Purpose To Performance

Mark Cowan the ex-Facebook sales director, talks about his passion for growing entrepreneurial businesses. Mark joined Facebook in 2008 as employee number two outside the USA. During an 11 year career at Facebook, he was instrumental in commercial growth in Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific markets.

Mark shares his unique story about what it was like in the early days of Facebook, from setting up sales processes, developing products, and training global teams to hanging out with Mark Zuckerberg. We discuss what it takes to thrive in companies that are experiencing exponential growth.

In the second part of our conversation, Mark talks about his career after Facebook as an entrepreneur, Angel investor and his recent appointment as CEO of the Regent Group, a nascent  Spanish company that’s rapidly building a portfolio of F45 fitness training franchises in Europe.

Mark has a warm and gregarious personality and is a natural storyteller, truly a man on a mission so strap in for a rollercoaster episode of Purpose to Performance.

What you’ll learn in this podcast:

· Career satisfaction comes from finding a company with a culture that suits your personality and values

· Having a clear mission that your team buys into is hugely motivating

· Move fast, break things, and fail forward

· Don’t feedback, feed-forward

· Selling is about creating solutions to solve customers’ problems

· Everyone wants to buy, you just need to explain why they want to buy from you

· Managing growth, the people who got you here may not be the right people for the next phase of growth

· Look out for the “resters and vesters” – employees who bask in past successes and are coasting

· Never under-estimate the transferability of your knowledge and skills

· The power of an exponential growth mindset

· People with ADHD have unique strengths

About my guest:

Successful CEO, investor, business owner, and chair of digital marketing agency addmustard, Lawrence Hunt, openly shares insights for start-up entrepreneurs in this episode of Purpose To Performance.

Right from his school days, Lawrence has followed his entrepreneurial spirit which led to 9 start-ups, 2 failures, 5 exits, and 2 IPOs. He’s had some incredible highs, like successfully launching SilverJet, one of the most innovative all-business class transatlantic airlines acclaimed by its customers and industry observers. He’s also experienced the personal stress and angst that comes with having to close failing businesses.

Over the last thirty years, Lawrence has learned to handle success and failure with equanimity, integrity, and resilience. He has also garnered a great deal of insight and wisdom on some of the critical factors that determine the success or failure of start-up businesses which he shares with our listeners.

Tune in to hear this compelling story from a very honest, humble, and engagingly charismatic entrepreneur.

What you’ll learn in this podcast:

· The joy of using your talent to make a difference

· The energy, focus, and resilience it takes to establish a start-up

· The mistake of not raising enough money

· Take the money - don’t be too precious about sharing equity

· The need to hire people who are comfortable with, or can adjust to, a start-up culture

· Every £1 of cost matters even in a multi-million £ business

· The importance of focusing on building a good business – the buyers will find it

· How to recognise your exit point

· Investors invest in good CEOs

· Tips for building resilience, managing stress, and avoiding the valley of despair

About my guest

International DJ and music producer Alex Christopherson, aka TACHES, explains how his creativity was nurtured from childhood and self-realisation has led to a successful career combining his passion and talent for music.

DJ TACHES is a successful international DJ and music producer with over 10 million downloads and a monthly audience of over 250,000. In this episode of Purpose To Performance I talk to him about the origin of his artistic talent, how he discovered the joy of the creative process, and how intuition, fuelled by hard work and self-belief, has guided him to career success and personal fulfillment.

You often find some of your deepest learning occurs in the areas you are least familiar with, I found it hugely insightful listening to Alex talk about how he has followed his heart and passion rather than been swayed by conventional career paths to find success and joy in his work. This is one of the most stimulating and enjoyable podcast conversations I’ve had and one I strongly recommend to anyone seeking to unlock their creativity.

What you’ll learn in this podcast:

· The most valuable of parental gifts: a growth mindset

· How to nurture creativity

· “Jimmy-rigging” the intuitive use of improvisation and invention skills to problem solve

· The power of self-belief – creating the unshakable belief that whatever you put your mind to, you can do it

· The freedom created from intent without expectation

· The logic of choosing passion and talent to guide your career

· The joy of being in your flow state immersed in the creative process

· Self-realisation and how it enables you to choose to live a fulfilling life

· Perfectionism and the challenge of letting go

· Understanding your internal values and aspirations to reduce personal conflict

About my guest

Karen Darke MBE is a transformational coach, celebrated author, inspirational speaker, gold-medallist Paralympian athlete, and a global explorer. I managed to catch her between two incredible adventures to have a fascinating conversation across a range of interesting topics including growth mindset, compassion, kindness, performance, and innovation.

