Ellis Watson

JLA Client Comments

Q&A

JLA: Are there any positives to be taken from the recession?
EW: Many companies are responding to recession like Chicken Licken, and totally missing the opportunity to radically overhaul the focus of their team. Any significant external shock can be used as a springboard for internal change that's staggeringly positive. Give me a room full of despondent executives in a downturn for an hour and I'll turn them into a bunch of change-hungry, tenacious go-getters because of the opportunities of the economic change.

JLA: What lessons can a large organisation learn from entrepreneurs and small businesses?
EW: Getting big companies to be bigger is hard, as the people running them often have forgotten - or weren't part of - the entrepreneurial aggression that made them big in the first place. Getting large organisations to be as hungry and aggressive as a small one is a cultural challenge - it must force executives to think outside their big resources, comfy positions and self-important success. If left unchecked, big organisations become lazy and complacent - get it right, and they can make a powerful cocktail from brilliant scale & assets that smaller competitors can't harness and a real drive to make them work damn hard.

JLA: How do you inspire trust, build trust and foster ambition?
EW: Talent can't sit behind boardroom doors and deep carpets - it has to rush through its organisation infecting their passion and drive across the whole company.