Why Every CEO Needs a Personal “Why” with Ben Renshaw

Foreign. Why do you exist? What's the point of your life? What lights you up? Your personal why and how it impacts your role as a leader, how it affects your company and your team. That's our conversation today. Your personal why and why that matters.

Hey, everybody.

Bill Gallagher, scaling coach, host of this super fine Scaling Up Business podcast. We bring our show to you every week with an author, a guru, an expert, something, someone to do with, something to help you grow and scale your company and maybe even enjoy the process. Not have to work so hard, not have to suffer. Life is hard enough as it is. Let's not make it any harder. How do we make it easier to grow your business, Have a big impact on the world? Do something that you're really proud of. That's what our show's all about. So 630 plus shows and more@scalingcoach.com or wherever you're getting this right now. So just, you know, like subscribe, turn on your notifications so you get it every week anyway. You'll find all that and more@scalingcoach.com. All right, I'm joined now by Ben Renshaw from London. And Ben is a leadership coach and author. He's written how to be a CEO and a whole bunch of other books around leadership and purpose centered. He's been an advisor to lots of leaders at companies like ihg, at Diageo, Ghirardelli, Heathrow, places like that. And he's going to talk to us about, you know, figuring out your personal why, connecting to the business. So welcome to the show, Ben.

Hey, Bill, it's great to meet. Thank you, really appreciate it. And yeah, just, just listening to you there kind of takes me back to the origins really of my own journey, looking at why. And you know, I, I started life out with a very, very different hat on. I was a classical musician. I was actually a violinist. And I grew up at a, a little music school just outside London called the Yehuda Menu in school and the Yehuda Menu in the founder was a real visionary and an amazing humanitarian and, and traveled the world playing music and he very, very purpose led, although he didn't use that language. And in fact my father was my head master, my head teacher. So he ran the school and I played the violin anyway and I auditioned. I got in at the age of eight and at that point I didn't really question my why. So I grew up from the age of 8 to 18 practicing 4 to 6 hours a day. So it's a very intensive environment. But then as the music profession began to loom and get real, I realized this was not for me. And it was one of those challenges where because I was very talented, that was my trajectory, that was my path, but it did not light me up. It wasn't where I got my energy, it wasn't my passion. And I then started to travel and, and I remember distinctly a moment where I'd taken my, my violin, I had my backpack, I went over to Europe, I was down.

There's not a lot of violinists backpacking where those two things we think of a guitar maybe, but not a violin on the road.

And, and I, and I had a moment. I was down overlooking the Mediterranean, waiting for a bus, a coach to take me to my destination. And I, in that moment, it was a real realization that there's more to life than playing the violin. And I needed to really figure out my own sense of why. And that year was very pivotal for me. And then I landed up at a music college in London and within moments realized this was not for me. And that was another real trigger for me of then trying to figure out, look, what do I love and where do I get my energy from and what's really meaningful for me and how do I want to spend my time? And so those were, that was very much my inquiry at the time. And I put that together and I realized there were two main things that really interested me were people and problems. And if I thought if I put the two together, I'd be happy. So I set myself up as a problem spotter and I did all my initial training in the state. So I spent a lot of time in Seattle and in Connecticut and New York and trained with a private institute that specialized in a real range of personal development, leadership development, cultural work. Came back to the UK and believe it or not, I joined forces with a partner at the time and we created something called the Happiness Project. So this was in the 90s, and I can tell you, looking at studying happiness and positive psychology in the UK in the 90s, you know, we're a country of misery. Yeah, we love our mild martyrdom, our quiet desperation, you know, and if you talk about happiness or well being or wellness, you're met with a lot of irony and cynicism.

You know, I led a couple of workshops in the uk and maybe the first one, but certainly an early one that I remember, I was asked to go lead a workshop. I was on a trip to London and then, and I offered to do some kind of a workshop for this group there. And they were like, well, we don't really need one in London, but would you go to Canterbury? And there are some friends within this world that wanted to host and put on a workshop in Canterbury. And. And. And they're actually from a musical background, these guys. And so I said, sure, I'll go to Canterbury. I can't recall having been there since I was a kid. And so I went and I. And this. This was all about, like, purpose and unsticking your life and things like that. And. And there was snow in February and. And. Which grinds everything to a halt. And it took a long time. We finally arrived in Canterbury. We were supposed to be like, 60 people there. There ends up being quite a few, maybe 30 or something like that. And I'm like, all right, here I am. I'm going to do this workshop. I'm from California, and I start sharing about things in my life where I'm stuck. And I'm, you know, I'm super, like, authentic, open, vulnerable, kind of emotive. And they just looked at me like, oh, this isn't theoretical. You want to talk about our lot. You want us to talk about things that really matter in our lives? Well, like, we're not going to do that. They were very much like, oh, this is very, very nice to see you, Mr. Gallagher. And that's. That's about as far as we're going to go. So it was funny, it was memorable. It was a good time. They were super polite, but, like, going deep in that kind of a town and that thing. Not gonna happen for me.

