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BBC Studioworks Chief Executive, Andrew Moultrie, leads the strategic, operational and commercial activities of this commercial subsidiary of the BBC. Andrew joined from BBC Studios where he was Managing Director, Consumer Products and Publishing and sat on the Executive Board for BBC Studios, UK.
In his article for Engage Moultrie highlights that “effective employee engagement is a real passion point , both from a practical perspective in motivating staff and driving productivity, and from an ethical perspective in humanising the corporate world. “An engaged workforce can really lift an organisation’s revenue and profitability.” He notes that in 2016, research proved that “engaged employees outperformed less engaged employees by 18% in productivity and 22% in profitability”, and that it has also been proven that the “most engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the company”. This, combined with the fact that “the cost of replacing an employee is upwards of 200% of their salary”, shows how vital it is to create rewarding, motivating and inspiring workplaces…with soul.
I asked Andrew about human soul, and how it relates to business?
For me personally, our soul, it’s emotional. It’s a feeling that really creates an energy, a vibrancy, and a motivation. But it underpins a direction as well. It’s very individualistic. Nowadays, the identification of individuals, and each being unique is becoming more apparent versus when I was brought up with traditional Porter’s marketing, segmentation, and buckets of groups. That’s no longer the case anymore. So, I think there’s the acknowledgement that soul isn’t one thing, it’s many things. And then there’s just a convergence of different thoughts and behaviours that create communities and commonality. So that’s where soul is for me these days. Historically, I think soul would have been something for everyone to navigate around. Now it’s very, very personal. And it gives individuals drive around a specific area.
I don’t think businesses have soul. Businesses are a vessel without emotion. It is people who bring them to life, who add soul. People have soul and then I think people are attracted to thought leadership and/or emotional intelligence, that show depth and purpose. Therefore, I don’t think there is a soul per se in a business. There are souls and those souls are individuals that need to find ways of connecting and having a commonality and you engage with them on multiple different levels, which now requires a totally different type of leadership within organisations. It needs a different type of emotional intelligence, a different type of vulnerability. And a different type of genuineness to ensure people can see your soul, if that makes sense, versus it just being very, very personal and very, very private.
I see these days more than ever you must bring yourself to work every day. And so, you must show yourself and your entirety, the good, the bad, the ugly, show your very essence. It’s because your very essence is who you are, which then helps make leadership a lot easier, people will follow you because you’re genuine, you are real, and you are human.
How does the soul of a leader play a part in creating a high performing organisation?
I think probably over the last decade I’ve finally become comfortable with who I am as a leader. We’re emerging from the ‘old world’ of being robotic, not showing emotion, being a generation X. You worked hard, you played hard, but my word, you didn’t show who you really were for fear of slowing the climb on the corporate career ladder. But, having that tough robotic outer shell takes a whole different type of energy. It’s exhausting, it’s draining. You have to play two different characters. When you’re in the workplace, often you’re second guessing yourself because you’re not being yourself. I think those that are still following that autocratic, ‘old world’ model of being, find it more challenging. I think they’re finding that a dictatorial approach is not being as effective as it used to be.
There are certain institutions where it’s still de rigeur. The military being one of those. Where it’s very, very hierarchical and that’s what you need to do. But I think in bigger organizations, you’re getting a pushback. A resurgence from Gen Z’s, and the Gen Alphas, which say quite frankly: “You know, I don’t want a career, I know there’s more to life than sitting in an office. I have flexible working. I can do what I want. I can create a career, doing my Vlogs.” The Apples of the world and the Facebooks, everyone who created that culture. Which has moved away from being very robotic and very systematic in approach to being a bit more open, a bit more genuine, and a bit more adaptable.
What are the implications for those who lead business teams as we move forward?
I think where businesses will succeed in the future is by delivering on emotional intelligence. Because I think a lot of traditional work is going to get automated, modernizing to the point where the robotics will take over. I think it’s already here, more and more so; they automate. Automation will lead to a need as far as change is concerned for a different kind of leadership. An approach based on really understanding human behaviour and being really connected on a personal level. Which then leads to an approach, which is more about seeing people and listening to them. And about having individual conversations and knowing what drives them, what motivates them. Is it title, is it money? Is it flexibility? Is it family? What is it? You need to ensure that you’re aware of what is needed to get the mind set of people to drive things forward. But at the same time, genuinely really listening to hear the conversation, versus just being present. Not looking at your phone or thinking about other things. It’s about genuinely being there, which then creates a whole different level of engagement and a whole different type of relationship. I think this quality then creates more trust and off the back of that creates more productivity in the organisation.
I have a five-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, and I’m so emotionally connected to them and engaged with them. And they know all my emotions because I want them to be comfortable with all their feelings because to really connect with people. To truly fly you need to be comfortable with your own emotions. That’s why I think it’s important for leadership to be genuinely comfortable. To show that vulnerability that you’re not super-human, because you’re not. And to put on the façade that you are, is only going to lead to failure because it’s going to take too much energy to paper over the cracks, to be someone you’re not every day. I think the beauty of humanity and community is when you’re down, you get your community to lift you up, there’s ebbs and flows. You can’t always be on an up. To connect with people, you need to show you are human. That means bad hair days are fine!
