Listening, leading and lifelong learning

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Altitude X, the Business Leaders Podcast. I'm Holly Clark, product manager at Peak, and joining me today, I have Martin York, the former head of supply chain, technical and product development at Radley London. With over three decades of experience in the fashion and footwear industry at leading brands such as ASOS and Puma, Martin has spent a successful career managing complex global supply chains, leading product innovation, and developing strategies for sustainable growth. Martin has most recently been the driving force behind Radley's innovative approach to sustainable supply chain management and is a distinguished leader that we're very excited to have here today. In this episode, Martin York and I sit down to talk all things footwear, fashion and supply chains. We even talk about how important it is to have curiosity about everything you do and to always keep learning. Enjoy. Welcome, Martin. It's so great to have you here today on Altitude X, the Business Leaders Podcast.

Speaker B: It's great to be here. Thank you very much.

Speaker A: Holly, to start us off, how has your confidence changed as you've moved through your career and become a leader?

Speaker B: I think the biggest thing is, for me, the confidence is being able to impart knowledge. So if I've learned something, being able to, whether it's a whole team or parts of a team and sit down, I've learned this, and this is how this works. And then having the courage to listen to feedback and someone challenge that and going, oh, uh, okay, listen, I'll take that on board. Let's see if that does work and try it. Because although you built confidence in one thing, if someone else then challenges it, rationalizes it. Okay, let's give it a go. Let's see if that does or doesn't work. In terms of leadership, the important part of leadership to me is that relationship and that trust that you build with everyone within your internal and your external teams, because people will look to you for different decisions, people will look to you for direction. And, uh, as long as you're clear, as long as you're directive and at points you won't know the answer. Put your hand up. Hang on a minute. I just need to think. Because you don't necessarily need to answer a question right there, and then you do need to answer it, and you need to come back inequivocally. But having the courage to go, you know what, hang on it. I'll just take a thread, I'll have a couple, and then I'll come back to you. Because I haven't got everything to loop together to be able to answer that directly right now.

Speaker A: I like that being courageous and admitting when you don't have the answer.

Speaker B: Yeah, why would you not? Because it's too easy to make a rash decision and go, yes, do that. Uh, and then suddenly go, oh, the wheels are going to come off. That's not really what we want. The wheels all need to be on and they all need to be moving in the same direction because if they're not, that's a problem. So take that time. And a lot of people work in some very high pressure situations and there is a lot of expectation about making the quick decision. And in some instances, yes, you're valid and you're right, you can make from quick decisions. There are a lot of instances, particularly when it comes to creation and, uh, when it comes to manufacture, that your decision has to be thought through because there are a logical amount of steps and there are logical steps, especially when you come to manufacture that kind of have to be followed. And uh, if they're not followed again, that's where the wheels come off. And what you spent three, six months developing because you've made a rash decision, the wheels come off, causes you problems in production, you get massive reject, and that's not what you want. So when you get to that more impactful decision, and I use manufacturing as an example because that's my direct experience, but if you extrapolate that, uh, across different fields of responsibility, it's having that courage to go and it's not stepping back, it's going, oh, I'm going to pause because at the minute I just need to think about cause, uh, and effect and then make that decision.

Speaker A: That's interesting because when I first moved into a leadership role, I often felt like I had to make decisions very quickly. I think you feel almost a bit of pressure. I'm a new leader. I, uh, need to make decisions really quickly. And that's where, as you say, the wheels can come off sometimes.

Speaker B: Yeah, it is. And uh, I think, as I said, there are situations where you can make some quick decisions and, um, your instinct will lead you to the right decision in terms of the bigger, ah, more strategic structural decisions. That's where I think, I feel strongly that you have to have the courage to go, hang on a second. We answer that right now. I, uh, can sense there's going to be things wrong. Now, I'm no Jedi, but if you sense things are going to go wrong, they probably will. And again, that comes into the imposter system syndrome that we talked about previously. It's then looking at the imposter and go, you Point yourself over there, because I'm just going to rationalize it, work out what's right and then do that. The biggest tool you've got is your brain. And the second you tell your brain, yes, I think I can, or no, actually, I know I can do this, you're always going to have doubts as a human being that imposter syndrome is going to come in. But it's looking at the imposter syndrome and just saying, no, no, no. You sit in the corner, have a cup of tea. I'm going to think about this. And this is how I think I'm going to execute. This is how I think I'm going to build this product. If I sat down to draw on a pouring wet Sunday afternoon, I mean, it's Tuesday and it's absolutely tipping it down here. I could just sit and draw for hours with something that I've envisioned in my head. But I would never say I was designer M just purely creative that happens to have a gift of being able to make things.

