Transcript: William Rogers
People are the single most important asset you have,and therefore your policy should bedriven fundamentallyfirst about your people.Anything else is actually secondary. Ourcompany has avery simple vision. One is itscommercial imperative, and the other iswhat we want to achieve as a result ofit. The commercial imperative is simplyto be the bestradio group in the country. Not thebiggest - we don't have to have the most radiostations - but we want our environment tobe the single best placeanybody who wants to work in our sectorcould possibly work.
But the bigger... and I try to think ofsomething better than this but I can'tthink of a better phrase than this… I believe every organization needs tohave a noble cause.I think it's really important thatpeople understand what that noble cause is and whatfollows as a result, and our noblecause is to change people's lives.
I think you have to have somethingbeyondwhat you're paid for, and once you move salary and conditions and terms off the table,what makes the difference to people, whatgets them out of bed with a real buzzrather than a 'God I've got to catch the 732 out of wherever it is, and get inand go through the door and sign in...' - you have to have something more than that,because I think people will step up. Noone goes to work in the morning and goes'How can I cock up today? How can I give the management the most difficult amount ofproblems to deal with?' People go to workbecause they want to succeed in whatthey do;and if you can elevate that, in a way thatmakes them think really passionatelyabout what they can do,what an amazing place to work, and what atremendously satisfying result for the people who work in the organization that thatrelates to.
I think you have to have a sense ofculturein your organization, and it's somethingI care passionately about, and we talk about this in our business as being thesingle most important thing we do.
Our people are the single most important asset we have; our culture and our values are the mostimportant thing in terms of how we runour business.So once you've defined what that is,you then have to work incredibly hard. Soour culture is not built around mission statements,or posters on the wall, or anything like that. Our culture is based around 6simple words: Open, honest, fair,fun, professional, and unconventional. Andthey're the white lines around the pitch,if you like.Everybody's themselves on the pitch,everybody plays their game on the pitch,but those cultural values identify the whiteline, the rules within which we all have to play.
Management and leadership in anorganizationhas to be the walking, talking,living embodiment of what your cultureand your values are. If they betray those, it destroys your culture and your valuesand your engagementradically. So all of those things arereally important, and you don't do itonce. It's no good embarking on this thinggoing:
'This is where we want to be, it's a wonderful vision we've got, now here you are folks,off you go - let me know how you're getting on on Friday'. It doesn't work like that. It'srelentless. Week in week out, year in year out.We started on this journey eight yearsago. We're just about getting there now.But what an amazing place to work andpeople who come to work in our businessenjoy it, they have loads of fun,they're properly engaged, great ideas comefrom the bottomup, I cannot think of the last great ideaI hadas chief executive for our business – most of the great ideas come from thosepeople doing the job on the ground.Release it. Talent... you know, the talent inevery building is extraordinary.Why don't you get as much out of it as possible? Because there's a lid on it somewhere.You have to take the lid off. And it meansyou also have to provide cover forpeople when they make mistakes.
Nobody sets out to deliberatelycause a problem or make a mistake. Givethem air cover if they make a mistake.What's the learning from that? What arethe lessons? How do we make sure we don't doit again?Don't beat them over the head with averbal stick. Letthat thought process, that engagement, thatimagination and innovation,let it flourish. It's a fantastic opportunity todo that, and there will be hundreds ifnot thousands of people in theorganization herethat could make a tremendous contribution - you just don't know yet.So take the lid off and let them do it.You have to have the kind of culture thatallows that to happen.And if your managers sit on it?Shame onthem.
Every single person who works in ourbusiness has my mobile number.Every single person has my email number. They're encouraged to communicatewith me at any time. I appreciatewe're not an organization with thousandsand thousands of people, we're anorganization that employsgetting on for 350 people.
But it doesn't necessarily mean that itall has to be me. It could be shared betweenour senior team or it could be shared withmiddle managers.You also encourage an environment where those discussions take place, those meetings take place,and what you shouldn't do you (in myopinion - clearly subjective judgments here)but in my opinion you shouldn't excludedifferent tiers ofmanagement from certain groups. What you want is a multi-tiered approach,so that you engage all parts of yourorganization within the kind ofconversations that you're having.
But there should be no one - no one - in my business who does not think at any timethat they can pick up the phone andring me directlyand have a conversation, about whateverthey like.
The fundamental thing about peopleengagement is that the more they'reengaged,the more they have a sense of ownership. I do not share the view...and I think it is an immense frustration I have about Britishbusiness generally, and also everything -whether it be business, the publicsector, organisations...I get intensely frustrated when the flow ofinformationstops at certain points. I insist thatevery single person in our business knowsexactlyhow well their business is doing. Profitand loss, staff churn figures,the audience numbers, everything. Why? Because the better you inform people,the better engaged, and more likely to beengaged, they are with your organizationand your business.
I think it's always a difficult thinggivingadvice, because I could take you into ourown business right nowand show you mistakes. So I think theveryfirst thing I need to say aboutadvising anybody is:We're not perfect, I am certainly notperfect.I don't have fingers and toes on handsand feet in enough numbersto talk about the mistakes I've madesince I've been doing this job. Butthe one thingI would say is the singlemost important lessonthat I've learnt, and that is: If youare not serious about making thisdifference,don't do it. Don't start.