Walk & Talk 4: The Jaws of Defeat: A Planning Masterclass Live from Amity Island #95

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of The Company Doctor, coming to you live from Menemsha Beach in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, a key filming location for the iconic film Jaws. The locals of Eggertown, aka Amity Island, are gearing up for the 50th anniversary of the release of the game-changing thriller, and we thought we'd mark the occasion in our own way with a classic walk and talk. Drawing inspiration from Jaws, we ask: What happens when business leaders fail to plan, choose short-term comfort over long-term survival, and, like the infamously obstinate mayor of Amity Island, find themselves besieged by a looming, monstrous disaster? This is the Jaws of Defeat, a planning masterclass live from Amity Island. Hello, Gary.

George, we're here live. Yeah, on Amityville, on the 50th anniversary of Jaws. Yeah, and we're live on that actual beach, right?

We absolutely are. Yeah, Manemsha Beach, aka Amityville, where Jaws took place. Released 1975, 50 years ago. And we have sort of loosely themed this podcast around Jaws and sharks. You know, that sounds quite well, don't they? Business biting, biting. There are going to be all sorts of puns and sort of bad humor in this one. I think probably the only person as unprepared as I am might be you for this one.

So it's funny because the shark is going to bite because the shark doesn't know the questions and all the answers.

Absolutely. But it's a very special podcast. We're having a great time here at Martha's Vineyard. And yeah, you know, the film Jaws put Martha's Vineyard on the map and hopefully we'll also do the same.

I think we will. I think what's interesting is that, just see if I can swing around, it says where we're exactly where we're standing, it says no grilling. So there you go. How are you gonna, how are you gonna work that?

Well, yeah, well, too bad because there's going to be some serious grilling.

Do you think we should start walking?

I think we should, yeah. I mean, that's good. We've got some people coming towards us. Anything could happen. It's live, it's live TV.

It is live. Also, this person's wearing, what you call that, dry suit? Yeah, yeah, a little bit wet for a dry suit, but anyway.

Yeah, let's keep going. Let's kick it off. Um, can we take off with, uh, Classic Shark Jaws themed question for Gary.

Where are you moving? Where are you moving? I'm going this way. Oh, okay.

Yeah, we're good.

Just getting a bit windy.

So we all remember obviously in the film Jaws, the town mayor is hopelessly ill-prepared for what happens after the shark attack, ignores all the warnings that come from all his advisors, he refuses to listen. What would you say is the modern business equivalent of that and what should leaders do rather than totally ignore those sorts of warnings in the business landscape?

Well, that's a fantastic question. You know what, I didn't— I never realized there was a meaning behind yours. I just thought it was about fish that hate me. So that is such a good question. The one that springs to mind, there's probably two, but let's just give— let's give two. One is change. Companies that fail to adapt to their market. And there's so many companies I'm thinking of right now that were top of their game, they didn't adapt, they didn't read the tea leaves, and then they're just not around anymore. They're not small now. And so I think the first one is you've got to be like Madonna, don't you think? You've got to change and you've got to move with the times. Otherwise, if you don't change, you're actually going backwards, I think.

Right. So the equivalent in the business landscape of refusing to accept those warnings is not adapting with the times, not listening to the warnings of your— I guess the wider landscape. And you may see other businesses changing, and if you refuse to do the same sort of thing, you're going to get eaten by a shark.

Chomp, chomp. Yeah, I think at one level, when people are listening to this, they're going to think, well, that's obvious. But actually, when you're in it, particularly if you're on top of your game, before you know it, things change around you didn't see. I'll tell you what it's like. A little bit of a story about boiling a frog.

Sounds good.

If you throw a frog in hot boiling water, it will jump out. It doesn't want to get cooked. But if you put the frog in cold water, it will slowly turn up temperature. It cooks over time. Yeah, I think that's what's happening to people right now. They're getting cooked, or even by the shark.

Well, it's very apt because we're about to have some, some lobster. We are currently being prepared in a pot. Yeah, I'm gonna move on to— there is at least things— it's obviously more than just Jaws. The town of Amityville suffers a bit of a PR nightmare in the wake of the shark attacks. What would you say are some tips for rebuilding trust and reputation for following a business crisis.

Oh, that's really nice. Yeah, I think there's a natural reaction when there's a problem to give it a spin, gloss over so that people don't see the bad stuff. But interesting enough, I think both internally and externally, I think you need to have balanced message. So a good example is if there's something bad happening internally, people are smart, Streetlight are smart. So give them a balanced message, which is the good and the bad. Enough information to let them know that, you know, you kind of get it. Yeah, we didn't do it all right, but overall it's going to be okay. So you need to give leadership, make people feel it's okay. Yeah, I think externally— I remember actually when Evian, they had a problem with their water, and if you're too young to remember, I think it was poisoning people, but it was something else.

