The final part of our wide-ranging talk with Benne Peto shifts from program design to operating model: how to win senior and middle-management support, how leadership capability differs from practitioner capability, and how the profile becomes organizational IP for recruitment, succession and continuous improvement. It ends with a strong closing message on why targeted development outperforms well-meaning but average programs.

Hello, and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast.

In this podcast, we'll be hearing from other industry leaders to get their

thoughts and perspectives on what growth looks like in modern business.

This podcast is aimed at leaders from exec all the way down to line managers.

Welcome to part three of three.

Yeah, we talked a little bit about what You know, what's changed, even as a

result of this and what you've seen, play out, Benne, as a result of this program?

So as a, as someone who's, really experienced in this space, and again,

coming right back to the beginning, your, commercial mindset, at its core, what

advice would you be giving to CPOs and CROs who are now thinking, "You know what?

I've got to, I've got to unlock this organic growth within my business"?

Yeah.

first and foremost, you've got to get the commercial senior

management team on board, right?

So I was really, lucky.

I partnered with the head of FP, Emma Sterland, and we, we

developed it together really, yeah?

So right from the off when you're, starting to develop your

ideas, bring your commercial lead on the journey from day one.

I've been thinking, I saw the podcast, should we go and do, let's go and meet.

And so I would say don't do it by yourself, yeah?

draw in your commercial partners as early as possible, bouncing ar-

around ideas and develop it together.

Go on that journey genuinely together.

Don't develop something yourself and go off and then present

them with something, right?

Because, that's hard work.

Develop it with them, bring them on the journey, invite them to that, to

experience the learning that you would go through in terms of meeting with SBR,

thinking about how you might approach this, and really understanding the benefit

that it can bring the organization.

That, that's got to be your fundamental approach.

Yeah.

And you mentioned the senior leadership team there, but obviously we all

know that middle management layer-

Yeah

… Matt Best: is a really critical part of it, too.

And, I guess there's a piece in here around, what's the importance of,

understanding and how do you help the leaders to be prepared for this?

Because, again, let's take a, a seasoned leader in the wealth management space,

maybe probably still has their own book of business, still out there as

a practitioner, bit, on the si- you know- Yeah … it's the bit on the side

that's the, sort of the leadership part and, then all of a sudden it's hang on

a minute, you're gonna assess my team, it's gonna be this, it's gonna be that.

You're gonna tell me, you're gonna tell me who's the high performer-

yeah … and who's got the potential?

Yeah.

Like, how do you take the leaders on this journey?

Oh, I think it's absolutely essential.

And, so I, think our learnings were, in a lot of wealth managers you have,

players coa- player coach leaders.

Yeah, so they're, they've got their own clients as well, yeah, as well as leading

a team, and that can really help you.

Yeah.

Because first of all, they're still, got their own clients, so when you're

talking about this development, you're going to naturally get their buy-in,

and they're probably going to be a bit more open to it, so that's great.

and they need that development too.

So you need to put them through the program, get them to experience

it, but, in the, same way you would your high performers, yeah?

Because you're saying, "We re- we know you're really, good at this.

You're probably not gonna need to learn anything.

But we want you to be in this program, experiencing it and influencing it,"

and actually they do still develop.

But it … As leaders, we needed to also coach them- in how they coach their

teams- Yeah … within this program.

So actually, they needed a, a- another piece of development, which SBR was

really great at, which is how do I lead, how do I coach, my practitioner

team to, deliver- and really take the development into their day-to-day role?

Yeah.

And, the challenge that exists in, wealth management in particular, but

also in lots of other businesses, is what you just described as the, as the

player-coach, or the player-manager.

That and, as in w- talking to a guest earlier on today about this, of,

people get promoted sometimes because of their tenure in the business- Yes

or their performance level.

how much of this, and we think about this framework, we've been talking

about this framework in the context of individual practitioners, but

how much of this is, it feels, super relevant for leaders too, right?

