Prabhu Guptara: Was it always a burning ambition of yours to be a business leader, or did that gradually emerge as time went on?
Martyn Coffey: I guess it sort of emerged. I qualified with a mathematics degree, went to university and when I completed my degree, I wouldn’t have fully known what I wanted to do. But once I joined my first company, which was a company called STC, and saw management and how it worked, I started to get the ambition that I could do a senior management role in it. You don’t necessarily at the beginning have the objective of a CEO’s role, but over time I suppose that emerged.
Was there a particular point where you felt, “Yes! CEO! Why not?”
You know, at STC, I joined a graduate trainee programme, which meant that you got to meet the senior people in the company and the CEOs at that time, and you got to understand their background - you’re learning a lot at that stage! - and I never saw anything that I thought, “Well, that would be impossible for me.”
Now, any CEO has, of course, so very many things to do. What do you consider the essentials of the job of a CEO?
Obviously, you’re ultimately responsible for the results of the company, and you can’t forget that. Whether you have shareholders, or it’s a privately owned company, or whatever the structure, everyone’s going to be looking to see what the final financial results are. So you’ve got to keep that in mind. That is obviously something you are judged on.
I think one of the challenges for a CEOs role is forever trying to identify priorities for the business, and they vary in my experience for different times and for different businesses. I think grasping those and understanding them, and then focusing on them, is probably one of the biggest challenges for any CEO.
So, in your experience, what have been the greatest challenges in identifying the right priorities?
I’ve been involved in acquisitions, as well as in turnarounds of businesses, and I think identifying the objective is actually not so difficult. Sometimes the most challenging thing is convincing your management team of the priority, particularly if it’s a case where something is difficult, and you have to restructure, or you have to cut costs.
People sometimes don’t want to believe what needs to be done. Lots of people like to think that they’re only one order away from turning the business around, when the reality may be that you have to take action. It’s not always popular, but you have to take the necessary actions, and the key is bringing the people along with you.
So the challenge is implementation, and the challenge around implementation is making sure the whole of the team is with you. Now, obviously if people are completely opposed, that’s a fairly clear situation, but many times people are not 100% opposed, but they are not 100% with you.
Yes. In those situations, part of what you need to do is to use people such as your HR director and your CFO to give you insights that you don’t necessarily get directly because people will talk to those individuals. You have to tailor your style to try and have the real opinions of the people you work with. You’ve got to make sure that your style encourages that. That people feel confident that they can speak out. In the end, maybe it’s not always in 100% agreement, but certainly, I like to make sure that everybody has a 100% opportunity to express their views.
Now, every CEO obviously has areas of strength and areas of weakness, or areas that he or she may be good at but is actually bored with. What do you feel that you excel in, and how do you compensate in areas that you’re not particularly interested in yourself?
I suppose that because of doing mathematics I’ve always had a tendency for logic and numbers, I have a tendency to very much understand and analyze and follow the numbers of a business, and I do find that’s sometimes to the frustration of my CFO because I suppose I can be quite challenging in those areas.
In terms of your question about boredom, I have to say I don’t find that a problem, because whether it’s a problem in IT or it’s a challenge in research and development, or it’s something to do with the sales or operations side, I think, if anything, it actually makes the job more interesting. That’s precisely the challenge and enjoyment of a CEO role. You’re not just in one function with one objective. Being in business, a key challenge is the sales line, but there could be times when you’re restructuring, or busy with acquisitions, or you’ve got to do something with the operations, and I actually think that adds to the enjoyment of the job.
As you were growing up, as you were working your way through university, as you were going through your graduate traineeship, were there particular experiences that you look back on which shaped or molded you as a person for this kind of job?
My family background was relatively modest. I didn’t come from a family where everybody went to university, so I was the first generation to do that. In manufacturing, which has tended to be the background of most of my businesses, I think what helped was gaining a good understanding, from the shop floor to the boardroom. The first thing I learned, which I think I’m still learning, is that you learn every day. One of the most interesting things for me was always looking at people along the way and considering what they were doing that I thought was very good, and I would actually use that. By contrast, quite often, what were they doing was absolutely terrible, and I therefore try and avoid that.
Yes. (Laughter)
I think that has stayed with me. Today, unfortunately, there are as many examples of poor management, poor ways of doing things, as good ones. So you learn by both experiences, I guess, and in the end, they mold you. I don’t think, coming from a fairly grounded background, has done me any harm.
Probably did you a great deal of good! Now, were there particular experiences that you looked at and thought, “Oh, my goodness, what a terrible way to do things. I’m never going to that”?
