Leading Amidst Adversity:

An Interview with Strategy & Leadership Coach Paul O’Kelly and Fitzgerald Power MD Stuart Fitzgerald

​​For most, complexity feels like the defining business and leadership challenge of our time. But it has never felt more urgent than now. COVID-19 is not over, and its complexities continue to upend life and business in ways no one could have predicted. This month, we’re talking to leaders about what it takes to confront complex and confounding problems head-on and how to deal with being the face of bad news. 

Today we’re talking with Paul O’Kelly. For over thirty years, Paul has challenged leaders and their teams across the world to make breakthroughs in their thinking, planning and performance so that their teams can thrive and grow, whilst making a purposeful impact.  His team at Mylyn designs and leads engagement processes, engaging participants at every level in workshops globally. His simple measure for quality and impact is clients spontaneously and unreservedly recommending his team to colleagues and other leaders. These referrals have led Paul to work with an unexpectedly rich variety of clients and projects across the world in more than 20 countries. 

Tell us first about the coaching you’re doing with the Fitzgerald Power team to allow them to reach their potential when it comes to leadership.

Gladly. Fitzgerald Power is a super example of the purpose-driven organisations we work with. Whilst some of our clients call us when facing difficult, unchartered waters; we are also invited to work with teams like Fitzgerald Power with more positive questions, where the decisions are about opportunities, direction, about designing the future.

When we met Stuart and Noel, their questions were about deciding how to develop themselves and their leadership team so that they and the business could thrive and grow whilst delivering on the organisation’s full potential. We choose our clients carefully. It was an easy decision for us to work with them – they have a deep commitment to their people and are committed to bringing enduring value to their clients. I was also impressed by their deep commitment to their community, to Waterford and the South East whilst serving clients all over Ireland and beyond. 

We are now in the first phase of a multi-year journey. Our work is focused on continuously addressing questions of leadership, teamwork, culture, and strategy in ways that build awareness, competence, confidence and performance. And, of course, setting individuals and teams up so that they are always prepared for setbacks.

What makes a good leader, in your opinion?

First of all and critically, they come in all shapes and sizes, interests, and personalities. In my experience, they are found at every level in organisations. Great leaders build environments where leaders emerge, grow and thrive at all levels. Leaders are found in teams across organisations, you might call them ‘impact players’. Leaders see capabilities and positive attitudes in others, they identify the strengths in others, they shine a light on potential, nurture it, and take responsibility for building a culture that makes this way of thinking systematic.   

True leaders have an unshakeable belief in the potential of people to grow, even if it means that growth is best continued beyond their organisation. They have intentional curiosity, backed by an active commitment to learning. Leaders are coaches, they build trust, are inclusive and courageous in decision-making, hold themselves and others to account, They see accountability as ownership. They care personally for their people and find appropriate ways to have tough conversations when necessary. So leadership is about learning. Learning faster than the competition, often learning how to work with people from very different backgrounds and cultures. They are constantly developing their skills of communicating with people in new ways, providing inspiration, and creating an environment through others where people can thrive and grow where people take ownership of their individual learning journey.  

These are areas of strength at Fitzgerald Power. They are focused on developing talent from within for existing and new roles. They are investing in training and development. And critically, the entire leadership team is focused on its own development, leading by example. The leaders are genuinely listening to their teams, engaging the whole organisation, and distributing decision-making. One example is the SOAR workshop we facilitated recently. It involved the entire team to contribute to the design of the Fitzgerald Power of the future.

During the pandemic, leadership took on a whole new role. Have you found that the needs of a leader have changed in that time?

Yes changed, changed in different ways depending on the context. And some needs were greatly amplified, again depending on the context.

I will mention needs are amplified first. Leaders must always look after themselves as a priority. For some, this statement is controversial, it might sound like selfishness. It is not. In many ways, business and organisation leaders are like athletes on high-performance teams or lead musicians in the finest orchestras. To make the best contribution, both need to bring out the best in others. Leaders need to prepare, and take care of themselves physically, emotionally and socially to be ready to perform on the stage or on the playing field. Under the pressures of COVID, many discovered they did not have the habits or supports in place to be at their best, so they needed to reset in this area. Many needed to find support to get on track, to be at their best, for them it was a valuable lesson learned.