Yeah, Absolutely.

In terms of recognizing those critical capabilities.

Yeah.

So you've got this,

this is where it's a bit more complex for leaders because you've got their

profile as a practitioner, and if they've been promoted, they probably were a high

potential, high performing practitioner.

Great.

But often we see that those people aren't always good leaders.

So understanding their profile as a leader, I think is another interesting

question in terms of getting that insight.

So you've got, what does a great practitioner look like

in terms of their profile?

And then you've got, what does a great leader look like?

And not all leaders, not all player managers have that second, profile.

That's not always their sweet spot.

it is in no way a given.

No.

you might get lucky sometimes- but you're being, y- you're not being,

you're good, you're being lucky.

and it's abs- absolutely right.

And again, just thinking about that preference thing, looking back over my,

what laughably might be described as a career, I, I remember talking to a very

senior sales guy that I worked with based in Houston, Texas, and he drawled at me

on one occasion when I said to him, "Oh, why didn't you do X or Y and, move up?"

And he said, "I have never wanted to be an adult babysitter." There

are some people whose preferences do not lie in that direction.

Now, in his case, he recognized it, and he made a very successful career

as an individual contributor, but he would've been miserable as a manager.

And fortunately, he had the insight to know he would've been miserable

as a man- as a manager, and so he resisted being, moved up, right?

But there are lots of people who don't, for whatever reason, either they don't

have the insight or they don't have the choice or whatever, and they end up

being squeezed into a role which f- their preferences do not suit them for at all.

And,

this is the kind of great, sales leadership tra- trap, is taking good first

line practi- good, individual contributors and turning them into mi- miserable, and

not very good first line m- leaders, which is a- tr- a kind of a, a repeated tragedy.

Yeah.

And again, the, sort of personality profiling- Absolutely … that,

SBR is able to do, you can identify you, you know who your- Absolutely

… high-performing leaders are.

You can do the profiling, and you can identify what those traits

are that makes it easier for them to perform highly in that role.

That's right.

So that helps you think about the development and, h- understand how you can

support the leaders that you've already got, and also look at your practitioner,

cohort and go, "Okay, we, thought this person, you know- May be good as a

leader in the future, and actually if you look at their profile, yes, they're

a high-performing practitioner, but also they've got the traits- Absolutely

that we've seen lead to good leaders in this organization.

Yeah.

And that just helps with your, with all of the career pathway conversations-

All of the succession planning Yeah.

All of

it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And again, that nine-box grid, when you're talking about leadership, future

potential in leadership, yeah, it's different to future potential in terms of

high performance as a prac- practitioner.

as an individual contributor.

Yeah, Absolutely.

you've got those two lenses that you need to look at, yeah?

And two types of development that you need to undertake.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And as a, cru- crudely, and again, Benne, you'll know this only too

well, crudely speaking, we find that the first line of sales leadership

is chronically underinvested.

So it's pretty obvious that you should be putting some money into developing

your first-line people because, they, we need them to make the numbers,

and, executive education tends to be well invested in because that's

us investing in ourselves, right?

The ones in the it's the, it's those first line, who, d- are

chronically underinvested in.

And, partly I think it is because there isn't a good understanding

of what it is they need.

What is it that they need?

we've- We don't really, we haven't done the work to understand what

the capabilities are that make those individuals successful.

Yeah.

we, need to apply exactly the same level of rigor to the sales

leadership community as we do to individual contributors, because they

are actually so pivotal to success.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So Benne, once you've established those, those core competencies and

capabilities for your team, and that profile, if you like, how is

it that you then look to embed that in your business for the long term?

first of all, you shouldn't look at this as a

program or, a project, right?

So this development, this insight, it should be part of your continuous

improvement of your people, right?

So it's the way in which you do business.

Yeah.

So really think about sustaining it, how you sustain it when you start it, so it,

y- it doesn't become one of these fads.

Yeah.

And Emma Sterland was really, focused on that in terms of I want this

to last, yeah, rather than just be another program or a project.

