James Reed - Navigating Careers and Transforming Lives

Full transcript: James Reed on London Real

3:19 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is James Reed, chairman of Reed, Britain’s biggest and best known recruitment brand founded by your father, Sir Alex Reed in 1960. You are the author of two best-selling books, which I have right here. Why You? 101 Interview Questions You’ll Never Fear Again and Put Your Mindset to Work, which you co-authored with Dr. Paul Stoltz. You have a degree in philosophy from Oxford and MBA from Harvard Business School, but your biggest achievement has to be your six children.

4:46 Brian Rose: Welcome to London.

4:47 James Reed: Thanks for that, Brian. I couldn’t agree more. That’s the best thing I ever did.

4:52 Brian Rose: I want to talk about that later because six is quite a number. But you had me from the get-go in YU because you quoted my favorite movie of all time in the very first chapter, which is when Bud Fox goes in to meet Gordon Gekko and he looks himself in the mirror and he adjusts his tie and he says, life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.

5:14 James Reed: That’s right.

5:14 Brian Rose: And that’s probably the essence of really what you do because when people go into those interviews, which you put companies and people together, it all is down to those few moments that can alter the course of someone’s life.

5:28 James Reed: That’s completely right. And that’s the quote that begins the book.

5:32 James Reed: And I would agree with you. Life is all about those few moments. And the moment when you change path and start a new career or start a new job is a big, big moment. But a lot of people don’t see it like that or forget that and don’t prepare for the moment or not ready for the moment when it comes.

5:48 Brian Rose: It’s a lot of pressure thinking that your life can take a left turn or right turn. In the book, you talk about the band, the police and how the drummer sat next to the guitar player in a tube. And that’s how that band was created. And if he had missed the train, it wouldn’t have happened. There’s a lot of that in life, isn’t there?

6:06 James Reed: There’s a chance. And that was a conversation. And it was a conversation that led to them working together and starting a band that was a global phenomenon, a great success. And an interview is a conversation. And it’s important that we realize that. It’s a conversation between two people who hopefully have something to give each other. So when you’re going for an interview, it’s not just about whether I’m right for the job. It’s whether the job is right for you and whether that’s a job you want to do.

6:34 And it’s a job you’re going to be fulfilled and feel happy doing. And I think that’s just important as whether you’re going to get the job.

6:41 Brian Rose: I want to talk about some like actionable items that people watching and listening can learn from you when it comes to their next interview. But before that, you have this whole concept that you want people to love Mondays. That’s the essence of what you do. And I was reminded of a quote I heard from Michael Bloomberg back in the day before he became mayor of New York City. And he used to say Sunday night was his favorite because he got to go to work the next day. And Michael Bloomberg was a Wall Streeter.

7:06 And he set up this company Bloomberg. And it grew to this huge financial information services company. Still is huge. And I remember I read his book and I wasn’t loving my Mondays at that point. And I thought he was a little crazy. But now I do love my Mondays at London Real. But I was wondering, is that a possibility for everyone to love Mondays, in your opinion?

7:25 James Reed: Yeah, there was a guy who was enjoying his work. And I really believe that’s right. Our message is love Mondays. And it’s a very simple message. And it’s being heard by people who are not happy in their work. So if you’re not happy as you were in your job, look for another one. And we can help you. And so we’ve got thousands and thousands of jobs every day on our website, a quarter of a million at the moment. And they’re there to help people make a change.

7:49 So we only live once. We spend most of our working hours, our waking hours at work. It’s important to have a job that you like. And I think there is a job for everyone that they will enjoy. And everyone has the possibility of loving Mondays.

8:01 Brian Rose: Right. And we spend a third of our life at work, right?

8:05 James Reed: Yeah, at least. Depends on what hours you do. If you think about your waking hours, probably at least.

8:11 Brian Rose: At least that. And then the next one is sleep after that. Yeah. Work, sleep, repeat, or whatever it is. Work, eat, sleep, repeat. So that’s such an important thing. And it’s where we find fulfillment, is how people often define themselves.

8:25 Who are you able to describe what they do? I’m a footballer, I’m a TV producer, I’m a scientist. And that is such an important part of our fulfillment as human beings. And having meaningful work, I think, is really key to happiness. You crowdsource a lot of your information in your books because you kind of have your finger on the pulse with so many people coming through your website. And you get feedback from employers and employees. What’s the biggest thing that we wouldn’t know about searching for a job, thinking about a new career? What’s the biggest mistake someone usually makes?

8:58 James Reed: Well, you’re right. We get 150 million people a year come to our website looking for jobs. We can survey them. We can see what their issues and concerns are. I mean, the biggest problem is not being prepared when you go for an interview, I would say. If you get that far, not being prepared is a problem. And 60% of our job seekers will say that they’re nervous or worried about an interview. I don’t know why the other 40% aren’t, because they should be, because it’s an important moment, as you said. But they probably are, but don’t want to admit it.

9:30 So it’s a moment that people recognize is important, but often they’re nervous and worried. And the more prepared you are, the more confident you’re going to be when you get there. And that makes a big, big difference. And that’s why we did the book. I mean, what we did for the book was a very simple thing. We asked our clients, the employers that we work with, what’s your favorite interview question?

9:49 And we got thousands and thousands of questions back. And we put the questions that were most commonly asked or most interesting in the book. So they’re real questions being asked by real interviewers right now. So they’re really relevant. And then we got workshops together of our recruitment specialists and said, how should someone think about answering this question?

10:06 So there’s a lot of information in there that I hope will put an end to some of that anxiety around the conversation, the moment, if you like.

10:14 Brian Rose: Yeah. And I want to go over a few questions because you wrote an article for Huffington Post about the 15 most feared questions. I want to go over a few of those soon. But you’ve said that people spend more time preparing dinner than they do preparing their interview oftentimes.

10:28 James Reed: Yeah. I mean, I’m amazed how little preparation, some people come in for interviews with me have done. And it’s not hard to do a bit of research.

10:36 So and that’s not going to work. And also, I think it’s disappointing because if you spend more time thinking about what you’re going to eat in your next meal or what type of fridge you’re going to buy, you’re missing the point that this is where you spend your waking hours and your key time when you’re most alert and most focused at work. And so you want to really give that proper thought. And the beginning of the book is all about what are my motivations?

10:58 Why do I want to do this job? And it’s important to give that real thought before you embark on the journey of a job search.

11:05 Brian Rose: I wonder if you could grade me as an employer with how I interview. So let me just tell you a little bit more of a process and then tell me maybe what I’m thinking and maybe what someone else would think when I ask them to do that. So say we’ll advertise a position and someone will show some interest via email or your site. I’ve actually put an ad on your site.

11:24 James Reed: Excellent. Pretty happy so far with that. You got some applications?

11:27 Brian Rose: Yeah, we did. The applications are flying in. What I do is I ask everyone to send me a three-minute selfie video. We’re big into videos here. We do a lot of vlogging and videos and we have an academy and accelerator programs. And we always get people to post videos talking about experiences.

11:42 And I ask for a three-minute selfie video and I usually say, tell me about yourself and what you can do for London Real. And for me, that gives me so much information about them, whether I think it’s worthy of a meeting because I can tell so many things, which I’m sure you can tell me that I can tell. But character, poise, if they wear something presentable, all those things tell me more about their character. But when they come in here and they sit down in the studio, I don’t look at the CV. I don’t actually ask them about the CV. I find that I just say, tell me about yourself. And I just ask them questions about them and their past for the first 10, 15 minutes. And I listen and watch. And I usually learn everything I need to know about their character, about the way they frame events in their life, if they’re the victim all the time or if they’re the one that are constantly overcoming these issues and looking for solutions. How do I do when it comes to…

12:33 James Reed: Well, I think that’s a good approach. I mean, tell me about yourself is the first question in the book. So that was the question that gets most commonly asked. So people who arrive for an interview and haven’t prepared that question are not going to be in a good place because it’s a big open question. And you can make a lot of mistakes if you haven’t thought about it before you get there and haven’t thought about why you’re there. So what you’re asking, I think,

12:57 Is really good because you’re asking, tell me about yourself and what can you do for me. Right. So that’s the essence of the conversation. You’re getting three minutes of information before you decide to see anyone because there is an expectation when you sit down for an interview, it’s going to last at least half an hour, I suppose. So you’re going to make a big time commitment so you can get to a shorter shortlist. And I think that’s a good way of doing it.