Karen led a trip to Bhutan in September for a small group of people seeking to find their “inner gold” - creating peace and perspective in their minds to reduce stress and allow them to find their best selves. Karen describes the unique Bhutanese culture which is based on Buddhist values of kindness and compassion explaining how the country makes major investment decisions based on the impact on “Gross Domestic Happiness” rather than the Western model of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  She provides fascinating insights into how this remarkable approach to government manifests itself in everyday life as well as commenting on the lessons that we can learn from this special place.

We then shift focus to Karen’s next, and even more challenging adventure to Antarctica in December. She’ll be pushing the boundaries in her quest to find the “Pole of Possibility” – a previously uncharted location in the middle of the Antarctic ice cap where the 79th meridians of longitude and latitude cross. Karen explains the personal significance of this place and the goals of this three-person expedition; exploring ICE: Inner Gold, Connection, Environment: the sustainable wellness of people & planet. She describes the deep mental and physical preparation required to undertake such an immense challenge, and how she uses her deep understanding of mindset and her inner strengths of determination, positivity, and resilience to power performance and unlock potential. 

It’s a truly inspiring conversation that’s relevant to us all as we seek to find our inner gold, unlock our full potential and discover the possibilities that are there for us in our lives and careers. 

What you’ll learn in this podcast:

• How transformational coaching can help you develop, change and achieve

• The importance of creating mental space and inner peace to relieve stress and anxiety

• How adopting kindness and compassion creates harmony for you and those around you

• Where focus goes – energy flows

• The power of conscious choice; how you can choose whether an experience will be heavenly or hell

• How to harness your inner gold to unlock your potential

• Busyness is not a reality it’s a state of mind

• The power of connectedness, what’s possible when you combine a positive mindset with science, innovation, and nature

About my guest:

Bernie Price is an award-winning executive coach who has helped business leaders and organisations achieve successful performance and cultural transformations. Through her company, Pragmatic People Solutions, Bernie has worked with some of the largest travel, transportation and financial service companies in the UK, delivering award-winning transformational programmes.

I am delighted to reconnect with Bernie, an ex-colleague from my early days as an executive director in the travel industry, to discuss her work as a transformational coach. In an engrossing hour of conversation, we talk about coaching leaders to optimise performance, helping teams deal with conflict, and how to inspire and deliver positive change in organisations. Along the way, we touch on some of today’s hot topics, such as creative disruption, rust-out, and the great resignation.

It's a fascinating podcast that I’d recommend to any business leaders wrestling with the challenge of re-energising or re-focusing their organisations in the wake of the pandemic.

What you’ll learn in this podcast:

· Critical success factors for delivering successful organisational transformations

· Post-pandemic recalibration and finding personal balance

· How to overcome “Rust-out” - rediscovering your passion for your job

· Strategies for dealing with “The Great Resignation” and the “Silent Exit”

· The power of generative coaching

· Harnessing creative disruptors using positive intent

· How to resolve conflict in teams

· Overcoming the “difficult middle” in change projects

· The fundamentals of designing the future organisation

· The importance of good nutrition and regular exercise for optimising performance and reducing stress

About my guest

On this week's edition of the Purpose To Performance podcast, Dr Rob Petrie and I announce the launch of our new venture, Coaching Heads, which will provide headteachers with personalised leadership coaching services. We explain our mission to ensure that every headteacher has access to high-quality, bespoke coaching that enables them to thrive personally and professionally. 

The statistics around burn-out among UK headteachers are frightening and our research confirms that many school leaders are feeling overwhelmed by the constant challenge of balancing results and budgets. Our objective is to provide heads with the independent, non-judgmental support they need to develop the strategies and skills to overcome the challenges that are frustrating their performance and causing stress. 

Rob and I passionately believe in the importance of inspiring children and providing them with the best possible opportunities in life, this can only be achieved if headteachers are given the support they need to perform at their best. As two experienced professional leadership coaches, we are committed to providing headteachers with individual, affordable, and effective coaching.

Margaret Whitaker, OBE, is a successful entrepreneur, business owner, investor and philanthropist who is credited with improving the health and well-being of the UK over the last fifty years.