Yeah, no, no, that resonates. I. Look, I get that. And I. I encountered. Yeah, I mean. I mean, it was great training for me because the. All my initial work was in, you know, it was literally encountered with so much skepticism and cynicism and. And it developed a really good kind of muscle memory on that for me.

So it's hard in some places, in some cultures to get beneath the veneer, to get real about things. Right. To talk about what really matters. Right.

I think in every culture, I mean, I've been very fortunate to work globally. I mean, if you're in Asia as an example, you'll get a lot of nods and a lot of yeses. And of course, underneath, it's like, no, you know, and they're not going to share what they really think or feel. My experience in California, I mean, I love the positivity, but even then, that can lead to a bit of a veneer in terms of actually, you know, what is real, what is Authentic what is really going on. And again you can get people who are very polished and very rehearsed in terms of using the language and all that. But what's real? So I think that for me has always been just a really interesting inquiry for me about just what's real and what's meaningful. And so I was fortunate to transition out of music and then really stumble into the world of coaching. I'm very fortunate that my mentor and coach was essentially the originator, the grandfather of business coaching in Europe. So Graham Alexander, very seasoned, very experienced and he was operating at a CEO level and he played me in way before my time at that C suite level. So the example you mentioned around IHG InterContinental Hotels Group was a good example. So he was coaching the CEO who again was an incredible leader, a guy called Andy Kozler whose background was in branding marketing. He worked for Cadbury in chocolate. And Andy went into IHG and at the time they were a numbers company and he quickly realized that actually they had guests, they had a lot of guests globally and they went on a business strategy where they went asset light, they sold off all hotels around the world, really created the franchise model with Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, etc, and I mean in terms of scale, extraordinary. And they created a core purpose called Great Hotels Guest Love. And through conversation with Andy and the HR director, a fantastic woman, Tracy, little did I know, but it gave birth to a program called Leading with Purpose which took people on a three day journey through the exploration of their own sense of purpose. And how did you then bring that through to your leadership and really scale with impact as a leader? And I was then very fortunate to spend the next 10 years developing a thousand leaders globally to lead with purpose. So that was kind of, that really kind of built up for me.

So did the company purpose start before the leader's purpose or the leader's purpose follow and connect to the company purpose at the CEO level?

Yeah, no, in that example it was company first. So it was very, you know, they were very, very, it was a very strategic choice, number one to go purpose to be purpose led of which of obviously then defining the core purpose of the organization and then really building the leadership capability to be able to bring that to life and execute it.

You know, I think, I think about when purpose occurred to me in my life. I, I had already accomplished a lot of things and I, I was fairly aware of my strengths, right? Like the skills and abilities that I had, whether they be genetic or learned or both or you know, and, and as I assessed My life at that point. So I was. I had two kids, a wife, a house, a cat, and three businesses. And they were all kind of failing. And I'd accomplished some things. I'd grown a business already. And so I, like, I knew my strengths and I'm like, I'm a leader and I'm smart and articulate and all that. And it's true. Those things were true. And yet somehow, like, I was. It was flat and I. And I was left wanting. And I did an exercise which I've done with folks many, many, many times, right? To just ask, you know, what's the happy ending? Like if your life ends well, what do people say about you? What's that legacy? Right? And I. I thought about the people I really love. I thought about my kids and someday, you know, there would be grandkids and there is. I have a granddaughter today. And I thought about, you know, close people I've worked with, and I imagine people gathering around and I just wanted them to say that I was one of the good guys. I wanted them to say that I made a difference for people, that I was a contribution. And I. And I realized, like, as I thought about my work, that that wasn't in the foreground. I was out to accomplish things, to make money, to build businesses, to have a cooler office, to be a cooler person, to like. And I had my things, like my, My kids, my family, they were. I hit my team. They were mine versus I being theirs. And that reoriented my DNA, right. And I began to shift. I started to think about how do I be a contribution to my team, how do I coach them and develop them for whatever they want and be that kind of an organization that changed the way I worked and everything like that. And today my purpose is helping leaders build a better world. Helping leaders build what they want to build, like fulfill their passion, vision for something better. And, And I like, it's deeply empowering. But there's like the personal purpose, right? And then there's the business purpose. And the two are totally connected, right? Because it's. I'm not a big team. I'm myself and a handful of support some other coaches. So that's a totally thing like reorient stuff. And I work all the time with companies on their. Their purpose, but the two, not necessarily the leader and the. The business not always integrated. And not all leaders seem to want to figure out their personal why.