13:19 And there are two things you’re really looking for, I think, when you interview someone. But the first, when you want to employ someone or work with someone, you’re looking for two things. You’ve got to trust them to be honest, and you’ve got to trust them to be competent. And when you start asking about character, there’s a lot of integrity questions that people have that they’re trying to find out about the person’s character. And that’s critical because you’re going to decide whether you want them on the basis of whether they have integrity before, whether they have competence. So if someone shows up and they say, well, I’ve done all these things, I’ve made all these great programs, and I think you should give me a job, you don’t think they’re quite straight, you’re going to discount them.

14:00 Brian Rose: Right. And so you say the question is this, but the real question is this. So when they say, tell me about yourself, what they’re really looking for is for you to prove integrity. And then after that, show competence.

14:11 James Reed: Yeah, that’s what I think. And it’s also, they want to know about you professionally, not personally. Although they might want to know a little bit about you personally, and they might ask more questions about that afterwards. But they want to know about what you’ve done, what you want to do next, how you define yourself. And ultimately, as a result of that, what you have to contribute. It’s all about what you have to contribute. Too many people go to job interviews, I think, thinking, what can I get out of this organization or this conversation for myself? And they kind of forget that they’re there to solve a problem for someone. Yeah.

14:42 Brian Rose: Entrepreneurs hire people to help them solve problems. And a lot of people forget that. People talk about the millennials, the me generation, probably maybe some of your kids might fall into that. Do you see a group of younger people coming through that are coming into those corporations say, what do I get as opposed to what can I do for you?

15:00 James Reed: Well, they don’t get very far if they start like that. And I think, no, a lot of young people, I think, are fantastic candidates at the moment, because they seem to be quite a serious-minded group, the millennials, who want to be committed. But what they do want, in my experience, is to find work that they find fulfilling and has meaning. So that’s really important to young people. They want to join an organization that they feel has integrity and do work that is meaningful. And if you can offer them that, then you’re going to get some good people.

15:29 But this thing about thinking about an employer as a sort of food truck that’s broken down by the side of the road, and what can I get? That’s not going to get you anywhere very fast.

15:38 Brian Rose: Yeah, I’ve had people write and tell me all the things that they want from the job. I see that a lot more often than not. That’s a very basic mistake. And I think, you know, thinking about what you have to contribute and what the employer can gain from having you in their team is the starting point. What I look for when I’m asking the questions when they’re finally here is two people could have the same thing happen to them and then have a completely different view on it. And so I’m looking to see how they process failure. That’s really what I look for. And then where they go from there and where they go from there, and just the language they use, because that’s super important for me.

16:14 James Reed: Yeah, I was talking to someone the other day, and I asked him, what’s your favorite interview question? So you told me, you always tell me about yourself. And he said his favorite question after he’d had the conversation with it was, what was your greatest failure? And he wanted to hear about that and what they’d learn. But I think it’s interesting, because I think sometimes, someone said to me a long time ago, sometimes when you think you’re being unlucky, you’re being lucky. And when you think you’re being lucky, you’re being unlucky.

16:38 And it’s not until a long time afterwards that you necessarily know. So it might feel like a failure, something at the time. But it might have led to a sequence of events that was a good thing.

16:47 Brian Rose: Yeah, could be the character builder.

16:48 James Reed: Yeah, certainly. I think people who have had setbacks earlier in life are often a lot more resilient than people who have flown through all their exams and got top degrees.

16:56 Brian Rose: Yeah. Do people read CVs anymore?

16:58 James Reed: Well, my next book, the one that I’m working on, is called The Seven Seconds CV. And that’s based on the thesis that people look at a CV for around seven seconds. So on average,

17:09 Brian Rose: and what do they look for?

17:11 James Reed: Well, one of the things they seem to look for straight away is, are there any mistakes on this CV?

17:17 Brian Rose: Interesting.

17:18 James Reed: Because that’s one way to discount them. And then they’re looking for sort of standout, whether the person’s got the skills and experience, probably for the job, but any standouts that will tell them a bit about their character. Because the CV gets you to the interview, it’s your sort of marketing document that gets you to the interview. They can tell so much in the CV, but when they get to the interview, they’re really going to be looking to explore your character more, I think.

17:42 Brian Rose: Okay, so think of it just as that, a seven second piece, to be accurate and hopefully piques their interest with something on there.

17:49 James Reed: Yeah, you know, one of the questions in the book that came back from our crowd source was, every CV has a lie in it, what’s yours? I thought that was quite a mean question. And I think it shouldn’t have a lie in it, your CV, that’s the starting point, it should be honest and factual. You’d be surprised how many do. So, you know, it’s important that the CV is a factual summary of who you are, and that it’s well presented, error free, and hopefully has some has some highlights in it that will attract their interest.

18:16 Brian Rose: Okay, what about the creative CV? I’ve seen them now, they’re photoshopped, they’ve got really fascinating timelines and things like that. Are you a fan of that?

18:24 James Reed: Yeah, I think that if that stands out, if it’s good, if it looks good, and it’s compelling, and it’s right for whatever it is you’re applying for, why not try it? You know, I think years ago, my cousin was applying for a job in a film company, and he did his CV as a little drawing, a sequence of cartoons about his life, and sent it on one piece of paper, and he got the job. I thought it was cool.

18:45 Brian Rose: Yeah, that’ll make an impression.

18:47 James Reed: Yeah, exactly. That’s going to stand out for a pilot. If you’ve got seven seconds to look at them, oh, look at that one. Always look for ways to stand out.

18:56 Brian Rose: Right. Right. Let me ask you about a scenario I went through. We were both in Boston, actually we were both in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1993, right?

19:07 James Reed: 1990, I think.

19:08 Brian Rose: Ninety, okay.

19:09 James Reed: I was there in 1893. So you were hovered down the road.

19:13 Brian Rose: I was at MIT.

19:14 I was a mechanical engineer, but I was going for jobs on Wall Street. So I remember flying from Boston into New York City, taking the cab at the taxi in LaGuardia, and being like, oh my gosh, here I am in the big time. I got down to a company called Bankers Trust, which was right across from the World Trade Center at the time. This was like the hotshot derivatives place. So I got into the interview, and one of the questions the guys asked me was, how many gas stations in America?

19:40 I remember it. It was very poignant. Since I was an engineer, I actually answered it, because I started talking stream of consciousness. Well, there’s so many cars, there’s so many Americans, there’s so many this, and I’m like, it’s this many. Then the guy was like, okay. Then he said, tell me another way you could have figured that out.

19:58 He kept pushing me for these analytical questions. What advice do you give to people when they get hit with these questions?

20:06 James Reed: Did you get that job?

20:07 Brian Rose: I did, actually.

20:08 James Reed: Yeah. I think you might have done. That’s a curveball question.

20:12 There are several in the book. How many traffic lights are there in London? You’re not expected to know the answer, but what they’re looking for is how do you process the question. How do you think about the problem? In that example, you use some analysis in front of them to get to an answer that may or may not have been broadly in the area that should have been. You might say in London, how many traffic lights are there? I’ve got no idea.

20:38 Maybe in the square mile around here, let’s say 50, and if London’s 100 square miles, maybe there are 5,000. That’s a good guess. It gives you some reasoning behind why you’ve come to a decision. I think the important thing with those questions is don’t panic because they don’t have a right answer in mind. One of the questions I like, which came out of the research was, what do you think is the most search for phrase on YouTube?

21:07 Lots of people are still learning the language. In fact, the Korean edition, this question was removed from the Korean edition of the book. Along with two other questions, which I’ll mention in a minute, because they thought it was culturally inappropriate. The most search for phrase on YouTube is how to. How to fix a carburetor, how to bake a cake.

21:26 It’s nothing sort of porn related at all. I thought that was quite interesting, but they won’t know that in Korea now because it’s not in the book. Knowing how to, what does that tell you?

21:38 Brian Rose: YouTube is a great educational channel. People are going to look at YouTube for info. They want to learn things there. It’s become the world’s university, hasn’t it? You can find how to for anything and look it up on YouTube.

21:52 Brian Rose: A lot of people panic with a question like that. I guess it’s designed to instill a little bit of panic and then just to see people’s reasoning. What if you’re not good with numbers and someone hits you with one of those things?

22:03 James Reed: A question I was asked, I remember when I was a similar age to when you went for that interview at Bankers Trust, a question I was asked by a media company and I got the job as well, but I’m not sure why because I didn’t get the answer right.

22:14 James Reed: It was just this guy, I was going for a job as a media buyer at Saatchi and Saatchi here in London. This guy just said to me, what’s 7% of 60%? I was sitting there under pressure, sort of working this out.