Chief Executives need to be always be at the top of their game, always sharp. Well, that’s a fallacy as well because that’s not leadership these days because you need to relate. And unless you’re relatable, you can’t connect. And if you can’t connect, I don’t think you can build trust, then you can’t build engagement. And of course that is what is going to drive any organization.
The idea of values, purpose, engagement and culture have been around for many years, is soul just another term for the same ideas?
Soul is a feeling. Purpose is a meaning. Engagement is a measure. Every organization needs a purpose. You need to have a meaning. What am I here for? Engagement is often the measure of how I feel about what I’m delivering. Do I feel like I’m making a difference? It’s all based on the personal perspective. And then, soul is that greater meaning, the greater offering.
Can you give me some examples of soul in business context? What are we looking for in working culture and leadership
I think there’s different stages of my career. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some amazing organizations. So, whether that was Nike, when I started out, that was the connectivity based on my love of sports, my love of extreme sports and the age I was when you are indestructible. You have a high degree of arrogance and that’s where you can do anything. And the ‘just do it’ mentality fitted beautifully with where I was. I connected with an organization that was underpinned by athleticism and achievement and going forward and breaking the rules and having fun along the process. So that was a community which really delivered on that at that time of my career.
An example of where the connectivity in the soul was more of a challenge was going and working in the banking sector. I had some time with Goldman Sachs, which is a completely different type of approach. More regimented, more structured, the long days were the norm. If you left the shop floor at six o’clock, you’d be clapped out of the office. There was stuff like that. Very, very masculine, hugely different, extremely competitive in a different way. Not in a way that was inclusive. It was exclusive.
More recently with the BBC I’ve gotten older and I’ve gotten more comfortable with who I am, and having children, the sense of family, the importance of having a well-balanced life at home, and it works in generating so much more creativity, productivity. But also a sense of community, which I think the BBC delivers in spades – far and away more than any other organization that I’ve worked with. Which fits with where I am, you know, whether it’s Nike as a youngster, Goldman Sachs, working with Pepsi, Gatorade, extreme sports, Warner Bros., but now the BBC. The BBC for me, if you’re looking at soul, that’s the place I’d say has the most soul I’ve ever seen in any organization.
What I’ve learnt is how important the ability to be genuine is, the ability to be yourself, the respect of being yourself, the respect of diversity, the respect of inclusion, the sense that you’re going to achieve more for the organization collectively versus standing on each other to get ahead. And just general respect.
As you get on in your career, the energy for the fight sometimes wanes a little bit, and the need to prove yourself as often diminishes. I’ve been there, done that. I think the BBC is an environment where you can be your best every single day, irrespective of what age you are, what energy level you have, your background, etc. compared to some of the other organizations I’ve worked with in the past. Where there’s a certain way that you needed to be to achieve. Because that was the cookie-cutter approach which made those organizations who they were at that point in time.
What are the most important challenges we face in driving modern organisations forward…with soul?
I think that the first thing is appreciating the anxiety and the fear around COVID. And people returning to work. There needs to be appreciation that isn’t going to be normal again.
The big question is, is that ever going to be normal again? How you feel, how you listen, how you hear to ensure that people are comfortable getting back into the workplace. I think that’s the big thing and not rushing things. The persistent patience needed, and the sense and knowing that there’s probably going to be some pushback as people get anxious about coming back in. I think that’s the one thing.
I think it’s managing expectation too, to get the business back where it needs to be across the board. And the ways of working that need to evolve therefore that may have been normal or just natural only eight weeks ago won’t be that way for the foreseeable future.
So, being flexible and agile. There’s the listening and being engaged, there’s the flexibility and the agility. And it’s having a clear look at the future and where you want to take an organization, not building the future now based on current circumstance. It’s ensuring that you’re repairing and you’re fixing as you referenced, you know, the holes and the boats, or the leak in the ships, whatever’s going on, but at the same time, you’re very, very clear on where you want to go. So, you may have been buffeted by high seas and winds, but you’re appearing, but you still have that drive and that ambition. And you’re sharing that ambition, that purpose, and the common goal to drive the team forward versus languishing in the current state.
It’s the old adage isn’t it? So, you know, your biggest asset in an organization, and I don’t even like to say asset, is your people, compared to widgets or tech. I think investment in people and understanding your workforce, having those conversations and finding out what’s important to them and understanding and appreciating that will drive change and recovery so much faster than actually just getting a stick out and trying to beat the problem out. That’s not going to deliver at all, or the widgets or cranking up the tech or the manufacturing. It’s the people who can adapt, who evolve, versus any app or tech that’s out there in the future.
I think more than ever, people are looking for genuineness, they’re looking for things they can trust. They’re looking to find purpose and meaning because they’re getting fed so much from social media, from political networks that they are asking where’s the real world? I want some purpose. When we find that, that’s when we experience our own soul and that’s when we feel at home, isn’t it? Energized, connected. I call it when you’re in flow. When you are in flow, everything is centred, you’re connected. It’s like the racing car drivers, the martial arts artists, the experts where everything slows down because they’re connected. And that’s when I think you’re in flow, when you are engaged, when you are completely in touch. That’s when your best work comes out. And that’s when I think the soul aspect comes into play.
This interview is one of 60 I’ve completed this year with a mix of past customers and other leading industry figures. Do connect with me on Linked in or get in touch via our website if you’d like to know more about the research findings and/or explore how to drive your business forward…with soul.
