. And if we search hard enough, we will find opportunities. I mean, I've got some amazing mentors that are actually people that I know or people that, you know, friends that I know, you know, friends of friends where I've just said, like, I need support in this area. And they go, oh, how about having a conversation with, with, um, and a lot of people like yourself, uh, when they've taken a journey, you're really open to wanting to be able to help people because they resonate with your journey.

18:54 I think it's part of the things that they resonate with your journey and say, well, okay, yes, you know, it's not all sunshine and roses that every leader we see that every, any leaders that are idolised, oh yeah, I want to be like that person. Well, yeah, you know, they went for a journey. It doesn't, there is no, nobody that gets there and goes, I got here without cuts and bruises and, you know, tears and despair. And there's, there's all these things

19:20 that come with, come with that. And having walking with somebody that has gone through those challenges and help you understand a bit about how to actually get there. There was, I remember many years ago, we all got the whole company got shut down. We've got made redundant. And we had this, uh, training on, it's actually what inspired me to want to get into being an entrepreneur. But that is training. And they said, right, this is what normally happens. We get redundant.

19:48 There's this big pit and they end up in this big pit. And I was thinking, this is a weird training. There was a lot of, we can help you avoid the pit. And I was thinking, yeah, but what if we didn't, what if we could actually walk with people and say, yeah, we'll help you. I don't know why they, they wanted to scare us into this thing. If you don't have work with us, we'd end up in the pit. But of course there are times we do end up, we have it, we are in the pit and we need a helping hand to get us out. And I think it's,

20:15 yeah, definitely highlight what you said about accepting that you need help and finding the right person, finding the person you can have a relationship with that has, you know, some levels above you, as opposed to trying to build a relationship with someone that either you can't because yeah, you might be able to go onto their programme and get trained by somebody that they've trained. But if you're actually, and that might be helpful, but if

20:42 you can come along with someone that you can, you can build a relationship with, then you're going to build a relationship with that actually builds a bit more, a bit of a personal investment in terms of wanting to see you do well, then that's a huge difference. Yeah. I think if, if you live the experience and realise how powerful mentoring and coaching was to you as the, as an individual, then it makes it far easier for you to share that

21:09 experience with others that may be younger than you, because you've lived the experience. So having lived that, it makes it easier to develop that relationship and try to help people. And I think that ultimately most of the people I meet oh, they want to help each other. And that's what I think is great about business. But as we've said a few times is

21:34 as an individual, you've got to accept that you do need help. Um, and then once you've realised that, then go and seek it. And, and the best way to do that and seek it through people, your friends, your family, the contacts that you have. And eventually, you'll get there. And there's many organisations out there. And it might be that you have to go on a journey to find the right one. In some cases, particularly in my case,

22:05 it was my immediate boss. Now, a lot of people working in companies, they might not feel they want to be mentored by their boss. And I can understand that. But I think good bosses these days, as we said at the start, they're not made, they're built. And you do that through experience and learn from the others. And what I've done in my life with my bosses, some of them have been

22:34 really harsh. But even if they're harsh and not good, there's certain things about them that are good. So all I did is put ... all their good points into a pot, and then just popped in a bit of a line of sparkle. And that's what I've used as my model going forward as a leader, coach, and mentor. Well, I think I'll pick up on something that you said there in terms of, you say that leaders are built. I mean, I've had some great leaders, and I've had some not so good

23:05 leaders. And one of the greater ones said to me, always look to work yourself out, have a job. And I took that on, and I think it was maybe about three years later. And I said, no, it was longer than that. It was maybe almost 10 years later, where it actually really came to a point where I was in a position where there were four of us, four of us managers in three roles. And I ended up turning around. It looked obvious to me. I was like, well, you three guys are better equipped to

23:34 do those roles than me, because I was the support manager. So I managed all of those areas, whereas they were specialists. And in the end, that led me to a bigger opportunity, which actually, eventually, after that, they thought I'd somehow concocted it in this way, but I had no idea what was going to come. I just took that advice from my mentor to say, always look to work yourself out, have a job, to say, well, okay, be realistic and honest about who's going to bring most value into this situation.