22:27 Brian Rose: Saatchi asked that.

22:28 James Reed: Yeah, yeah. Media buyers spend a lot of money.

22:31 So being numerate is important, but if you know how to calculate it, it’s very easy. 76 is a 42, 4.2. If you’re trying to remember how you did percentages at school, it takes a little while, so I took longer than I should have done to get to the answer. So there’s advice how to do that in the book as well.

22:47 Brian Rose: Okay, yeah, all right. So don’t panic, walk it through, take some big guest estimates and kind of move from there.

22:53 James Reed: I think so. The curveball questions, these were originally invented, I think, by Google and they became very popular because Google was the go-ahead company. And I think Google had dropped them a long time ago because they decided that they don’t really tell you whether the person’s right for the job or not. But everyone else is now using them, so you’re going to get some.

23:14 Brian Rose: Yeah, I used to ask, what’s the circumference of the earth when I started interviewing for Bankers Trust? And these MBAs would come in and I was like 23, and they would just look at me and be like, why are you doing this to me?

23:26 And I think it probably didn’t tell me anything. And very few people got it with an even factor of 100, just because I wonder sometimes.

23:32 James Reed: Would you have excluded them for getting it wrong?

23:35 Brian Rose: I thought they made a ridiculous answer. Yeah, I’m also thinking, we’re in a derivatives floor, you need to know estimates and numbers and ballpark figures, or you could lose a lot of money. So I was just thinking, maybe just think about it, like how long does it take to fly in a plane, how fast the plane go, those kinds of things.

23:50 James Reed: Yeah, if you process, that’s a good way.

23:52 How to think about problems. See, that’s at one end of the spectrum, the mistakes on CVs and other, because people are discounting you because you have a mistake on your CV, because accuracy is important to them. And if you can’t get your CV right, they’re going to kick you off.

24:07 Brian Rose: Yeah, I do that with typos, any typo, I don’t reply, typically, because it tells me something. Yeah, talking about digital footprints, social media. Do people have to watch what they’re posting on the Facebook and the Instagram and the Twitter, we both like Twitter, because their employers are going to check?

24:24 James Reed: Yeah, they will check. I mean, because when you’re looking to recruit someone, you’re trying to find out as much as you can about them. So don’t be surprised if people look you up online. And so you want to keep those private, if you’re worried about that. And there was a young woman I interviewed a year or so ago for a marketing job in our business, and she had a Twitter feed. So I’ll go and have a look at it. And it was quite funny, because one of her most recent tweets was a sort of, to raid of abuse against a bank, which was our biggest customer.

24:55 Anyway, I got her in, I said, What about this? What’s going on here? And it was quite entertaining, because she thought she wasn’t going to get the job. But it wasn’t going to stop me giving her a job. But it was, it was an interesting example of the harmless one, of what people can find very quickly about you. So I think the stuff that’s online is, is open season, really, unless you want to keep it very confidential.

25:17 Brian Rose: Is it legal? And like America, is it legal for them to check social media?

25:21 James Reed: I don’t know about America. Okay. I mean, it’s not unusual here. I mean, a lot of a lot of employees don’t. But you know, everyone’s got a lot of people got LinkedIn profiles, it’d be very normal to look at that. You know, where else would you look? I mean, Twitter, if someone’s got a Twitter feed, that’s usually a public forum. Let’s have a look at it.

25:40 Brian Rose: Yeah. You know, a lot of my colleagues have got Twitter feeds, they seem to be complaining about the rail service a lot.

25:47 James Reed: Well, I’ve filtered them, but that’s not a big issue for me.

25:50 Brian Rose: Yeah, I watch some things. And sometimes there’ll be a Twitter account that’s gone awry, or there’ll be a blog and strange things. And I don’t know, it’s made me change my mind a lot of times by what’s out there. But if someone is ranting away on Twitter on a regular basis, I don’t know if I want that energy around me.

26:07 James Reed: Well, anger’s misplaced energy, isn’t it? So if you can channel it, you’ve probably got a really good person.

26:13 Brian Rose: Okay.

26:13 Brian Rose: This is January right now. A lot of people, it’s your high season, right? You have more hits this month than any time of the year.

26:19 James Reed: Yeah, well, the beginning of the year is really big for us, because I think everyone comes back after Christmas holidays, the sort of new year, new career thing, you know, a bit like look for a new job, get fit, lose weight. It all happens in January. Yes.

26:32 So we’ve had a huge number of people visit the site and a huge number of new jobs posted on Reko UK over the last month. So we’ve had 15 million visitors and 250,000 new jobs.

26:41 Brian Rose: Okay. And is there any reason why people should think twice before looking for a new job? As in, do some people look for the new job to be the solution to all of their problems or problems at work? Because you talk about mindset a lot of times in your books as well. And as far as, you know, really thinking about who you are and what you want. Is there a deeper message here when it comes to job?

27:01 James Reed: Yeah, I think it’s really important to think carefully about why you might want to move jobs. It might be you’re in a job and you’re not happy because you don’t like your manager. It might be that you can move somewhere else in the company with a different manager.

27:14 It might be that you enjoy the work you’re doing, but you don’t enjoy the people you’re working with. So that could be a trigger for moving job, or it could be a trigger for moving department in the company you’re already in. But then I think if you’ve reflected on it for a while, it is important to love Mondays. I keep coming back to this. I think it’s possible to love Mondays.

27:35 Brian Rose: Yes. We just said you did.

27:36 James Reed: I do.

27:36 Brian Rose: Yeah. And the percentage of people in London love Mondays.

27:39 James Reed: Not high enough. Okay. Not high enough.

27:42 Brian Rose: You’re trying to get it up there.

27:43 James Reed: Yeah. Well, I think it’s possible. And so that should be a motivation to change. But you might change your job because you want to stay in the same sector and be doing the same things. You want to change firm and that might be motivated by better pay or being near a home or other reasons that are quite rational. Or you might want to change direction completely.

28:03 And if you’re going to change direction completely, you want to think about that carefully because you’re quite likely to have to step down a level or two in terms of your pay. And you might have to take some cuts to your lifestyle for a bit before you get going in the new career.

28:17 Brian Rose: Okay. Let’s talk about loving Mondays because you must know a lot about company culture and why people love certain companies and don’t love other companies. And I had a gentleman by the name of Daniel Pink in here who’s written some great books. One is called To Sell as Human.

28:31 And he said that people want three things at work if I remember correctly. And I was trying to remember them. One is mastery. One is autonomy. And one is purpose. And if you can give them those three, they will stay. And as long as they’re not paid nothing, that’s really what they’re looking for. And the companies that can’t keep people don’t have one of those three and maybe some don’t have two of those three. Do you agree with that statement?

28:54 James Reed: I think that’s a really good summary. I mean, that’s a good summary. I’d call it meaningful work.

28:59 Brian Rose: Right. So if you’ve got mastery, autonomy and purpose, that really is the essence of meaning, isn’t it?

29:04 James Reed: I think so.

29:05 You’re doing something you feel is worthwhile. You’ve become competent and good at it. And you can get on with it. Someone once said to me, hire good people and let them get on with it. That’s a good message.

29:15 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s very important. So yeah, dive deeper to those three things like mastery, give them something that they can see themselves getting better at and want to get better at. You have to give them the tools to do the job.

29:25 James Reed: Correct. So you have to give them good technology. You have to give them a good location. You have to give them a good marketing support. There’s a lot of things you need to give people to give them real mastery.

29:35 Brian Rose: To training as well. Yeah, because we’re all competing with other people, aren’t we? Yeah, that’s true. And then autonomy is very important. Like you said, let them get on with it. Nobody wants to be micromanaged. And unless you give them that, they’re not going to really enjoy it.

29:49 And then finally, purpose, like is this company doing a greater why? That’s, you know, a super important point.

29:55 James Reed: Yeah, I really think so. And I feel that the work we do has great purpose, because we’re helping people change jobs, progress their careers, change their lives. I like to call the book a life changing read. And so, you know, it’s important to us to be doing something purposeful. Yeah. And that’s where a lot of energy comes from. And I think it’s, you know, I say to people in our business, recruitment is a vocation. It’s like teaching, because you’re actually changing people’s lives, you’re helping people improve their lives.

30:22 And the people who realize that the ones who enjoy it, the ones who master it, and stay. We’ve got over 300 people in the business who have been with us more than 10 years. And that’s the for me, that’s important.

30:33 Brian Rose: Yeah, I’ve been learning more about company culture and trying to implement things around here. We’re in the center of technology here in London.

