Many organisations already bear the scars of the current recession but, with cool-headed leadership, integrity, and an eye firmly on the horizon, smart businesses can win through. That is Jerry Blackett’s advice - and as Chief Executive of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, Jerry has a bird’s eye view of who is getting it right (and who is taking flight!) Here, he shares his perspective with Catalyst editor Lesley Griffiths

What are the biggest challenges to business of the current downturn?

Keeping an eye on the long term whilst we take action to survive the short term. Businesses are doing all they can to cut costs, including redundancies, but the fear is that when recovery comes we won’t be fast enough off the blocks – we’ll have lost the people, the skills, and the infrastructure. That takes a couple of years to regain and, meanwhile, our smarter competitors move ahead. Some companies are tackling this  through things like short-time working initiatives, reducing staff hours but  retaining the skills necessary to stay poised for recovery.

The recent British Chambers of Commerce Convention, was entitled ‘The Road to Recovery’ – Do you feel optimistic for business?

Yes, there’s still business to be done and I think it’s too crude to paint a recession as negative for everyone. Our Chamber has 3,000 members and in every sector there are winners and losers, even in this economy. Volatility does bring opportunity and in particular, there are opportunities in international trade. Also, we’ve grown to understand the value of manufacturing afresh – we’d got sucked into this services ‘miracle’ and we had an economy that could  be led almost totally by services. We now have a renewed respect for the contribution manufacturing makes to a balanced economy and the policies we need to encourage it and to sustain it. I think it’s well overdue.

With many businesses focused on financial survival, what is the impact on the ‘softer’ areas such as employee engagement and values?

There’s a renewed interest in developing external relationships to try to create opportunities for new business. And I have a sneaky hope of some reinvigoration of corporate involvement. It gives organisations like Chambers of Commerce the chance to reinforce the power of community involvement and why it makes good business sense to do it. Having spent 15 years chasing our tails making more money, many of us are left wondering what have we to show for it? Is there more to business than making money?

We used to think of organisations as machines and in the early ‘90s Process Reengineering had us filling walls with flip charts in search of efficiencies. But in the end two thirds of the companies surveyed admitted to little improvement in their profit or service quality. It had completely missed the people piece. Since then I’ve seen a continual shift towards a real recognition that it’s about the values, beliefs, and attitude of the people behind the processes.

What is the impact of the present economy on skills?

I think the recession will expose those companies that haven’t thought about skills before now – you can’t get by, the recession will find you out. If you haven’t got a good product delivered by good people and that represents good value for money, you’re one of those businesses that is likely to go under. In any recession there is a purge and it’s a bit Darwinian but I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing. If you look at  productivity statistics here in the West Midlands for instance, we’re about 10% less productive than we should be and a large part of that is to do with unskilled people. Recession is an opportunity to tackle the productivity gap. I think we will emerge with a stronger business base than we had going into it.

No doubt the recession will also expose poor leadership, what is key to leadership in testing times?

Hanging on to your beliefs and attitude and not getting blown off course; focusing on what is the right thing to do, rather than being opportunistic or short-sighted; staying calm, taking rational decisions, having grounded optimism. It’s such an odd economy at present, most of us are managing from day to day, rather than year to year and I think there is a risk that you start losing your head, making quick and poor decisions because you feel you need to be seen to be acting. It’s also important to keep physically well, to keep your life in balance and make time for fitness, health, and family. You could spend all your life at work and get quite ill worrying about it and many do, you see the incidences of stroke and heart attack rise steeply during a recession.

What does leadership mean to you?

Winning commitment to a shared cause through involving people in the decisions. I’m a big believer in the idea that you’ll only commit to something if you feel involved in the discussion. It’s easy to kid yourself that you’re bringing your people with you but skip the involvement bit and - whilst you may get some nodding heads and supportive behaviour - what you actually get is compliance. I devote a lot of time to understanding the motives and aspirations of the people working with me, and the environment I need to create for them to perform out of their socks.

A very important role of leadership is to build confidence and to have high expectations of people – an executive colleague once encouraged me to be more demanding of people, saying ‘They will follow you, you know’. It was quite a defining moment for me – a reminder not to wobble on standards, to be brave enough to encourage this level of performance. People will respond to the bar being raised a bit and will often go further than they thought they could.

What advice would you give to future leaders?

I would ask what is it that you do that makes your heart sing? What is the 90% that you do well and how do we get you to do more of it? Rather than, what is the 10% that you do badly and how do we expose it until you bleed? I’ve grown up in big corporate worlds where leaders often obsess over the bad stuff and take for granted the good. I’m much more inspired by what you’re great at and how we can get you to do more of it - it’s such a liberation! It doesn’t mean staying in your comfort zone, it’s not a weakness or a cop-out. You can still challenge yourself within the boundaries of the stuff you’re good at, you can still feel tense and nervous about it, but you have an inner sense of confidence that you can do it. It’s such a better way to live your life - as an individual let alone as a leader.

What would you like for a legacy?

If the people I’m leading now were to meet in the pub in twenty years time, how would I want them to remember me? I’d like to think they’d say something like: ‘He really encouraged me, if it wasn’t for him I don’t think I would be where I am today’. That interests me much more than a corporate legacy.

© Caret, 2009. All Rights Reserved

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