Yeah, look, thank. Thank you for sharing that, Bill. It's very, very profound, very meaningful. I appreciate that. Look, I. I think that from a company perspective, and it's. Look, I, I've been fortunate to work consciously with purpose over the last 20 years and with organizations and every version that you said of, you know what that means and looks like. So, so let me bring that to life with a couple of examples and stories. There was one leader I coached, so he was a cfo, and he was on the succession plan as CEO for an organization who were very, very focused on purpose. And he, as part of succession, he had his 360 feedback and he got the results, and they weren't pretty. And I get wheeled in by hr. He didn't like the results. He really didn't like the look of me. But we did find some common ground. And one of my first questions to him was, you know, what is your leadership philosophy? What are you about as a leader? He said, I'm not a leader. I'm a technocrat. Now, he was accountable for over three and a half thousand people globally. He already had. But for him, leadership, it was just not on his radar. He hadn't translated it. It didn't have meaning for him. He did. He did want to, which makes sense.

Because he's a cfo, right?

Like, he's a typical profile, very typical of a technocrat. And I get it, you know, and he was, you know, he was brilliant at what he did. He was highly respected in the city and with stakeholders and shelters and investors, all of that good stuff. But he did have some interest in being CEO. And essentially this, you know, the, the feedback that came back to him is, who are you? Yeah, we don't know who you are. We don't know what you stand for. We avoid you on a Friday afternoon because you're always grumpy and moody and angry and all of this. So I said, look, why don't we, why don't. Just for exploration, why don't we just look at this idea of purpose and similar to yourself in terms of, look, begin with the end in mind and the obituary, all of that. But what I do is I do a lifeline tool, which I'm sure many of your listeners will be familiar with now.

They use lifeline all the time around YPO and EO and that kind of thing.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it was really. And he said, look, this will be a short, a short conversation. Three, three hours later, we were still going. So for those of you not familiar with the lifeline, it's where you charter. You go back and you really look at the major significant events and experiences of your life. Number one. Number two, you translate, make meaning of those events. How did they impact you? How did they. And then in terms of your own sense of values, and then coming out of that as well, really looking at when you're at your best, where you get your energy from, what's meaningful, what's impactful, what is the difference in the contribution that you want to make? And you kind of put that together to arrive at a sense of purpose. So anyway, three years, three hours later, he said, you got to come back tomorrow. I came back, we did another couple of hours. And out of all of that, he defined his own sense of purpose, which was to be a creator of opportunity. Now, as I see it, and because he loved big change. So actually he got a lot of energy from, you know, really making an organization better, making change happen and creating things better, you know, for others. So actually, in his intrinsic motivation, not that he consciously articulated that, but that was what was there for him. So then as cfo, we then needed a spreadsheet. So then what we did was we took creative to be a creative opportunity and really drilled into what would success look like. So how would you know that you are being a creative opportunity as cfo, as a leader, as an exec member, as a board member, in the community with shelters, you know, and then personalization in terms of family and as a father and a partner and in the community, etc. And literally he created his own dashboard of his success criteria. We had a red amp, green in terms of the ability to measure, and where was he? And 18 months later, he was actually successful. And this became a framework out of that, that he. That really drove his leadership, created a narrative out of that, a story for him to bring that to life. And I will always remember he. Eventually he succeeded and he had to give. Give his inaugural address as CEO. And of course, everybody was the expectation, you know, as CFO to CEO, you're going to just talk about the numbers, you're going to talk about performance and how everything could be more and bigger and better. And I remember being in his office and him giving me the draft of his address, which obviously was like a spreadsheet. And I asked him, what is success for you from this address? And he said, well, I want people to be inspired. So I took a deep breath and I said, that ain't gonna do it. That's not gonna cut it. And I suggested, why don't you just tell your story? Because actually that would really inspire. And eventually that's what he did. And literally, he just put up photographs from his life. And I remember the photograph. So his parents owned a gas station and there was a picture of him pumping gas as a child at aged eight. And he could talk about the importance of service and being in the front line. He was in the service industry. And he could talk about being out the back and, you know, counting the money as a child and the impact of that. And then later he put a photo of his family and children and one of his daughters had bright red hair and he could talk about diversity and celebrating difference and, and then his final photo, of course was him with his fast cars and he could talk about winning and speed and, and, and of course the feedback from colleagues were. They were blown away. Yeah, so I think.