30:41 And I’ve had about 100 tech CEOs in here. And it’s important to learn things from tech and not go overboard with tech. So putting a slide in a private chef in your company doesn’t mean you have a company culture, just means you have some perks. But at the same time, if you are thinking about your employees happiness, and what might make them more productive, then you’re kind of going down that road. So we’re constantly trying to think about ways we can make this place here an environment where people feel great about the work and love coming to work and brag about their workspace. Obviously, those three things we talked about earlier are important. Is there anything you’re seeing more and more popular either here or that we’re learning from Silicon Valley when it comes to workplace, how you treat employees?

31:21 James Reed: Yeah, there is a new thing that’s emerging, which we’re just sort of starting to try out, which is desks that you consider stand out and go up and down. Yeah, because I think the sort of sedentary lifestyle is not healthy.

31:32 So sitting at a desk all day is not great. So if you can, if you can have a desk that adjusts, you can stand as well. I think that’s better for people. Yeah. The lack of sort of mobility is not healthy. So I think that’s a good development. And you don’t have to have a fancy office to have a desk like that. You just have to spend a bit more money on desks.

31:51 Brian Rose: Yeah, they say sitting is the new smoking.

31:53 James Reed: Yeah, I heard that. And if it is, we need to do something about it.

31:57 Brian Rose: Yeah, we encourage daily training around here. Actually, in the morning after our stand up meeting, we do a stand up meeting. So it doesn’t go too long either, because we don’t like people wasting time. We do like an exercise round and we play a song in the morning. So everyone’s encouraged to do some standing squats or some push ups. We play a song and then we get into work. And we also have something called maker mode in the morning. So for three hours, we are all creating something. We’re not responding to emails. We’re not responding to people. We are actually creating things. And then we open up communication after that.

32:27 James Reed: So you’ve given a lot of thought to this.

32:29 Brian Rose: Yeah, we have because we try to really work at our optimal performance here.

32:33 And so we’ve actually got someone in here who’s our peak performance officer. And we look after these things. And funny enough, now that you’re here, we’re actually having someone coming in next Thursday and drawing blood from everyone in the company that we’re going to wear in vials around our necks. No, I’m just joking.

32:50 James Reed: Did they volunteer for this?

32:51 Brian Rose: They did. But we’re actually going to do blood analysis on everyone to give them all of their nutritional, physical limitations that information will be shared with them personally and privately. And then they can choose to adjust their diets or pick up things just because we want everyone working at peak performance around here. Because like you said, it’s ultimately about the people. And I can have someone in here that can in this business, one or two of the right people can 10X my business in a growth startup. And the wrong people could zero exit. So it’s so important.

33:21 James Reed: When we did the research for Put Your Mindset to Work, we asked employers, how many of your regular employees would you trade for one, just one, with what we described as a 3G mindset, a winning mindset? We got lots and lots of numbers back. And I asked the conference of business leaders this question. And they were one would say five, one would say three, one would say eight. And someone shouted out from the back, all of them. But the actual average was seven. Seven. And so trade. There’s a lot of people who trade for just one. And that’s one exceptional person. Yeah. All right. We have what we described as a winning mindset. Okay.

33:57 Brian Rose: And what is the what is the 3G mindset?

34:00 James Reed: Oh, the 3G mindset. Well, the 3Gs are good. So that’s all about integrity and kindness. Okay. Global, which is about openness and connectivity. Okay.

34:09 And grit, which is about resilience and tenacity. And those are the 3Gs that we distill down from looking at all the qualities that people seek and other people.

34:19 Brian Rose: Okay. So those 3Gs. Yeah, that’s interesting. I think you’re right. Why do I struggle to find big people in London? I put the ads on LinkedIn. It’s a big waste of my money. Sorry, LinkedIn, Microsoft. I started with your company. You’ve got some great leads so far. If I go pay a headhunter, it’s egregious.

34:38 It’s very expensive. But the people are so important to this company.

34:43 James Reed: Well, I’m pleased that our website’s working.

34:46 Brian Rose: Yeah, so far. So far.

34:47 James Reed: But no, I mean, it’s a very competitive space.

34:50 London and the southeast of England is a full employment area with lots of competition for talent. Yeah. So that’s why there’s so many companies looking. It’s difficult to find people. That’s the first thing to say. So you need as an employer to differentiate yourself as much as possible to attract the right people. But you should also use our new Recruiter app. Yes.

35:13 Which you can look for people from your phone, and it’s a fantastic thing.

35:16 Brian Rose: You were showing me that app.

35:18 James Reed: If you’re a client of ours and subscribing, we’ll set you up.

35:20 Brian Rose: Okay. Now you spent money on this app. Talk to me about your mobile strategy. Was it something you knew that was important?

35:26 Brian Rose: You’ve always been a big investor in technology, correct?

35:29 James Reed: Yeah. Well, years ago, when you mentioned I was at Harvard, I went back to my business school reunion after five years in 1995. And I realized that that reunion, this was the most valuable thing I learned at Harvard, was that 20% of my classmates were doing jobs that did not exist when we graduated five years before in 1990. They were all to do with the internet. So when I came back to England after the reunion, I took that really seriously and really invested in our new website, which was a tiny little thing. So that 95, 96? Yeah, 95 we started it. Not many websites back then. No, no. And we took it really seriously. We invested in it. We put some very clever people into it, and it really grew. So I was lucky. It was lucky to have noticed that at the reunion, but the internet was going to be a big thing. And I remember banging on about it before people in England typically knew what a website was. In fact, the first conversation I had about the website was when someone tried to explain one. They said we should have a website. And I remember saying to them, what’s that? So in 95, 96, you were sort of basically telling people what a website was. And it grew from there. And we had lots of ideas that helped develop it. But I think now the mobile thing, I feel as excited about the mobile as I did then about the internet, because it’s just amazing increasingly what you can do

36:45 With and from your phone. So my New Year’s resolution is to mobilize read. And that’s in every sense, but in particular, to change the way people recruit and make it possible to recruit and find jobs from your phone. At the moment, it’s possible to find jobs. We’re pretty much the only people I’m aware of who will help you find people. So if you’re looking for people, subscribe to our service, and you’ll be amazed. I mean, every time someone says to me, I’m looking for someone, I say, well, how can I help you? I get my phone out, we’ll put in a search and some names start popping up. It’s a great way to make friends. You know, there was a guy who was looking for a Chinese speaker in Shrewsbury in the west of England, some small market town. And I was able to find one in five minutes, just from my phone. So that’s completely new. And very exciting, I think.

37:31 Brian Rose: Yeah, everything’s going mobile. And you see it with increased traffic. And now you said with the app, there’s so many things you can do. And it’s such an intimate part of who we are, you interact with it differently than a computer. And so it’s in your pocket, it’s in your pocket, and it’s touching it, and you’re getting that immediate feedback. So very important to do things like that. I have a wallet this side, the phone this side, the phone’s by my heart.

37:56 So you know, I think it’s important.

37:58 James Reed: Yeah, I wouldn’t switch them.

38:00 Brian Rose: So because that’s your way, the way you’re contacting people. Tell me about your job. You’re what I would call a key person of influence. But you’re at the very top of this organization. And so, like you said, you decided you want to go mobile. What, how do you decide what’s the best use of your time? Obviously, writing books is a great way to scale an important message. What are the other things you decide and how, how do you spend your time in order to, to guide the organization?

38:28 Because that’s pretty fascinating.

38:30 James Reed: Well, someone said to me years ago, and I’ve always remembered he said, don’t think what you can do. Think what only you can do. And if you’re running an organization, that’s quite an, that’s quite an insight. Because there are lots of things you can do.

38:45 But there are only, there are fewer that only you can do. So I think, you know, that I say to people, you know, there’s an old saying of my dad’s actually that success is as easy as pie. I always look a bit confused. What do you mean? And as I did when he said this to me, and, and, you know, success is as easy as pie. P stands for passion, I stands for ideas, and E stands for energy. And so I’m trying to inject that all the time into our business.

39:15 And, you know, if we can bring you ideas and try things, that’s good. We should be passionate about what we do, and we should do it with great energy. So at the top level, I’m doing that. But then, you know, there might be things that, you know, I can go on, you know, on a show like this and talk about what we’re doing in our books in a way that other colleagues might not be able to. So I should do that. Because that’s something only I can do.

39:38 Brian Rose: Right. And you know what you’re not good at. And you hire other people to do those things.

39:43 James Reed: Yeah, well, there are lots of things I’m not good at. Of course, I’ve got quite a lot of people to help. But I think that’s important. Yeah, so play to your strengths, I suppose is what I’m saying.