On this week’s edition of the Purpose To Performance podcast, Margaret recounts her remarkable and inspiring story from early adoption and becoming a teenage mother through founding Slimming World and developing the business to become the UK’s most successful weight loss group. She has overcome feelings of rejection and low self-worth to become an inspiring business leader and ground-breaking philanthropist recognised for her charitable endeavours and contribution to the health of the nation.

Join me as I discover the secrets to Margaret’s compassionate leadership and explore how she has transitioned from start-up business founder to chair of several multi-million pound companies and the driving force behind charities and NGO’s that are pioneering health and medical research.

What you’ll learn in this podcast:

· The power of reframing negative feelings like rejection to create motivation and desire to succeed

· The importance of self-belief in overcoming obstacles and un-locking potential

· How scarcity of capital and resources prompts innovation and creativity

· How empathy and compassion lead to connection, trust and inspiration

· The importance of core values like trust, groundedness and hard work

· The power of social cohesion and accountability

· Why word-of-mouth marketing trumps big advertising budgets

· Understanding what good managers look like

· Learning through doing and daring to make mistakes

· Investment in high-quality training is vital when scaling a service based business

About my guest:

We all experience emotions, but how many of us understand them and can unlock the messages they are sending us? Emotional literacy is just that, the ability to recognise, interpret and regulate our emotions.

This week on Purpose To Performance I’m fortunate to be joined by an expert on the subject. Dan Newby has spent the last 20 years researching, coaching, writing, and speaking about emotions. He’s one of the foremost authorities on the topic of emotional literacy. As an ontological and somatic coach, Dan helps people explore their emotions to create greater awareness and develop the skills to navigate their personal and professional lives with greater dexterity and balance.

Listen in as Dan helps me navigate through this fascinating and important conversation about emotions and how we can improve our emotional intelligence.

What you’ll learn in this podcast:

· What emotions are and what purpose do they serve

· Why are we so uneducated when it comes to understanding emotions

· How to start improving your awareness and understanding of emotions

· The power of emotional literacy and the practical benefits of emotional intelligence

· Fear, anxiety, and self-doubt - how to recognise the difference between this cluster of emotions and advice for overcoming emotional barriers

· How to get better at handling emotionally based decisions

· How to unlock, embrace and enjoy suppressed emotions

· The secret to using movement to change your mood

· How to use your emotional literacy to prepare for tasks with understanding and intent

· The benefits of ontological and somatic coaching for strengthening your emotional literacy and improving psychological well-being

About my guest

In this episode of Purpose to Performance, you feel the energy and passion from my guest, Christoffel Sneijders, as he explains the concept of the three brains and how he has developed it into a powerful coaching methodology through which he helps business leaders improve the quality of their thinking and performance.

It’s a compelling concept; we are all aware of the power of our gut instinct and heartfelt connections, but few of us have really considered how the thinking from these organs is integrated with the logical thinking in our heads. Christoffel describes how this complex thinking and decision-making system works and provides practical examples of how we can improve the alignment of our three brains.

We discuss how through coaching, business leaders can identify imbalances in their thinking process and learn how to harness the power of their three brains to improve the quality of their leadership, decision-making, and connection with their teams. I find it a fascinating topic, and it’s always a pleasure to talk with Christoffel; I highly recommend listening to this episode.

On today’s pod Simon Losasso, Medtronic’s global talent development consultant, talks about some of the key considerations and challenges of designing and delivering large-scale leadership development programmes to a diverse, multi-layered and multi-cultural audience.

Originally from Reading, UK, Simon has lives in Milan, Italy, and has worked for the multi-billion $ US health-tech company Medtronic for twenty-five years. Starting in sales and business development , Simon moved into learning and development in 2011 is now a consultant in the core leadership development team in Medtronic.

During our conversation, we discuss the following topics:

· Creating a learning organisation

· Delivering results by developing people

· Developing leadership behaviours that are conducive to the motivation, loyalty, and productivity of the workforce

· Operating differentiated programmes for high potential and core development

· The different use of thematic and role-based learning programmes

· Measuring coaching results through the complex analysis of organisational health survey data

· Designing scaled learning courses that are linked to strategic goals and based on the requirements of the identified needs of the organisation

· Balancing the consistency of core values and behaviours with cultural identity

What does it take to become a world champion? Talent obviously, passion yes, but then comes the hard work, endless practice and attention to detail, constant self-reflection and adjustment, resilience, trust in and reliance on your team, much like running a successful business. In this episode of Purpose To Performance, I interview Martyn Smith, world champion acrobat, creative producer, and successful entrepreneur.

