← Uncensored CMO
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Foreign.
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Welcome to Unsensor cmo. I've got an absolute treat for you in this episode. Sil Saleh is one of the most famous cmos on the planet. She was global CMO for Diageo for many, many years. Now she's since retired and become a career coach and I convinced her to come and talk to me about what she's learned in that career and what advice she has for life, leadership and how to have a very successful career. Syl is one of the warmest, most incredible human beings you're ever likely to meet. And in this episode, she's sharing all the learnings she's had from an amazing career. There is so much in this. I know you'll absolutely love it. Here it is. Welcome to the show, Sil.
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It's great to be here, John.
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It's great. Thank you so much for doing this. I've been really looking forward to our conversation. Been a long time, heard you many times and. And of course, most people will know you, won't they, from your global CMO role at Diageo, which you're very well known for, what's that kind of role really like? I mean, I'm sure everyone's got their ideas about what it's like to do, but what's it really like?
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Well, I honestly think it's one of the best CMO roles in the business because right now CMO roles have been chopped up into, you know, learning or marketing services. And the Diageo CMO role has the whole shebang. You have the global brands, innovation, R and D, digital, all marketing services. And so you really feel like you can make a difference to growth. It's an enormous job. And I guess the thing I learned in terms of what it's really like is you can only do it if you know it's not all about you. It's about the people you have working for you. And you've had many of them on this podcast because they're truly great. So I approached that job really as a leader, as coach, and I vowed at one point to try to make every conversation I had a coaching conversation, even if it was about a tech, practical marketing subject. That's a bit hard to do. And you think, well, yeah, you can do that for the good conversations, but what about the not so good? How do you leave people feeling better than they did originally? And that was my goal. And even in the tough conversations, people could feel better because when they reflect on it, would you rather find out later that something's not going well? I hate when people surprise people with bad performance evaluations. And what I felt like the people reported to me could trust is they'd get the honest answer and hopefully it would be delivered with skill, which I had to learn. I mean, when I first started Diageo, coming fresh from America, somebody was in a meeting with me, Graham Penter, who's a very good friend, and the team came in, they left, and he said, you just ate that assistant brand manager for breakfast, you know, so I had to learn not to do that.
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B
I love that. Because we do fear difficult conversations, don't we? It's natural, isn't it? Everyone wants to be the, you know, the hero, deliver the good news. The bad news is much harder. So any tips on how to have difficult conversations like that?
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Yeah. Picture what it's going to be like when you have to have the really difficult conversation. Picture what the implications of that for the person's family themselves if they're surprised. And it's never just one conversation. Right. It's being specific, approaching it with a coaching attitude. You know, here's the issue. How's it gonna get better? And knowing that ultimately, ultimately you are helping the person.
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It's funny, actually, in my own experience, whenever I've faced into tough conversations, it's always good has come out of it. It's almost the worry about the conversation before that's paralyzing, isn't it? But once you break through it very often, almost always it leads to good things. And there's a relief, isn't there, that the issues don'. We can tackle it together and move on.
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Absolutely. And you feel like a weight is lifted, right?
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Yeah, yeah. And that's huge. Yeah, I can really relate to that. Now, you were also on the board, weren't you? Of course, of this huge organization and, you know, I guess market. It's well known there aren't many marketers that ever reached board level. What's a board position like? And what would surprise people to know about what it's like in that position?
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Oh, wow. You have to always, always. But I think this is one of the reasons I got the job when I didn't expect to get the job is you have to be thinking about the total company. I don't think you go in as the representative of marketing. Of course, you are the voice of the consumer. Of course you're the advocate for growth, creating tension around short term and long term. But really, if you're not seeing things from the highest level, from what is good for the company, I don't think you're going to be as successful as if you come in wearing a marketing hat. It takes an enormous amount of time. And you have to know that that's one of the reasons your people have to be so good, because the amount of time that you spend managing those relationships, smoothing the path, having a great relationship with the CEO is a lot, and you have to be ready for that.
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You mentioned the CEO, of course. That's a critical relationship, isn't it? And you work for Ivan. What was that like?