With the sharks in it?

It wasn't, but there may as well have been. Yeah, and they were in danger of disappearing completely, but Evian is still around today and they, from a PR point of view, were honest about it, but just obviously mentioned how they contained it. Yeah. But they were on top of it and they were honest with people. So I think being, being honest and treating people like they're smart is probably half the way.

Nice. I like that. That's a good one. Um, and, um, in terms of sort of comebacks and, you know, especially for, for Hampton Mill, obviously there's Jaws 1, 2, 3, and 4. We probably won't talk about those. First one being the best, but in the wake of that sort of crisis, um, what are the hallmarks of a successful business comeback? And have you got examples of companies that have done that well? Octavian just mentioned, is it always about the honesty or are there sort of other traits of companies that have, following a serious issue, have done well to sort of bounce back and sort of turn adversity and difficulty into a positive?

I think it depends on what the problem is, to be honest, and the severity of it. But I think the natural thing to do is to understand what is, and which is not necessarily easy to do when you're in the middle of something. And to— some people say stop the bleeding, sorry to use that term when we're talking about sharks eating it.

I know, it's perfect.

But you've got to kind of clean your house, understand what's going on, and find out the truth for yourself so that you can either stop something or contain it.

Yeah.

Or if it's a longer-term thing where it's a business change, I think you need to understand. I mean, a good example right now would be because it's going to be easy for us to talk about and not to solve, is AI. Everyone's got AI on the brain. They kind of intuitively think it may or may not affect their business. Yeah. And for some people's business, it really will affect them. And we're kind of digging our heads in the sand a little bit, hoping it will go away. Well, some people are entrepreneurial enough to kind of try and get ahead of the curve. So I think that's probably a good place to start.

For a start.

So yeah, it's not— sometimes it's a slow burn, you don't see it coming.

Okay, nice. So yeah, I like it.

Let's turn, let's turn, and let's show everyone the promenade. Yeah, show everyone the promenade. This is where— incredible scenes— where Jules had a nice lunch.

Yeah.

One of the things about— I think you might mention this, I might be seeing it worse, but you were telling me one of the things about the Jules story, the Antiquaire, was that this is a place it became with their families, and most of their money was made by people coming here to a safe place. It necessarily sharks. Yeah, and then when the sharks strike— strike?

Stroke?

Striked? When the sharks came.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm glad you asked that actually, because one of my questions is about this. It's cool because actually it's sort of rooted in this idea that, you know—

do we keep walking?

Yeah, yeah, it was really influenced by the fact that there was some friction that developed between a sort of a fishing community that was there year-round and then an elite set of people who would come for summer with their families, and they had less—

like car streamers. Yeah, well, you know what I mean.

And there was a lot of sort of friction between those two communities, and I think a lot of it was actually sort of the need for tourist trade, but also the resentment of the tourists to come and supply that trade. So it's an interesting, you know, it is more than just a bit of fishing. But in that vein, I know that you do a lot of putting teams together to deal with crises and scale downs or scale ups. How do you make sure that the dynamic between these people with different backgrounds and, you know, different skills are harmonious and work together well?

Oh, that's great. That's great. Because I think intuitively people don't go together well, unless it can sound a bit odd. I think people get on, they like to get on, but there's so many different connotations about how someone should work together. Like, you know, since the advent of apps that get people's relationships, they've got a better chance because they can match people's likes. But generally, when you meet someone, the chances of you having like mind, being like-minded, agreeing on a set of principles, and then when you throw politics in the middle, there's not a lot of chance of people agreeing. They might agree to your face, but they don't really mean it. Yeah. So I think it's complicated. And so the starting point is always having a common purpose and a vision that people can buy into. Because I think with that, at least you've got some sort of common ground as a starting point. What was the other part of your question?

Well, it was more— I think in this scenario, the common thing between the locals and the tourists is getting rid of the shark, isn't it? You know, they both want the same thing. The tourists want it because they want to swim in the sea, and the locals want it because they want the tourists to come. And that was the only part of the question really, is like, how do you make sure that these people that join the teams that you create, that they get on? And, you know, I think a common goal, you say, is a great place to start.

Yeah, common goal is one thing. And I think probably the second part, thanks for reminding me, is to have a plan B because the truth is shit happens, things go wrong and it's natural. There's nothing, it's okay.

Yeah.

And if you don't have a plan to deal with that, so, you know, in most projects, the project team would have what they call a mitigation plan, which is supposed to be the plan that says if A, B, or C happens, this is what I'm going to do.

Yeah.