So I think start with that in mind.

But also, one of the things that we haven't touched on- is

once you have that profile, you can use it in your recruitment.

Really, important.

Yeah, so it's not just insight in terms of who you've got within the organization,

but when you're looking at your graduate intake, yeah, who don't have a lot of

experience, yeah, the profiling can be really useful there in terms of recruiting

the right people who are more likely to succeed in five and 10 years' time.

So that's really important.

And also looking at those people who have got some experience, yeah-

but are not completely proven.

Again, you can really use your profiling there as part of that

recruitment process to help identify those that are more likely to be

successful in your organization.

May have been successful elsewhere, but again, your profile, it's your IP, it's

specific to the context that you have in your business, your clients, your culture.

So really understanding how a practitioner is going to perform

within your business, I think that's gold dust, and you definitely

need to leverage it in that way.

Yeah, I think that's a fantastic point.

And, Bella, I don't know if you've got anything you'd like to

add on to that?

No, I think that's exactly right, and I, think, you mentioned the

sort of two different cases.

One where you've got people who at, the very beginning of their careers

who don't, as it were, have a lot of capability that you can assess because

they, still haven't developed that.

But you can absolutely look at their preferences, their

personality traits, and see whether they're likely to be a good fit.

And then, as you say, kind of people slightly later on who you may be

recruiting and who are existing players, it… that you do get both pieces

of insight, which is very valuable.

So y- one of the ways I like to think about this is that, when we go

running through a selection process with candidates, we're not just trying

to decide who joins and who doesn't.

We're trying to work out for the people who join, what's the development

pathway that we're giving them at the point where they start, so that we,

know which of the capabilities which drive success they are already good

at, and which ones actually do need to be developed, so we can give them and

their leader a real pathway to get them up the ramp quickly and successfully.

Because, getting them thr- up the ramp, across the famous valley

of despair, is really important.

We know how expensive it is if we can't do that.

So yeah, it, helps us with both of those kind of use cases,

if I can, use it like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, and we all know that, wealth management and most businesses,

exist within a world that is, really competitive in terms of the best talent.

So if you can identify Who is that best talent for, you?

And also have a development program that has a fantastic reputation- Yeah

… where, you're selling it into them, they can see that they're going to get

developed, be that a graduate or someone that say, a few years into their career.

That's going to be a real point of difference for you to attract that talent

into your business via your competitors.

it's always very, competitive with talent.

So this is part of your proposition to that talent in the marketplace, and

hopefully you'll win the day as a result.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just wanna kind of land that point again, Benne, that you mentioned there,

which is, that profile is your IP.

Yes.

that's the, blueprint to which you want to recruit against.

Yes.

That's the blueprint to which you wanna build your b- that you

wanna build your business on.

Yeah.

and you own it, Yeah.

So I think sometimes with these sorts of programs you can work with, some

sort of consultancies who keep the IP in a way, which is really strange.

you you have that insight to use, as a business, and I

think that's really, important.

You have that data, yeah?

Yeah.

And therefore, with that ownership becomes that responsibility to use

it in the right way, and also keep developing that insight over time.

Yeah.

Okay?

So organizations change over time, client needs change over time.

Yeah?

People change over time.

So that insight, that data will evolve and become, richer, yeah, more data-centric-

as you move through- Yeah … the organization's growth phase, yeah?

So it's about keeping it alive, refreshing it, always leveraging it, and using

it to inform your decision-making.

Oh, yeah, that's such an important point in

terms of keeping it alive.

we think about how the landscape has changed in the past 6, 12, 18 months

with s- things like the advent of AI.

Yeah.

You think about the competencies and capabilities, perhaps less so in a wealth,

management context, although that's, it's, it's doing a lot to transform

that industry too, but there'll be some industries where the shape of the role-

Yeah

… Matt Best: and the shape of what's required will have

changed dramatically- Yeah

in that short space of time.

