A Brief Guide to Handling Strategy, Leadership & Big Decisions

[Music] and this is indeed who we're going to be talking to and do Greening I'd like to start with you first if I may because um we've done a lot of macro stuff this morning and we've been hearing about these private credits and different markets but they all involve being able to make difficult decisions under pressure and definitely uncertainty at the moment so what do you think the main principles are that people should focusing on when they need to make these Market decisions well it's an interesting topic and I wanted to make some comments that are not just soft throwaway generic comments I'm really going to try to tell you a few of the things that I've learned over the years one of the big things is that most decisions aren't very hard if you have enough information and if you frame the problem correctly and so I think it's very very important that instead of going in circles thinking more and more about a situation put that energy into actually getting more information become very passionate about digging stuff up before you enter even enter the final stages of a decision-making process and then the other point is in terms of framing you need to focus on the few things that really matter in any given situation there are a million facts lots of things what are the things that really matter in my business for example the real value comes from Trading more markets that are uncorrelated breaking into markets like Turkish interest rates or onshore Chinese Commodities or Freight or carbon California carbon emissions the thing that really matters it breadth and so we put a lot of our resources into establishing breadth okay even more resources than we do into into the models that we use to trade it the real value comes from that diversification but that's just an example but the key point in making decisions really figure out how you can maximize your information and then take that information and focus on the few things that will really matter to your business to the problem at hand I think that's a very good first principle so you've set the stage there uh Peter you've been the CEO of Apex group uh since 2003 over 50 countries now what about when there's limited information and it's hard to get a hold of how do you still manage to make those sort of Highly uncertain or make those decisions in highly uncertain markets I think that's probably the biggest challenge out there uh you think about how quickly the world evolves particularly building big businesses from scratch yeah we've gone from two people to 13,000 over that 20 years and you've got to move quickly you know you can't be looking at PowerPoint being created over 6 months to then have the right information to then make the right decision because youve got to be quicker than that so you've got to get the best information you can as quickly as possible and then trust your team and your instincts uh to get it right with a full confidence if you don't you can fix it uh and that's really how we think about trying to move quickly and evolve a business and being agile so we're talking about the big decisions there but I want to sort of reverse back into what you talked about there which is the leadership because quite frankly uh we all know that people leave bosses and all the rest of it and when you go from a smaller company to a larger one being able to scale those values live those values be that leader um to pull through hard times as well as good times is one of the most difficult so um Dr Green if I could point that to you what's your personal definition of leadership and how do these values work through throughout an organization particularly as it gets bigger I I don't know that I have the perfect definition but I guess I would say you have to have a vision okay and and have a sense of where you're trying to go in some in some way the second thing is you need to put together the team and the culture to get you there and then the third thing I think relates to embodying values that will fuse the organization everybody wants employees and staff and partners that are selfless that work hard that are committed that communicate well that are open that are not part of a blame culture we all want that it starts with you okay there are plenty of jerks running businesses but they tend not to be great businesses you you need to make sure that you're embodying compass passion open-mindedness encouraging debate working hard you know when you're running a company you have to work hard the whole way there's no resting on the beach in my opinion and so I think that uh that's my answer Vision team and embody what you want to see in other people starts with you and I think as you said to me previously that stops this junk culture which you get high turnover and quite frankly that's expensive plus you train all these people people up and then and then they move on so how do you make them stay Peter how have you made people stay within Apex group and and how have you built that distinctive productive firm culture um to to grow to the size that you have well I think certainly it's about Vision you know people need to follow a plan and uh you know as a leader you have to be able to communicate what your plan is and the steps towards achieving it um you also as a leader have to set the pace of the business you set the tone and the ethics and culture within that business in terms of of what you want to achieve but most importantly now it's about actually having a message which inspires younger people to want to be on that journey and we have a lot of people aged between 25 and 40 and you can't just say come here you know get a good bonus and enjoy working here you have to have a stronger message and stronger ethics and a lot of it is about ESG and how that evolves now and we're we're trying to be a business which actually is not just about being a good business but a purpose and people want to follow a purpose giving back having a lot of CSR programs locally in all our offices inspiring them to make a difference in their communities and that's what the journey they want to follow uh so you have to have something stronger than just being a good business and even being a good leader you have to have actually Vision as to what they want to be following yeah and as you said um you know it isn't just and we saw this particularly during covid the the flexible working practices that we didn't imagine were even possible beforehand this lack of trust to employees to send them home and and imagine that they were going to work it kind of changed a lot of mindsets what what did it do for you um Doug in terms of postco now have you seen any major changes in the way that you think companies should be led and maybe that you lead your own I think the work from home flexibility at first was a kind of a refreshing change for many people and it worked for some companies those companies where the employees have a big stake and a real sense of ownership about their jobs that's the case at at my firm we're not a huge firm and so everybody it's all very well integrated and people have a lot of that buy and it worked pretty well it less well for some larger firms the larger you are the harder I think that is culturally however I think it still works better having everybody in the office and communicating there's n nothing like face-to-face interaction and teams is better than nothing Zoom is better than nothing but it's not as good as walking over to someone's desk or having impromptu conversations in the office in both London and Abu Dhabi where we have equally sized operations uh we now have everybody back in the office and I I would say you know things