Speaker A: I really love what you just said there about telling yourself you can do it. Like putting the imposter syndrome in a corner and saying, actually, I can do this. Have you always had the ability to do that? To kind of compartmentalize the doubt and say, nope, I got this, Nope.

Speaker B: Sometimes I would not be the only one in the room that would have doubts about whether they can or can't. But if you don't try, you don't know. So let's try something. And if it sticks and it works, great. It's worked. You've thought you've worked out something. You've then given yourself that, uh, inbuilt confidence, though you don't know everything, and accepting that you don't know everything, but you can do something. I tried skiing once. Absolutely atrocious. And I'm a pretty cool naked human. But I was terrible at skiing. Snowboarding, I sort of got that. But I found that conflicted with decades of skateboarding. Coming off the toe edge and the heel edge, I was throwing myself all over the place. But then you put me on a bike. I'm a lunatic. You put me on a rock face again. I just climb it. It's different strokes for different folks, isn't it? And I think some things stick and you work at it and you make it work. I mean, for instance, I play cricket left handed, I played golf right handed. Now you taught me how my brain works to be able to enable me to be able to do that.

Speaker A: It sounds like instinct has been Quite important in your career and in your life.

Speaker B: Well, it has. And if you don't trust your own instinct, I mean, if I don't trust my own instinct, my dog will proper tell me off by walking around at lunchtime. It was chucking it down with the rain. Instead of doing the normal hour that I would do with her. I haven't, because she'd be really crossing me all day. Instinct tells me she'll be slightly peeved if I did that. And, um, I know that's a jokey response, but in real life you wouldn't necessarily want to do look at how I walk in the pouring rain when you can actually take time, just look out the window and think about what decision it is you need to make. That random thought. But if you give yourself the time, you'll make better decisions.

Speaker A: I completely agree. And also in another symbolic way, the rain isn't going to last forever. There's going to be other opportunities for you to do the things you need to do. When we talked last week, we talked a lot about relationships. How important they are, how important they've been in your career and in your life, building them, how much value they can bring to you. Talk to me about the role that building relationships has had on your career.

Speaker B: It's the most defining part of anybody's career, I would say. And certainly for me, building strong, trusted, open relationships with your internal teams and then your external teams at your supply base. And it's understanding how people work. Because then going back to some of your earlier commentary, it's then you change your dialect and your responses to people based on how they like to be spoken to or managed. Your relationship building process is so much a m part of that. Uh, there are so many cultural differences and gender differences and how some people do and instinctively don't like to be spoken to. It's adapting to those changes and knowing that you're delivering a question or a response that will be received warmly. Even bad news can be delivered warmly. And the relationship building process I find immeasurably important. It's how you build that trust. It's how you can find the routes through to any solution that you need to find by building really strong relationships.

Speaker A: Interesting. So the key to problem solving often can be in the relationships that you build. Is that what you're doing?

Speaker B: Saying, partly, yes. The problem solving is a lot of it. You'll probably think about it. I mean, I've certainly thought about some of the problems I've had to face in my career, but, well, how do I get from here to here. I need to talk to that person, to that person, to that person, and then go out to the supplier and this is what I need to do. Conversely, there are some decisions. I go, fundamentally, this is absolutely what we need to do. And, um, then brief the team. I've made this change. We have to do it because this is the situation we're facing right now, where you don't know what the outcome's going to be immediately, but you're making the right decision at the right time.

Speaker A: When you're building a relationship with someone, you can feel when, oh, actually we have a bit of a connection here. You can feel the cogs turning. It feels great when you build relationships with people.

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not going to sit here and say, um, I'm Freud. I don't understand people all the time because we're all people. We're all fundamentally different. Certainly I've had team members call up and say, this isn't going well. I don't really understand what this is or is. I can't believe you've done that. You have a rational conversation being able to not necessarily justify, but rationalize it. This is my thought process and this is why I'm taking this action. What I'd like you to do is that conversely, someone could be, no, I don't think that's the right thing. What we haven't thought about is this. Take that on board as a leader and go, okay, I haven't got everything right. You make a really valid point, actually. I need to make a swing change that will change this project route because what you've said is completely valid. And also having the courage to accept

Speaker A: that, yeah, we can't all be right all the time. We don't know everything. We're going to get things wrong. And that's where having relationships with people helps. You can lean on other people's expertise and their opinions and their different ways of looking at things as a leader. We talked about this last week, but we need to recognise as leaders that not everyone likes to be led in the same way that we would like to be led. How do you kind of tailor your leadership to people based on their needs?