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Wonderful. I think most people would say the most difficult thing they faced in the last five years or many people would say is Covid. For me, it was Ivan's very sudden death in 2023. We had worked together for 21 years, and he was a big part of the reason I took the job. He actually hired me originally as cmo, which is something that's come full circle. And so it took me people. It was devastating to the company, to the community, because he was so well known and so well loved. And I was probably one of the last people to write something on LinkedIn because I wasn't ready to. And of course, I wrote the good things. But I also said he was difficult because he was. And I say that now to anyone listening, because the point I want to make is it's up to you to manage your boss. CEOs are aggressive people who have, many of whom have similar mindset and what they're driving for. And if you're built differently, and I was built differently than it was me who had to bridge that gap. And I think you bridge that gap by having an honest conversation. I mean, sometimes as a coach, I feel like I should just press play and say, someone say, oh, my boss, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'll say, have you talked to them about that? You know, no. I mean, I probably asked that question, you know, 20 times a month. Have you talked to them about that? And when you think about how different and I were, he is a provocateur, and I'm a deliverer, right? So if I think I have to deliver something, I'm thinking not what is the stretch goal? I'm thinking I must deliver this. And the first email he ever sent me said this. Dear Syl, please see me tomorrow with £200 million of ideas that will generate revenue in this year. Wow, now that's a lot. Even for.
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Even for Diageo, that's a tall order.
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It's huge. So I immediately forwarded this to Helen McKells, who I worked Closely, closely with for many years and said wtf? Got any ideas? And I thought well I need to start as I mean to go on. And I went into his office and I said to him just let me reach into my sack of 200 million pound ideas that I haven't told you about.
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That's a good reply.
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And he got it. And the great balance that we had was do we get 200 million? No. Did we get 85 that we wouldn't have gotten because of his push? Yes. The other thing that's both amazing and difficult about Ivan is he is strategic, he's creative, he's full of ideas and sometimes when he wasn't traveling we'd go oh no, he's not traveling. The emails will start coming and just an idea, an idea, an idea, an idea. And it was really up to me to decide what to do with those because if I just pass them down to the team they would be completely overwhelmed. So one thing a CMO has to do is to really decide. Stick or twist, Stick or twist. But I had that conversation with him and I said, you know, I ignore half your emails.
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And he says, did you?
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Yeah. Wow. You know, it was in sort of a development conversation. He's open to feedback. He says, well I said, well I ignore him. I said and do you know why? Now I sound like a mom. He goes, because they're a distraction. Yes. So we had this agreement.
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B
How did you decide which of the emails to ignore?
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Well again that goes back to having a keen sense of what is important to the corporation. Not pleasing, not what does he want, what's important to the corporation, what's going to generate growth. So that would be do something important that we need to change his mind about that would be meet and then something that he's probably going to forget about isn't going to make a difference or he's is a ridiculous request ignore.
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I like that. What advice would you give then Mark? Thinking about all your experience managing up with cms, I think you're onto something as well because so many people see the boss as the problem. Oh, things aren't going well. I'll blame the people in charge. We like to push up, don't we in terms of our problems and that's the reason why the company's not doing. And whenever you see companies satisfaction surveys cut by layer, you see this thing. The further away from your own team, the further up it goes, the more you blame people sort of thing. And actually I love the way you talk there about taking ownership of your relationship with your boss. So what would be your advice to marketers to foster that a positive relationship with the CEO?
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First of all, I'm going to go back to the same point, seeing it from their point of view and asking yourself, what would you do? I mean, I had an open conversation with people saying, I know there's a lot of criticism up of us as an exec, tell me, what would you do in this difficult situation? And you have an open conversation about that. Like, well, just invest more in marketing. Okay, where's that money gonna come from? The magic money tree. And getting people to see it like that is really important. I think it's very important not to protect your people. Right. If you're protecting your senior leaders who report to you, you're literally protecting them from their success. Cause they're gonna have to figure out how to do that stuff. So if there was a sticky issue, I'd come back and say, okay, here's the issue. What do you think we should do? And we'd go in and they would be the person presenting on that. But that also means they're thinking about what is that person's motivation, how are they wired? What are they gonna care about? What is gonna convince them? How are they gonna get them on board? So it's just some basic influencing skills, but you need to use them all the time and build a human relationship with people. You know, see them for what they are. And sometimes people think, what does that mean? I need to make small talk all the time? No, but when you're in front of them, connect, you know, connect viscerally with them on things that they're interested in.
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Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. One thing I think I've learned in a similar vein is don't just present a problem, but present a range of options and solutions. Because I find this on the receipt. I'm not that I'm CEO, but in a senior marketing role. The amount of people that just come to me with a problem, yeah, I'm like, well, what do you think we should do? You're closer to it. People feel like they could just serve up all the problems, you know, and they realize it's, you know, as a senior leader, it's so it's such a relief when people take ownership for the problem and say, well look, we could do it this, this and this recommendation is that one, yes, here's how we could do it. And you're like, wow, exactly.
