Q&A - James Pickles on sustainable performance, resilience, and supporting clients
1) Having supported major brands such as Coca-Cola and Marks & Spencer, what practical steps have you seen employers take that genuinely protect both their performance and people?
It might sound simple and even obvious, but in today’s hybrid and digital way of working, many team members spend little or no time in each other’s physical company. There is a distance between colleagues that is physical but more importantly, psychological.
Most interactions are extremely functional, defined by days full of back-to-back virtual meetings in which wide but shallow relationships are formed. We’re fooled into thinking we know our colleagues.
Creating and investing time in the business day for employees to spend together outside of meetings helps deepen understanding and connection from which a more open and honest environment can develop.
Where I’ve seen this especially effective is where senior leaders attend and drop the job title and mask for a moment to share stories of how they too are human, struggle sometimes, have learned from failures and most important of all, how they asked for or accessed support.
Humans always have and always will learn through stories and observation far more than by looking at signposting in company update PowerPoints.
2) How should employers think differently about resilience if they want performance to be sustainable rather than short-term?
Resilience is one of my favourite topics these days. I used to think that it was basically a synonym for strength - the ability to withstand threat, stress, conflict, pressure etc, like a mighty oak enduring a storm.
It’s actually about elasticity and flexibility, our ability to roll with the punches or weather the storm then spring back to our natural shape. More Willow than Oak. The word comes from the latin ‘salire’ (meaning bounce) and ‘re’ (meaning back).
Today I consider resilience as a verb rather than a noun. A dynamic state that is as a consequence of my choices and my interactions with those around me. Much more a team game than an individual sport; my personal resilience levels fluctuate and are heavily influenced by the people around me.
For example, I’m far more likely to feel high stress levels and less confident if I internalise issues and try to solve them alone. If I speak up and vocalise the challenges, not only do I understand them more clearly, but feel less alone in facing them regardless of whether anyone is going to help (or if any help is needed).
3) You've spent the best part of 35 years helping clients solve problems across very different sectors. What does that experience tell you about what organisations actually need when they come to a consultancy like byrne·dean?
At byrne·dean, we are dealing with topics that are of vital importance to high performing teams but the nature of them can be very sensitive. As a result, clients can be asking for help with things they know are important and that they know they need to address, but they don’t necessarily want to be doing it.
What really helps is a consultation process that involves good questions and a great deal of listening, followed by a series of appropriate suggestions, based on real experience, on the best ways to achieve what is actually needed.
We then help shape that into a brief that encapsulates everything clearly and that can be shared internally beyond the client contact, in language that will resonate.
4) What does that background give you when you're sitting across from a client who knows something isn't working in their organisation but isn't sure where to start?
Thinking back to all my years in sales, the best and most mutually productive commercial relationships were those where we had invested time and effort into really understanding not only the business needs, but the personal needs of the client themselves.
Breakthrough moments tended to be where we were all able to be candid and speak openly and sometimes that meant admitting that they didn’t know where to start in solving a problem and it sometimes meant we admitted that too - but we’d work it through until we came up with a viable solution.
Interestingly, it also sometimes meant admitting when we weren’t the best people to help at that time, and introducing them to someone better placed.
Creating an environment in a meeting where we listen deeply; don’t jump in too soon with a solution; are non-judgemental and empathetic helps give real clarity for us and the client on what the challenges really are.
Listen to understand. Only then do we discuss in a collaborative way, what we could do to help.
5) What are you most excited about in your new role at byrne·dean?
I can’t just choose one thing here!
I consider this my 4th career (or at least industry) that I’ve worked in over the last 35 years. While I’ve always chosen to work in places that delivered goods or services of high quality, I can’t say that the world was necessarily a better place for the purchase of those products.
At this stage in my life and now that I’ve somewhat broken out of the acquisitive hamster wheel, I want to do good work that matters and actively improves the lives of the people that it touches.
I’m excited to be able to be in the company of people much smarter than me and be able to help them get this work that matters so much into the hands of many more people.
I’m excited to have colleagues again, to be a part of a team again, to be proud to serve and to be doing a job that even my teenage kids can see that the world will be far better off with than without.
Read James’ full bio here.