Speaker B: Everyone has different needs. As you grow with your team, I mean, if you had a new team member on board, I would always say to that new team member, give yourself 90 days to learners. Because normally in 90 days, people start getting the understanding, they start getting the language and they start to understand a new team. And it's about spending time with those people. To be able to bring them on board in terms of being able to lead a team, they've got to have confidence in you as much as you've got to have confidence in them. It works both ways. It really does. To lead well, you've got to show that you're on and be confident in what you're doing. And if you have imposter that comes into the room, it's again pushing it to the corner and going, hang on a second. No, you go away. I'm just going to think about this and um, write my notes down. Writing notes is invaluable whether you do it on screen, whether you do it on paper using an actual pen. However you write those notes, put your thoughts down. Because if you put them down on paper and you read them back, you go, hang on a second. That's where the problem is. That's where it's not working. That's the missing piece.

Speaker A: Altitude X, the business leaders podcast, is brought to you by Peak, the only AI platform for inventory and pricing optimization that delivers real commercial gains. To find out more about Peak and how you can get game changing AI, visit us at Peak AI. How do you like people to build relationships with you?

Speaker B: Building relationships with me is, it's all about hearing, listening and trust. You accept that people have their own confidences, that people have their own skill sets. If someone hears you as well as listening, the two are very different. If someone hears you, it's very, very different. One of my four managers at, uh, one of the biggest companies I work for was immense when it came to hearing me. He would listen, but he would hear what I was saying. And um, not that we always agreed on everything, but we would always have a back and forth conversation and he would have the courage to listen to what I was saying. Equally, I would have the courage to listen to what he was saying. Because some people don't, they don't leave clothes, they weighs and go, nope, don't worry. Everything else, that's the decision I've made. If you listen and you hear what someone's being said, there is a reason why and you have that rational conversation, you go, ah, uh, I've got it now. What I was thinking wasn't far off of that. But if I change that, uh, and I change that, that gets us to there, that particular person's made a really valid point.

Speaker A: So listening, hearing and trust, those were your three. What would you say the key differences between listening and hearing are? Because I think it's very important to call out listening and hearing as different things. I completely agree. I'd love to get your view on how they're different.

Speaker B: So do you listen to the Beatles or do you hear, uh, the Beatles now? Listening is listening to the sound. Hearing is understanding the words that are then spoken and the inference that's within them. That's my take on that. Um, that will be the key difference for me. And it's hearing somebody's words spoken as opposed to just listening them. So that will be how I translate it, rightly or wrongly, in terms of how I liked to be heard. It's for someone to just listen and, um, hear what I'm saying. Because nine times out of 10, if I speak for I will have thought about what she's all to say with no loaded gun. It's just, these are my thoughts. This is a situation. This is how I think we get out of it. Or this is what I think we need to do to improve things and having the courage to be heard.

Speaker A: And some people might talk and not explicitly share what they're really trying to communicate with you, if that, uh, makes sense.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that can happen with your team members. And it's trying to encourage that, uh, open conversation with them so that you get out what it is they're trying to say. I've had it where I've had certain managers, and instinct has told me what I need to be saying, but brain then kicks in and goes, now's not the time for that. Now is the time to just not say all of that. Because there's cause and effect and you can't say everything that you want to say. Well, you should be able to. You can't.

Speaker A: And so it's about hearing behind the past. The words sometimes and really to the meaning of what someone is trying to communicate. What's the biggest sign that someone is listening but not hearing?

Speaker B: Distraction. Now, uh, if someone's writing notes, fine. But if they're looking out the window or there's a nonchalance in the answer, uh, and it's not necessarily in time with what questions or points you're raising. You know, there's a distance and they're probably thinking about something else that's equally or more important. And it's then understanding that body language, that demeanor, uh, and then take yourself away and go, okay, I'll readdress this later point. Because now's just not the time.

Speaker A: Like when people are emailing during meetings. Exactly what tests relationships the most for you?