One of the things that always stood out for me was when managers had to communicate difficult decisions and did so in the third person. They would distance themselves from it by saying something like, “Well, sorry, I’ve got to do this but it’s nothing to do with me”. I’ve always thought that’s a very weak way of doing things. We all, at times, have to do things that we don’t enjoy. I don’t think you ever can or should enjoy the difficult parts, but I certainly never liked the fact that people disassociated themselves from decisions, and always found that a very weak way of management.
On the other hand, were there any particularly brilliant things that you saw being done and you thought, “Wow, that’s a great way to do it, I should make sure that I do the same,”?
What was interesting for me was when you had somebody running a business who could actually stand at the front, communicate the direction and the strategy the company wanted to follow and when they left the room, they’d convinced the key people to go with them. Moreover, they’d actually they’d listened to their people, and been logical in their responses. There were a few managers that I came across who, in my opinion, explained the situation, explained the strategy and then, most importantly of all, when they walked out of the room had a team who were going to implement the strategy because they were convinced and believed it.
Now, in such presentations, I’m sure you were looking, not just for the way it was explained and the logic and so on, but for other factors, shall we call them ‘magic ingredients’, that really persuaded everybody to go with them. Did you, in the middle of all this, identify any things like that?
Yes, there were two things that always stood out to me, in all of those instances (and they stay with me today):
First, never, ever stand up in front of even a small group of people, let alone a large group, if you’re not prepared. There is nothing worse than listening to somebody and you think, “Well, they either haven’t taken the time to prepare this or they don’t understand it”. The chances of such people convincing others are very low. I think preparation and knowing what you’re talking about is absolutely critical.
The other part is some degree of leadership. You’re there to inspire, not just to tell people “This is what we’re going to do” in black and white. People like to follow leaders who they think are going to win, are going to succeed in what they set out to do. I think part of it is that you emanate that when you talk.
So: conviction! Passion! Enthusiasm!
Yes, I think that if you haven’t got passion, it’s obvious. When you have got it, it’s equally obvious.
That applies also to sports, and you’re known to be a huge fan of sports. Of course, it’s partly fun and recreation, and that’s great, everybody needs that, but does your choice of sports, or your experience of sports, in any way relate to being a CEO?
I think sport and business actually have a lot of parallels. There is obviously a set of rules which you have to adhere to. There are also objectives that you’re trying to achieve - at the end of the day, you’re trying to win. For me, I’ve played sport ever since I was young and carry on playing sport today. Part of the challenge is working out ways to try to win, whether it’s in team sports or individual sports, and I think that has many parallels to business.
I’m a Welshman by birth, and there’s a big passion for rugby; it’s almost a religion in our country, you know. So I’m following the rugby today and I’m looking forward to the world cup. Again, it’s got parallels, and you see quite often that it is not necessarily the best set of individuals that win: Rather, it’s how the team performs overall.
Yes and, of course, how they tackle the competition.
Exactly. Again, you know, preparation and understanding and a sense of what you’re trying to achieve and if everybody’s on the same page, you’ve got a lot more chance of being successful.
So, reflecting on all that we’ve chatted about, what would be your advice to a young manager who might want to be a CEO someday?
For me, it’s not a role that is unachievable for most people. I think it’s a case of people applying themselves. One of the things I used to have to do for myself was to always have a five-year plan. Where would you want to be in five years’ time? And I try to communicate that to the people I work with, particularly the ones with ability and ambition, and sometimes, for me, part of the frustration is that they haven’t even thought of doing something as elementary as that.
Yes. (Laughter)
Almost as if they are waiting for a company to create their career! Certainly, the company has a role to play, but I think the individual has an even bigger role to play. They need to learn to be more systematically ambitious about their careers if they want to go places.
So, in your experience, there are more talented people without requisite ambition, than there are people with ambition without requisite talent?
Yes. It always amazes me when you can see something in someone, but they themselves have no ambition. Many people, with the right application, could achieve more than sometimes they think they can. That, for me, is usually the first problem. If they doubt themselves, how are they going to achieve?
One of the challenges of companies, of course, is: how do they create an environment where people can become, in a sense, more ambitious about themselves and about the company.
Yes, and I do think that is a critical thing. In all the jobs that people do, they are paid to take the initiative, to take the sorts of good risks that are appropriate at their own level. But that can’t happen unless there is an environment where people don’t think that they’re going to be fired with the first thing that fails. You’ve got to create a culture that’s friendly to grass-roots initiatives. Creating that sort of culture takes a period of time, but once you do create it, it releases a lot of potential.
I suppose the contribution of everyone in the company is essential to outstanding performance – and to becoming the CEO of the Year! Warmest congratulations once again, and best wishes for the future
Thank you.