39:53 And think about your job, whatever it is, and really try and maximize your leverage. Now, how can I move the dial around here in a significant way rather than just a sort of small contribution? And you’d be surprised when you start thinking about it, that you can.

40:07 Brian Rose: Yeah, that really has me thinking. Like I need to focus more on what only I can do, and then hire people to do things I can’t do much better than me, and then get those people in place to do the best thing that they do.

40:19 James Reed: Yeah, might be that there are things you can do, but you should be prioritizing other things. Or it might be things that you can’t do very well, and you should get some help. But it’s important just to think about your week and your time.

40:32 There are only 70 hours in the week. Which ones are going to enable you to have the maximum impact?

40:37 Brian Rose: Yeah, tell me about your father. What’s it like to grow up with an accomplished father, an impressive father? I guess when you were born, he might not have been Sir Alex Reed, but maybe he was. What’s that like to grow up? Is there pressure there to be successful?

40:52 Is there pressure to go into family business? Or was it not that way?

40:57 James Reed: My dad is a remarkable man. I mean, he started the business with 75 pounds in 1960. He grew up in a small house in Hounslow, which was being bombed during the Second World War.

41:09 Him and his brother and his dad died when he was 18. So his mom, brother, and he lived together until he started the business. And she helped him a bit back in 1960. And he’s a real ideas guy with a huge amount of energy. And I think he was always going to be successful in whatever he chose to do.

41:29 But it’s interesting, both he and his brother were entrepreneurs. And his dad was a graphic artist who used to do propaganda posters to drop on Germany in the Second World War. And he did the posters that’s become very famous. We think, you know, keep calm and carry on. He did that. Yeah, and we were always thinking that he used to say, my dad said, you know, he’s also served in the First World War. So I think he was used to bombs going off.

41:57 And he used to say to the family as the air raid lumps started, keep calm, keep calm, somebody was ending up being on a poster, because he was used to all this going on, and they’d go down to the cellar or the bunker. And that’s how life was.

42:10 Brian Rose: Well, I guess compared to World War One, the bombs probably weren’t as bad.

42:15 James Reed: Well, they weren’t going off in London then, but he was in the trenches. Yeah.

42:19 So he had this sort of very different, but my father’s an artist too. So there are a lot of artists in our family. And I think that’s the importance of creativity is really strongly felt. So he’s got a lot of energy. He likes ideas. He’s very creative. And when he started the business, he started in Hounser, which is his hometown right by Heathrow Airport.

42:40 And forgive the pun, but it took off. And it took off partly because there was so much demand for labor because they were expanding Heathrow Airport. And a lot of the big international companies, mainly from the States like Gillette, were opening up and expanding in that part of town because they could easily get there. And it took off and he started in that way and grew the business organically by opening new offices. And that’s always been our strategy to grow organically.

43:06 I saw my dad just yesterday because it was 20 years ago that he made me chief executive. So I took him out for lunch and said, thanks. So he’s still going strong. He’s still got plenty of ideas for me whenever I see it.

43:19 Brian Rose: And so what was that like growing up with him? I guess when you were born, Reed was a pretty prominent company.

43:25 James Reed: Well, the company was growing. I mean, he only became Sir Alec in, well, 2011. So, no, it was growing and it was floated on the stock exchange. I remember in 1971. So he’d obviously had a successful 11 years. And he was full of fun and energy. Still is. So it was good fun. But there was a joke, you know, the perm in the 1960s were big hairdos. Well, in our house, a perm was always a permanent placement. I never thought of a perm. So I grew up with temps and perms being something very recruitment specific, not hair related. And I suppose and you hear conversations around the table. He used to take me had a retail business at one point, he used to take me I used to work there on Saturdays when I was a young teenager. And I’d go with him to the office, you soak up a lot of information like that.

44:12 Brian Rose: So people have got family businesses, it makes them quite commercial, I think, you know, they’ve grown up in those situations. Often I ask people tell me about your family, they sort of wonder why, because I want to understand where they come from, in that sense, too. Did you always know you would be a part of read?

44:29 James Reed: Well, I still grew up with it. So I wasn’t sure whether I always knew I wanted to be, in the end, running my own show. Okay. And I did sit on the fence for quite a while, because following a successful person is daunting. You worry about going to be up to it, to be honest.

44:44 And one day he said to me, you know, that job I’ve been talking to you about, it’s going to be in the newspaper on Sunday, do you want it or not? And that eventually got me off the fence. But I was 30 by then. So I’ve done other jobs. And I think I built up more confidence that I could could do it. Okay. Okay. So yeah, I’m glad I did. And it’s been a great journey.

45:04 Brian Rose: Biggest lesson from Harvard Business School?

45:07 James Reed: Biggest lesson? That’s a good question. Well, I remember the last day at Harvard Business School, one of the best professors stood up in front of our class, and he said, 50% of what you’ve learned here will be wrong. And we don’t know which 50% it is. And that was the last thought. And that taught me not to not to expect things to be right all the time, you know, what you think is right, might well be wrong. And you should keep questioning, keep being curious, keep looking and questioning. And I think that helped me quite a lot. And you know what, I went to Oxford, as you said before, and the first thing they said to me at Oxford, when I went there as a young 18 year old was, the point of a good education is to be able to tell when someone else is teaching is talking rot. I spent five years at these universities, they totally contradicted each other.

45:58 So I don’t know where I end up. But I think both this truth in both.

46:02 Brian Rose: And you study philosophy at Oxford. Is that a good degree to get as an undergraduate as opposed to a business degree?

46:08 James Reed: Well, I did it with politics and economics. Okay. So so I did all three of those subjects. Okay. I think I’m in favor of doing vocational courses or mixing, say purely academic subjects with things that are more vocational, because I think it helps you afterwards, especially now when the job market is so competitive. So if you can do as I do philosophy with economics, that’s great. I mean, economics is one of the few subjects I studied from school and at university that I still use. You know, I’m often thinking what are the economics of this, when I look at an idea, and that’s still useful to me philosophy, well, I love reading those books.

46:44 And I felt very privileged to have the opportunity to replay to an Aristotle and Thomas Hobbes. So I probably wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t done the degree.

46:53 Brian Rose: I’ve heard Harvard, the best thing about it is the is the network. I hear that really pays off over the years, because so many people go there and end up doing so many amazing and successful things. Is that true?

47:05 James Reed: The network’s pretty amazing. We went back to the 25th reunion recently, my wife and I, and it was pretty incredible. There was this, because they had whole classes, and there was a class on the future of the internet. And in the room where the people who ran Google, people face, but you know, there were people who were sort of really shaping the future. And you felt this amazing sort of brainpower in the room, which was very, very sort of stimulating and exciting, really, to be in that conversation. So it wasn’t like, you know, we’re all in touch and helping. But then one of my friends, he runs the New England Patriots football team. And I sang, which is something I do, if you’re unlucky, occasionally, at his party. And he said, Oh, you got to come to the Super Bowl. If we ever get into the Super Bowl again. Well, Super Bowl is on Sunday, and he didn’t invite me.

47:53 Brian Rose: Oh, this is live. So this is Sunday.

47:56 James Reed: Yeah, yeah.

47:56 Brian Rose: So you didn’t get that ticket.

47:59 James Reed: No, no, I love the guy to bid. And I really hope the New England Patriots win.

48:04 Brian Rose: Would you sing the national anthem, potentially?

48:07 James Reed: I don’t think they’d want me to do it. I’m pretty well, I can only sing this one. They wouldn’t want me doing that. Are you an opera singer? Or do you have a specific type of singing you do?

48:17 James Reed: I like to sing rock and roll, rock and roll.

48:20 Brian Rose: Okay. Any favorite tune?

48:21 James Reed: Well, I won’t go into it now. I’m not gonna sing on air.

48:25 Brian Rose: Is it like, you know, only the Rolling Stones? Or will you do covers of American bands?

48:30 James Reed: No, I do a mixture of things. I like a bit of Neil Young.

48:33 Brian Rose: Okay. Okay, that’s nice. What did you learn from the Americans? What’s it like to go over there and go to school in Boston? And just, yeah, what do you what do you see when you look at America from a business standpoint, culturally? What did you take away from that?