Speaker B: Decisions that create distrust. So you present a certain level of answers to a question. And then someone, um, doesn't listen to a word you said, and you've said it for the right reasons, with the right validation, with the right direction and the right strategic thinking, but then it's overruled. And then you automatically think, is my opinion not valid? Of course it is. My opinion's completely valid. I'm a human being. I'm allowed to think for myself. But you can get those challenges, and I think that's where you have to rise above. Okay, we'll work it out.

Speaker A: That feels like it connects quite closely to the trust, listening and the hearing. So feeling like someone's listened to you, someone's heard you, and then you trust that they are making the best decision off the back of that.

Speaker B: Exactly that. Recognizing. If I think about myself, that's happened a few times in my career where someone's made a decision that's gone left field. And I don't mind a little bit of left field. That can be fun. But if it's counted against what is a logical decision, that's then challenging. And I accept. That's my challenge. But it's also. Was that right? What did I say that wasn't right? And you do have that. That's where imposter syndrome can come in. And you start to go, hmm, m. Where's that self doubt come from? Because I've not done that. But again, it's. That's the time teaches you how to get past that. Knowledge and wisdom help you get past that. And seeing a rash decision, you can put the wheels back on because your experience teaches you how to do it, whether you agree with it or not. Your professionalism then goes right front and center. Uh, we're going to fix this and we're going to make wheels keep going.

Speaker A: You mentioned knowledge and wisdom there. And something that I really wanted to chat to you about is the topic of learning. Where does learning come into this? Is it more of a passion to

Speaker B: get to know me as a person? Yes, anybody. You need to be heard, to be listened to, get to know people. You have to have the courage to let your doors down and let people in, because that's the way people understand you, equally the way you understand other people in terms of learning. He never stopped learning. Never stop learning. You can learn something new any given day of the week. And, um, the second you think you know everything, you've lost, because there's always something new to learn. I mean, I teach myself things quite a lot. I spend a lot of time doing things that I love learning. I just do Always have done. I hated, although conversely, I hated learning at school. I didn't like it. It felt contrived and loaded. But now, as a free thinking, I'll use the word in inverted commas. Paddled. Um, I get to learn on my own terms and, um, that's immeasurably important for me. My brain's quite a sponge. I can adapt to learn, especially when it comes to making stuff. I mean, bowl over there, I made that last week and, um, six months ago I would have looked at that as a lump of wood and gone, how do I do that? Well, now I do it and it's instinct because I've created myself that, uh, inbuilt knowledge that I can do that particular task. I enjoy it, I get a lot from it. And to be honest, playing around with wood is so different to what I would do as a day job. I used to make a lot of things at home in leather, but it's always felt like a bustman's holiday. Doing something completely out of context puts other things into context because it's adaptive learning.

Speaker A: Do you think that's why you didn't enjoy learning that much at school? When it feels a bit more abstract and less practical, it's because it's applied.

Speaker B: You're learning for a given output. Whereas at school, I think back then I didn't know what I wanted to be. I mean, careers advice when I was at school was if you were halfway smart, you got to be a builder. If you're a little bit smarter, you got to be a policeman. If you're really smart and you got to go into the forces. Well, none of that had any form of appeal for me as a 15, 16 year old. So I went on to further education and found stuff that I really was passionate about. I didn't know at 16 that by the time I would be 50, I'd have had a 30 year career making shoes and bags.

Speaker A: You've had such kind of specific career, you know, in footwear, in bags, in leather goods. And I think I said this last week, actually I am an adult now, but I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up. And I think that's true for a lot of people. When you look at your career, did you expect to be at this point now when you started off and you were in fashion college?

Speaker B: No, I didn't. I mean, if I go back to when I was further education college, I was playing around with clay and glass and metal. I don't play with any of Those products now it's all leather and, um, canvas and, okay, personal time, bit of wood. But certainly when I was at cordwainers, that was the big trigger. So you would have to do your own sketchboards and presentation boards. The course leader would then assess and you would go through a process of cutting your patterns, making the actual shoe. That's where everything snapped. Everything came together. I worked out I was relatively good at cutting patterns in fashion college, but it didn't quite gel. The second I got to cutting footwear patterns, bang, um, that was a big boom moment. I understood that when you're springing a pattern, whether you're deadening a pattern, whatever construction is, when you're working through that methodology, you knew because you'd made something before what the pitfalls were. So you would understand that if I cut the pattern this way, that gets around that pitfall and makes a better shoe. And then you would have to physically go and close, make and physically make the shoe. And that was the real boom moment, when you're physically putting something together that you've actually drawn yourself. And again, not saying I'm a designer, but it's the practical part of being able to put something together. And I couldn't map out how my brain goes from physical drawing to physical made object. It just works that way. I couldn't explain it. It just worked.

Speaker A: You've got that instinct for it. You've got the combination perhaps, of the kind of the scientific and the technical and the creative to see the intersection between the two.

Speaker B: Yeah, intersection's a great word, especially when you're in leading development and supply chain. You are a bit of an arbiter for that design ethos. Ultimately, you're having, not just having to produce a sample. You've got, uh, to replicate that across 100, 1,000, 10,000 pieces that have all got to look fundamentally the same. What do you have to do to be able to make sure that all of those replicated items do indeed look the same? That nucleus that starts and builds that bridge, the intersection across all those disciplines, helps you deliver something far better.

Speaker A: All of those disciplines must be so much to learn. I'm just amazed at how much information you must had to take in. And, um, it definitely seems learning is a pleasure for you. But there's a pain, I think, in learning too. So the necessary hard work, the, uh, dedication, perhaps looking at what other people know, and that kind of inadequacy of, oh, these are things I need to learn. Do you still feel the pain in learning as well, or is it all pleasure now.

Speaker B: It's not all pleasure. There is a pain in learning because there is that bit where the human slice you goes, oh, uh, more, I don't want to do that.

Speaker A: Uh, that.

Speaker B: And you see the imposter stood around the door. And the second I see the imposter stand around the door, it's like, no, you're not even trying to get around that door today. And that's my mentality most days is, no, you're not coming in. This is the way we're going to do it. We're going to make something awesome happen today. And there's so much information out there. You only have to touch the Internet. And a plethora of information is right at your fingertips. Is it right, wrong or indifferent? Who really knows? Hardwired on. My brain's hardwired to work it out for myself now, if I don't know something and, um, I need to know how to do something, I'll ask. And to me, that's not a courageous thing. That's an obvious thing. You get lost somewhere in a town that you just don't know. Sat nav is trying to then steer you into the middle of a river. You fundamentally know that that's not right. And as a man, even though pride does sometimes get in the way, you stand there and you find the nearest person, say, excuse me, I'm a bit lost. I'm trying to find X. How do we get there? And then someone gives you some backslided information. You're like, that's not right. Then you ask someone else, ah, uh. So that's how I get there. So it's not down there through the river and whatever. It's actually there, over the hill. That's how I get what I want to get to asking. Um, I've always had, with all of my teams, open door, if you want to know something, just ask, because I don't necessarily know the answer. But I'll tell you what, if two brands are on it, we'll probably get there quicker.

Speaker A: Absolutely. People see things in different ways, don't they, and have different perspectives, and that can be so valuable. I have one last question for you, the same question that I'm asking every one of my guests on this podcast. What's the legacy that you'd like to leave behind personally and professionally?

Speaker B: On both counts, Personally and professionally, I'm not done yet.

Speaker A: I love it. Mic drop moment.

Speaker B: Pretty much.

Speaker A: Any more you'd like to expand or is it mic drop moment?

Speaker B: I'll leave that there as it is, I think, for me, I feel fortunate to have experienced what I've experienced across the last three decades. I've traveled a lot. I've met some awesomely interesting people. I've met some amazingly awkward people. And, um, I think if I was to go back on my profile and just read some of the comments that have been left on there, it's all very consistent, which leads me to believe that in my career, I've been pretty consistent and I've built some trusty relationships and relationships that I trust. I think my one outtake is that I have been very fortunate. I've learned a lot, and I still have a lot to learn, and I have the courage to learn it. And anybody else that is in a position where they're not sure which direction or which decision to make, put your hand up in us. Because there's nothing wrong with asking a question.

Speaker A: You're totally right. And it's sometimes really important to just remind ourselves that because you can feel that imposter syndrome of what will people think if I ask? Or will I look like I don't know enough? But that's. We're all capable of asking and should ask.

Speaker B: Yeah, ask, have a conversation, work it out. It's not that difficult.

Speaker A: It's been such a pleasure talking to you, Martin. I have really, really enjoyed the last hour, however long we've spoken for. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Great talking with you.

Speaker A: And you. Altitude X, the Business Leaders Podcast, is brought to you by Peak, the only AI platform for inventory and pricing optimization that delivers real commercial gains. Make sure you're searching for the Altitude X Business Leaders podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss an episode.

Speaker B: Sam.