Yeah, yeah. Let me pause you and tease out a couple of things I hear there. I think that are, that are interesting for our listener viewers. One of them is the power of storytelling, right? So you start with the lifeline that's telling your story and a particular focus on the highs and lows of your life and getting to the feeling of it, right? And it's those areas where the meat is right? And then, and an obituary or a eulogy is a forward looking story. So I imagine the future, my future story, and I'm telling that story. And again, I'm focused on the little bit, not the all of it, but like the little places where they meet. And then you talk about telling the story to the team. And storytelling is really powerful because we touch on those emotional centers and the moments that are powerful and. But if we don't have any facts or figures, we're talking about something, we're not really sharing it. If there's not. Like we can't create a picture. And yet if we get too bogged down in too many details that are extraneous, then we also lose. Like, if I'm not talking about the details where the emotion, where the feeling lives, then people get bored pretty fast. So you just need a little bit where that's actually centered, right? So you talk about the moment of crisis or insight or you know, you know, those kinds of things. And that creates the powerful thing. So I'm taking my daughter to work or to school on my way to work, and then I have this thought and I realize my life isn't what I thought it was right now, boom, I've got something. But if I tell you, well, and then we got a ice cream and then I got a coffee and then I did this and I'm like, none of that stuff matters. So there's some balance there of going right to the things that you really care about. That's the thing I heard first. The storytelling and focusing on the. The other thing I heard in all of that is that there are things that we care about. Right. Like, you know, I. I love outdoors and I love adventure and I love sailing and surfing and skiing and things like that. But. But if I just talk to you endlessly about that, there's no. That's. There's. There's not fulfillment there. Right. I might enjoy it for myself, but when I give it away, if I care about creativity or hospitality or whatever, and then I'm being a contribution of that thing that I love to ever like, everyone should have access to that if they want it. That I'm. I've actually got something. The purpose is not. It starts internal, but. But until you like, get it outside bigger than yourself, it's. It's like just hedonism.

And I think, look, picking up on that bill, a couple of points. Number one, in terms of the storytelling, that for me, business is relationship and the ability to connect to me is absolutely one of the most important ingredients of leadership. And without a doubt, whenever I ask anybody who's their most admired leader and why, you know, it's very, very rare that people will come back and say, oh, because of their strategic thinking or because of their commercial acumen or, you know, because they could do. Do the numbers. Now I think, you know, they're kind of look that. Yeah. Particularly at an exact level. They're givens in terms of that level of capability. But the differentiator. What absolutely makes the difference is that moment to connect. And that goes both ways. That is obviously through sharing a story, but it's also creating the environment and the conditions where others can really connect with themselves and then bring that through. And I think that. And you know, I loved your introduction about what you do and scaling business and you know, for me, the ability to connect if you want to scale that. And that for me, and particularly, as you say, from an emotional perspective, that is key. People, you know, we live in an experienced economy. That's what people want, is what they look for. And you know, and then I think the second distinction that you made in terms of looking at purpose and the translation of that.

Yeah.

It's not about me, it is about you. Again, for me, from a leadership perspective, that's probably the most profound shift that leaders go on. It's a bit like being a parent, you know, you know, when you. For those that. And I say I say this very mindfully and respectfully because I don't have a. I'm very mindful that not everybody's able to be parents or want to be parents, and I totally get that. But certainly my own experience as my life was about me until I had kids. And then everything is about my kids and everything I do is about my kids. And I think as a leader, it's like until you're actually in a role of leadership, it's all about you. And then once you're in that role, it's all about others. And I think that's a very, very profound shift to make.

You know, that's a really, really useful thing. You can't build anything really significant on your own. Even today, the highest sort of revenue to employee companies. In the technology world, there's still some people, right? And as they grow, then they add other kinds of people and contributors and teams and things like that. There's going to be some people. You can't build a multi billion dollar global enterprise with two other guys. There's going to be some folks involved. And so if you want to do anything big, you've got to get good at being with people. And then the first person to get good with is the guy in the mirror. The guy or gal in the mirror, right. If, like, if you're all a mess and can't be with yourself, it's pretty hard to connect with other human beings. Right. But when you're clear who you are for you and who you are for the world, it starts to get a lot easier to have the capacity to listen, to share, to inspire and to pull that out of other people, to create opportunities for others to step into something bigger.