24:05 And that whole situation of, like you said, taking what is good, in terms of, like what you said, the line, I didn't, you know, take what is good, and then the line of sparkle. But I think it is, it can be so important to be able to not disregard what the good is that you see in people that, you know, the leaders that you work for, just because of the things you don't like. You know, they're just, just because you don't

24:31 get overshadowed by, well, there's all these things they didn't do very well. Well, every single one of them will be doing well in something, because that's the reason they got, where they got to. And something else that I picked up from, reminding what you've been speaking about, and your story, is the importance, what I take from your story is you had a number of occasions where people identified in you some abilities that you had, and then gave you a role

24:59 because of those abilities. Now, that might sound obvious, but I've certainly seen occasions where people get promoted because they're very good at the job they're doing. And then they get elevated to manage people doing the job they were doing. But they may not be very good at managing, or they may not have had any mentoring in terms of being able to take a journey from, you know, I'm among my peers to managing my peers. And I've seen that in a lot of situations where that becomes a problem

25:25 because they didn't have that, or actually they were really happy and really enjoyed, they were just very good at what they did. And what I noticed with your story is actually that people identified other things in you. So I think it's so important that as leaders, we do look at the people that we're helping. And I think it's so important that as leaders, we do look at the people that we are responsible for and understand from them, what do they want to do? How are they, what, how's it going for them and what they're currently doing? So we can put them in the right

25:50 places. People don't have to talk about it, put them in the right seat on the bus, make sure that they are where they should be. But often what can happen is there's a hole or there's a hole or who's the best person to fit the hole? Well, he's pretty good. He gets on with the job. Let's put him in the hole, but maybe he didn't actually want to be in that hole. It's the wrong size hole for him. Yeah.

Nurturing your successor

26:10 I think what you said there is bang on because ultimately what you would do at any good leader is in a situation where they're coaching and mentoring their team to take over from them, or a member in that team to take over them, like a CEO is nurturing his heir apparent. Because the bottom line is, is that if you don't have that level of promotion,

26:40 how are you as the CEO or the leader going to move on? Because you can only move on if your position can be filled by an individual that will be able to do the job. And that then comes back to the mentoring and coaching of your leadership team. It should be about really helping them be the best they can be, identifying your heir apparent to allow you to move on as well.

27:09 And that's where I think some, some leaders start to get very protective of their role and get worried that they'll lose their job or whatever, but that's not the way to do it. You've got, in order to move on, you've got to ensure that you can be replaced. So what you said a moment ago is bang on. That's the way that good leaders got to look at it. That's interesting. I haven't looked at that perspective before, but yeah, that,

27:35 that working yourself out of a job, I often looked at it as the specialist thing, being, being from a technical background. It was like, don't, if you're the guy that actually is the expert in a particular programming language, for example, and often you'd see people would hold onto that and go, I'm the expert in this, you know, this is what I do. But then it does mean you can't, how else do you move on if nobody else can do what you do? So that, that whole

28:01 working yourself out of a job doesn't mean you're transferable. And as you said, and actually I've never really necessarily looked at it in terms of a leader. To say, it's not just about technical skills or actually it's also is that social skills, that leadership skills to say, well, if I bring somebody up, as you say, that can do my job, it just means there are more opportunities for me, not less. But as you say, often what can happen

28:26 is people get concerned about that and go, well, that's going to take my job. And interestingly,

Will AI take my job?

28:30 I think there's an element of that. When we, when we look at what's happening with AI in terms of, we look at it and we say, well, there's this thing coming, that's going to take my job. And that's going to take my job. And that's going to take my job. Now, actually it might change your role and probably will change your role. But actually, if you can be, you can be part of that process with your leaders in terms of how does your role change and adapt? So you keep your job, but actually your role, your role is

28:59 different. Your role may be actually, instead of building something, maybe you're designing the things that AI is building. And what are your thoughts on kind of what is, what is, what's happening with AI and where that takes us? Well, the first thing I would say is that you must embrace it. But I think that what does annoy me, and I've come across a number of CEOs and business owners have looked at AI,

29:25 rubbing their hands, thinking, right, we can lay people off. And they're immediately thinking about bringing AI in to lay people off. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Embrace AI and let, AI work with you to allow you to not only improve you, but improve your business. So that's where I

29:51 think that it goes wrong. So that when people get worried about, oh, I'm going to lose my job. No, let's work with you to make your job easier. But equally, it might allow you as an individual to grow and want to do other things, to give you other responsibilities. That you can then take on board that you wouldn't perhaps have had the chance to get if it hadn't

30:16 been for AI coming on board. So I think it is very much a question now of embracing it. But looking at it as more of a benefit to a business rather than with some business owners just thinking it's going to be a cost saving exercise and get rid of people. Well, my issue there is if that is the culture of the company, then I'd suggest you ought to get out anyway, because that's not the right culture to have.