are in a very very great place with respect to productivity um but I I kind of think the work from home thing I I think there's a drift back to the office not in my case is they're back but I think in other places they're coming back gradually and I think that's good Peter you're nodding away what what's been your approach yeah it's been very difficult you know when you suddenly have to turn uh from fully in the office to fully not and then still deliver services to clients around the world um and then we' we've moved back slowly into three in the office and two not um but I think you're giving up that a lot by by not being fully back in the office you're giving up that team spirit comaraderie training mentoring and ultimately the tradeoff is you know you're not at capacity as a business and also you're going to have higher Staff turnover because they're missing out on that training and that brand identity and not not following that that I suppose positive Vision you're trying to put forward um but it is hard you know if your competitors aren't doing the same thing as you you get arbitraged and then you you lose staff so most of the banks that we we compete with are are fully back into the office uh and I think that's a good example that many other people will follow so Doug I want to come back and talk about scalabilities you said you had a smaller operation it's still not small um but sometimes it's easier a lot of people here may be part of startups or bigger organizations but how do you maintain those values and how do you keep everything together how do you stack it together so that you know you don't lose sight of of of the very thing that attracted people to an organization well well it's hard for uh you know for one thing I tend to be a believer in lean small to mediumsized Super specialized organizations that do particular things really well so there's in general there's a case for organizations of that kind but some organ some businesses naturally scale and I think the trick what I saw at Goldman Sachs when I was there in its Heyday before it became a uh a public company what I did when I was at Greenwich Capital markets and ran uh a couple of divisions is you break it up into a bunch of small organizations and so then you have these groups of 20 or 30 with a manager in charge and and these teams and there's it has that small organization feel and then the trick is to get those those segments those squads if you will acting like a battalion forgive me if my military parlance isn't up to par but acting well as a group and and again that a lot of care must be taken because you need sort of very good people and very good communication at each level so that the whole thing coheres yeah I spend my life going to organizations talking about communication and getting that Log Jam that where things get stuck sometimes in middle management um Peter has that been your experience as well because as you say that communication it sounds super super simple but often the information gets stuck into those silos so it sounds great to stack but not when Stacks become silos no I completely agree you know I idealistically thought 30 to 40 people would be perfect I have this little map somewhere of all these offices with 30 or 40 people being ideal to be able to have that client service and communication and be inspirational to your staff as you scale bigger than that you the problem problem is harder to solve uh and you know 13,000 people that's a lot of 30 or 40 offices and that becomes inefficient and creates other problems so but even though we've got lots of locations in place like India we have smaller locations of three or 400 people rather than one office of 5,000 people so still believe in the principle and and this communication and trying to solve the problem as you scale um but it's really important to be able to to just communicate and actually be in touch with staff throughout your organization not just your leadership team but even the lowest level staff in whatever office it is it's very important to communicate with them see how they're feeling and then you can get better insights as to how to run the business and I think that whole sort of feeling it people are getting much more accustomed to that when they used to check in uh with people particularly when we were more online they forgot to just ask them about what they needed to do they needed to check in how they were as well and hopefully that's a legacy again that's been been slightly left over I want to use the last two minutes to talk on strategy which is the final piece of the puzzle on all of this and Doug when we when we talk about all these values the leadership styles the ways to run organizations how does all of that pull into strategy to make sure that everything's going in the right direction well I I think that that second item in uh or that first item in leadership where you say where are we trying to go you know what's our plan what are we trying to achieve I think the thing here is we need to recognize that the world is in a constant state of change R Doo's uh president presentations and points on this are very much on point the world is changing and the thing that is was true today or is been true in the past you need to be looking forward seeing where the world is heading and to make your best guess you're never going to have absolutely certain information but you can often make pretty good guesses about where the world is going to head over the next 10 or 20 years we sort of know that the unipolarity of the American moments in let's say 1995 we're not even there now we're moving toward a multipolar world we know this region for example is going to be very very important that's why we have so many people coming for Abu Dhabi Finance week among other reasons so trying to get a sense of the big macro Trends in the world accepting the uncomfortable truth that the world is changing and that the and that the certitudes of the past aren't really certitudes for the future that's where I think you can get some vision and try to spot where you want to be I mean my two cents on the subject piece of strategy in my experience people often get carried away and and make it incredibly complex and sometimes they're not honest about the yes they they they're all obsessed with where we're going to but they're not honest about where are we now in terms of resource capability training and all the rest of it so how do you sort of tackle not only the big extra EXT um external factors but the internal factors that can prohibit strategy going forward well I think as you're moving forward the Dynamics are ever changing and and if you can't change quickly and have an agile business these days you're going to get left behind and it's be able to to live that with your team but also be able to think about where you need to be in three years and try and be there in one year and as you said Doug where where the world is changing and growing you want to be there as well and not just stick with the plan that worked before so it's going to change really quickly especially the technology in terms of what we do which is asset servicing and you've got to innovate faster than your competitors it's all about Revenue growth and then cash flow positive and and those are all the the key themes you got to make sure you keep your eye on so remain agile um look after your Stacks make sure that they're communicating and uh obviously have a good set of values and a vision to follow on that note we'll leave it gentlemen thank you so much for joining me today uh Peter Hughes founder and CEO of Apex group and Dr Douglas Greening uh group CEO and CIO of Floren Court capital thank you so much for joining me today