And so when A, B, and C do happen, you're ready. And I think that's good advice for people in business to go, yeah, things go wrong. Some things matter more than others, so you can rate them in importance, but that you're prepared. A good example would be for me is I was on a plane once. I'm sure Jake is very scared of flying. And as the plane was about to land, Some people might have been in this situation before, especially in Airbus. It literally took off again at speed before it landed. And the reason it did that is it had a plan that if a certain set of criteria happened, there's no debate or possibility of doing something. The answer is you take off again, otherwise you might crash. And I think in business you have to weight up different problems that might happen and severities. Yeah. And have a plan of action. Some have no tolerance to to them because of their importance, and some do because they may not be that important.

That's what I was trying to say. That's great. And you know, that sort of plan of action and sticking to it is important because, you know, we're talking about Jaws here, and, uh, you know, you've got one camp saying, "Indipendently, you must close the beach. The only responsible thing to do in this situation, we've got a man-eating shark, is to close the beach." And then you've got the people who want to make money from the situation, or in a way, We can't close the beach because then the tourists won't come and then we might not survive the winter. And that's a classic, you know, what's the plan and how do you stick to it? And I think that does translate in business because if you haven't got a plan B, if it's sort of close the beach or nothing else, then you're in trouble. You need a plan B, don't you, in order to move on?

You do. And one of my favourite lines in the film, you knew it was coming, is, "You know what, George, I think we need a bigger boat." Yes.

And you know what, Gary, you actually led me perfectly onto my next question because actually that line in the film was improvised. It wasn't in the script. So yeah, yeah, you know a lot about the film.

You're a bit of a fan, aren't you?

I am a bit. I read up about it before, uh, he came. And, uh, yeah, the line itself is an improvised line, um, and it does say, "We're gonna need a bigger boat." And I think it sort of typified a lot of problems that went on on set, apparently. But in that vein, what would you say are the signs that it's time for your business to scale up, and what are the sort of the first steps owners should do, business owners should do, in order to begin that scale-up process?

That is such a great question because I'm a— thank you, as a business owner myself, it's a really difficult challenge because if you don't scale up when— if you're successful, because you don't plan not to be successful, then you're not ready and actually give a poor service, or you can't implement what you wanted to. And on the other hand, if you build the team before it comes, you might end up getting ahead of yourself and putting too much pressure on the business and therefore never make it because you've got too much cost, you can't manage the cash flow.

Yeah.

So it's a really difficult dance and balance, but you've got to take action because if you do none of those things, you can't grow. You've got to invest to grow. Yeah. You can't plant seeds and expect them not water them to grow. So my advice would be be optimistic and but then burn the bridge behind you because If you've invested, so you've got to put enough of a critical mass together to build a business. Yeah. You better go for it because otherwise if you don't, then you just wasted your money and you're in trouble. But don't not invest because otherwise don't be in business. And don't, I should say for any size companies, like you've got to get the balance right of growing ahead without overbaking it.

Right. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Um, I just, that is a tricky, it's Tricky question, it's really tricky. How do you know when the signs are there? It's not easy.

I think you just got to go for it sometimes.

Yeah. I think I'm nearing the end of my questions.

Please, because my arm is really hurting.

Yeah, that's fine. I think we knew it was going to be a short one. I've run out of shark puns and Jaws-related questions.

Is this one going to bite or not? I hope it's going to bite.

Okay. I don't know, you know, we haven't got a title for this one yet, so I can't bring it back to 3 takeaways. You know, there are some characters we haven't touched on, the classic pooper and what's his name, the sort of the old sea dog.

I'm so impressed with it.

I just love it. But I think we call it there. You give your arm a rest before it gets chopped off by a shark or by this breeze. And anything else you want to add, Gary, at this point?

Yeah, you know why? There is something I want to add. Because when you told me the story of Jaws, which I didn't understand, I was just closing my eyes because it was gory. That, you know, the principle of you, you kind of need to plan and be ready for something. I, I think that's a good takeaway. I think the takeaway in, in this episode is you need a bigger boat and you, you've got to plan ahead, because if you don't and you're complacent— we've talked about companies that disappear, we've spoken about companies that never get started because they just don't have enough balance. So yeah, plan ahead. Don't just presume everything's going to be okay because it takes work.

But you know what?

If you do plan and do it carefully with the right balance, it's all worth it. Look at you! Close the beach! Close the beach! We need a bigger boat. Let's have a little spin around, George. Just get another spin around. Here we are, live on the 50th anniversary of Jaws, the Monmouthshire Beach, or Amityville, if you've seen the movie. That's right.

Now we've done this, great time.

See you in the sea.

See you next time.

Hope it doesn't bite you.

Bye.