30:46 So number one, embrace AI. Yeah, I totally agree with you there. And as an example of that, so I was involved in delivering some, some training, some AI training yesterday. And in the room, there was nobody from different departments. And what we saw when we got people presenting their projects, the ideas that they come up with, how they could use AI. And we started with them looking at solving the problem. What was the

31:14 problems? We didn't start with, this is, here's AI. We started with, here's, here's the problem. What problem might, might you be able to use AI? Now you've understood some of its capability to solve. And the ideas, the things that people were coming up and saying that they could do, they could solve, were things that have been, some of these seem to be going for years. Some of these problems, they didn't even necessarily realise they could, they could solve. Or,

31:40 or be solved. And they had the, the owner of the company was in, in that, that room as well. And they're getting up and then people are going, oh, and he's, and he's nodding his head, like vigorously nodding his head at all these brilliant ideas that are coming up that, that could be done. Now, obviously there was a right way to do it. And certainly starting with what is the, what is the problem? But actually, as you say, there's that element of, and it's not embracing AI in terms of giving it a big hug and

32:09 connecting it to everything you possibly have. And, and it being a new best friend, which yeah, for some people it has become their new best friend, but it's actually saying here is another, in fact, it's not a tool. I would say it's a toolbox. And so when I look at it as a tool, 0: we look at it and say, I've got a brand new toolbox. It's full of tools. I just need to learn 1: how to, how to use the tools in those, those box, how to, when to use them, 2: when it's appropriate, because AI is not always necessarily the appropriate thing to use.

32:39 3: But actually, yeah, I think you're, you're right. It's we, you don't, if we're gonna 4: use it to get rid of, we've already seen it. We've already see organisations that have used it to get 5: rid of people and it's costing them overall. The cost has been more because I happen to rehire, 6: because I realised that actually they, that they need the people to shape it. So we can use AI for 7: growth, but to use it for replacing people is really, well, it's, it's a, it's, it's, it doesn't

33:08 8: end well, I don't think. 9: Yeah. It, it, it, yeah. 10: And, and we'll, we'll, you know, there are a lot of organisations that the premise is we're gonna be 11: AI first. And we're just gonna do everything. Now, if people are starting or starting something 12: solely using AI. And I know there are definitely, there are fully automated. Yeah. 13: I know there are definitely, there are fully automated, um, projects out there that are doing 14: this and people are making money from those things. Well, that's, that's different because

33:35 15: you've, you know, you've built that in that way to do that. 16: Yeah. 17: But if you've got people, Yeah. 18: not only as you say grow the business but grow the people and that's great what you said that 19: you can actually grow your people maybe get rid of the drudgery the things that they'd actually 20: really want to do what would you if you if you when you start to ask people what are problems 21: that you have in what you do and that's another thing you start with the problem that they have 22: not the problem that the lead has what not the thing that you want to solve go speak to them

34:04 23: and say what how would we solve that because also that gets around the issue of them where 24: about their job and like you said having a conversation yeah but equally by doing that 25: as well is that they will then enjoy their job more but one of the things i've learned in say

Get your processes right first

34:19 26: the last year or so is that with companies uh getting they're going to employ embrace ai what 27: they've got to do is to look at their processes first make sure their processes are sound because 28: their processes are sound no matter what ai will do you're 29: not going to improve what you're doing if your processes aren't sound so make sure that your 30: business processes are sound and are correct in terms of how they operate before you start to

34:52 31: look at what we can do with ai yeah it's another that's another good point it's a really a very 32: good point there because yes as you said there's the element of it's not going to work as well 33: there's also the the extreme side of that is it becomes dangerous and detrimental for the 34: organisation if we start to talk about agentic ai where you're entrusting agents to make the ai to 35: make decisions for you if you don't understand your processes how is ai going to understand

35:20 36: what it should and shouldn't do how is it going and it's you know it really is quite a uh yeah 37: a scary thought in terms of some of these organisations where you're not so you know it's 38: similar with the mentor it's find the right mentor 39: and it's finding the right organisations the right people to work with to ensure you get the 40: right training to make sure that you are delivering ai in the right way and as we said 100 in the

35:46 41: for me in my business i won't work with organisations if it's going to be get rid of 42: people first then no that's a simple that and it might happen because of that just happens in the 43: nature of transformation it might be but if they're gonna if that's gonna happen then how are they going to 44: manage that how are they going to support those people in getting another job because actually 45: why not why you you know you've you can help people to do that to get another role somewhere

36:13 46: else but be conscious of the the impact of what you're doing rather than doing something and then 47: dealing with the aftermath later yeah but i think people have got to uh you know to enjoy the job 48: that they're doing as well um and i think that uh that's where ai has the opportunity now that

Robots at Ford and Nissan

36:34 49: you know let's get rid of the mundane stuff but a funny story on this as i mentioned about my career 50: um when i was working um with the b chemical company it was very much into automotive coatings 51: and we dealt with um ford motor company and i had the privilege then of um being able 52: to having ordered my new uh as it was ford um uh it was ford cortina

37:04 53: and it was a 1600e and i could actually see it go down the line at dagenham and i used to pop along 54: and they'd say there's my car going through the process which was fantastic but what it suddenly 55: hit me with is that there was these these guys uh with uh guns power guns putting on 56: um nuts onto the foot you know four or five nuts onto a wheel then the next one comes on boom