So recognizing that you've got to update that profile and keep your IP alive as if

it were a product that you were selling-

Yeah, absolutely

… Matt Best: is key.

yeah.

Yeah, and as you said, I think with the onset of AI and how

that's going to influence any role in the business, but also, most

importantly, client-facing roles.

Yeah.

how is that going to influence?

We, none of us really know that yet, and therefore, the change that we're

facing into the evolution of those roles is, potentially going to speed up

in the coming years, without a doubt.

So refreshing that data, thinking in a different way about what, what,

is underpinning high performance may be slightly different- Yeah

in the future.

yeah.

Yeah.

we don't know.

Yeah, But you can redo it.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can.

So this is why this insight is, it's incredibly important that you own that

data, that you're always using it, and you're thinking about how you're keeping

it up to date, how you're keeping it relevant, whether the profiles that are

leading to high performance are changing, and whether the capability profile

of those people is changing as well.

And with the onset of, AI, I would imagine that we're facing into something

that could evolve quite quickly.

Yeah, and quite dramatically.

Yeah.

So as we near the end of our discussion today, Benne, I guess there's

a w- what we like and what the au- we, what we know our audience likes- Yeah

from this podcast is, what are those key things that they can think

about, that they can take away?

We've d- we've unpacked a whole bunch of stuff here today.

Yeah.

the importance of taking a data-led approach, the importance of taking

the commercial team on the journey when you're making any kind of change

or wanted to make any kind of change, in behaviors, and having developed

development plans that are, aligned to the needs of the different people across

your organization based on not just their performance but also their potential.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna ask you to pick one of those things, but if you were if

you were, if you were talking to, the, CPOs who are listening to this,

what are you, what … Who, haven't taken this approach in the past, what

piece of advice would you give them?

What would be the, what would be the sort of the, mic drop moment for you today that

says, "If you don't do anything, do this"?

I think my l- key learning is seeing the real difference you can

make by really targeting the development that you undertake and who you develop.

I- it was embarrassing for me that it took me so long to realise that and

just get that result because it's, it isn't rocket science, but I had,

I think before that, taken a more vanilla approach at, best intended.

I'd never wanted to roll something out that had been average, yeah?

So I did things that were best intended, but probably what everyone

else has been doing, and that didn't lead, embarrassingly to great results.

And you can get great results, and I think that, it was a bit, it was a moment to be

celebrated, but also it was a moment of sort of personal insight and embarrassment

that I hadn't got there quicker.

it'd taken me I don't know how many years, I'm not gonna disclose.

But you know how many years it took me to get there.

But I just thought, "Look, Benne, it wasn't rocket science. Come on." And,

and actually when I saw the results,

really, staggering, the sort of results that I'd been searching for and looking

for probably all of my career and every CPO would love to have, and to be able

to deliver for and with a business.

Y- you can do it.

I really promise you, you can do it if you take a more rigorous,

analytical, and targeted approach.

the results will come.

I love that, and I think, when you say you're, slightly

embarrassed and it's not rocket science, a lot of the really great stuff

isn't rocket science- Yeah, it isn't

but doesn't mean everyone's doing it, right?

Yeah.

No, exactly.

It's yeah.

But, that's it.

It's light bulb moment- Yeah … and, sort of 101 of, CPO and development, but I'd

managed to miss it for most of my career.

But what I would say in my defense is that I haven't been alone in that.

No, exactly.

Yeah.

No, exactly.

Safety in numbers, but

Safety in numbers

I just wish I'd got there earlier.

Yeah.

There's still, yeah, still plenty of time left.

Yeah, brilliant.

Benne, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

behalf of Bill and I, think it's been fantastic.

Absolutely, as always.

Really great insight.

and, yeah, I think I'm sure the audience will enjoy listening

to, everything you have to share.

Th- thank you.

Really been fun.

Thanks.

Brilliant.

Thank you.

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Until next time, keep up that forward-thinking mindset.

Goodbye.