Martyn’s an old friend and ex-colleague who has achieved great success as the co-founder and leader of several entertainment and hospitality businesses. He’s an easy-going and humble guy who shies away from the limelight, but this masks a deep intensity and personal drive that has led to his success as an elite athlete and a business leader.

During our conversation, Martyn shares his perspectives on various topics including personal development, leadership, product innovation, and creative marketing. Here are a few snippets of wisdom to get you interested.

· Don’t dwell on your mistakes; focus on continuous improvement

· If you don’t feel you’re progressing or growing, take action to change your situation or you’ll get frustrated

· You either embrace failure as part of thriving or retreat into a hole

· There are no bad ideas; it’s what you do with them

· Hospitality is all about the experience; attention to detail is vital

· Believe in your product and create trends to help the customers find it

· Attract the right market; don’t dumb it down or discount to drive volume and popularity

· Stay true to the concept but listen to your customer and adapt

· Reflect on what you’re good at and find good people to cover the gaps

· Find people who can buy into your vision and standards to form your leadership team

· Create a transparent leadership culture and let your people share the success

· Strive to be the best in what you choose to do

It’s not often you get to talk to a quantum physicist, a distinguished headteacher, and a transformational leadership coach in a single conversation, but Dr Rob Petrie is just that. Not only is he super smart, but he also has bucket loads of emotional intelligence and a passionate desire to make a positive impact.  All of which makes him an incredibly powerful coach – I know this first hand as he coaches me!

One of the areas he has helped me achieve some really important breakthroughs is becoming more mindful. Rob’s an expert in mindfulness and its importance in terms of our productivity and contentment, so I’m delighted to have him on the Purpose to Performance podcast to share some of his wisdom.

In this episode, we cover a range of topics around mindfulness. First, we discuss what mindfulness is and isn’t —exploring how we can become more present and intentional in our day-2-day lives. Then, reflect on what gets in the way and how we can overcome the barriers to performance and contentment. Finally, Rob shares a host of practical tips that we can all use to help us become more productive and in control of our time and emotions.

I promise you’ll get so much out of listening to this episode, and I highly recommend reaching out to Rob if you would like some help in this area.

Patricia Rossello is a very successful entrepreneur. She founded her first travel business straight from university and sold it 6years later to the CoOp group for an eight-figure sum. She followed that with another successful venture, also in the travel sector, this time selling to a PE fund for another multi-million-pound exit. After two senior executive roles in major global travel companies, she founded her latest travel technology business in the midst of the pandemic. Patricia is also an associate professor at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB).

As well as being a very accomplished businesswoman, Patricia is one of the most charming, vivacious, and caring people I know. In my experience, most successful entrepreneurs tend to be slightly obsessive, focusing all their passion and energy on their businesses. Patricia matches the best in talent, energy, and commitment, but she also displays a distinctive balance between her business and personal life. Therefore, I was intrigued to discover how she maintains the equilibrium that allows her to enjoy her family, friends, and hobbies whilst leading successful business enterprises.

During the pod, Patricia shares her insights on:

· Inspirational mentors & leaders

· Work ethic

· Deriving confidence from your support network

· Presence and perspective

· The importance of listening to your customer to guide your product innovation

· How failure makes you stronger

· The power of honesty and transparency in leadership

· How loyalty is generated by caring deeply about your employees

Enjoy the Pod!

In episode 10 of Purpose To Performance, I get into a lively discussion with my friend and mentor coach, Ciarán F Coleman PCC FCIPD, about what makes a great leader. Ciarán refers to Posner & Kouzes "Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®" to explain the core competencies required for effective leadership. We debate how corporate leadership has evolved from the hierarchical "Tell" culture that we both experienced in our early careers in the late '80s & '90s to the more relational style of today's democratised digital world. 

We argue whether the current education system is equipping students with the leadership skills they need to succeed in the modern organisation and discuss how companies are investing in global coaching programmes to continue their development. Talent development has become an essential tool in a company's arsenal to combat the "Great Resignation", where organisations are struggling to recruit and retain their valued employees.