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And there's really simple coaching techniques you can use for that, which is, okay, you Listen really hard, and you say, and what else? And what else? And what does that mean? And what will that lead to? And what are you most worried about? And with a series of questions, you get to the nub of what they're worried about. But the pivotal question is, okay, now what are you going to do about it? And in my case, people always knew they were going to have to take the first shot no matter where the person was in the hierarchy. Global head of supply, not releasing enough whiskey. Okay, have that conversation. And they know that I'd be having that conversation next. If they didn't succeed, that was fine. I was there to support.
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I love the fact you say, what are you gonna do about it? Cause our human instinct is. It's their problem.
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Yes.
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You know, and you're gonna go, what are you gonna do about it?
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How do you learn? Yeah, how do you learn? If that's not the question you're asking.
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That'S really, really good. Now we're talking about, obviously, your career. Where did it start for you? Take us back to the beginning and your childhood and what got you to, you know, what got you to this place. I know you do a lot of counseling as well, but. Yeah, tell us the Jo.
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Pretty humble beginnings. I am a second generation Greek American. And it's really funny living here for so long where people see me as definitely American, where my identity growing up was. I was Greek, and that was a big part of who I was. I'd say life at home was chaotic, ironically and sadly, my dad was an alcoholic, and that brought a lot of uncertainty in the house. You never quite knew was gonna happen. And this was something that I couldn't talk about when I was cmo. It made me highly sensitive to the difficulties with alcohol abuse. And I think that helped me to really live the code of responsible drinking. But it also impacted me as a leader. And I think leaders really need to understand how they grew up affects them as leaders. And I work with many of my clients on this, and I'm really clear that I'm not a therapist. That is not my training. But I do have a series of questions that we will devote at least a session to. What were the sorts of things you heard growing up? What did your mother say? What did your father say? What's the situation? Because sometimes the voices in their heads are the voices they heard as a child. And that unlocks some really difficult things that people are facing. When I see someone stuck and they're just not getting over that hump, we do that piece of Work and it's really, really valuable. So what that meant for me is I really feared chaos and that meant that I was too controlling as a leader. Let me see the pre read, let me see the presentation. Is that okay? You know, because I didn't want chaos to erupt. I was trying to control it. I wasn't able to live in that ambiguity and work with my coach. Martha Graham, who's just amazing and life changing, really helped me get to the nub of it and she helped me develop a leadership mantra. And it went like this. Deep belief in myself and others sets me free. And every one of those words means something. So deep belief in myself meant I had to get over a lot of these confidence gaps and just decide not to listen to them. Have more belief in myself and others meant I had to visibly show more belief to people all the time because I asked tons of questions and I have to make sure that people understand. I'm not asking this because I think you're stupid or you don't know what you're doing. I'm asking because I'm just curious. Tell me about that. Tell me about that. Oh, I see now. Okay. Sets me free came from the insight I noticed that I was much more relaxed and confident as a moment than I was as a leader. And that was, you know, that was so freeing. I mean, dinner table at our house and we all ate together. Not this sort of feed the kids at 5, you know, not see them. We had dinner together every night that I wasn't traveling. You know, it was really, let's make fun of mom. You know, at my 50th birthday party, the kids did a intelligence ranking of the family and it was dad and then whoever was talking, either Alexa or Jake, and then the au pair and then worms and then dirt and then mom. Oh no, but listen. So I was like, yeah, this is great. You know, they're free to say what they want to say. And I felt very free. So I thought sets me free is if I could be more relaxed, more confident, I would be a better leader. And a lot of us think if we're not feeling confident, we have to be a bit insecure to strive. That's really usually not true. And I remember Martha asked me, when are you at your best? When you are relaxed in the flow or when you're uptight and over prepared? And with my coachees, they're amazing. And a lot of the work we do is to just have them build those confidence gaps.
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That's so interesting. You gave me a Flashback, actually. Cause in a relatively senior role, I had. Someone overheard me talking to my kids on the phone.
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Oh, yeah.
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Someone in my team. And she said, I wish you'd bring that to our team meetings. Really? What do you mean? Like, I'm playing dad over here.
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Yeah, yeah.
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She goes, honestly, it transformed the team. If you kind of like, shared a little bit of that, because we see you as this kind of scary, always knows what he's doing, always on it kind of person. But she. She said, I love that side. That was great.
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Absolutely.
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In my head, I just couldn't. I didn't have permission to bring any of that to the, you know, what greater conversation. But I love that, you know, bring the humanity Right. About asking questions as well. Isn't it? Because it is scary, Isn't it? Like, you know, presenting somebody that's. That you look up to and has got responsibility. They're firing loads of questions and you think, oh, no.