Given the definition of leader mentioned earlier, during COVID leaders at all levels had to learn new approaches, new skills, and introduce new tools, systems and processes to maintain team health, and team cohesion. With such a broad range of clients, we saw vast differences in the “jobs to be done” to meet the challenges and therefore different needs depending on the circumstances in each business.  

Like any rapid, unexpected change or crisis, the leaders whose organisations thrived during the pandemic were those who responded by bringing teams, and often teams of teams together to look at scenarios. They enabled broader decision making, adapting their working styles and the tools and processes in order to ensure that their own people were safe and had the opportunity to figure out ways of working to suit the context. Simply put they wrote new rules. Trust across organisations became even more important. So it was an ability to respond in a very agile way, very quickly, and do that in a highly collaborative environment. 

Where do companies usually go wrong? 

If I interpret the question as what holds back growth; then it is a combination of firstly leaders and leadership teams failing to learn, grow themselves, and failing to invest in evolving their leaders and teams at all levels. Secondly, it is not having in place appropriate systems and rhythm of strategic thinking, planning and execution disciplines owned by the entire organisation. 

What have you learned from working with these companies on different leadership techniques?

In the pressures of the day-to-day, companies often don’t put the time and energy into building the leadership team and intentionally developing or renovating the culture. This highlights the important decision made by Fitzgerald Power. Stuart, Noel and the other leaders decided to commit to ongoing reflection, strategic thinking, learning, developing, growing and creating a learning organisation. This requires a commitment of sufficient time to reflect and to act on the learning from those reflections. It means a regular rhythm of planning of strategic action. 

So very often, organisations get lost in task-orientated work rather than investing sufficient time working on the ‘how’ they’re doing their work. Imagine a sports team expecting to win a major championship by only playing games, doing no prep, no training, no working on strengths, and no work on game plans!? Imagine expecting to win without a coach or a coaching team? Great companies are relentless in developing strengths and individual skills, honing critical organisation capabilities, evolving ways of working and becoming super focused on execution that includes high visibility of progress and unambiguous accountability.

Are the general tenets of leadership different for different types of people––say whether someone is older, younger, a man or woman?

That is a big question! If you do a search online at Kenny’s Bookshop in Galway you will find thousands of books on leadership. There are many ways of defining leadership, of measuring leadership competence and effectiveness. Depending on the context, I might look at the tenets of leadership in different ways. 

Common to them all are an appreciative, inquiring approach, asking provocatively positive questions. Inclusion is important– harnessing the power of engaging people individually and collectively. Shining a light on strengths and illuminating opportunity by bringing out the best in people and situations. Having the courage to inspire, often by putting a big compellng vision of what is possible, this has  the effect of opening up peoples creativity and innovation. And finally and critically they have integrity of purpose.

And finally, Paul, Offaly or Waterford?

There’s only one answer to that. Offaly forever, and now after winning the Leinster Minor hurling title this week after a 22 year wait!

Next up is Fitzgerald Power’s own joint Managing Partner Stuart Fitzgerald. Stuart boasts extensive experience in the Community Pharmacy, SME and Food & Beverage sectors, all of which were affected heavily by the pandemic. He understands these roles intimately, hailing from a family pharmacy background and acting as advisor to various food and beverage businesses . In his line of work, he provides strategic financial advice to operators across Ireland and the UK.  

In your opinion, what factors allow you to succeed as a leader?

I think a leader’s main job is to focus on team cohesion. It’s about bringing together the right team. If you have the right team in place you can effectively achieve anything. And I think that’s been a big learning curve for us; building a high-quality team and getting people into the right roles in the business, creating excellent team cohesion and managing that through. I think, first and foremost, the success of a leader is based on being honest about where you and your team are strong and where you can improve. This was a big part of the reason why we brought in Paul and Nicola––because we felt that there was some development that was required in ourselves as individuals and as leaders in the business in terms of really, really understanding how we can work together more cohesively and really deliver on our potential. 

