Formula One has been relatively stable for many years.
And then the FIA talked about introducing
a cost cap into the sport,
really aimed at trying to level the playing field.
That's where level was set at $175 million.
Now for us as a business,
that's quite a change
'cause we were above that number.
It fell onto my shoulders to take us through that.
And then the pandemic came along,
so we had, number of really massive factors
preying on the organisation.
And finding the lever and it was finding a way to say,
actually there's a direction here,
which is exciting, it's interesting, I can develop.
It's been really important.
(upbeat music)
- What does transformation mean to you
and what's the key to it you think
when you think about how you get success in transformation?
- The last few years for us has seen significant change.
As the sort of leader of it
if I'm being brutally honest,
for a couple of months I sort of stared at it.
I thought actually, how do you go about tackling this?
Because it's different,
it's not a sort of technical challenge
that we're so used to.
And most of us have engineering, backgrounds and mindsets
so we kinda like technical challenges
'cause we can understand them.
We sort of understand the journey
and we've got a good idea what the end point will be.
So that's quite a comfortable place for us.
When you're looking at something like this
which is quite wide-ranging,
for myself anyway, I sort of looked at it
and did various different plans
and actually got myself stuck into a bit of a nutshell.
I didn't actually start it.
And it was only kind of taking a brave pill in the end
and said, right, let's just get going.
Let's get a group of people together
and let's start sort of scoping out this sort of challenge.
And that's what we did.
And we got ourselves into a reasonable place.
We had a project team in place,
we had a structure in place,
and then the pandemic came along in 2020.
And what happened around in March.
Yeah. March-April time, 2020.
The FIA reduced that cost cap limit
from $175 million down to $145 million.
So suddenly this challenge
became a really significant challenge, really significant.
For a company like ourselves, this was pretty major.
We probably wasted maybe a couple of months
until actually it wasn't me,
it was somebody else in the team that said,
"We need to stop.
We actually need to stop.
We are not gonna get where we need to get to
just by adopting the same approach we had before."
So it was a big turning point and he goes,
"This is a significant change now
and we need to step back from what we're doing
and actually look at how we're gonna organise ourselves."
And that was an important moment for us,
'cause it did force us to think differently.
And instead of this sort of oppressive, shrinkage type model
that's what we were heading towards,
we thought, "Well how do we look at this differently?
How do we look at it from a sort of growth perspective,
a much more positive perspective?"
'Cause we've built this team over many years
and we're very proud of it
and it's in a way the easy path would've been,
"Okay. Let's reduce the team down
to the size of the cost cap limit
and then this go forward."
But we didn't wanna do that.
We actually wanted to try and maintain
the strengths of team as much as we can,
but actually how do we do that
when you've only got a fixed amount of money you can spend?
So we came up with a different strategy.
A strategy where actually at certain times of the year
where we can't afford these people,
let's use them on something else.
Let's use them on what we called non-F1 work.
So this is work,
doing projects that aren't related to Formula One.
So we started talking to companies
and the first major project we took on board
was to help with the America's cup
'cause INEOS are one of our sponsors.
They were involved in the America's cup
in the last campaign.
We did a little bit of work to help them,
but actually we're doing a lot more work on that.
So we started doing these interesting, exciting projects
which complement our skills so using the capabilities.
They're commercial projects so they're generating income,
which is always useful for the business.
And we're able to maintain the organisation
pretty much as we had it before.
So suddenly it's a change of direction
and we're actually heading down a path
where the team isn't actually reducing.
Potentially, it's growing.
So our communication changed very quickly.
Once we've sort of found that direction
we could talk to the organisation and say,
"This is where we're going."
We have some clarity now of the direction at a high level.
There's a lot of detail to work through,
but actually it's a really positive future.
Now, Formula One will always be at the heart of what we do.
It's the core of what we're about,
but actually there's some interesting other projects.
- I loved what you said
around pivoting into other industries.
There's a positive energy about that,
it gets you back to a why, a back to a purpose,
with brilliant engineers,
where else can we deploy these skills?
- I can sit here and talk about what may appear
like a nice story, with a nice direction,
but actually it's really hard.
It is really hard.
And there's many days of uncertainty and difficulty.
And again if you wind the clock back,
what would we do differently?
Actually we've, trying to,
I believe we were quite naive, you know?
Believe it or not we were really busy
before this all came along,
and then we decided we need to do this big change.
And we thought, "Okay, let's do this change
but we'll do it ourselves.
We'll just suck it up and get on with it."
So what we ended up doing
was really overloading the managers
and the people in the organisation.
And we didn't really add too much left to resource
into the company.
So we didn't really understand that well enough.
So people were really under the cosh and still are
'cause we're still wrestling with this model.
'Cause we are quite conservative of actually,
I talk about there's a cost cap,
but we can have this growth model,
but we didn't really believe it well enough
or didn't have the,
we weren't brave enough to really believe in it
and invest in it.
So actually it is clear now that we were short of resource
in a number of areas.
We thought, we can't go and recruit, we've got a cost cap.
So there's all of these difficulties
and dimensions that came into play,
that we're wrestling with,
that you would probably change with hindsight.
Now we'll come through it 'cause we've got a direction
and we kinda know where we're going
and it's starting to settle down.
But it is, it's really, really difficult.
But stepping back and having that clarity
is the biggest, biggest change that we did.
What would I have done differently?
I wish I'd been braver, braver at the start.
Being able to have the clarity of,
yeah, I can see it, I can see where we're going,
I can see the direction
and I can articulate it in a way which is engaging,
so people will share the same enthusiasm for it.
That actually, yeah,
there's gonna be some tough steps along this journey,
but actually where we're going
it's going to be, it's gonna be worth the effort.
You've got to find a way to enjoy it
because it can take its toll.
And actually, I actually felt quite privileged to be honest.
For something, for a change of this scale
to be asked to try and lead it
was a bit of a privilege.
And see it like that.
Don't see it as a weight.
Don't see it as, nobody else has stepped forward, it's me.
See it as something that is actually quite exciting.
It's an opportunity.
But don't try and carry the burden on your own shoulders.
People are generally supportive if you're honest and open.
And as quickly as you can,
try to get some clarity as I said and a consensus about,
this is where we need to be.
Then you feel in better shape,
but not forgetting as we've talked all the way through this
about the human element.
(upbeat music)