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Yeah, but you can make it safe. I mean, when I would go travel around the world and go into market, I would say, right. I know everybody here is worried I'm gonna control your career. First of all, I only have influence over the people report to me, and people report to them. So everybody relax. And yes, you're allowed 15 minutes to tell me how great you are and impress me. That's great. And now we'll get to the root of the issues. What do you need help with? Cause that's what I'm here for. I'm here to help and just try to know what people are feeling, burst that bubble and have them feel safe to say what they want and talk about the problems, not just what's going great.
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B
I love that as you. One of my favorite programs to watch is New Amsterdam. I don't know if you watch that, but Max, the hospital, he's got this always. Every. Every crisis he walks into, goes, how can I help you think, well, you're the boss, right?
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Yeah.
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He said, my job is to put the resources, solve the problem, you know, make. Make you successful. And it's a different way of thinking about leadership, isn't it? As, how can I help? How can I unlock this? How can I make you better rather.
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Than creating the condition people to succeed.
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Exactly. That's. That's so critical. Looking back then over a very, very successful career, is there anything you'd do differently? When you reflect back, what would you do differently?
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A
Oh, my God, everything. Well, so many things. So right. To be fair, not everything. The only job I ever said yes to immediately was The CMO job, because I thought, this is a good note to end on. I was 57 when I was important. I was going to do it for three years and I thought, let me give it a go. That lasted two weeks. Then I started crying, I can't do the job. But the good thing about that is people trusted that I was in it for the company, not for me, not for the next job. And that trust is invaluable, but so many other things. So I didn't have a plan. I think people should have a plan and they should have plans with lots of options. And I was good at that. I did do different things so that I was flexible. But they need to know, particularly if they're going for a specific job, what skills do they need to develop, who do they need to talk to? Some people think they have to run around convincing everyone. No, we can identify the decision makers here and the people who are going to influence the decision makers speak to them. So for me, I played it way too safe and I really hope everybody listening is a lot quicker than I am to figure this out. Which is the reason sometimes we're scared of that next job is because we don't think we're going to be very good at it. But you're never as good in the first year as you are going to be in year three. So take jobs that you're going to develop that expertise in it, know that it's going to be scary and that's great. You just can learn your way into it. And if you're not feeling nervous, it's probably not the right job. It's not going to stretch you. I finally learned something that I quote a lot, which is growth begins at the end of your comfort zone. I think it's a great insight. I found it on a fridge magnet that I had and it's like, that is brilliant. I love that.
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That is absolutely brilliant. I think that's probably. I think fear is one of the most, one of the biggest barriers really to anything in life, whether it's the career you do, whether it's the decision you make on which creative to get behind or the innovation to do. We're so worried about what might go wrong. It's probably Daniel Kahneman's loss aversion, isn't it? We feel, you know, negative emotions twice as strongly as we feel positive emotions and that we weigh them more, don't we? You know, we, our memories are more affected by things that go wrong rather than things that go well. Now, I guess a word that a lot of people might use in this situation would be imposter syndrome, you know, which I think we've all kind of felt, you know, one time, another. Is imposter syndrome a real thing? How does it show up? What's been your experience?
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Yeah, I think somebody briefed you to say the word imposter syndrome to me and watch.
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Yeah, exactly. Out of the chat, imposter syndrome, you.
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Know, but yeah, listen, I really just dislike the terminology a lot because as you said, we feel fear twice as much. You know what that is? That is evolution. We have not come that far from being chased from a saber toothed tiger. We are wired for fight or flight. So the imposter syndrome becomes a label, what I call the human condition. And it medicalizes it. You know, it's not a syndrome, it's not a disease. It is what's called being human. And that negative inner voice is wired to protect us. But we have a choice whether or not to listen to it. Sherrilyn Shackle, founder, amazing founder, CEO of the Credible Marketing Academy, who I know has been on the podcast, calls it the itty bitty shitty committee.
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That's very Sherilyn, isn't it?
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Very Sherilyn. She calls hers Mildred, you know, and she just says, shut up, Mildred. You know, we have a choice not to listen to it. So right now I'm thinking, oh God, I'm probably going on too long, you know, Is John a bit bored? Even though you're smiling nicely, that's your job, you know, why did I ever do this? Yeah, I'm very nervous about just rambling, you know, so I over prep for these types of things. I can confirm, yes, but I'm choosing not to listen to that. I'm trying to be solely focused on what is going to be of value to your listeners because we're never really good judges of ourselves. Right. You know, you have to get a lot of feedback and I've been told enough times now, I don't suck at this, so do it. I'm just a slow learner. The second thing about the imposter syndrome, it's actually not a very helpful thing to be able to coach into whether you're leader as coach or as a coach, you know, okay, you have imposter syndrome, right? Are you imposter at everything? You know, and it's too general. So what I work on is trying to get to the sources of where people have confidence gaps. And I'm really lucky that my client base is generally, you know, some of the most successful CMOs, you know, they look like bulletproof, confident people. I assure you they're not. None of us are. But we need to get to the root of where they're gonna feel not great about their performance or something. It's usually situational. It may be a certain type of person who intimidates them. It may be a particular skill they need to develop, like having difficult conversations. But we get to the root of those things, you know, rather than just saying, I feel like an imposter.
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B
All right, all right. Sorry to interrupt this conversation. I promise you it's for a good cause. So I've just put a rather large deposit down on a very big venue in central London called the Outernet that can hold 400 people. It's an amazing venue. Now we're going to be doing the very first uncensored cmo, the Calling. Now, what is the calling? The calling is your opportunity to join us live and be inspired by the world's best founders, the most inspirational CMOs, and the best thought leaders. This is one day that will completely transform your career. I promise it will be well worth it. I'm so excited to be doing this. And if you want to find out more details, please go to the Show Notes and check it out. And I really look forward to seeing you there. It's on the 21st of April. Do not miss it. Now, back to the show. Now, fear holds us back. I think sometimes people also are not even sure what they want.
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A
Right.
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B
You know, I remember I've had times in my career where I've not really been quite clear on where I'm going to go. Back to your point earlier, when you talked me about, you know, having a plan.
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Yes.
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And I know in your coaching, of course, you help people discover kind of what do they really want? What are the sort of things that you do to help people figure that. Figure that one out.
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A
It's an interesting question right now because I think everybody knows the market is difficult and dynamic. So a lot of my coaching has recently fallen into the figuring out what they want out of life. People that are at pivotal stages of their life and they're very, very senior. They're either CMOs or MDs. So the number of positions ahead of them aren't that many. So there's a lot of this kind of work. So this is like a whole raft of work tools that I use. But let me try to summarize. I think there are three kind of things that we cover. First, what do you need to earn? And that's rarely the source of someone's happiness, but does establish boundaries. And people are always surprised, even if I'm just having a phone call with them. How much do you make? Give it to me broken down, because I can't help them figure out what level they're at because all the titles are all messed up or what their life goals are without talking their finances and their broader life. So that's important. Then I asked them if they have a financial plan, because we didn't. And if I particularly cared about money, I'd be very, very sad that we didn't think about that till we were in our late 50s. So financial plan is important, but again, that is just the beginning. I want people to understand their purpose. And you could spend months, years cogitating on your purpose, but sometimes you can simplify it to what gets you out of bed in the morning, you know, for me, it's a desire to help people flourish in their lives. Whether that's my clients, my family, my friends. That is what makes me happy. And because I've known some pretty difficult times, I am very grateful for the life that I have today. So gratitude and living every day to its full is another big driver. You know, if I don't. If I'm not happy doing something, I don't do it. So I understand that about themselves. And when people understand that those basics, it helps them. And then when you're looking at sort of the things you could possibly do, you have to get laser, like, about what's going to set you up for success. There's so much work. I finally developed this into, you know, a bespoke toolkit, because I felt like a broken record saying, okay, here's what we're going to do. And if people are figuring out really, what path do I want, There's a broad set of exercises I use, one of which, my favorite is the Wheel of Life. So you rate yourself on where are you with your family, your finances, your health, your friends, your kids, and where do you want to be? And you look at do you want to fill those gaps or not? And what life can you construct in this next phase will help address some of that. So there's a set of tools there, and then I have a set of pivotal questions that make you really think people going, wow, these are hard. Yes, they're hard for a reason. But those questions get you to the criteria for what you want next. Then I developed a handy tool, let's say spreadsheet, that has the criteria of what's important in defining usually the Next job. And it breaks down into three general areas. So it's different for every single person. But the general areas are the role itself. Do you have an affinity for the category? How much control do you have? Does it suit your skills? Then there's the culture, really understanding what kind of culture. So again, you're figuring out your own criteria. And then the third piece, which is very surprising that many senior people don't think about this, which is, are you strategically set up for success? Where is the company in its competitive position? Do you have enough budget? Do you have enough resource? I mean, when I moved to the uk, I didn't move here with Diageo. I moved here with Allied demek, the biggest pub operator in the country at the time. And six weeks into the job, my boss, the CEO, called me down and said, one of us is going to cry during this meeting. And I said, oh, wow. Oh.
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He said, I think it's a statement.
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And I said, yeah, why is that? And he said, because I'm telling you, we're about to sell the company and you're going to be out of a job and I'm going to be out of a job. And I said, okay, yeah, all right, fine. You don't get hired to do strategy and marketing without knowing that's going to happen. But I thought it'd be three years, not three months.
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And this is when you had moved to. Okay, so you'd moved from America to the UK for this job from Boston. So not a small thing to have done.
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Well, no, the important thing is I moved for the family. And the thing that, you know. And it ended up I knew one person in all of the uk. First of all, the family was great. They said, go get another job. I'm like, okay. And I knew one person. And I ended up getting two job offers from Diageo. One was to be marketing director for UDV Spirits, and the second was to be president of the Burger King of Burger King King in the UK and Ireland. And I thought, again, strategically set up for success. Is Burger King ever going to beat Max? No. Max probably had the real estate sewn up pretty well. Stronger brand positioning at the time. I don't think I can win, and I like to win. And then follow the margin. How good are Spirit's margins? So I took the smaller title. So thinking about things like that makes a huge difference. What's your budget? What resources? You're never going to get everything you want, but if you have half of what you want and who is backing you, that's critical.
- [31:42]
B
They're great questions. I really like this. It's funny in your situation, how often difficult circumstances like losing a job actually is, the actually propels you, doesn't it? To actually find the right thing. Because I just wonder in that situation you probably were way more successful because that role didn't work out than had it worked out, the first one.
- [32:01]
A
Absolutely. It's already in the highest job that I could go in, marketing at Allied. And it wasn't a marketing driven company. I was trying to make it that, but it wasn't a marketing driven company. So. Yes. And this is what people have to remember when the going gets tough. These are the times that make you. When you're in a job interview, do people say tell me when it's going swimmingly well or tell me about the hard things, what did you overcome? And the really good interviewers will go and give me another example and another example. So I really think people can take comfort in saying this is difficult and this is how I'm going to grow and also widening the aperture to their life. You know, I'm here also because I'm really, really lucky. You know, I have a healthy family, I have good friends and that is not everybody's circumstance. So how lucky are many of us to be in the situation we're in? And that helps everything that feels difficult at work fall into perspective.
- [33:08]
B
I love that perspective. Gratitude important. Yeah, it really is. One thing I've noticed actually is how my priorities has changed as I've got older. So for example, I put more priority on the things that give me energy.
- [33:20]
A
Yes.
- [33:21]
B
The people that I want to surround myself with, which is obviously past that as well the purpose that something has. So I think early in my career I might have been, I need the job title.
- [33:29]
A
Right.
- [33:30]
B
I need the big budget, I need to work on the Tesco account. You know, we're sort of like ticking boxes, aren't we? And then you kind of figure out afterwards that actually the things that make you successful are not necessarily those titles and budget you have and name above the door, isn't it? The things that really make you successful, the people you're with, the backing you have from your boss and the company and all those things become really important. So there's a different set of questions I think sometimes people should ask that go beyond the normal ones.
- [33:56]
A
There aren't many advantages to getting older and if wisdom isn't one of them.
- [34:00]
B
So we take that one. Yeah, exactly.
- [34:03]
A
So yeah, I think that's really important. We should all think about that because they are the real things, you have to be brave and maybe if you want to do something that's different from the. And you have to understand what is going to. What are the things in life that are going to be really important to you?
- [34:20]
B
Yeah. I mean, you've run a huge organization across the world. That is not an easy job by any stretch of the imagination. How have you balanced that with your kind of personal life as well? Because, like, probably off the record, when I'm talking to CMOs, I get to travel a lot, I get to meet a lot of them. When you have the more personal conversations about what their life is like, it's really, really, really hard. And people don't think about that much. They don't talk about it, and they don't really kind of offer much advice for how you cope with that. Any advice on sort of doing that?
- [34:50]
A
Juggle so much advice. I usually don't talk about it as balancing things because the minute it feels imbalance, it's going to topple over. I think about it as not work life balance, but making your life work. And I think that requires enormous creativity and knowing what's important to you. It also requires, ideally, it's much easier if you have a great partner. Again, much discussion with my clients about all of this, but I'm going to keep using myself as an example, even if it's boring because of client confidentiality. So, first of all, my husband Roger is a great partner. We are completely opposite people. Our kids say, together you make one whole person. But we've been married for 45 years and together for 50. So really proud of that. And I just love them to bits. Where creativity comes in is really thinking outside the box. So when we went to hire an au pair, it was cost efficient. We needed the flexibility of the help. And if you go through an au pair agency, it'll say things like, they can only do the children's laundry. They can only do this. I'm like, but the kids are at school all day. What are they going to be doing? And am I working my ass off while someone's home, you know, doing whatever. So our au pair agreement was a little bit different. At the top of it, it says, your job is to ensure we have as much time as possible with our children. And then was really specific about the responsibilities and they included making the dinner so we could just sit down and have it doing all the laundry. So we weren't taking time with that. Anything that I could delegate, I would. And it was fair because that's what people signed up for. I mean, those relationships are so strong. I'm still very close to all of them, and three of them are generally there at Christmas with us every year because they're from South Africa and their families are far. So being creative about that is super important. And it was particularly important for me because something a lot of people don't know is my life's work was not building a great career. Remember, I was saying, no, my life's work was building the family that I didn't have growing up. And I'm so lucky to have, you know, two healthy and happy kids, Jake and Alexa, who have married amazing partners in Tim and Holly. And you just feel like life doesn't get much better than this.
- [37:20]
B
It's always good to be reminded of that, isn't it?
- [37:22]
A
Oh, always good.
- [37:23]
B
Every day I'm always reminded of that. Yeah. I mean, one of the toughest things in life is losing a parent. I remember when I lost my mom and was doing the eulogy at her funeral. I just had this overwhelming sense of I could never, ever pay back what she gave me. All the things he talked about there. And then I just thought, well, actually, I can just pay it forward or pay it on. I'll pass it on to my kids. And that's my, you know, thank you for what she's done.
- [37:48]
A
You know, what I Learned from Carolyn McCall, who's an amazing leader and a good friend of mine is, she said once, ask your children, what do they need? And I thought, that's brilliant. So rather than thinking about what do I need to do to be a good parent, get in conversation with them. And you can do that when they're small. Even like with my granddaughter, I'm trying to learn not to say, don't do that, and go, do you feel safe? What does she want? What does she need? And then as they get older, I think it's great that I tried to make all of my son's rugby games. Was he really happy? I was sitting on the sideline going, oh, no. I'd say, where is he? And my husband would point to the bottom of the pile and say, see the bottom there? He's a prop. That's where he is. Probably word is going to run onto the pitch. If he was hurt, that wouldn't be the most important thing to him necessarily. And now that they're adults 32 and 37, we're still in that conversation. What do you need from me? You pay it on, as you say.
- [38:52]
B
Distinguishing need and want is critical.
- [38:54]
A
Yes, sure.
- [38:54]
B
All right, so you left Diageo 2020. What was the thought process in your mind about when it was the right time for you to sort of step off the corporate ladder, as it were?
- [39:05]
A
Well, it was long in the planning. I wanted to make sure that there was good internal succession because I think the Spirit's business is hard to know. It does require experience. And I think Diageo was lucky to have a good number of succession candidates because we had such a talented bench. And when you start to feel like, okay, they're ready, I need to move, that's a big push that you feel like, okay, this is the time. I don't want to be a blocker. I wanted, you know, the traditional path would have been, you know, I have a portfolio of boards, and I did some career work myself with these exercises that I talked about. And I realized, you know, I had all the things on one side of the. I love leadership development, and I want to invest in that, and making a difference in people's lives is what's important to me. But I don't like set meetings, and I'm not wild about governance. And so going on the leadership development path was really important, and I decided to devote myself entirely to that rather than kind of splitting it. And it's great.
- [40:14]
B
So could you just unpack that a little bit more? Cause, I mean, you've talked a lot about people and leadership as we've been going through this conversation, it's clearly really kind of close to your heart. What does that look like?
- [40:23]
A
Well, for me, having been leader as coach, it meant getting qualified in coaching and devoting myself, you know, to that. I have, as I've said before, an incredibly talented group of coaches. I'm pretty clear I don't do turnaround. If someone's saying, this is a performance issue, will you come in, coach? No. I'd rather take people who are doing really well and help them to become truly great and achieve all their hopes and dreams. And that's super satisfying. And they're from some of the top companies in the world, some of the most interesting companies in the world. That's super satisfying. But I also wanted to have a scale, impact, and a sense of belonging. So the belonging is with the Marketing academy in the CMO to CEO fellowship program. So you've got really talented CMOs because it's a very, very rigorous selection process who want to go further. And as you know from Sherilyn, she's very compelling. So I give her lots of time pro bono. So I'm on the faculty. I'm a coach on the program, and I'm on the board, and that's worth it. You just feel like you really are building something so meaningful that is impacting the world. And I wanted even more scale in the impact. Like, you influenced thousands of people. And that's where Thomas Barda wrote a really great book called the 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader. Really rigorous, really getting into what makes the difference in people's progression. And he and I were talking about it. We both work in the academy, and I said, the book is so great, but we need to go further. And he's like, yes, I want to bring it to life. So we decided to put together an online learning program, of which there are many. And the feedback tells us it's pretty special. You know, people genuinely feel like it makes a difference in their influence in the company, in their careers, in the growth of their brands. And a lot of that is because it is very interactive. The platform is live. People put their problems on it. People help each other. Everybody has mentors on the program. Thomas and I each do, you know, private roundtables, which, you know, a lot of people can't afford us as coaches, so they get that there. We have the best and brightest CMOs speaking to them. So it's wonderful. And, you know, now that there are thousands of people who have been through the program, and I love when someone stops me, meets me, and says, I did your program. It's so great. And, you know, the one sell point I have in all of this is we have a new program starting in April, so please sign up. It doesn't cost very much, and it is truly terrific. So I just feel and hope that I'm making the difference that I want to make.
- [43:13]
B
I'm absolutely certain you are. Maybe to round off, then, if you could pick three things that you'd want everybody to think about when it comes to kind of their career, leadership and personal development. What would be the top three bits of advice you'd leave people with?
- [43:29]
A
Oh, just three. So many. First of all, stop talking about the imposter syndrome.
- [43:36]
B
I knew you were gonna say it. I knew that.
- [43:39]
A
Stop. Really reflect. Get some help in understanding. Where do your confidence gaps come up? Identify them, work on those, and you're looking at the overall trajectory. There are gonna be ups and downs, right? The downs usually come when you're changing jobs. The ups when you feel like you've mastered. But what you're looking at is not measured in months. It's measured in years. Is it going in that right direction. And in addition to that, focus more on your strengths and don't listen nearly as often to that inner critic. It doesn't have to drive you. Which really leads to the second one. Swing out big. Do not do what I did and play it safe. Swing out big. You can be so much more than you ever dreamed. You have to have the will, you have to have the help, you have to have the support, but you can. And thirdly, I'd say pay a lot of attention to what I call the three R's as you're trying to build your career, because it's ridiculous to narrow it down to three things, but may help people remember it. It's relationships, results, and resilience. People underestimate the role of resilience. We have to be resilient. It is a learned skill, and that's going to help you with everything and relationships. My goodness, how much quicker can you get something done if you can pick up the phone? If you know each other as people, if you respect each other, makes a huge difference. And you know, the relationships help build your resilience because you have support. And then with your focus on results, because it is always about that delivery, it becomes a flywheel of success. And that's really what I want for people.
- [45:26]
B
Amazing. Well, what an incredible summary, Syl. Thank you. There's so much wisdom in that. Absolutely love it all. And encourage everyone to check out the Marketing Academy and what you're doing. It's super impressive what you do and put together for marketers. And look, marketing's not an easy profession. No, I mean, it's really hard. And it's unlike maybe accountancy. We have the Chart Institute. Everyone does it to begin with and all that kind of thing. We need training and we need mentors like you that. That have been through it and can give advice because it's a tough position.
- [45:58]
A
Well, that's where we make a perfect pair, because I'm thinking about the people and what's going to drive them. And then system one is providing a lot of the data that allows us to make the case. And that's super important. I mean, marketers have to have a great relationship with the cfo. They really have to understand the numbers, understand the growth, because that's how you influence people. That's the language of the board.
- [46:20]
B
Yeah, it really, really is. Thank you so much. Really, really appreciate your conversation. Thank you for your generosity and sharing with us. And I know everyone listening is going to get a ton out of this conversation.
- [46:29]
A
I hope so. Would love feedback still.
- [46:32]
B
Thank you so much.
- [46:33]
A
Thanks John.
- [46:35]
B
So I hope you enjoy that episode of Uncensored CMO as much as I enjoyed making it. Now by the way, I've got a new newsletter so if you'd like to get my thoughts on the One Thing that I take out from each episode every week, then do subscribe to the One Thing newsletter. I'd really appreciate it. Also, I have another podcast just launched, Uncensored Renegades with the fabulous Corey Marchisoto. She is one of the world's best CMOS. She's an absolute rock star. Every week we pick one topic, spend 20 minutes trying to fix it. So check out that it's in your feed. Uncensored Renegades and finally, I want to give a huge thank you thank you to my sponsor System One. They generously provide so much support for this podcast it would not happen without them. So big thanks and lots of love to System One. I'll see you next time.