So, I think that’s the main thing, being able to identify what the team needs in terms of personnel and what the team needs in terms of outside expertise to make it as cohesive as possible. I think a leader then needs to be very, very clear on what the organisation does, who the core customer is, what the values of the business are, what the strategic direction of the business is, and then very open in terms of working that through with the senior leadership team and coming to a very clear purpose and direction that everyone understands and buys into. And I think then, the leader needs to be very good at communicating that down through the organisation. So, creating buy-in and empowering the senior leadership team to deliver that message to their teams as well as being the custodian of that message yourself. And to make sure that it resonates and is delivered so that everyone is very clear on what we do. Each employee should have a crystal clear understanding of who our core customer is, what we do that’s different and why we add value in every engagement we’re involved in. Getting clarity right across the business is hugely important. 

How do you prepare for the hard days?

Fitzgerald Power has worked through a number of different economic cycles and there are challenges regardless of the cycles, that’s a given. I think the only thing you can do is be honest. To be fully upfront about the challenges you’re facing and not shy away from them. To analyse them, to be honest with yourself and your people, and when something comes up that has to be dealt with, just deal with it immediately. You can’t always plan for every eventuality. Business plans and projections are always very linear, but that isn’t what happens in reality. You never know what’s around the corner, just look at COVID. There was no real way that we could have planned for that, but you can plan your reactions. For example, we had been looking at a hybrid working model before the pandemic, which may have taken up to two years to implement if it wasn’t for the pandemic. COVID necessitated that we turn it around in two weeks. So I think when it’s put up to you, if you don’t shy away from the challenge, be honest and just deal with it without trying to sugarcoat it, you can make it work. You know, not every decision is easy, but I think you just need to be prepared to make the difficult ones. As someone once told me; “you can make easy decisions and have a hard life, or make hard decisions and have an easy life.

How do you deal with toxic team structures?

We put a lot of time into cultural fit. When we’re hiring, we try to make sure that the people who we bring into the business are aligned in terms of culture and values, and that they will be a good fit in terms of what we’re looking for, which is basically a cohesive member of the team. With that kind of thought process at the outset, you kind of get in front of any problems that may arise. But things happen too, bringing people in always changes the team dynamic and the only way to deal with any upsets is to, once again, lead with honesty. Get to the root of that problem to understand what’s causing it. Take everyone’s point of view on board and try to problem solve as you go. Every situation is different, but the only way of doing it really is to be honest with people and to look for them to be honest with you. 

What is the best advice you’ve been given when it comes to running a company? 

That once you get the people right, everything takes care of itself. There’s that old adage that the customer is the most important person in your business, but it’s actually your team members, because they look after the customer to begin with. If you get the right people in the right place and keep them happy and wanting to do good work, I genuinely think that’s the foundation of success. It’s the best advice I’ve been given anyway. 

Paul: I think my best piece of advice actually came from my mother, who said ‘do your thing’. And when I think carefully about that, it’s about doing what you think is the right thing to do for the people and the organisations in front of you. It’s also about being passionate about doing the right thing, rather than simply following your passions. I think it can be a mistake for people to just spend their time doing what they love doing rather than figuring out what’s important to be done and making sure you’re putting your passion and energy into doing that.

Finally, what was the moment where you realised Paul and his team were needed to help guide the business from the inside?

Because we’ve grown enough to realise we don’t have all the answers. I knew I was looking for something but I didn’t know what I needed. Paul was recommended by a very good friend of mine and when I met him I realised he fit perfectly. He boasts a very unusual mix of strategic coach and leadership coach, which was exactly what we needed. I just think we realised that if we were really going to capitalise on the opportunities that were being presented to us, we needed help from external experts like Paul and Nicola to develop and grow and really refine the strategic direction we were looking to go in.

Any parting words, you two?

Paul: It’s all about growth mindset. 

Stuart: Know your strengths, know your weaknesses and treat your people like gold. And up the Déise. 

For more information on Paul’s work and techniques, check out his website here and LinkedIn here. For more information on Fitzgerald Power, the work that we do, and our commitment to employee satisfaction, check out our website. 

Financial advisor to the Irish community pharmacy sector, food & beverage, SME and retail.

We at Fitzgerald Power have spent thirty years offering creative solutions to a diverse range of clients across Ireland, and the UK, and we’re pretty proud of what we’ve helped our clients to achieve. We enable and empower businesses to reach any and every goal. Whatever the job, we don’t offer anything less than the best. We work across a range of sectors, including pharmacy, food & beverage, SME and retail. Please get in touch today if you would like to speak to any of our experts.

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