Yeah, I agree. And the beauty of that for me is that is all developable. So kind of wherever you are, what you're talking about, you're talking about capability. And I break down capability in three simple ways, which is mindset, skill set and tool set. Mindset, skill set and tool set. So you know, when you're looking at that, it's well, what like, obviously I'm applying this to purpose now, but what is the mindset to lead with purpose? What are the skills? What are the behaviors to demonstrate to lead with purpose? And what are the tools, the enablers? What's going to really help you sustain that and bring that to life? And that, as an example, is all the work I do.

Yeah. So starting with that emotional center. Right. We've talked before about Simon Sinek's work and others and Aubrey Daniels and Thinking about the place like the, where all the decision and action starts with something that you care about, that you feel strongly about, that's enduring in your life. Right. Getting in touch with that, there's a lot of power. Why don't we share another story? Why don't you talk about the chocolate business? Because I think everybody loves chocolate.

Yeah. So I've been very fortunate to work with Ghir Deli, so the chocolate brand in San Francisco and, and the former CEO there was an amazing guy called Joel who's actually from, well, he's from Ireland, he's from the uk. He's now back over here as CEO of Lindt uk. But I was fortunate to work with him and the management leadership team for about a seven year period. And he was very, very purpose led and he really created a whole framework for the organization based on purpose. And they defined their purpose to make life a bite better. Which I love that good for chocolate. And, and what we did, I really.

Hear like a little joy, like a little pleasure, A little bit of joy and pleasure in a moment, right? Like a bite better.

Absolutely. You know, and I think it's, you know, as you said at the the outset, again, like life's hard enough so genuinely to be able to have just a moment, a moment of joy. Just, you know, and pleasure is a cool thing. And also to be able to give that to others and share that with others. I think that, you know, usually when you're having, experiencing a moment of joy, it's very rare that you just want to keep that for yourself. No, you want to share that. And if you're having a hot chocolate fudge sundae, don't. That is definitely something you want to share. So what we did was, well, what Joel and the team did, they really developed their whole game plan is what they called it on the back of that. And that was to really scale the business, but through purpose. So there were three strategic pillars with that. One was being purpose led, one was continuous improvement and another was sustainable growth. And out of that they really derived all the projects and the initiatives for the company and they got everybody clear and aligned around all of that. But Joel was so committed to building leadership and management capability. So then we then created a program called Talent Manager Excellence which again was really enabling every people manager in the business, number one, to have an experience of well, what's their, why, you know, what's their own sense of purpose. But then how to translate that and how to coach and help others to have that sense of purpose. And then in Their teams and then in the factory and we went right out on the factory floor and you know, you're in a unionized environment. You've got, you know, workers on hourly shifts, et cetera. So this permeated the whole system. And you know, it's just for me, I think what it really gives, it just gives another dimension to this notion of work. And therefore you're really helping people infuse those precious, precious hours that they will commit and give to an organization. You're actually providing the conditions in the environment which is meaningful for them and where they can get their energy from. And so a lot was invested in terms of the community, in terms of colleagues and working together and then obviously for consumers and customers.

You know, it's funny, as you think about that, I think about taking a bit of pleasure and then centering it in purpose, sharing it out in some way. And I remember when I had that insight when I sort of first discovered or noticed or created, I guess you could say created my life purpose. Then I had a coach at the time who's now head of talent development at the Gallup Organization and a guy by the name of Dean Jones who's been a past guest a couple times on the show here. You can go look for past shows with Dean Jones. So anyway, so Dean's like, okay, well we have to do some work around this purpose, develop a muscle around it. You need a project in this area. So he's, you know, like, it could be about anything, like. And I would go on to, to bring lots of projects around my business. But the first project, because he said you could do anything, I was like, well, my main sort of interest and hobby at the time was flying airplanes. And so I'm like, it is the most like selfish, expensive, time consuming thing. I have young kids, multiple businesses, and I like to fly airplanes, right? So expensive and time consuming, away from both business and family. So I'm like, how do I create a project where I share that in some way, where I, where I be a contribution, right? I said I want to make a difference for people. So I'm like, oh, what if I just take kids flying, right? So there already existed a project like that. So I just co opted it and brought it to our town, which didn't have it in Oakland, California. And I'm like, we're going to bring this project to take kids flying and I'm gonna, you know, I'm just gonna give away my joy of flying, right? And I, so I started with a little bit, I encouraged some other pilots to join. And after a while, we took over a thousand kids flying and, you know, now my wife.