48:47 James Reed: Um, I thought it was the most amazing experience because I’ve never been to America before I got off the plane in Boston. Okay. And it was, I still remember it was like summer, it was like bar me summer. Oh my gosh, August in Boston. Yeah, so he was fantastic. And I thought this is amazing. And what I got what I really took from America was the energy and the optimism of the place. You’re in England, if you have an idea, people start to criticize it. And in America, they don’t so much. They said, Well, that’s quite a good idea. How about this? Or have you thought of that? And for me, that was really exciting. So I mean, America has obviously been built by immigrants and, and you know, that sort of energy and entrepreneurial flare of the place, I just found very exciting. So I learned a huge amount from being there. And Americans work hard.

49:35 And I started getting up earlier, the most basic level. So our classes in America started half past eight in the morning, well, they didn’t in England. Okay, so I thought that was quite a useful lesson as well.

49:45 Brian Rose: And do Americans actually work hard? Or do they just think they work harder?

49:49 James Reed: I think they do work hard. I don’t I mean, I mean, they seem to they seem to take less holiday. And they seem to spend a lot of time working. And I think they probably do. But you know, they might waste time at work, they certainly at work quite a lot of time.

50:04 Brian Rose: And you work a lot too. I like working, right?

50:06 James Reed: So I don’t mind working hard. Because I love Mondays, you know, I like my job. So if you’re in a job that you enjoy, you don’t mind working. And, you know, I find holidays stressful sometimes, because you don’t know where you’re going. And the plane’s delayed.

50:21 Brian Rose: Amen to that. Well, they’ve done these studies and said like the people in France are more productive, even though they’re only working 35 hours a week, as opposed to the Americans, who are working there 60 hours a week, but aren’t as productive. I don’t know if those are true. Are they?

50:37 James Reed: I don’t know either. I mean, I like France very much too. I do find that 35 hour week thing surprising. Seems a bit too controlling for me. I can’t imagine that happening in America.

50:47 You know, France is great country. And I like going there. I mean, they probably are quite productive. And you know, if you’re very focused for 35 hours, you can get a lot done as you know.

50:55 Brian Rose: Yeah, yeah. I think with America with that optimism, I think it has to do with even the geography of the country. And like you said, it was settled by immigrants on the East Coast.

51:03 And there was always this phrase that said, go west young man, which says many things there. But what it says is there is capital out there. There is land. There is transportation. You just need to go out there and make it happen. And so there’s always this history in this country of we have a surplus of things you can do. Whereas in England, most of the land was spoken for maybe 1000 years ago, and it was this land is your land, my land. And in America, there was always this Yeah, go do it. Yeah, go do it. Yeah, go do it. And I think that’s why that mentality is there. And I hear the same thing you said from a lot of the technology people I talked to here, they go to America and everyone’s like, let’s raise 25 million and go bigger. Whereas in here, they don’t always have that same conversation.

51:46 James Reed: Well, the other thing America is a big market.

51:48 So if you’ve got a good idea in America, it’s going to take off quicker and travel further, perhaps than a good idea here.

51:54 Brian Rose: Yeah, if you’re really good at what you do, you can really you can really make a lot of headway in America because it’s such a big market.

52:02 James Reed: Well, read Go to America. I’ve always thought of America as a well defended hill. I don’t want a bunker hill experience. Because I say because there are a lot of good people in America, there’s a lot of money in America, and they work hard. So you know, I think our service is a really good service. But I think it’s well provided for in America.

52:20 Brian Rose: Okay, so stick to what you know here.

52:22 James Reed: And maybe my mobile service will take that.

52:24 Brian Rose: Okay, yeah, maybe so. It’s tough to cross the Atlantic, it is difficult. And to make a beachhead there and bring your own people over there. And it’s difficult to do very few companies have done it successfully in the technology space.

52:37 James Reed: Yeah, that’s right. For sure. So it is tough for the crack.

52:40 Brian Rose: Is this something very, there’s something very British about you, but also obviously about your business. But you know, when it does come down to the end of the day, I mean, what is it about Britain and America that are different, where you would do business differently here as read, as opposed to your American equivalent over there? Is it that the message is slightly different, or the practices are different in any way?

53:01 James Reed: I don’t know, really. I mean, the marketing might be different. You know, the messaging in how you sell products and services might be slightly different, because the cultures are different.

53:10 So, you know, some people say Americans are more direct than Europeans. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, because I can be quite direct myself, probably because I’ve spent time in America, so I can’t really tell. I think it’s good to be direct, because then everyone understands where they stand. But if you’re selling things or marketing things, it might be slightly different. There are a lot of great European luxury brands that seem to do well in America. And you know, that sort of tradition, history can really be a strong asset.

53:42 Brian Rose: Yeah.

53:42 James Reed: And our business is 57 years old.

53:44 Brian Rose: Right. I call it the Downton Abbey effect. The Americans like to look to England and Europe for class and for tradition, because we don’t have that much of it. So I think they’re always looking to kind of the old world in that way.

53:58 James Reed: Yeah, well, it can be dressed up, whether it’s real or not. But yeah, I think that’s a good thing. I mean, that’s an advantage that older cultures have, and that’s something they should be marketing. Yeah, and they do that well.

54:11 Brian Rose: A lot of people watching us and listening right now might be worried about where their job is going to be in 10 years, or maybe even where their kids’ jobs are going to be. We see the world going global, then we see maybe it being pulled back from being global. What, in your opinion, is the future of work? You know, in the 10 or 20 years from now, how will maybe just me here working look different, me looking for work, companies looking for me to fix their problems? How will that look? Because I’m sure you spent some time thinking about it.

54:41 James Reed: Well, this is a huge question. And I mean, it’s much more about technology, I think, than anything else. You know, the sort of machine learning, robotics, AI, you know, where’s it going to take us? And some people are pretty gloomy about that, you know, say it’s going to destroy millions of jobs and leave us in a situation where we’ve got to find things for people to do. And others are much more positive about it. The history of technology has been its created jobs, right, you know, the last 200 years. And I’m on the optimistic end of things.

55:12 We can’t imagine what a lot of those jobs will be, because they don’t exist. Just like at Harvard, you don’t know what they’re going to be. Yeah, then five years, 10 years’ time. We can’t imagine. I mean, it’s hard enough in the winter to imagine the summer. So, you know, to imagine jobs five, 15 years out is difficult. But I think the technology will continue to evolve fast, and it will create all sorts of new jobs and opportunities for people. So, for young people to be involved in technology, I think, is a great place to go if you have the opportunity in your career. And for all people to remain agile and open-minded to new things and new ideas. And a lot of people say, you know, I’m too old for this. But often the new technology is the easiest to use. So, you know, get the new phone, get the new laptop, try the new things, and you’ll be surprised.

55:59 And talk to young people and get connected with them so that you can keep in touch, because that’s so important.

56:05 Brian Rose: Yeah, and learn some new tricks. I mean, do you think people should have complete career changes multiple times in their lives and really look about going back and learning new skills and changing what they do?

56:16 James Reed: Well, I think it’s up to you. I mean, if that’s how you want to live your life, yeah. But if you’re really happy and you’ve found a vocation that you want to stick with, then stick with it. So, you know, I think some people want to keep changing. And there are lots and lots of opportunities to do that. Some people change because they have to. And some people change even if they don’t want to, because of circumstances that force them to.

56:40 Brian Rose: I think the recession, the US experience, the whole world did in 08. And the way the US just has this tradition of kind of ruthlessly laying people off because they don’t have a history of like long periods of employment, kind of forces people to reinvent themselves and find new jobs. And I think it helps with economic recovery a lot of times because people just move around labor market until they find new things to do or reeducate themselves. Is that something you see or you see people thinking about more?

57:10 James Reed: When the recession, the last big, you know, the global financial crisis and recession came here, I started something called Keep Britain Working, which was all about giving companies ideas to retain people even if it was on a more restricted basis. So people might work shorter hours or they might take longer holidays or unpaid leave and things like that to stop people being released from work. Because in the recession before that did a huge amount of damage to the labor market. You know, people were being kicked out in their 50s and then they never worked again. So we were trying to preserve employment, make it more flexible. And I think that’s a good thing. If both parties can be more flexible, individuals in terms of what they do and what they can learn and employers too, then that’s a good thing. But yeah, I mean, necessity is the mother of invention, isn’t it?

58:00 Brian Rose: You have to go out and do something new, you’re going to do something new. Yeah. And what about outsourcing? I mean, as we talk about technology moving forward 10, 20 years from now, I mean, it’s possible that 80% of the jobs in London might be easily done in the Philippines or somewhere elsewhere. They’re plugged in, enabled in a way that we don’t even conceive of in some artificial reality way that those jobs are being outsourced. Is that something that we need to worry about, be concerned about?