37:34 57: boom and these poor so-and-sos were doing that day in day out obviously getting their breaks 58: but what a monotonous role fast forward four years and i was in a similar plant at nissan 59: up in washington and they employed 5 000 employees producing 200 000 vehicles compared to 60: british leyland back in birmingham producing the same amount of count without 100 000 employees

38:04 61: you could see robots coming in doing virtually everything including putting those wheel nuts on 62: and what's happened is it's what what the good companies have done is that they've been able to 63: use robots to do that work and then redeploy the people in the company elsewhere um in in the 64: business process and that again i think is similar to what we're doing with ai now it's new technology

38:34 65: for the robots i think they've been did this since the 90s and they've been doing this for 66: much longer in the building process so it's not a whole real thing it's a little bit different 67: it's one of a sort of way forward let's embrace it to get rid of the mundane laborious things that 68: human beings are doing and allow ai to take care of that and then get into the more interesting things

39:02 69: manufacturer where they would they had machines running 24 7 overnight to to build these this 70: metal to this tooling and but they can only build one point that was automated but they they could 71: build like one type of this tool and they could be like 12 of them but they could they could do 72: that overnight but they wanted a different type they have to wait for it to finish overnight and 73: the next night did the other one so then they ended up getting a new robot that could put 12

39:30 74: different you know 12 different uh designs so overnight so that became one for them that becomes more efficient because they're not sitting on stock and space and warehouse wise but also meant they could get the orders out quicker to the to the um to the customers customers being joiners have got stuff they've got to build and they're on a timeline so actually you're providing a better service and and it made absolutely no difference all their automations

40:00 made no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no difference to the people in fact it's made it better for them because it's easier for them now they're managing the robots they're managing the process instead of actually as an example they have to deburr the tools so i guess you know sand off the any burrings on the on the tools so they're doing that for tools that could be sitting there for maybe months and months and months before they ever get used and they know that to well okay i'm doing this i'm preparing a tool

40:29 that's going to be going on and i'm going to be doing this and i'm going to be doing this and i'm going out probably in the next you know few days or week so i think it's it's yeah it's been a really uh i suppose yeah we talked about mentor and we've come into the bit of ai and i'd love to just as we

Peter's advice to business leaders

40:40 close really just what what we've won one sort of uh something you'd like to leave those you know if there's business leaders owners that are kind of what would you like to leave them with today i think the first premise is again you um from my own journey is to bite the bullet if you're in a situation that's difficult is to seek help and then seeking help use your

41:10 network your family your network your contacts to seek the right people to to help you um and is to overcome that i mean i i think a lot of us you know we don't want to admit that we need help but overcome that by overcoming it seeking help it'll be a massive improvement to how you're operating how you're feeling

41:36 and more importantly enjoying what you're doing and um you know we've only got one life so uh let's make the best of it and enjoy it um but yeah definitely seek help admit it that you need it and seek it there's a lot of people out there that are are really prepared um to help and support you and by that journey you will then do the same thing with the younger people that are coming along

42:06 uh behind you as well yeah thank you i think that's that's a that's a really great way to to land and also what to add to that is this element that admitting we need help is actually a strength not a weakness that it that actually leaders we don't want to be seen as strong leaders we want to be seen as you know as leaders that have weakness and we want to be seen as strong leaders so that then the expectation is set correctly if people are looking at us to lead and expecting us

42:37 to know everything to be the best that we can possibly be to be it just isn't it just isn't realistic there'll be times in our lives and you mentioned about your grandson there'll be times a lot of things that happen in our lives that we are not equipped to deal with you know they're they're they're things that we we weren't expecting to happen and so we have to walk through those things and i think that's a really great way to do that and i think that's a really great way to to end that and so as as we as we come to a close what does how do people get hold

How to connect with Peter

43:12 of you if they want to connect with you and they want to kind of uh get some mentoring what should they do well um i think that um book a discovery call with me um my number is 0771-669-363 um or my email address my email address is 0771-669-363 private email address is peter at lynagh l-y-n-a-g-h dot co.uk and i'd be more than prepared to um

43:40 to help in any way that i can yeah thank you so much peter it's been it's been a really uh it's a new episode just to look at it things a little bit differently not so much having in the tech side but really just a you know a human journey you know journey of of of that really got inspired so much at the start with the with the mentoring so if you're if you are watching the this episode then please like subscribe or follow whether you're on youtube apple podcasts

44:06 or spotify and really yeah get in contact comment let us know if there's other topics we you'd like us to cover other people you'd like to speak to and once again peter thank you so much for for coming on and gracing us with your presence and your your lynagh sparkle well well shaun thank you very much for for having me i really enjoyed it so thank you