The Institute of Water Rising Stars were fortunate to have a personal leadership masterclass with Peter Simpson, CEO of Anglian Water.
The event began with Peter telling us about his career pathway. And it really surprised us all! Peter had never had a specific career path in mind. Being an MD, being a CEO, was never the objective. Rather, Peter felt as though career plans can sometimes make you like for tomorrow, rather than enjoying the today. Instead, Peter was really driven through the desire to have some autonomy and to learn new things. And you could really see this reflected in the advice he gave us.
Peter is a big F1 fan. Ross Brawn was a successful engineer who helped Schumacher win. In his book he wrote about luck. People saying you were lucky to have done this or lucky to have achieved that. But the book said that this apparent “luck” is actually effort and preparation applied.
But how can you make this luck for yourselves? What are the skills that will get you there? Peter’s top skills for success were flexibility, the willingness to give a new challenge a go and determination.
- Flexibility can determine the breadth of opportunities available for you, especially at the start of your career.
- An explorer or a growth mindset will help you always be looking for opportunities to grow and develop. I actually had a training cause with Laughology the other day all about the concept of growth mindset. Build your own capability so you can build your own opportunity.
- The determination, the resilience, to never give up. As Winston Churchill said, never, never, never give up. Being determined and bring some enthusiasm to the table and you’re 2/3 of the way there in any interview.
It wasn’t just about skills too, it was also about knowing what makes you tick. Peter said it was really important to be clear about what motivates you and why you come to work. If you are fortunate enough in your life to get to a point where you’re no longer working to get the money to live, and money isn’t your prime motivator, instead you need to work out what is motivating you. Is it learning? Is it the team you are in or the team you are leading? Is it something else entirely?
Talking of motivation and teams, on being a leader, Peter referred to the thoughts of Captain David Marquet, commander of the submarine USS Santa Fe. David said that on a nuclear submarine you should never issue an order. That is what Peter’s preferred leadership style is. If you have the right people around you in the right teams, you shouldn’t have to “issue the orders”. Your role as a leader is to make sure the business is structured properly so other people can do their jobs themselves. It really reminded me of my mentor through the Institute of Water, Jim Panton, CEO of Panton McLeod, who had said similar to me just a week earlier.
One final piece of advice Peter had for us was to always look after and treat people as you want to be treated yourself. Water companies have a relatively low turnover of staff. People will remember you. People will remember how you treated them and they will remember your personal brand within the company. Always keep that in mind.
 |
| Anglian Water, 2019 |