The conversation moves on to consider the specific challenges of team leadership. In discussing how leaders break down barriers to build trusting relationships and gain alignment, we touch on the seminal work of Patrick Lencioni and his "Five Dysfunctions of a Team". We draw on our mutual experience working with multi-national companies as we debate the complexities of leading multi-cultural teams in today's distributed, remote workforce.

Finally, we exchange opinions on the future of leadership and its development both in commercial enterprises and society in general. We share a general optimism around the trend towards a modern leadership culture based on listening, questioning, learning and supporting.

Jonathan Goring, ex development director at U+I Group plc is one of the leading lights of the UK construction industry. He's currently leading the design Joint Venture for one of Europe's biggest civil engineering projects, HS2. Previously he's been responsible for building BA's state of the art global Cargo hub at Heathrow, the award-winning Ben Ainslie Racing HQ in Portsmouth and was Managing Director of Capita Symonds, (4,500 person business) which designed the infrastructure for the London Olympics 2012. 

In this episode of Purpose to Performance, I ask him about leadership and managing high-performance teams. Jonathan responds in his characteristically open manner, talking about the importance of authenticity, integrity and humility. He describes his unconventional background and cites the people who inspired and mentored him early in his career. We gain insights into how he developed his outstanding leadership skills and he candidly shares his experience of being fired when he felt his integrity was in danger of being compromised. 

We discuss how high performing teams are formed, Jonathan zeroes in on the importance of building trust and maintaining alignment towards a shared objective. The discussion continues by exploring the complexities of managing cultural and technical diversity in a high stakes environment. 

Lynn is an ICF Master Certified Coach, owner of Lynn Scott Coaching Ltd and the Effortless Leader Revolution, and a very experienced leadership coach. On today's pod, she talks in detail about the challenges modern leaders face, the struggles she faced in her first senior leadership position which gave her such a passion for this work, and how, through her coaching programmes, they can overcome the obstacles that get in the way of performance. Lynn refers to her book, "The Effortless Leader Revolution", to explain her goal of helping business leaders from all sectors develop the competencies and confidence to lead effectively. In the conversation, we delve into the coaching process, discussing how it works and how progress and results are measured, providing insights for those considering hiring a leadership coach.

The conversation switches to teams with Lynn explaining the nuances of coaching teams exploring how value is unlocked by optimising team performance. We continue by discussing group coaching, and how the adoption and acceptance of digital technology has changed the economics of delivery making it accessible to a far wider audience. Finally, we debate the recent trends in behavioural norms in the workplace and speculate on the future implications for business coaching.     

To contact Lynn or obtain more information about The Effortless Leader Revolution follow the links: 

Jon is the founder and CEO of Diode, an innovative, tech start-up that builds tools to make electric vehicle infrastructure easy to implement for everyone. In the show, Jon talks about his entrepreneurial roots, his early career in large FMCG enterprises and the circumstances that led to him founding his own company.

Jon takes us through the highs and lows he has experienced in getting Diode established. He talks in detail about the challenges of securing seed-funding, bringing a product to market and building a culture around the company vision.

We discuss the attributes of an entrepreneurial leader and where start-up CEO's can find support and advice. Finally, Jon reflects on his learning experience and offers advice to others embarking on an entrepreneurial career.

In her engagingly direct style, Marina talks about how she discovered her passion for working in the entrepreneurial environment of start-ups. Discussing the pivotal events that shaped her formative career and fuelled her success in the customer success space. Marina speaks about the art and science of teamwork and its importance in driving performance, especially in young, dynamic businesses.

We also discuss how coaching helped her plan and execute a successful career transition. Marina explains how she felt stuck and needed some help to unlock her thinking and challenge her mindset to gain clarity about where she wanted to take her career. She describes the process of reflection and introspection facilitated by the coach's questions and observations. Finally, Marina comments how the coaching also enabled her to develop self-awareness of her value and then how to use this to negotiate the right entry conditions for her chosen post.

In the final part of the pod, Marina explains how Mentorloop provides a digitally enabled mentoring platform that allows global enterprises and NGO's to make mentoring available across their organisations. This includes traditional, reciprocal, reverse and peer-to-peer mentoring. She explains the impact of democratising mentoring and learning across companies, especially for diversity and inclusion.

For more information about Mentorloop, check out their website or contact Marina: