This podcast features a conversation between Mark McBride-Wright and Andy Webster, a Digital Director at KBR and Gallup Certified Strength Coach. They discuss Andy’s career journey in the energy sector, including his work developing a successful safety strategy at Shell. The conversation explores the importance of storytelling and emotional connection in leadership, as well as Andy’s experience becoming a Gallup certified coach and the value it has brought to empowering teams. Andy shares advice for younger professionals, emphasising the importance of curiosity and open-mindedness. The discussion covers a range of topics related to leadership, safety, and personal development, providing insights into Andy’s approach and experiences.
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:01
And hello. Welcome to another episode of the safe leader Podcast. I’m joined today by our guest Andy Webster, who is a digital director at KBR and is a Gallup certified strength coach. So Andy is the director at KBR for digital in their sustainable technology solutions business. In this role, he’s responsible for leading a global team to deliver digital solutions to kbrs customers and drive an internal innovation team exploring, evaluating and deploying new solutions. By background, he’s a charter mechanical engineer and a fellow of the UK institution of mechanical engineers. His career has largely been in energy, in both technical and commercial roles. He’s led global businesses responsible for software as a service and device as a service, as well as building strategy for a range of digital approaches in his previous company, Yoko gawa, he is also a certified Gallup strengths coach, using it as a skill set to work with his colleagues and teams to focus on the strength innate in all of us, and helping to bring More of that into daily work. Andy,
Andy Webster 1:21
hello it’s a very nice introduction. Thank you.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:26
It’s nice when people talk about you, isn’t it?
Andy Webster 1:29
It is. It’s nice to hear sometimes that play back, because I think sometimes we forget how good life can be to us. So really good to be here, Mark,
Mark McBride-Wright 1:39
I think especially reading that when I was doing doing my research for who I wanted to interview on the podcast, I forget how much you and I have been connected virtually over the years, but you were very present at one point, and then you and then I think when you went to the Middle East, you went a bit quieter online, yeah, and weren’t as present as you have been. And then I noticed that you were back. And then I remembered you as being a connection that I used to enjoy reading the content of. And then you started working at a place where I used to work at KBR, and then we got a chance to meet a few months ago at my book launch. Yeah, that was
Andy Webster 2:22
cool. I mean, I think life’s like that often is it’s, it’s in these waves, and so there’s waves when you can really throw yourself into something. When I was in the UK, it was great opportunities to be connected to our institutions. But, yeah, I think overseas assignments, job opportunities in different countries. I think they bring a lot. They bring a global view that I’m very happy with, but that also can challenge your ability to stay connected to some of the things you did at home. So I think if you get comfortable that it changes and yeah, for your connections, I think that’s one of the nice things with LinkedIn. It gives you those reminders, oh yeah, it’s been 10 years since you were connected to so and so it’s always a nice way to say hello again.
Mark McBride-Wright 3:07
Absolutely. So I mean, on that, you’ve had an impressive career spanning over 20 years in the energy sector. So what did you fall into the sector? Or did you always want to move into it? You know what? Inspired you to pursue a career in energy?
Andy Webster 3:24
I think you always look back and see the red thread, but I don’t think anyone genuinely looking forward can obviously say, oh, yeah, I plan this step. I mean, maybe there’s a few people in the world, so no, I think at each point it was an obvious decision to take. But it never was like I woke up and wanted to be involved in energy. In fact, growing up in Leicester, I think I had a really poor appreciation of where petrol, gas in the house, oil in general, came from. And when I even growing up next to a petrol station, I mean, that’s the irony of it. But when I went and did engineering and found out about it, I think I was very attracted to the challenge of engineering, which I was studying, but also the challenge of fitting that into our daily life. We don’t have life as we know it, without energy. And so I think my career very much started in oil and gas, and it’s continuing in energy in terms of, well, how do we preserve what we’ve gained, but actually take advantage of technology. That’s my digital role right now. But also look at things like climate change, say we’ve got to have a better solution than keep doing what we’ve done before. And I think it’s that constant challenge in my personal roles and in the sector that I found just, yeah, I love it.
Mark McBride-Wright 4:52
And for actually, just want to jump to one of the questions that you’d mentioned, actually. So you mentioned. And in your time at Shell you developed a proprietary safety strategy that helped reduce incident rates significant. Yeah, what helped to the extent that you’re able to what was that?
Andy Webster 5:15
I mean, it sounds very grand, but it was in a really interesting time for the industry, because there’d been a failure to stop fundamentally killing people in our sector, which, when you say it in the safe setting of a podcast, sounds horrific, but that was the reality. It’s the oil industry, the energy sector I joined, people died, and I’d moved out to a position in a refinery in Texas, very close to BP, is infamous Texas City refinery that had killed a lot of people in an explosion. And so a top down approach to safety, and it’s a nice link to all the topics in your book have been, well, our goal has to be zero. And so we had a huge mission around Goal Zero. The challenge was, when you went to a real plant, we were struggling. We were struggling with contractors that were desiring to show their result, but maybe not yet getting there. There was probably a fear culture to be honest with why it was difficult. And so I found myself in a position where the math inside my head said zero, absolute zero only happens if we do one thing, which is turn the refinery off, if we actually choose to cook oil in really high pressure vessels and in pipes with people that have health issues and just daily life, we are taking a risk. And let’s talk about the risks we take. And so we change the language away from the absence of an incident to we’re actively taking risk every day, when we drive here, when we walk through the gate, when we do a task, what is that risk and how do we understand it? And it just shifted the language away from fault finding to solution finding, and in that way, allowed us to really see an improvement with some of the things. So it was that language shift with a model to support it that my team, we put in place, and yeah, we really saw a reduction in instant we’re having.
Mark McBride-Wright 7:22
So that’s fascinating. You actually saw a pseudo, real time example of how it was implement a change, and then how it became in positive direction with regard to more more engagement there. There’s a case study that I mentioned in the book. In my book The Safe leader about unmasking manly men, and it talks about taking it was a longitudinal study that an operator did in the Gulf of Mexico, taken basically they challenged the leadership, dominant leadership type offshore, of being one of dominance, power and control, they metaphorically broke down all these early men and built them up again with emotional intelligence, made them more vulnerable with one another, empathy, etc, and The leadership style offshore became one of, you know, empathy, listening, etc. And what happened across the assets was that performance went up pre and post, you know, intervention. And it was put down to the leadership style. It wasn’t put down to any enhanced oil recovery or, you know, reliability turnarounds, you know, improved reliability of pumps or compressors or something, it was put down to actual better team, team performance. And so in that example, then that you did at Shell, did, did you ever see a ripple effect to other other sites or other other areas of the energy sector? I mean,
Andy Webster 9:01
I didn’t, I wish I was thinking as we were talking about it, I’d be kind of nice to pop back there, it’s now under different ownership, and see what has stayed. Because I think that’s always one of the interesting things of any of our work, is what what truly remains behind. I think we carry the stories with us, but what’s left when you move on. And I think that was one of the downsides to a very common habit in the sector, is in where you would take on an assignment for a number of years, and then you would move on and and that’s exciting in terms of providing a new challenge, but you missed that opportunity to see, well, does this really work over longer term, because I think any of us can make noise and cause a ripple, but, but has it helped people? I think, in the moment, I’m always looking for, is there some signals that this is more than just sort of echo chamber reaction? Is it? Is it actually taking hold? Old. And I was, you know, sort of 10 years into my career at that time, so still relatively junior. And I think when you saw much more seasoned employees really taking it to heart. And I think one of the proof points I anchored on was, you know, initially, you’re out very much at the tip of the spear. Let me tell you of this. Let me explain this. Let me show why this matters. You’ve got to carry the heat early on. But when I saw some of our season contract holders, you know, they were just part of the fabric, but were our contractors and not employed by Shell presenting this to their own folk and using it to explain to them how to approach their work, then, you know, okay, this isn’t just a head nodding exercise. We’re actually really helping people explain how to do their work.
Mark McBride-Wright 10:48
How did you find your as a mechanical engineer? What is your relationship to safety as a mechanical engineer? How were you introduced to it? Taught it and then, you know, yeah, how did it evolve?
Andy Webster 11:04
That’s a really good question, because I often think about that. I’m a mechanical engineer responsible for digital across a huge company. And so you do wonder, you know, what, what do we pick our degrees for? But I, I guess there’s part of it that goes to the very math side of it, like, what does it mean to make something truly safe? And, you know, in a company I’m in right now, we’re involved in the nuclear sector, and it becomes a really interesting question. Say, Well, how do you prove to communities where you want to have nuclear power as a really, you know, in terms of if CO two is the only thing we’re focusing on for for emission size, really amazing solution. We get very worried about it from, obviously the nuclear waste side. But when you’re trying to convince a community this is safe, what does that mean? And so I think I have a very mathematical relationship with safety generally, because I use that to challenge what we perceive as safe. Early on in my life, my dad worked for Rolls Royce, so we talked a lot about jet engines and jet engine failures. And a lot of people have a fear of flying, despite the safety data telling you, look, you’re more at risk driving to the airport than the moment you’re in that aircraft. But the fear is very palpable on people compared to, you know, you rarely hear about people having a fear of driving. So I think there’s a mathematical side. And then later in my career as I’ve gone into sales roles. As an engineer, I’ve discovered the really interesting side around so why do people behave almost like illogically? Why do why do I behave illogically? We all do it, and I think there’s a component of that in safety. When we do incidents, when I’ve been involved in incident investigations, we expect there to be a perfect answer why something happened. And I think the reality often is sometimes there isn’t. And that’s not to say it can’t be avoided. That would be the first you know people listen to this, this podcast, where all incidents can be avoided. Yes, I think they can. But we choose many times not to. We could choose not to ever get ill by isolating ourselves and just living a very sad separate from society life, and that wouldn’t be living. So I think we all take risks. And I think it’s figuring out. How do you use your engineering brain, which is about problem solving, to solve this in the true sense of it, wickedly complex problem, and that then becomes interesting.
Mark McBride-Wright 13:47
The reason I asked the question there was I noticed a different relationship to safety. I noticed my bias as a chemical engineer who then specialized in process safety, yeah, just taking it granted that everyone thinks like that understands mean to mean it through that. I think it’s probably a bit more compounded with the fact that I worked in Gran Hern, in KBR, in the Safety and Environment Team. So we worked on concept design. So we worked very, very closely with piping engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, you know, etc, etc, civil engineers. So everyone felt part of the team and understood safety through how we how we described it. But then when I came on to do my visit and professorship recently at UCL, where there’s nine different engineering departments, but the students all do a common, integrated degree program in the first two years, I almost I realized that different students, different engineering disciplines, have got a different relationship to safety. Safety for chemical engineers is in the traditional oil and gas you know? Yeah. At, you know, whatever, explosions, etc, mechanical
Andy Webster 15:04
you’ve been in the pipe,
Mark McBride-Wright 15:07
yeah, pipelines. Mechanical Engineers, it’s, it’s pipe, it’s vessels. It’s, you know, in men, structural failure for, for structural engineers, it’s, you know, building centers and talking about structural reinforcements and software engineers. It’s more cyber security and cyber risks and risks related. So, so there’s, there’s, there’s an interest in talking about diverse and inclusion, having bias. I realized that I had a safety bias, and so I wonder, sometimes, is there some work that we need to do, and how we train our engineers of the future, of what, what safety is, you know? So, so, yeah, your point there about your experience shell, I found quite interesting,
Andy Webster 15:58
yeah, and I’ve thought about that too, because one of the challenges I had the role was nicely titled as a safety manager. So you’re responsible for people and you’re responsible for the overall result. And a lot of us learn things by what we’ve experienced. I’ve just shared my experience and how that’s taught me. And so there’s an interesting question, as we make things safer, how do the next generation, the next safety manager, learn from experiences they don’t have. And, you know, maybe this is a parenting comment as well, you know, so as parents, you try and protect your children from almost the mistakes you’ve made in your in your life, if you view it like that, or help them make the same successes, maybe to see it as the positive side and and often in the family relationship you talk about, you know, the children almost rebel against the parents and almost want to, you know they have to almost trip over themselves to figure out that falling on you, falling on your face, really does hurt. But in a professional environment, surely that can’t be our answer. Surely we can’t say, Well, every generation has to go through a really serious incident to discover, you know, that that we really have to take this seriously, that we really do have to put safety as a priority, figure out how to do things better every day. And I think so. I think one of the other interesting weaves into this, being an engineer, being a safety leader, being a commercially minded person is, actually, how do we tell stories? And I had the opportunity to do some work with a consultant that was really into this area of like the the intersection of theater and film into business. And the analogy that just made it ring home for me is, you know, any of us go and watch a half decent film at the theater, and you know, we come away with an impact, an emotional response to it. We’ve been there, what, two, maybe three hours, but we’ve, we feel like we’ve experienced something. We feel challenged about a conception we had beforehand, or you know, you know, it’s brought to light and injustice, or whatever, whatever the the weave is in that that story in a very short period of time. And the challenge when I was working with this consultant that we talked about a lot was, if you went into many companies, I think it’s still true, and you you hear the lessons learned of projects, we have a primacy, and probably an engineering driven primacy on accuracy, and we put accuracy above everything else. So we will be very worried if a safety report tells us something slightly inaccurate, but we’ll trade away any emotional response for that for the goal of accuracy. And if you look at the entertainment sector, they go the completely opposite way. They say, well, the emotional reaction takes primacy from the accuracy. Even when they’re retelling historical events, they want you to feel connected. You know the Apollo 13 mission. We all watch that feeling worried, even knowing what happens? Do those astronauts get safely back to Earth? And I think there’s something in that, because if we can tell stories in a way that creates that emotional response, you know, it touched my heart there, you know, as well as the logical response, then it’s much easier to pass on. It’s often in engineering, when we just talk about the fact of what’s happened, that we lose that, yes, we lose that connection.
Mark McBride-Wright 19:25
So much in there things go through my brain. There were the analogy of making it harder, or thinking that, well, I had to endure. You have to endure as well, or in terms of like, learning that, that reminds me of people being unwilling to raise the lower the metaphorical ladder to make it easier for the next generation to come through. So if you’re the person who’s like been at the front or. Of a social justice change, and you’ve had to endure all the hardship of as culture chains around you. Do you now arrive at that future point in your life, or that this present moment in your life with a taste of bitterness to think, well, I’ve had to work hard. You’re going to do the same. You’re not easy, right? You know? Why should you? Or actually, no, I made the mistakes. I’m going to counsel and guide you to not make the same mistakes, but even more, I’m going to try and eradicate and dismantle the very barriers that were even there that made it hard for me and that that when it comes to gender equality, for example, that can there’s a term called queen bee syndrome, where if a woman has made it to the top of her game, like, does she hold the ladder down for others to come up behind her? Or does she? Does she think? No, you have to fight your way here, like me as well. And so I often, I often, I often hear that from people where, you know, I had to work hard. So you have to work hard to, you know, or I had to endure these things. You need to earn your stripes and, and what have you. And it’s, it’s sometimes common in, even in a, even in a, in, like a workshop environment, which I still think quite sad, where you’ve got some engineers that have maybe, what are technicians that have worked there for a very, very long time, and you’ve got these often young, 1617, year old, young people that have just just started, and rather than trying to like, recognize that culture is evolving in a way that now men can open up and men can be vulnerable, And men can share. Instead, there’s this kind of macho. You have to earn your strike to be to be in this culture. And so I think that there’s an element in there of both of both sexes, both genders on this front and then the other thing that you said, Oh, my God, yes, storytelling, storytelling, I It’s so, so critical to our learning as well.
Andy Webster 22:05
You’ve written a book.
Mark McBride-Wright 22:08
Yeah, well, exactly, exactly. And the the you know, as engineers, we’re not always the best at telling stories, because we have that propensity to want accuracy. And I love, I love the flip example you gave there with the entertainment sector. It’s actually why, in the in the safe leader. So in the book The Safe stands for share, act, feel and empower. And in the share phase, we’re talking about going inside yourself, becoming introspective, and understanding what your own differences, what’s your own diversity story. So this, this is a sort of council I’ve found a lot of male engineers needs to go through often to create a emotional connection with what Ed and I is all about, because very often it’s focused on minoritized groups. Men feel threatened. It’s very them and us. And so what we have is the shallow impact. But if you press pause on that for a moment and get people to do some deep reflection, thinking, Well, what’s your difference? What’s your diversity story? What have you been through that? If you I’ve got this little prop here, if you could be a lighthouse for others, a beacon of light for others, and turn on and share that story, then maybe we could get a bit deeper. And so what I’m doing with a safe leader is we’re building out a training course on the back of it that’s four modules long for organizations to do, and it takes a group of like 15 odd people through the experience of sharing, acting, feeling and empowering. But what we’re also doing as part of that is we’re teaching the art of storytelling. We’re getting people to do some deep reflection what those stories are, but then also take them through, you know, the story arc, the the the inciting incident, the rising action, the critical point, and then the falling action. So that then, if you know your story, if you know these origin stories of your life, inside and out, forwards and backwards, you can then stand in front of an audience at a town hall, or in a, in a in an all hands meeting you know, or even just with your your team each morning. And you can share stories. You can tell stories. Now, I think that is what we need to do with, you know, lessons learned. We need to, we need to bring the emotion back into them and tell them in a way that is using the art of storytelling. So, yeah, I just so much potential. I mean, I think,
Andy Webster 24:49
I think it’s interesting, how much is context, because, you know, you’ve highlighted particularly men in engineering, which is a which is a dominant. Gender for you to find in any engineering degree or environment. Still, when I think it’s improving, but it will still be the majority. And you’re right, you won’t find natural storytellers. I think, however you put that same group into a alternate setting, and we could imagine what that alternate setting is, but maybe a social setting, and those same group of men that aren’t really very talkative in the town hall will be recounting all sorts of stories. And so I think there’s a there’s an element of back to culture that we all tell stories. That is how humans have built society. I think the 21st century business environment has done a really good job of sanitizing what we bring to work, and our willingness to tell stories that maybe are imperfect have a bit of long weave in them, to use a current term, but are their stories. And I do think you’re right. I think encouraging that to come out is powerful in allowing us to be understood as well as understanding others. And I yeah, of course, preparing to chat with you today, I refreshed myself on on the Save framework I do really like, and I do like your push to make the sharing two way that it’s really being understood and understood. You know, we can probably credit COVID for his seven habits. I think his one is seek, first to understand and then be understood. And it sat with me in my career. You know, we all desperately want to be understood, understood. Please, just understand me. And one of the challenges in that, in that plea is but also make sure you’re putting the effort in to understand that, yeah, don’t jump to assumptions about those around you.
Mark McBride-Wright 26:51
So is this your I read about your being a followable leader in your mission. So what is this? A leadership principle you live by?
Andy Webster 27:06
I think always putting a podcast out. You know, it’s your followers that ultimately judge this, but I think it’s interesting if being a leader and wanting to lead is something that’s very deep in your purpose. And I, I think for me, it has been, it’s been challenged throughout my career, moments for various reasons. And like any good story, you know, there’s those peak moments and there’s those trough moments, but from a young age that my brain can still remember. It’s been something to be passionate about being a force for good, for not just myself, but for others, and in that sense, leading. And I think it was maybe the last 10 years that when I really wanted to continue push myself into leadership in a corporate environment, because there’s loads of ways to evaluate leadership. I think that’s the beauty of it. But in a corporate environment, I think I was very conscious. Well, ultimately, in a corporate environment, to be a leader means that people have to choose to follow. Being a manager just means you’re stuck in a position where people report into you. That’s that’s relatively easy to attain. But being a leader, where you’re influencing because people choose to follow what you’re advocating for, that’s really interesting. And so if you flip the attention from what’s it mean for me to be a leader, but what’s it mean for me to create followers? It’s actually quite interesting. How do I create followers in my passion for safety? Well, berating them may not be the best approach, but actually understanding the world through their eyes. Okay, that’s now maybe more successful into your sharing principle. You know, I need to hear how they’re seeing things. If they’re not seeing what I’m seeing, how can they follow? And so I think it, it’s a constant almost reflection I have. I have the joy of a longest drive to and from my work. And it does give time to play back, you know, your weekly, your daily experiences, and think, Okay, how do I show up? What was my intentions? What reactions did I observe? What feedback got? What have I seen as a result of those conversations? What’s happening? Where’s my followers? Who’s following? So, yeah, it’s, it’s a it’s a passion, it’s my purpose, I would say. And it links to probably a lot of the topics we’ve already touched on, and we’ll, we’ll touch on still,
Mark McBride-Wright 29:41
I do remember the that being a talking point in KBR, the journey time on the M 25
Andy Webster 29:52
Yeah, we haven’t solved that one yet.
Mark McBride-Wright 29:59
I think. You strike me as someone that really deeply connects to you know, when you make a decision to invest in yourself and in your training, you then bring that to to your profession, and also, you know what you do for others. And so I was, I read that you did a Gallup Certified Strength coaching qualification. So what, what led you to do that, and how’s that enhanced your approach to empowering teams? I mean that
Andy Webster 30:27
one’s really simple, because it goes right back to that creating followers and and so I reflected on times in my career where I felt that people more senior than me simply tried to tell me what they’d done, and I found sometimes that was helpful, but often it was unhelpful, because what they had done I couldn’t replicate because of me, and so what I really needed was someone that understood me first and then helped me figure out how to do me better. And when you look outside of again, the corporate environment, we have amazing examples of it. We celebrate them, and they’re called coaches and professional coaches, and they’re exactly that. They never enter the field of play, they never get the medal, but they’re critical to the success of the athletes there, supporting and training. And when I look in the corporate world, I just struggled to see that, you know, amplification of coaching and coaching as a leader. But I recognized that first, it resonated for me that I wanted a coach. So there’s an assumption, hypothesis that those that would follow me may also have that feeling. I think, secondly, there was a recognition from data. And I’ve often tried to play those two things, sort of something empirical, and then something that, you know, a bit more feeling led the data was showing that changes were happening. And the workforce coming into the workplace was different. The makeup was different. Their expectations were different, and they were looking for that sort of empathetic, supportive leadership style. And so when I looked around, there was there’s lots of personality trait tests that can be done. What I had experienced is some of them had winners and losers. I had a particularly poor experience where I had a team of mine go through a personality assessment, and we presented on a chart. And what inevitably happened is what the boss’s personality people were trying to say, Well, how do I get more like that? And the whole session became, how to become mini me’s of the boss, which kind of, you know, devalued the the assessment. When I looked at Gallup. It had been an airport book pickup, I think when I was 2223 I’d done the strength assessment. I’d gone through a difficult period in my career, and I’d come back to it and had some coaching. And I saw in it a few things that made it you know, the one I picked so one, it came out of a guy that had made his purpose to find out what’s right in our brain. So it really connected with, you know, the way we’re made up, not just corporate words. And then it was built on a premise which really resonated, which is, we’re all innately talented to do something, and the challenge is how to bring that talent to the for that, it becomes a strength. And that really resonated. That started me off from a position, my assumption when I meet someone, is there something good in them, and your job as a coach, your job as creating a follow out of them, is to simply find the environment, the calling, the way that that good can show up. So yeah, so I had the opportunity to not just have experienced it for myself, but then I was also, if you’re serious about this, you need to invest and be able to use it as a as a tool to support those you lead. And so, yeah, I think it’s four or five years back 2019 I was certified, so that was a few years after you do the training, I must admit it’s still something because it’s not common in the workplace. I don’t, I don’t put it forward as the only way I can interact with people. I think it can be, I’ve seen that it can be a bit confronting to suddenly say you’re, you’re someone’s manager, and hey, would you like me now to coach you? Not everyone’s comfortable with that, and I think that’s something else you’ve talked about in your book about psychological safety, that that environment has to be right if you’re going to touch people’s, you know, emotions and feelings and why they do things. There’s got to be a two way trust, and you can’t mandate that. You can’t force that. And so I have it there as a tool set I can pull on and I’ve, I’ve loved seeing how it can impact people. I’ve yet to meet someone that’s gone through this sort of assessment come out with their strength and gone are now this. This really isn’t helpful. It’s always been a kind of a light bulb moment of, yeah, I recognize this by myself, but I never. Language, and I’ve never been encouraged how to use it, and that’s what it gives.
Mark McBride-Wright 35:05
Yeah, oh, totally, totally. I’ve heard people who’ve done the Gallup investment become strengths coaches. No, I think I have done the the is Gallup, the one where you like activator and words like that. Or maybe that’s thinking as,
Andy Webster 35:27
yeah, yeah, communication, competition, strategic, lots of meaning,
Mark McBride-Wright 35:37
yeah. I need to look into it again a bit more. I am the so when I when engineers who I meet, who’ve done it, it’s usually a great investment to, yeah, help with the teams that they have now, but also it’s an investment for a future career. You know, if you want to shift to a portfolio career and then actually run it as a practice and be an independent Coach, you’ve got the certification, you’ve applied it in your professional life, and then you’re then able to be that person who’s now no longer in play in the industry, but you’re helping. You know from from the site, my my husband, when he had a manager who started when he was getting an increase in in responsibility, she had the foresight to recommend that he get a coach, and then the business covered it. But it was so useful for him being able to have that person to who knew him as well and also knew the business, that could then support and guide the most equivalent I’ve had in terms of my personal investment in my professional growth, because you have to do that as an independent person. You yourself a company that’s going into you have to invest in yourself. So I’ve done that over the years with my public speaking coaching and writing the book. And my story was I was a really good dear friend now referred me to one of her people in her little book of connections to do this experience called the dig. And so it was developed by Erin weed. So Erin is a fabulous person. She lives, She’s based in Colorado, and essentially what she takes you through is a like, it’s about three or four, three hours or so over a couple of sessions, and she just asks lots and lots and lots of questions. And the idea is that you’re digging through all these questions. You’re digging and digging and digging, and you’re trying to get your objective in the sessions with her is to get to a single word, a single word that defines you, and that is your DIG word. And in the process of getting to the narrowing, you sort of come up with an operating system, a way in which you’re wired and how you how you go through this world. And my dig word was
Andy Webster 38:08
justice, okay,
Mark McBride-Wright 38:10
yeah, just that was the one we learned justice. And justice was one of the words that I could choose. And there were about eight other words as well, but the other words kind of defined the operating system. And so it really spoke to me, because the operating system that it came up with was, firstly, when I’m in a situation with people, I really like being a dot Joiner. I really like being able to add value to people, being able to make connections, and if they go off and do something, then brilliant. I also don’t like injustice. And when I see something that feels a little bit unjust, I want, for some people, it’s, you know, oh, that’s not very nice. Okay, fine, move on. You know, it’s not my life. But when I see I kind of have this, not me, yeah? I want to solve it. I want to make it better, right? Yeah, I actually, in doing the dig with Erin, used the word ameliorate, you know, which is from the French Amelia, which is to make better. So, you know, for me, English word ameliorate, we thought that would be a bit too complicated as a dig word, honestly, when, when she drew out this triangle of seeing injustice, wanting to make it better, and then find resolution, find the feedback. Look what’s the learning outcome from it. I’m like, my god, this, this is, this is, this is me. You know, this is the way I’ve always been. This is the way when I’m at a networking event and I meet people and I want to help them, join them up, or if I hear someone who’s from an underrepresented group, and if I’ve got some experience to share on work out and on LGBTQ, and I’ll try and help, and it’s just I now understand my engine and how I’m wired, and that really helped me, then with writing the book, and then with the subsequent investments that I did in public speaking. In helping under you know, I’ve got what I know, five or six stories under my belt that I know inside and out, that I often use when I’m on stage or when I’m on panels and stuff, and they became some of the concepts that are then in the book as well. So I am interested in in doing coaching. It’s, it’s, there’s so many different options out there it is. I’m at the point now, though, where I’ve moved beyond just being a self employed person. I now actually run an organization where I’ve got got, you know, six or seven people in my team that I have to oversee. So my bandwidth to do coaching is now a lot more compressed, but it’s something that I that I’m looking at offering, that I’ve actually put out, that I’m offering, but I find the requests that I get for coaching are more people who want to, you know, set up their own business, or want to go freelance, yeah, transition from being an engineer to then being in the advisory consultancy sector. You know how to how to make that shift.
Andy Webster 41:08
I mean, I saw I like and I’ve heard you share that before, that you invest in the public speaking, and I was thinking again the past few weeks that that’s probably an area I want to invest in. So I need to maybe get your notes off you for that. But I think the I think the coaching thing is just, it’s really rooted in, how do I see the world through your eyes? And again, one of the experiences I’ve had with Gallup is, you know, one of my strengths is competition, and you spot these people in the office because they’re the people that want to win. It absolutely meaningless. Try with the family in the office, no matter what. If there’s a scoreboard, you’re on it and you hate losing to almost can be a dangerous extent. There are also those people that you know can be really grumpy because they’re not the winner. And so definitely it’s created the peaks and the troughs of my career. But it it’s that realization that Andy, not not everyone, worries about winning. And the first time you hear that, it’s kind of a shock. It’s like, what do people look at these score sheets and not worry that they’re second and they need to get to what and whichever strength. And there’s a 30 plus of them in Gallup I’ve encountered in someone that they lead with. It’s a real eye opening moment when they discover that not everyone appreciates or processes or goes to the world this way. And that sounds so basic, but actually, when you recognize that that it kind of opens two things. One, it makes you incredibly empathetic towards everyone else, because they’re not seeing data and reacting in the way you are, because that’s you, yeah, but at the same time, it’s also but the fact that I see it and can react in this way. That’s my that’s my strength. Put it in Gallup language, that’s my opportunity. That’s what I can lead. That’s why I can use what I’m talented with. And I think that’s so important in today’s world, because we’re in a period now if we drift a little bit political, but without saying anything political, but I think society as a whole is becoming incredibly divided, because we present options as very it’s either left or right. It’s either you pro this or you against it. It’s either stop or continue and and my experience of life, my reality of life, is that most things in life are much more on a spectrum. There’s much more of a like, well, you know, more towards it, or less towards it. And I think when you open your eyes, that there’s far more diversity in things that look very homogeneous. Even amongst the dominant groups, there’s far more diversity. I think that’s part of the passion of your book, and the bit that naturally spoke to me as from the dominant group, as a white male, it’s it’s being willing to see diversity even in the areas that maybe look very similar, and that stops us jumping some of these conclusions. That stops us assuming how people are feeling or reacting, and actually get interested and and deal with the reality on the ground. I’ll stop talking about politics now.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:22
Yeah, ah, you raise a point, and it really it plays into the there’s another group, actually, that I forgot to mention a moment ago, that have been asking for support, and it’s basically become coaching, but informally, not with the structure of coaching is, I’ve been working, there’s about a handful, maybe four or five, white, straight male leaders that are in their mid 40s to mid 60s. Some of them have run multi billion pound companies. Some are in, you know, millions of pounds business. Units, and they struggle with how to lead on Ed and I with, you know, all the kind of churn that comes with it, all the division, the divisiveness, the rhetoric in their in their organization, and then the external pressure that comes with whatever way society is going politically, you know, in the binary piece. And they just they need an offload. And so I’m often finding myself providing guidance and counsel a safe space, as we often say, for these leaders to share, you know, and I can offer my perspective and challenge them and get them to think about things in different ways. I’m finding that as a bit niche for myself. If I, you know, do formally take up coaching, that would maybe be a target audience that I’d want to try and help.
Andy Webster 45:54
I think that’s brilliant mark. I mean, if you take it back to the sport analogy, one of the things, I mean, we both smiled a little bit at the safe space. But in sport, we have very clearly, the performance environment and the training ground. It’s, you know, they’re even labeled different. It’s very obvious. And there’s an interesting question, what’s the training ground in our weekly, daily, you know, annual work cycles, where’s the training ground that a leader can go and take the shot and miss, and it actually be completely un career limiting. And I think there’s less and less spaces like that. And so we use this term safe space because it needs to be where they can express even almost offensive thoughts that they’ve maybe thought. Have to be careful even how I share this on the podcast, but to be able to say I’m not sure I agree, let’s put it a little bit closer and to be but I’m not saying that because I’m locked on disagreeing. I’m saying that because that’s where I am right now, and I want you to challenge me to move my thinking I’m open to be moved. And I view that as a leadership training ground, because a leader that there’s another good phrase that goes around, you know, strongly help, strong views, loosely held and was misquoted. It, but it’s a helpful mindset to say, as a leader, you do need to be the one that steps out, that takes the takes the effort. I do believe in that kind of it’s almost command and control style leadership, but it, but it also is, for me, a quick ability to jump back and go. Actually, maybe we haven’t got this direction right, and we do need to pivot. You need to take a different direction. I’ve learned something. I’ve discovered something. It’s changed. My view, I think leaders that are changeable is very important to organizations ability to grow. Yeah, that not locked in. And so, yeah, if you can, if you can help leaders with that safe space, training ground, whatever the term is that makes it safe for them, brilliant.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:54
It’s so important. I remember there’s one individual in particular and just the I just sort of thought we weren’t getting anywhere. But then as they started opening up more and sharing more, and it’s been really nice to see this kind of shift in attitude, or like being willing to be open, to be challenged. And it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to shift attitudes fully, you know, but it’s about understanding that how they can lead more inclusively, you know, yeah, yeah. I found, I think
Andy Webster 48:33
we’ve got a time lag, haven’t we? On the on the on the digital tool. Who should we blame for that? I I found that as a person that has strong views, I’ve discovered I have to be very careful to tell my team, tell people working around me, I express what I’m thinking. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you to challenge it. In fact, the opposite. If you think something else, push back, say back. And yes, I’m sure people listening will say, Well, you could also choose to be quiet. And absolutely, you know, I do have to recognize as moments to shut up. But I think there’s real value in in debate, in in sharing, of you sharing a county. And actually, you know, when I even at a, you know, a quite challenging school environment. When I was growing up close to a council estate in Leicester, we did debates, and it really was a fond memory, because it wasn’t about there being right or wrong, it was actually using that process to learn. And I wonder if we’ve lost that a little bit if we go into a debate, force the other person to agree.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:47
Totally, totally. So What? What? What advice then would you give to younger professionals aiming to make an impact, engineering or or digital? Sectors today.
Andy Webster 50:03
So taking my own advice, I’m going to repeat something I heard recently from someone else. I think it’s about being curious. The world they’re coming into isn’t the world I entered. We’ve moved on, we’ve made our mistakes. We’ve learned stuff, but there’s still problems. You know, that’s why we need you know, what you’ve done with this is this passion for the safe lead. It’s why I’m still a leader in my company. There’s still problems to go after that. They will become leaders and part of solving. And so that curiosity piece, I think, is the critical element. It’s that willingness to ask why, to try to understand how we ended up with this approach. Is there a different way we could do things, or is this a really good way that has been discovered and I can benefit from but curiosity just stops you from one, just rejecting. Because I think that’s one behavior that I say is quite poor if you just come in and, you know, everything is wrong. So you can think of the temper tantrum child almost, you know, no matter what the parent puts in front of them, they push it away. And then the other extreme is just kind of like almost being a pushover, just not recognizing even in the last week, probably one of the best conversations I’ve had has come from a three month graduate in the company looking at how we’re using AI and going around and coming back and saying, Andy, actually, people are really confused. People don’t understand. And that willingness to, you know, share and to explore and to be curious is so important, and not just to come in and go, Oh well, they must know. They must have the answers. They’ve been here before me. So yeah, I think if I synthesize it down to one word, it’d be curious,
Mark McBride-Wright 51:53
hmm, like that. I also like that sort of another interpretation of safe leadership, of sharing, sharing when you Yeah, it doesn’t have to be something personal and deeply. You know, from the angle I’ve came at, it can be something where you’re maybe masking and covering something you don’t understand it, agree, you don’t feel confident enough to
Andy Webster 52:19
speak up or agree?
Mark McBride-Wright 52:22
Okay, quick fire question.
Andy Webster 52:26
I’m not looking forward to this bit.
Mark McBride-Wright 52:30
What’s a book that you’ve recently read that had a big impact on you? That
Andy Webster 52:34
one’s easy running lean
Mark McBride-Wright 52:38
by ah,
Andy Webster 52:39
Ash, unpronounceable surname, but brilliant book is quick fire, but brilliant book that helped me really look at, how do you deliver results, but in in software, digital environment. So it was just timeliness, but a really good book and told through a story which I like as well,
Mark McBride-Wright 53:00
fabulous and I will ask these quick fire I did say I would do a quick if you could meet any historical figure for dinner. Who would it be
Andy Webster 53:11
harder? But I’m gonna go old school. Isambard Kingdom, Brunel. He really left a legacy in UK. Love it. Engineer.
Mark McBride-Wright 53:22
What’s your most used productivity tool or app?
Andy Webster 53:26
Outlook,
Mark McBride-Wright 53:30
tea or coffee? Coffee,
Andy Webster 53:32
no milk.
Mark McBride-Wright 53:36
What’s your go to? Stress Reliever, after a challenging day,
Andy Webster 53:41
the drive home or the gym, if it’s nearer to the to the office.
Mark McBride-Wright 53:47
In one word, what’s the key to successful digital transformation?
Andy Webster 53:54
Patience,
Mark McBride-Wright 53:57
what’s a skill you wish you’d learned earlier in your career,
Andy Webster 54:00
patience.
Mark McBride-Wright 54:05
What’s your favorite part about coaching teams?
Andy Webster 54:14
Just seeing what’s possible, just seeing that transformation,
Mark McBride-Wright 54:22
what’s the place you’ve worked that less left a lasting impression on you?
Andy Webster 54:29
That one’s harder. I think I had some work in the Middle East, and a mom, and I really enjoyed seeing a young, thriving organization there,
Mark McBride-Wright 54:43
if you weren’t in the energy or digital sectors, what career might you have pursued
Andy Webster 54:48
politics
Mark McBride-Wright 54:52
and what’s your personal motto or mantra that guides your work?
Andy Webster 54:58
Be positive. Do.
Mark McBride-Wright 55:01
To be positive or a wonderful one? Well,
Andy Webster 55:08
I’m on the edge of my speech for that part.
Mark McBride-Wright 55:13
I really enjoyed the chat. It’s been, it’s been really good, very, very enlightening.
Andy Webster 55:17
Oh, you’re welcome, Mark. Really fun to do. Yeah, thank you.
Mark McBride-Wright 55:24
And if, if people want to get in touch with you or find out more about your work and you know what you’ve been doing, how can they do that?
Andy Webster 55:32
Yeah, I think for many of us today, it’s through LinkedIn. So yeah, very happy. Andy dot Webster on LinkedIn. Happy to connect, happy to share, happy to also pass people forward. You know, I’m certainly not you said it earlier be a connector, and I think that’s a really important role that people like us that have had some experience in careers can be. It might not be us, it might not be you might not be me, but we probably know someone, and that’s really valuable. So happy to be a connector as much as to be in contact.
Mark McBride-Wright 56:05
Fabulous. But we’ll put a link to your profile in the show notes as well in the transcript. Thank you very much. Andy, thank you.
Andy Webster 56:13
Thanks, Mark. Take care. Bye. You.
E007: Rethinking Safety, Leadership, and Workplace Culture
Podcast Description
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:01
And hello. Welcome to another episode of the safe leader Podcast. I’m joined today by our guest Andy Webster, who is a digital director at KBR and is a Gallup certified strength coach. So Andy is the director at KBR for digital in their sustainable technology solutions business. In this role, he’s responsible for leading a global team to deliver digital solutions to kbrs customers and drive an internal innovation team exploring, evaluating and deploying new solutions. By background, he’s a charter mechanical engineer and a fellow of the UK institution of mechanical engineers. His career has largely been in energy, in both technical and commercial roles. He’s led global businesses responsible for software as a service and device as a service, as well as building strategy for a range of digital approaches in his previous company, Yoko gawa, he is also a certified Gallup strengths coach, using it as a skill set to work with his colleagues and teams to focus on the strength innate in all of us, and helping to bring More of that into daily work. Andy,
Andy Webster 1:21
hello it’s a very nice introduction. Thank you.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:26
It’s nice when people talk about you, isn’t it?
Andy Webster 1:29
It is. It’s nice to hear sometimes that play back, because I think sometimes we forget how good life can be to us. So really good to be here, Mark,
Mark McBride-Wright 1:39
I think especially reading that when I was doing doing my research for who I wanted to interview on the podcast, I forget how much you and I have been connected virtually over the years, but you were very present at one point, and then you and then I think when you went to the Middle East, you went a bit quieter online, yeah, and weren’t as present as you have been. And then I noticed that you were back. And then I remembered you as being a connection that I used to enjoy reading the content of. And then you started working at a place where I used to work at KBR, and then we got a chance to meet a few months ago at my book launch. Yeah, that was
Andy Webster 2:22
cool. I mean, I think life’s like that often is it’s, it’s in these waves, and so there’s waves when you can really throw yourself into something. When I was in the UK, it was great opportunities to be connected to our institutions. But, yeah, I think overseas assignments, job opportunities in different countries. I think they bring a lot. They bring a global view that I’m very happy with, but that also can challenge your ability to stay connected to some of the things you did at home. So I think if you get comfortable that it changes and yeah, for your connections, I think that’s one of the nice things with LinkedIn. It gives you those reminders, oh yeah, it’s been 10 years since you were connected to so and so it’s always a nice way to say hello again.
Mark McBride-Wright 3:07
Absolutely. So I mean, on that, you’ve had an impressive career spanning over 20 years in the energy sector. So what did you fall into the sector? Or did you always want to move into it? You know what? Inspired you to pursue a career in energy?
Andy Webster 3:24
I think you always look back and see the red thread, but I don’t think anyone genuinely looking forward can obviously say, oh, yeah, I plan this step. I mean, maybe there’s a few people in the world, so no, I think at each point it was an obvious decision to take. But it never was like I woke up and wanted to be involved in energy. In fact, growing up in Leicester, I think I had a really poor appreciation of where petrol, gas in the house, oil in general, came from. And when I even growing up next to a petrol station, I mean, that’s the irony of it. But when I went and did engineering and found out about it, I think I was very attracted to the challenge of engineering, which I was studying, but also the challenge of fitting that into our daily life. We don’t have life as we know it, without energy. And so I think my career very much started in oil and gas, and it’s continuing in energy in terms of, well, how do we preserve what we’ve gained, but actually take advantage of technology. That’s my digital role right now. But also look at things like climate change, say we’ve got to have a better solution than keep doing what we’ve done before. And I think it’s that constant challenge in my personal roles and in the sector that I found just, yeah, I love it.
Mark McBride-Wright 4:52
And for actually, just want to jump to one of the questions that you’d mentioned, actually. So you mentioned. And in your time at Shell you developed a proprietary safety strategy that helped reduce incident rates significant. Yeah, what helped to the extent that you’re able to what was that?
Andy Webster 5:15
I mean, it sounds very grand, but it was in a really interesting time for the industry, because there’d been a failure to stop fundamentally killing people in our sector, which, when you say it in the safe setting of a podcast, sounds horrific, but that was the reality. It’s the oil industry, the energy sector I joined, people died, and I’d moved out to a position in a refinery in Texas, very close to BP, is infamous Texas City refinery that had killed a lot of people in an explosion. And so a top down approach to safety, and it’s a nice link to all the topics in your book have been, well, our goal has to be zero. And so we had a huge mission around Goal Zero. The challenge was, when you went to a real plant, we were struggling. We were struggling with contractors that were desiring to show their result, but maybe not yet getting there. There was probably a fear culture to be honest with why it was difficult. And so I found myself in a position where the math inside my head said zero, absolute zero only happens if we do one thing, which is turn the refinery off, if we actually choose to cook oil in really high pressure vessels and in pipes with people that have health issues and just daily life, we are taking a risk. And let’s talk about the risks we take. And so we change the language away from the absence of an incident to we’re actively taking risk every day, when we drive here, when we walk through the gate, when we do a task, what is that risk and how do we understand it? And it just shifted the language away from fault finding to solution finding, and in that way, allowed us to really see an improvement with some of the things. So it was that language shift with a model to support it that my team, we put in place, and yeah, we really saw a reduction in instant we’re having.
Mark McBride-Wright 7:22
So that’s fascinating. You actually saw a pseudo, real time example of how it was implement a change, and then how it became in positive direction with regard to more more engagement there. There’s a case study that I mentioned in the book. In my book The Safe leader about unmasking manly men, and it talks about taking it was a longitudinal study that an operator did in the Gulf of Mexico, taken basically they challenged the leadership, dominant leadership type offshore, of being one of dominance, power and control, they metaphorically broke down all these early men and built them up again with emotional intelligence, made them more vulnerable with one another, empathy, etc, and The leadership style offshore became one of, you know, empathy, listening, etc. And what happened across the assets was that performance went up pre and post, you know, intervention. And it was put down to the leadership style. It wasn’t put down to any enhanced oil recovery or, you know, reliability turnarounds, you know, improved reliability of pumps or compressors or something, it was put down to actual better team, team performance. And so in that example, then that you did at Shell, did, did you ever see a ripple effect to other other sites or other other areas of the energy sector? I mean,
Andy Webster 9:01
I didn’t, I wish I was thinking as we were talking about it, I’d be kind of nice to pop back there, it’s now under different ownership, and see what has stayed. Because I think that’s always one of the interesting things of any of our work, is what what truly remains behind. I think we carry the stories with us, but what’s left when you move on. And I think that was one of the downsides to a very common habit in the sector, is in where you would take on an assignment for a number of years, and then you would move on and and that’s exciting in terms of providing a new challenge, but you missed that opportunity to see, well, does this really work over longer term, because I think any of us can make noise and cause a ripple, but, but has it helped people? I think, in the moment, I’m always looking for, is there some signals that this is more than just sort of echo chamber reaction? Is it? Is it actually taking hold? Old. And I was, you know, sort of 10 years into my career at that time, so still relatively junior. And I think when you saw much more seasoned employees really taking it to heart. And I think one of the proof points I anchored on was, you know, initially, you’re out very much at the tip of the spear. Let me tell you of this. Let me explain this. Let me show why this matters. You’ve got to carry the heat early on. But when I saw some of our season contract holders, you know, they were just part of the fabric, but were our contractors and not employed by Shell presenting this to their own folk and using it to explain to them how to approach their work, then, you know, okay, this isn’t just a head nodding exercise. We’re actually really helping people explain how to do their work.
Mark McBride-Wright 10:48
How did you find your as a mechanical engineer? What is your relationship to safety as a mechanical engineer? How were you introduced to it? Taught it and then, you know, yeah, how did it evolve?
Andy Webster 11:04
That’s a really good question, because I often think about that. I’m a mechanical engineer responsible for digital across a huge company. And so you do wonder, you know, what, what do we pick our degrees for? But I, I guess there’s part of it that goes to the very math side of it, like, what does it mean to make something truly safe? And, you know, in a company I’m in right now, we’re involved in the nuclear sector, and it becomes a really interesting question. Say, Well, how do you prove to communities where you want to have nuclear power as a really, you know, in terms of if CO two is the only thing we’re focusing on for for emission size, really amazing solution. We get very worried about it from, obviously the nuclear waste side. But when you’re trying to convince a community this is safe, what does that mean? And so I think I have a very mathematical relationship with safety generally, because I use that to challenge what we perceive as safe. Early on in my life, my dad worked for Rolls Royce, so we talked a lot about jet engines and jet engine failures. And a lot of people have a fear of flying, despite the safety data telling you, look, you’re more at risk driving to the airport than the moment you’re in that aircraft. But the fear is very palpable on people compared to, you know, you rarely hear about people having a fear of driving. So I think there’s a mathematical side. And then later in my career as I’ve gone into sales roles. As an engineer, I’ve discovered the really interesting side around so why do people behave almost like illogically? Why do why do I behave illogically? We all do it, and I think there’s a component of that in safety. When we do incidents, when I’ve been involved in incident investigations, we expect there to be a perfect answer why something happened. And I think the reality often is sometimes there isn’t. And that’s not to say it can’t be avoided. That would be the first you know people listen to this, this podcast, where all incidents can be avoided. Yes, I think they can. But we choose many times not to. We could choose not to ever get ill by isolating ourselves and just living a very sad separate from society life, and that wouldn’t be living. So I think we all take risks. And I think it’s figuring out. How do you use your engineering brain, which is about problem solving, to solve this in the true sense of it, wickedly complex problem, and that then becomes interesting.
Mark McBride-Wright 13:47
The reason I asked the question there was I noticed a different relationship to safety. I noticed my bias as a chemical engineer who then specialized in process safety, yeah, just taking it granted that everyone thinks like that understands mean to mean it through that. I think it’s probably a bit more compounded with the fact that I worked in Gran Hern, in KBR, in the Safety and Environment Team. So we worked on concept design. So we worked very, very closely with piping engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, you know, etc, etc, civil engineers. So everyone felt part of the team and understood safety through how we how we described it. But then when I came on to do my visit and professorship recently at UCL, where there’s nine different engineering departments, but the students all do a common, integrated degree program in the first two years, I almost I realized that different students, different engineering disciplines, have got a different relationship to safety. Safety for chemical engineers is in the traditional oil and gas you know? Yeah. At, you know, whatever, explosions, etc, mechanical
Andy Webster 15:04
you’ve been in the pipe,
Mark McBride-Wright 15:07
yeah, pipelines. Mechanical Engineers, it’s, it’s pipe, it’s vessels. It’s, you know, in men, structural failure for, for structural engineers, it’s, you know, building centers and talking about structural reinforcements and software engineers. It’s more cyber security and cyber risks and risks related. So, so there’s, there’s, there’s an interest in talking about diverse and inclusion, having bias. I realized that I had a safety bias, and so I wonder, sometimes, is there some work that we need to do, and how we train our engineers of the future, of what, what safety is, you know? So, so, yeah, your point there about your experience shell, I found quite interesting,
Andy Webster 15:58
yeah, and I’ve thought about that too, because one of the challenges I had the role was nicely titled as a safety manager. So you’re responsible for people and you’re responsible for the overall result. And a lot of us learn things by what we’ve experienced. I’ve just shared my experience and how that’s taught me. And so there’s an interesting question, as we make things safer, how do the next generation, the next safety manager, learn from experiences they don’t have. And, you know, maybe this is a parenting comment as well, you know, so as parents, you try and protect your children from almost the mistakes you’ve made in your in your life, if you view it like that, or help them make the same successes, maybe to see it as the positive side and and often in the family relationship you talk about, you know, the children almost rebel against the parents and almost want to, you know they have to almost trip over themselves to figure out that falling on you, falling on your face, really does hurt. But in a professional environment, surely that can’t be our answer. Surely we can’t say, Well, every generation has to go through a really serious incident to discover, you know, that that we really have to take this seriously, that we really do have to put safety as a priority, figure out how to do things better every day. And I think so. I think one of the other interesting weaves into this, being an engineer, being a safety leader, being a commercially minded person is, actually, how do we tell stories? And I had the opportunity to do some work with a consultant that was really into this area of like the the intersection of theater and film into business. And the analogy that just made it ring home for me is, you know, any of us go and watch a half decent film at the theater, and you know, we come away with an impact, an emotional response to it. We’ve been there, what, two, maybe three hours, but we’ve, we feel like we’ve experienced something. We feel challenged about a conception we had beforehand, or you know, you know, it’s brought to light and injustice, or whatever, whatever the the weave is in that that story in a very short period of time. And the challenge when I was working with this consultant that we talked about a lot was, if you went into many companies, I think it’s still true, and you you hear the lessons learned of projects, we have a primacy, and probably an engineering driven primacy on accuracy, and we put accuracy above everything else. So we will be very worried if a safety report tells us something slightly inaccurate, but we’ll trade away any emotional response for that for the goal of accuracy. And if you look at the entertainment sector, they go the completely opposite way. They say, well, the emotional reaction takes primacy from the accuracy. Even when they’re retelling historical events, they want you to feel connected. You know the Apollo 13 mission. We all watch that feeling worried, even knowing what happens? Do those astronauts get safely back to Earth? And I think there’s something in that, because if we can tell stories in a way that creates that emotional response, you know, it touched my heart there, you know, as well as the logical response, then it’s much easier to pass on. It’s often in engineering, when we just talk about the fact of what’s happened, that we lose that, yes, we lose that connection.
Mark McBride-Wright 19:25
So much in there things go through my brain. There were the analogy of making it harder, or thinking that, well, I had to endure. You have to endure as well, or in terms of like, learning that, that reminds me of people being unwilling to raise the lower the metaphorical ladder to make it easier for the next generation to come through. So if you’re the person who’s like been at the front or. Of a social justice change, and you’ve had to endure all the hardship of as culture chains around you. Do you now arrive at that future point in your life, or that this present moment in your life with a taste of bitterness to think, well, I’ve had to work hard. You’re going to do the same. You’re not easy, right? You know? Why should you? Or actually, no, I made the mistakes. I’m going to counsel and guide you to not make the same mistakes, but even more, I’m going to try and eradicate and dismantle the very barriers that were even there that made it hard for me and that that when it comes to gender equality, for example, that can there’s a term called queen bee syndrome, where if a woman has made it to the top of her game, like, does she hold the ladder down for others to come up behind her? Or does she? Does she think? No, you have to fight your way here, like me as well. And so I often, I often, I often hear that from people where, you know, I had to work hard. So you have to work hard to, you know, or I had to endure these things. You need to earn your stripes and, and what have you. And it’s, it’s sometimes common in, even in a, even in a, in, like a workshop environment, which I still think quite sad, where you’ve got some engineers that have maybe, what are technicians that have worked there for a very, very long time, and you’ve got these often young, 1617, year old, young people that have just just started, and rather than trying to like, recognize that culture is evolving in a way that now men can open up and men can be vulnerable, And men can share. Instead, there’s this kind of macho. You have to earn your strike to be to be in this culture. And so I think that there’s an element in there of both of both sexes, both genders on this front and then the other thing that you said, Oh, my God, yes, storytelling, storytelling, I It’s so, so critical to our learning as well.
Andy Webster 22:05
You’ve written a book.
Mark McBride-Wright 22:08
Yeah, well, exactly, exactly. And the the you know, as engineers, we’re not always the best at telling stories, because we have that propensity to want accuracy. And I love, I love the flip example you gave there with the entertainment sector. It’s actually why, in the in the safe leader. So in the book The Safe stands for share, act, feel and empower. And in the share phase, we’re talking about going inside yourself, becoming introspective, and understanding what your own differences, what’s your own diversity story. So this, this is a sort of council I’ve found a lot of male engineers needs to go through often to create a emotional connection with what Ed and I is all about, because very often it’s focused on minoritized groups. Men feel threatened. It’s very them and us. And so what we have is the shallow impact. But if you press pause on that for a moment and get people to do some deep reflection, thinking, Well, what’s your difference? What’s your diversity story? What have you been through that? If you I’ve got this little prop here, if you could be a lighthouse for others, a beacon of light for others, and turn on and share that story, then maybe we could get a bit deeper. And so what I’m doing with a safe leader is we’re building out a training course on the back of it that’s four modules long for organizations to do, and it takes a group of like 15 odd people through the experience of sharing, acting, feeling and empowering. But what we’re also doing as part of that is we’re teaching the art of storytelling. We’re getting people to do some deep reflection what those stories are, but then also take them through, you know, the story arc, the the the inciting incident, the rising action, the critical point, and then the falling action. So that then, if you know your story, if you know these origin stories of your life, inside and out, forwards and backwards, you can then stand in front of an audience at a town hall, or in a, in a in an all hands meeting you know, or even just with your your team each morning. And you can share stories. You can tell stories. Now, I think that is what we need to do with, you know, lessons learned. We need to, we need to bring the emotion back into them and tell them in a way that is using the art of storytelling. So, yeah, I just so much potential. I mean, I think,
Andy Webster 24:49
I think it’s interesting, how much is context, because, you know, you’ve highlighted particularly men in engineering, which is a which is a dominant. Gender for you to find in any engineering degree or environment. Still, when I think it’s improving, but it will still be the majority. And you’re right, you won’t find natural storytellers. I think, however you put that same group into a alternate setting, and we could imagine what that alternate setting is, but maybe a social setting, and those same group of men that aren’t really very talkative in the town hall will be recounting all sorts of stories. And so I think there’s a there’s an element of back to culture that we all tell stories. That is how humans have built society. I think the 21st century business environment has done a really good job of sanitizing what we bring to work, and our willingness to tell stories that maybe are imperfect have a bit of long weave in them, to use a current term, but are their stories. And I do think you’re right. I think encouraging that to come out is powerful in allowing us to be understood as well as understanding others. And I yeah, of course, preparing to chat with you today, I refreshed myself on on the Save framework I do really like, and I do like your push to make the sharing two way that it’s really being understood and understood. You know, we can probably credit COVID for his seven habits. I think his one is seek, first to understand and then be understood. And it sat with me in my career. You know, we all desperately want to be understood, understood. Please, just understand me. And one of the challenges in that, in that plea is but also make sure you’re putting the effort in to understand that, yeah, don’t jump to assumptions about those around you.
Mark McBride-Wright 26:51
So is this your I read about your being a followable leader in your mission. So what is this? A leadership principle you live by?
Andy Webster 27:06
I think always putting a podcast out. You know, it’s your followers that ultimately judge this, but I think it’s interesting if being a leader and wanting to lead is something that’s very deep in your purpose. And I, I think for me, it has been, it’s been challenged throughout my career, moments for various reasons. And like any good story, you know, there’s those peak moments and there’s those trough moments, but from a young age that my brain can still remember. It’s been something to be passionate about being a force for good, for not just myself, but for others, and in that sense, leading. And I think it was maybe the last 10 years that when I really wanted to continue push myself into leadership in a corporate environment, because there’s loads of ways to evaluate leadership. I think that’s the beauty of it. But in a corporate environment, I think I was very conscious. Well, ultimately, in a corporate environment, to be a leader means that people have to choose to follow. Being a manager just means you’re stuck in a position where people report into you. That’s that’s relatively easy to attain. But being a leader, where you’re influencing because people choose to follow what you’re advocating for, that’s really interesting. And so if you flip the attention from what’s it mean for me to be a leader, but what’s it mean for me to create followers? It’s actually quite interesting. How do I create followers in my passion for safety? Well, berating them may not be the best approach, but actually understanding the world through their eyes. Okay, that’s now maybe more successful into your sharing principle. You know, I need to hear how they’re seeing things. If they’re not seeing what I’m seeing, how can they follow? And so I think it, it’s a constant almost reflection I have. I have the joy of a longest drive to and from my work. And it does give time to play back, you know, your weekly, your daily experiences, and think, Okay, how do I show up? What was my intentions? What reactions did I observe? What feedback got? What have I seen as a result of those conversations? What’s happening? Where’s my followers? Who’s following? So, yeah, it’s, it’s a it’s a passion, it’s my purpose, I would say. And it links to probably a lot of the topics we’ve already touched on, and we’ll, we’ll touch on still,
Mark McBride-Wright 29:41
I do remember the that being a talking point in KBR, the journey time on the M 25
Andy Webster 29:52
Yeah, we haven’t solved that one yet.
Mark McBride-Wright 29:59
I think. You strike me as someone that really deeply connects to you know, when you make a decision to invest in yourself and in your training, you then bring that to to your profession, and also, you know what you do for others. And so I was, I read that you did a Gallup Certified Strength coaching qualification. So what, what led you to do that, and how’s that enhanced your approach to empowering teams? I mean that
Andy Webster 30:27
one’s really simple, because it goes right back to that creating followers and and so I reflected on times in my career where I felt that people more senior than me simply tried to tell me what they’d done, and I found sometimes that was helpful, but often it was unhelpful, because what they had done I couldn’t replicate because of me, and so what I really needed was someone that understood me first and then helped me figure out how to do me better. And when you look outside of again, the corporate environment, we have amazing examples of it. We celebrate them, and they’re called coaches and professional coaches, and they’re exactly that. They never enter the field of play, they never get the medal, but they’re critical to the success of the athletes there, supporting and training. And when I look in the corporate world, I just struggled to see that, you know, amplification of coaching and coaching as a leader. But I recognized that first, it resonated for me that I wanted a coach. So there’s an assumption, hypothesis that those that would follow me may also have that feeling. I think, secondly, there was a recognition from data. And I’ve often tried to play those two things, sort of something empirical, and then something that, you know, a bit more feeling led the data was showing that changes were happening. And the workforce coming into the workplace was different. The makeup was different. Their expectations were different, and they were looking for that sort of empathetic, supportive leadership style. And so when I looked around, there was there’s lots of personality trait tests that can be done. What I had experienced is some of them had winners and losers. I had a particularly poor experience where I had a team of mine go through a personality assessment, and we presented on a chart. And what inevitably happened is what the boss’s personality people were trying to say, Well, how do I get more like that? And the whole session became, how to become mini me’s of the boss, which kind of, you know, devalued the the assessment. When I looked at Gallup. It had been an airport book pickup, I think when I was 2223 I’d done the strength assessment. I’d gone through a difficult period in my career, and I’d come back to it and had some coaching. And I saw in it a few things that made it you know, the one I picked so one, it came out of a guy that had made his purpose to find out what’s right in our brain. So it really connected with, you know, the way we’re made up, not just corporate words. And then it was built on a premise which really resonated, which is, we’re all innately talented to do something, and the challenge is how to bring that talent to the for that, it becomes a strength. And that really resonated. That started me off from a position, my assumption when I meet someone, is there something good in them, and your job as a coach, your job as creating a follow out of them, is to simply find the environment, the calling, the way that that good can show up. So yeah, so I had the opportunity to not just have experienced it for myself, but then I was also, if you’re serious about this, you need to invest and be able to use it as a as a tool to support those you lead. And so, yeah, I think it’s four or five years back 2019 I was certified, so that was a few years after you do the training, I must admit it’s still something because it’s not common in the workplace. I don’t, I don’t put it forward as the only way I can interact with people. I think it can be, I’ve seen that it can be a bit confronting to suddenly say you’re, you’re someone’s manager, and hey, would you like me now to coach you? Not everyone’s comfortable with that, and I think that’s something else you’ve talked about in your book about psychological safety, that that environment has to be right if you’re going to touch people’s, you know, emotions and feelings and why they do things. There’s got to be a two way trust, and you can’t mandate that. You can’t force that. And so I have it there as a tool set I can pull on and I’ve, I’ve loved seeing how it can impact people. I’ve yet to meet someone that’s gone through this sort of assessment come out with their strength and gone are now this. This really isn’t helpful. It’s always been a kind of a light bulb moment of, yeah, I recognize this by myself, but I never. Language, and I’ve never been encouraged how to use it, and that’s what it gives.
Mark McBride-Wright 35:05
Yeah, oh, totally, totally. I’ve heard people who’ve done the Gallup investment become strengths coaches. No, I think I have done the the is Gallup, the one where you like activator and words like that. Or maybe that’s thinking as,
Andy Webster 35:27
yeah, yeah, communication, competition, strategic, lots of meaning,
Mark McBride-Wright 35:37
yeah. I need to look into it again a bit more. I am the so when I when engineers who I meet, who’ve done it, it’s usually a great investment to, yeah, help with the teams that they have now, but also it’s an investment for a future career. You know, if you want to shift to a portfolio career and then actually run it as a practice and be an independent Coach, you’ve got the certification, you’ve applied it in your professional life, and then you’re then able to be that person who’s now no longer in play in the industry, but you’re helping. You know from from the site, my my husband, when he had a manager who started when he was getting an increase in in responsibility, she had the foresight to recommend that he get a coach, and then the business covered it. But it was so useful for him being able to have that person to who knew him as well and also knew the business, that could then support and guide the most equivalent I’ve had in terms of my personal investment in my professional growth, because you have to do that as an independent person. You yourself a company that’s going into you have to invest in yourself. So I’ve done that over the years with my public speaking coaching and writing the book. And my story was I was a really good dear friend now referred me to one of her people in her little book of connections to do this experience called the dig. And so it was developed by Erin weed. So Erin is a fabulous person. She lives, She’s based in Colorado, and essentially what she takes you through is a like, it’s about three or four, three hours or so over a couple of sessions, and she just asks lots and lots and lots of questions. And the idea is that you’re digging through all these questions. You’re digging and digging and digging, and you’re trying to get your objective in the sessions with her is to get to a single word, a single word that defines you, and that is your DIG word. And in the process of getting to the narrowing, you sort of come up with an operating system, a way in which you’re wired and how you how you go through this world. And my dig word was
Andy Webster 38:08
justice, okay,
Mark McBride-Wright 38:10
yeah, just that was the one we learned justice. And justice was one of the words that I could choose. And there were about eight other words as well, but the other words kind of defined the operating system. And so it really spoke to me, because the operating system that it came up with was, firstly, when I’m in a situation with people, I really like being a dot Joiner. I really like being able to add value to people, being able to make connections, and if they go off and do something, then brilliant. I also don’t like injustice. And when I see something that feels a little bit unjust, I want, for some people, it’s, you know, oh, that’s not very nice. Okay, fine, move on. You know, it’s not my life. But when I see I kind of have this, not me, yeah? I want to solve it. I want to make it better, right? Yeah, I actually, in doing the dig with Erin, used the word ameliorate, you know, which is from the French Amelia, which is to make better. So, you know, for me, English word ameliorate, we thought that would be a bit too complicated as a dig word, honestly, when, when she drew out this triangle of seeing injustice, wanting to make it better, and then find resolution, find the feedback. Look what’s the learning outcome from it. I’m like, my god, this, this is, this is, this is me. You know, this is the way I’ve always been. This is the way when I’m at a networking event and I meet people and I want to help them, join them up, or if I hear someone who’s from an underrepresented group, and if I’ve got some experience to share on work out and on LGBTQ, and I’ll try and help, and it’s just I now understand my engine and how I’m wired, and that really helped me, then with writing the book, and then with the subsequent investments that I did in public speaking. In helping under you know, I’ve got what I know, five or six stories under my belt that I know inside and out, that I often use when I’m on stage or when I’m on panels and stuff, and they became some of the concepts that are then in the book as well. So I am interested in in doing coaching. It’s, it’s, there’s so many different options out there it is. I’m at the point now, though, where I’ve moved beyond just being a self employed person. I now actually run an organization where I’ve got got, you know, six or seven people in my team that I have to oversee. So my bandwidth to do coaching is now a lot more compressed, but it’s something that I that I’m looking at offering, that I’ve actually put out, that I’m offering, but I find the requests that I get for coaching are more people who want to, you know, set up their own business, or want to go freelance, yeah, transition from being an engineer to then being in the advisory consultancy sector. You know how to how to make that shift.
Andy Webster 41:08
I mean, I saw I like and I’ve heard you share that before, that you invest in the public speaking, and I was thinking again the past few weeks that that’s probably an area I want to invest in. So I need to maybe get your notes off you for that. But I think the I think the coaching thing is just, it’s really rooted in, how do I see the world through your eyes? And again, one of the experiences I’ve had with Gallup is, you know, one of my strengths is competition, and you spot these people in the office because they’re the people that want to win. It absolutely meaningless. Try with the family in the office, no matter what. If there’s a scoreboard, you’re on it and you hate losing to almost can be a dangerous extent. There are also those people that you know can be really grumpy because they’re not the winner. And so definitely it’s created the peaks and the troughs of my career. But it it’s that realization that Andy, not not everyone, worries about winning. And the first time you hear that, it’s kind of a shock. It’s like, what do people look at these score sheets and not worry that they’re second and they need to get to what and whichever strength. And there’s a 30 plus of them in Gallup I’ve encountered in someone that they lead with. It’s a real eye opening moment when they discover that not everyone appreciates or processes or goes to the world this way. And that sounds so basic, but actually, when you recognize that that it kind of opens two things. One, it makes you incredibly empathetic towards everyone else, because they’re not seeing data and reacting in the way you are, because that’s you, yeah, but at the same time, it’s also but the fact that I see it and can react in this way. That’s my that’s my strength. Put it in Gallup language, that’s my opportunity. That’s what I can lead. That’s why I can use what I’m talented with. And I think that’s so important in today’s world, because we’re in a period now if we drift a little bit political, but without saying anything political, but I think society as a whole is becoming incredibly divided, because we present options as very it’s either left or right. It’s either you pro this or you against it. It’s either stop or continue and and my experience of life, my reality of life, is that most things in life are much more on a spectrum. There’s much more of a like, well, you know, more towards it, or less towards it. And I think when you open your eyes, that there’s far more diversity in things that look very homogeneous. Even amongst the dominant groups, there’s far more diversity. I think that’s part of the passion of your book, and the bit that naturally spoke to me as from the dominant group, as a white male, it’s it’s being willing to see diversity even in the areas that maybe look very similar, and that stops us jumping some of these conclusions. That stops us assuming how people are feeling or reacting, and actually get interested and and deal with the reality on the ground. I’ll stop talking about politics now.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:22
Yeah, ah, you raise a point, and it really it plays into the there’s another group, actually, that I forgot to mention a moment ago, that have been asking for support, and it’s basically become coaching, but informally, not with the structure of coaching is, I’ve been working, there’s about a handful, maybe four or five, white, straight male leaders that are in their mid 40s to mid 60s. Some of them have run multi billion pound companies. Some are in, you know, millions of pounds business. Units, and they struggle with how to lead on Ed and I with, you know, all the kind of churn that comes with it, all the division, the divisiveness, the rhetoric in their in their organization, and then the external pressure that comes with whatever way society is going politically, you know, in the binary piece. And they just they need an offload. And so I’m often finding myself providing guidance and counsel a safe space, as we often say, for these leaders to share, you know, and I can offer my perspective and challenge them and get them to think about things in different ways. I’m finding that as a bit niche for myself. If I, you know, do formally take up coaching, that would maybe be a target audience that I’d want to try and help.
Andy Webster 45:54
I think that’s brilliant mark. I mean, if you take it back to the sport analogy, one of the things, I mean, we both smiled a little bit at the safe space. But in sport, we have very clearly, the performance environment and the training ground. It’s, you know, they’re even labeled different. It’s very obvious. And there’s an interesting question, what’s the training ground in our weekly, daily, you know, annual work cycles, where’s the training ground that a leader can go and take the shot and miss, and it actually be completely un career limiting. And I think there’s less and less spaces like that. And so we use this term safe space because it needs to be where they can express even almost offensive thoughts that they’ve maybe thought. Have to be careful even how I share this on the podcast, but to be able to say I’m not sure I agree, let’s put it a little bit closer and to be but I’m not saying that because I’m locked on disagreeing. I’m saying that because that’s where I am right now, and I want you to challenge me to move my thinking I’m open to be moved. And I view that as a leadership training ground, because a leader that there’s another good phrase that goes around, you know, strongly help, strong views, loosely held and was misquoted. It, but it’s a helpful mindset to say, as a leader, you do need to be the one that steps out, that takes the takes the effort. I do believe in that kind of it’s almost command and control style leadership, but it, but it also is, for me, a quick ability to jump back and go. Actually, maybe we haven’t got this direction right, and we do need to pivot. You need to take a different direction. I’ve learned something. I’ve discovered something. It’s changed. My view, I think leaders that are changeable is very important to organizations ability to grow. Yeah, that not locked in. And so, yeah, if you can, if you can help leaders with that safe space, training ground, whatever the term is that makes it safe for them, brilliant.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:54
It’s so important. I remember there’s one individual in particular and just the I just sort of thought we weren’t getting anywhere. But then as they started opening up more and sharing more, and it’s been really nice to see this kind of shift in attitude, or like being willing to be open, to be challenged. And it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to shift attitudes fully, you know, but it’s about understanding that how they can lead more inclusively, you know, yeah, yeah. I found, I think
Andy Webster 48:33
we’ve got a time lag, haven’t we? On the on the on the digital tool. Who should we blame for that? I I found that as a person that has strong views, I’ve discovered I have to be very careful to tell my team, tell people working around me, I express what I’m thinking. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you to challenge it. In fact, the opposite. If you think something else, push back, say back. And yes, I’m sure people listening will say, Well, you could also choose to be quiet. And absolutely, you know, I do have to recognize as moments to shut up. But I think there’s real value in in debate, in in sharing, of you sharing a county. And actually, you know, when I even at a, you know, a quite challenging school environment. When I was growing up close to a council estate in Leicester, we did debates, and it really was a fond memory, because it wasn’t about there being right or wrong, it was actually using that process to learn. And I wonder if we’ve lost that a little bit if we go into a debate, force the other person to agree.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:47
Totally, totally. So What? What? What advice then would you give to younger professionals aiming to make an impact, engineering or or digital? Sectors today.
Andy Webster 50:03
So taking my own advice, I’m going to repeat something I heard recently from someone else. I think it’s about being curious. The world they’re coming into isn’t the world I entered. We’ve moved on, we’ve made our mistakes. We’ve learned stuff, but there’s still problems. You know, that’s why we need you know, what you’ve done with this is this passion for the safe lead. It’s why I’m still a leader in my company. There’s still problems to go after that. They will become leaders and part of solving. And so that curiosity piece, I think, is the critical element. It’s that willingness to ask why, to try to understand how we ended up with this approach. Is there a different way we could do things, or is this a really good way that has been discovered and I can benefit from but curiosity just stops you from one, just rejecting. Because I think that’s one behavior that I say is quite poor if you just come in and, you know, everything is wrong. So you can think of the temper tantrum child almost, you know, no matter what the parent puts in front of them, they push it away. And then the other extreme is just kind of like almost being a pushover, just not recognizing even in the last week, probably one of the best conversations I’ve had has come from a three month graduate in the company looking at how we’re using AI and going around and coming back and saying, Andy, actually, people are really confused. People don’t understand. And that willingness to, you know, share and to explore and to be curious is so important, and not just to come in and go, Oh well, they must know. They must have the answers. They’ve been here before me. So yeah, I think if I synthesize it down to one word, it’d be curious,
Mark McBride-Wright 51:53
hmm, like that. I also like that sort of another interpretation of safe leadership, of sharing, sharing when you Yeah, it doesn’t have to be something personal and deeply. You know, from the angle I’ve came at, it can be something where you’re maybe masking and covering something you don’t understand it, agree, you don’t feel confident enough to
Andy Webster 52:19
speak up or agree?
Mark McBride-Wright 52:22
Okay, quick fire question.
Andy Webster 52:26
I’m not looking forward to this bit.
Mark McBride-Wright 52:30
What’s a book that you’ve recently read that had a big impact on you? That
Andy Webster 52:34
one’s easy running lean
Mark McBride-Wright 52:38
by ah,
Andy Webster 52:39
Ash, unpronounceable surname, but brilliant book is quick fire, but brilliant book that helped me really look at, how do you deliver results, but in in software, digital environment. So it was just timeliness, but a really good book and told through a story which I like as well,
Mark McBride-Wright 53:00
fabulous and I will ask these quick fire I did say I would do a quick if you could meet any historical figure for dinner. Who would it be
Andy Webster 53:11
harder? But I’m gonna go old school. Isambard Kingdom, Brunel. He really left a legacy in UK. Love it. Engineer.
Mark McBride-Wright 53:22
What’s your most used productivity tool or app?
Andy Webster 53:26
Outlook,
Mark McBride-Wright 53:30
tea or coffee? Coffee,
Andy Webster 53:32
no milk.
Mark McBride-Wright 53:36
What’s your go to? Stress Reliever, after a challenging day,
Andy Webster 53:41
the drive home or the gym, if it’s nearer to the to the office.
Mark McBride-Wright 53:47
In one word, what’s the key to successful digital transformation?
Andy Webster 53:54
Patience,
Mark McBride-Wright 53:57
what’s a skill you wish you’d learned earlier in your career,
Andy Webster 54:00
patience.
Mark McBride-Wright 54:05
What’s your favorite part about coaching teams?
Andy Webster 54:14
Just seeing what’s possible, just seeing that transformation,
Mark McBride-Wright 54:22
what’s the place you’ve worked that less left a lasting impression on you?
Andy Webster 54:29
That one’s harder. I think I had some work in the Middle East, and a mom, and I really enjoyed seeing a young, thriving organization there,
Mark McBride-Wright 54:43
if you weren’t in the energy or digital sectors, what career might you have pursued
Andy Webster 54:48
politics
Mark McBride-Wright 54:52
and what’s your personal motto or mantra that guides your work?
Andy Webster 54:58
Be positive. Do.
Mark McBride-Wright 55:01
To be positive or a wonderful one? Well,
Andy Webster 55:08
I’m on the edge of my speech for that part.
Mark McBride-Wright 55:13
I really enjoyed the chat. It’s been, it’s been really good, very, very enlightening.
Andy Webster 55:17
Oh, you’re welcome, Mark. Really fun to do. Yeah, thank you.
Mark McBride-Wright 55:24
And if, if people want to get in touch with you or find out more about your work and you know what you’ve been doing, how can they do that?
Andy Webster 55:32
Yeah, I think for many of us today, it’s through LinkedIn. So yeah, very happy. Andy dot Webster on LinkedIn. Happy to connect, happy to share, happy to also pass people forward. You know, I’m certainly not you said it earlier be a connector, and I think that’s a really important role that people like us that have had some experience in careers can be. It might not be us, it might not be you might not be me, but we probably know someone, and that’s really valuable. So happy to be a connector as much as to be in contact.
Mark McBride-Wright 56:05
Fabulous. But we’ll put a link to your profile in the show notes as well in the transcript. Thank you very much. Andy, thank you.
Andy Webster 56:13
Thanks, Mark. Take care. Bye. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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