58:26 James Reed: Well, we should certainly be investigating it. Yeah, we’re looking under that stone and seeing what’s happening.

58:32 Yeah, I think the outsourcing has been going on for quite a long time. And why do people decentralize because they’re centralized and they reverse it because they’re decentralized? I think it’s very possible. But London will still be an important center for something.

58:48 Brian Rose: Because it’s got that essence. Yeah, it’s a very dynamic.

58:52 James Reed: London is a fantastic market. I think of London as a market, where people come and buy and sell things off each other. And it’s been a fantastic market for thousands of years. Yeah. So I don’t know what it is they’ll be buying and selling, but London will still be a market.

59:08 Brian Rose: I agree. And I’ve had, like I said, a lot of technology entrepreneurs in here. And most of their businesses started when they had three people in the same room. And that’s when it’s this critical mass of probably pie, as you would say.

59:22 You get the passion, the ideas, and the energy. And that’s what really creates companies. And it doesn’t really happen in a chat room or over a Skype call. So I do believe this, and you know this more than me, that you need to get the people in the same place. And sometimes close to each other. I think Google has a policy that you can touch the person near you. We like to keep it kind of close in here. But I think there’ll always be a place for people being in the same room to make businesses go forward.

59:49 James Reed: Well, it’s about clusters, isn’t it?

59:51 If you think about how ideas develop, it’s through conversation. And that’s why conversation is so important. And when someone joins a meeting from a phone line somewhere, I always dread it. It sort of wrecks the meeting. It’s not much fun for them. And it sort of doesn’t really work.

1:00:06 But if they’re in the room, the ideas develop much more naturally. And I think getting clusters, like Hollywood’s a great cluster for movie making. This area of London is a great cluster for technology. And that’s because you bring together people who have a shared interest and real passion for something. And that’s when exciting things happen.

1:00:28 Brian Rose: Brexit, this kind of de-globalization kind of happening, maybe with some things that Trump’s going to do in the States. We’re not sure, but we’ll see. How is that going to affect the job market? People looking for jobs? Should they be worried, whether they’re in Britain or in Europe or in America, about some of these things?

1:00:46 James Reed: Yeah, it’s been a big change over the last year, from globalization being inevitable to it now being questionable. And that’s obviously been driven by the people who were opposed to it, that change. I think for jobs, Brexit might be quite interesting. Everyone thought it was going to be a disaster for jobs. But we’ve had more and more jobs coming online since Brexit. And the labor market in the UK seems pretty healthy.

1:01:09 So it might be that with the currency being pushed down as it has been, the pound becoming less valuable, Britain becomes a bigger commercial center than it was before, because it connects goods and services more cheaply to foreign buyers. So it could be a big business success, actually. That’s not a commonly held view. But it’s one I’ve been thinking about. And I was very worried about it when it first happened. I thought it would really potentially be damaging to the economy. It hasn’t been yet. It depends how it’s handled.

1:01:42 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s going to be interesting.

1:01:44 James Reed: It doesn’t have to be bad news.

1:01:46 Brian Rose: Right. I’m guessing you were probably against it if you were like most Londoners and pro-business people.

1:01:52 James Reed: Yeah, I wasn’t in favor of Brexit. I didn’t vote for leave. But I suppose what I’ve thought about it, and I am first and foremost, I believe in democracy. And that’s what the people chose. And if that’s the case, get used to it, get on with it. And that’s, I think, making a success of Brexit is what we all should be doing now.

1:02:11 And I think it should be, I would like Britain to continue to be an open, friendly, international company that trades and welcomes people from all over the world. So that’s the kind of Brexit I’d like.

1:02:30 Brian Rose: Yeah, me too. And London is this huge asset. Like you said, it’s like a marketplace. And I think for a while, it was probably 20% of GDP coming out of the city and other things. And so that in itself is this beautiful jewel that we will always have and the talent that flies around.

1:02:57 James Reed: Yeah, I’m a Londoner. I love London. My company began in London. Our family’s from London.

1:03:06 Brian Rose: So yeah, yeah, I like London too. I love it so much. I named my show after it.

1:03:13 Brian Rose: Family, six kids. What’s going on with that?

1:03:16 James Reed: What’s going on with that? Well, it’s too late to change it. Now, we started having kids and we enjoyed it. I think I fell in love with three year olds.

1:03:27 Three year olds are great fun. They’re very honest, they’re very direct, and they come out with some very funny lines. So I always wanted a three year old recruiting the next three year old. And then eventually we decided we had enough three year olds and settled on six. But I’m delighted with that. And I say to my kids, you know, you’re going to know each other a lot longer than you’re going to know me and your mom. So, you know, it’s important that you get on well, and you can help each other. And I think they get that. And I think having a large family, it’s sort of, it’s quite good at socializing people. You know, they have to get on with each other.

1:04:00 Brian Rose: What’s the biggest lesson? I have a nine month old boy, so I got another two years till he gets to his prime. What’s the biggest lesson you can give me on fatherhood?

1:04:08 James Reed: Well, when it comes to parenting, it’s the joke in our houses, I do quantity, not quality. I’m not sure I can give you any less. But well, one thing, and this is a small bit of advice for all parents, is keep a book like this and write down the funny things your kids say in it. Because when they’re two, three, four, and five, they say a lot of funny things that you will forget. So write them down. And when they come to 18 and you want to give a speech at their birthday party, you’ve got your speech written down in the book, because they say you are psychologically formed by the age of five, don’t they? Is that true? Yeah. So I’ve done that.

1:04:40 And that worked like a dream. I mean, I love it. I think, I think probably these days, there’s too much helicopter parenting. Okay. So giving kids a bit of space to fall over and make the odd mistake, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.

1:04:52 Brian Rose: Okay, so don’t micromanage everything about them. Yeah, as you said, you don’t want to be micromanaged at work. You don’t want to be micromanaged as a kid. Yeah, yeah, give them, give them a good base level of character and then let them make their own decisions.

1:05:04 James Reed: Well, people love freedom, in my experience. And when you’re a kid, freedom is being able to run out in the garden, go in the woods, be with your mates. And that’s important.

1:05:13 Brian Rose: Yeah, yeah. One of my former guests, his name is Kevin Kelly. He founded Wired Magazine.

1:05:17 And he actually told me to have as many kids as possible so you would like him. And he also said something to me. He said, Brian, you’re only as old as the last time you changed your mind. And I wanted to know from you, what have you changed your mind about in the last six months?

1:05:35 James Reed: Well, Brexit. I think we can make a success of it.

1:05:38 Brian Rose: Right. Okay, so you think we should. Okay, all right. That’s good. Good answer. What keeps you awake at night?

1:05:45 James Reed: I sleep pretty well. But what my brain keeps me awake at night because I wake up thinking about ideas. Sometimes I write them in my book. But now I’m always sort of buzzing around thinking about what we can do next. That keeps me awake at night sometimes. But I don’t, I don’t lie awake at night worrying about stuff, particularly.

1:06:07 Brian Rose: Okay. And in 50 years time, if if you do pass, what will they say about you and your eulogy?

1:06:13 I don’t know. What will you obituary read? What will they say about you?

1:06:17 James Reed: Well, I hope they say that I was a good person to be around, and that I made a good contribution to the world that I lived in.

1:06:25 Brian Rose: Okay. And that’s what you’re looking to do is just contribute to everyone’s life, I guess, to just bring greater happiness.

1:06:32 James Reed: Well, that’s back to Love Mondays, but we really want to help connect people to improve people’s prospects. And that’s what we do. And I’d like to do that better and better and improve the way that that works for people. So more of that good stuff happens.

1:06:46 Brian Rose: We have GDP or GNP gross national product in many countries, but in some Asian countries, they have the gross happiness product and they do like a happiness index. And it seems like with what you’re doing, you’re trying to raise that, you know, in the UK, by just connecting the right people with the right places.

1:07:05 James Reed: Well, I think it was Freud who said, you know, the ability to love and the ability to work are what makes you happy. So, you know, being fulfilled at work and finding meaningful work is a really, really important ingredient in life. And we want to play our part in helping people achieve that and find that.

1:07:22 Brian Rose: And there’s another fascinating stat in your book where you said you can go to a dance club if you want to meet your mates, but the people in the club that are going to really meet their mates are the ones behind the bar, as in most people meet their mates by a much higher percentage at work than they do

1:07:40 Going out on the town.

1:07:41 James Reed: Yeah. In fact, I met someone the other night who told me they met their husband when they were working together in a nightclub and said, Oh, that’s in my book. You’re much more likely to meet someone at work than you are in a nightclub.

1:07:54 Brian Rose: Right. And stay with them longer.

1:07:55 James Reed: Yeah, exactly. Because you have a shared interest and you’ve also had time to get to know each other.

1:08:01 Brian Rose: James, I always ask people here a few questions at the end. I’m going to ask you these same ones. If you can make a phone call to the 20 year old James, give that young man a bit of advice. I guess you’d be at Oxford at this point. What would you tell him?

1:08:14 James Reed: Well, I think is I think the important thing is to have the courage to go out and explore. So be curious and find the courage to go out and explore. And the other important thing I’d tell the 20 year old me is don’t be afraid to ask for help because people want to help you. And I think a lot of young men in particular feel they’ve got to know it all and do it all. And actually, it’s a sign of real strength to ask for help. So be curious and be courageous enough to ask for help.

1:08:42 And you’ll find you learn more, you travel more, and you get further.

1:08:46 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s a strong point. A lot of times we get these lone wolf messages sometimes from Hollywood of the Rambo. We’re going to do it all on our own, but no one ever does it on their own. Nothing happens on your own, ultimately.

1:08:58 James Reed: I nearly fell off the Matterhorn, the mountain in the Alps nearly killed myself three years ago. And I was in a wheelchair with a broken leg. And I suddenly realized how dependent I was on all sorts of people and things that I’d taken for granted. And being confined to a wheelchair for three months was very educational for me. So I thought it’s a match a guy can do everything, get out there and do what I like. But I suddenly realized that I couldn’t. And I’m glad I had that experience.

1:09:25 Brian Rose: Wow, I want to hear the Matterhorn story. Are you still climbing?

1:09:28 James Reed: I was rescued. I was rescued by an Italian helicopter that came out from Italy. I remember saying, and I was sitting on a ledge with a broken leg, and they lowered a person down. And it was a woman. And she came down on a cable. And she landed on the little ledge next to me.

1:09:44 And she said, my name is Roberta. Do you want to speak Italian, German, French or English? I thought this is an angel. I said English. And she put this thing on my leg. And I was winched up into this helicopter and taken down to the hospital. But it was an extraordinary experience.

1:10:00 Here’s someone who could do all these things at 3000 meters plus. Who saved my life?

1:10:06 Brian Rose: Wow. Wow. Are you gonna climb again?

1:10:08 James Reed: My wife’s told me not to.

1:10:10 Brian Rose: She is successful. She succeeded so far on that. Wow. Second part of that question is, best advice you’ve ever received? Maybe something your father told you?

1:10:20 James Reed: Well, yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, he has a saying, which I like, which is, if the bus looks like it’s going somewhere interesting, I want to be on it. I mean, the joke is, you know, often you end up walking home. But I think that’s a message that he’s given me that I like. So if something you like the internet, or if something happening around you that looks interesting, get involved.

1:10:44 Brian Rose: Right. And that’s what you do. You’re constantly investing in things that look like they’re going interesting places.

1:10:51 James Reed: Yeah. And often they don’t, you end up walking home. Yeah. But when they do, this is the other thing he said to me, if you’re an entrepreneur and you hit a success, it’s not like roulette. It keeps coming around red. So you don’t have to bet each time if you found something that does work, the bus does genuinely go somewhere interesting.

1:11:12 Brian Rose: Right. You’ve made a big success or something.

1:11:15 Brian Rose: Speaking of buses, one of my former guests here said, Brian, he said, get them all on the same bus. It doesn’t matter where the bus is going. Just get everybody on the same bus. And I think that’s a way of saying get the right people in your organization. And maybe it doesn’t matter what you do.

1:11:32 James Reed: Well, years ago, when I was working at the BBC, I did a piece of research on the most successful family companies in Britain, which was very interesting. And the man who ran the most successful family company was a man called David Alliance, who ran this clothing company out of Greater Manchester, which sold clothing by mail. But he said to me, and I’ve always remembered this, you know, his, I asked him, what’s the secret of your success? And it was him who said, you know, find good people and let them get on with it.

1:12:01 Brian Rose: Yeah. Amen to that. I always remember the quote by the Kennedys. They asked JFK and Robert, why, why the presidency? And they said, because that’s where the action is, you know, and it’s just, just an interesting thought and mentality. You know, those guys could have gone to Wall Street, those guys could have gone into maybe steal as a family and done whatever they wanted. And they chose politics.

1:12:24 James Reed: Well, their family business was politics. It was right. I mean, you’re going to aim for the talk. I mean that as well.

1:12:30 Brian Rose: So last part of that question to the 20 year old that’s watching us right now, they could be anywhere, maybe even not where Reed is in China, America, South America, anywhere. What advice do you give to them if they, you know, that maybe they’re not in the job market yet, maybe they’re in university and it’s, it’s, it’s tricky when you’re in uni because you don’t know what’s out there. And I remember when I first started interviewing, even my first six months on Wall Street, I didn’t feel prepared. I didn’t know what was really going on out there, but what advice would you give to them when it comes to preparing for that first job or even looking for that first job?

1:13:02 James Reed: Well, I’ve tried to put our best thinking into the two books, you know, why you put your mindset to work. And I put big part of my motivation for writing those books was to help young people coming into the workforce, because it’s a big transition, you know, from education to employment. And it’s something of a bit of a frayed rope between the two. It’s not exactly a highway going from one to the other. So it’s a difficult, difficult journey for a lot of people. And it’s a huge adjustment.

1:13:28 So I think, you know, we’ve put a lot of our best thinking into those books. And a lot of young people think, you know, I’m not gonna be able to get that job because I’ve got the skills or experience. Well, obviously, but if your mindset’s in the right place, people notice, and they’re going to give you a chance. You know, we were all given a chance by someone at some point. So you know, getting yourself set up right to go out there with energy and passion to get started, I think is really important. And as you said, you can tell when people come in whether they’re victims or feel they are or they’re not. And you don’t want to be a victim. You want to be someone who’s on the front foot. So, you know, do the research, do the work, so that when you get out into the marketplace, you are confident. And you know what you want.

1:14:14 Because that’s the beginning of a successful journey.

1:14:17 Brian Rose: Yeah. And like you said, prepare for that interview. Like, put the hours in, you know, answer those questions and you can get the find them in YU, you connect that or your Huffington Post article, those top 15. And yeah, say them. Say them into your phone cam and record yourself, right? And just practice, right?

1:14:33 James Reed: Yeah, it doesn’t take that long to practice. So if you think how important it is and how life changing a job interview can be, it’s worth putting in the hours. And it’s not, I mean, you could do it in two evenings. It’s not a huge amount of time. But the difference between putting in some preparation and not, it’s huge. You know, the old adage, fail to prepare, prepare to fail is so true when it comes to interviews.

1:14:57 Brian Rose: And again, from my own hiring here, passion, ideas, energy trumps everything. So I agree, don’t feel like you might not have the CV or the skills if you come in with that mindset. I mean, that’s what we hire around here. People that are just going to get it done, feel great about it, contribute to the whole group. And I mean, the rest we can learn or find out a great place to put you on the bus.

1:15:17 James Reed: Exactly. Because none of us know what the jobs are going to be in five, 10, 15 years time. And I had this of a hard moment when I was at a talk and it was the skills funding agency we talked about, we don’t know what to train people in necessarily, because we don’t know what jobs they’re going to be doing in 10, 15 years time.

1:15:34 And I was thinking, I know exactly what sort of people I want to hire in 10, 15 years time. It was all about their mindset. Because those are the people who will learn, who will adapt, who behave with integrity, and who make things happen.

1:15:47 Brian Rose: Amen. I’m going to end on that. James, thank you so much for coming in. I love these ideas. I love your passion and excitement. And you’re a Londoner as well, which is even better. So thank you for that. Our dance continues with our recruitment with you. So I’ll keep you posted if we hire this person, but our guys are going through those CVs right now. But the onboarding was really nice.

1:16:08 I got a call from one of your people as well. And so far, it’s been excellent. Thank you for the books. And I hope everyone really gets this message, because I would love to get all the people applying here with that passion and that excitement and those ideas. And that’s really what we need around here. So thank you.

1:16:25 James Reed: Thank you, Ron.

1:16:26 Brian Rose: Yeah, you’re welcome. As we say on London Real, it’s about the journey. So I wish you well on yours and come back and see us again.

1:16:32 James Reed: I will. Likewise.

1:16:33 Brian Rose: All right. Thank you very much.

1:16:52 James Reed: Thank you. Cheers.