Leadership Espresso with Stefan Götz

Navigating Business in Stormy Times: Lessons from a Ship Captain

• Stefan Götz

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Leadership isn't about charging ahead full steam—it's about positioning yourself at the center of the wheel, staying calm, and listening deeply. Jeff Allen, a business leader with experience as a container ship captain, shares how navigating stormy business conditions requires exceptional awareness and personal responsibility.

The fundamental principle is "Leadership is hearing the calls for help." When we truly listen to others' needs, we gain crucial awareness about our environment, allowing us to adjust strategically. But there's a challenging truth at the heart of this approach: external conflicts mirror internal ones. When conflict exists in your team, look inward to identify your own internal conflicts first. Attempting to solve others' problems without addressing your own makes you part of the problem rather than the solution.

Our current economic turbulence isn't merely a temporary setback but a correction in a natural cycle we've ignored while pursuing perpetual growth. Rather than desperately holding on during downturns, we should use these periods like low tide—when all the rocks and wrecks beneath the waterline become visible—to clean up what isn't working. This transforms recessions from survival periods into opportunities for meaningful reorganization and preparation for the next positive cycle.

Most provocatively, Jeff challenges the fundamental business premise of competition. Competition stems from scarcity thinking and inevitably destroys relationships. The alternative? Embracing partnership, valuing diverse perspectives, and fostering mutuality between companies. This shift from competition to cooperation represents the future of business—not just growing profits, but growing awareness, consciousness, and sustainable relationships that benefit everyone involved.

Questions and comments welcome below! Remember, we're better in this together.

Listen to the Leadership Espresso Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4OT3BYzDHMafETOMgFEor3

View the Leadership Espresso Podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/@Stefangoetz_Global_Leadership/videos

Connect with Stefan Götz on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefangoetz/

Check out Stefan's Executive and Team Coaching
https://www.stefan-goetz.com/

Speaker 1:

So welcome to our Inspiration Coffee Break this morning with Jeff Allen. And the burning question is how does the new way in business look like during and after Corona? So, hi, jeff, it's fantastic having you on this podcast. Yeah, great being here. So really thank you for that. And Jeff is just not. He runs a number of companies in the UK and what is even more important is he's been a captain of container vessels huge vessels so he knows how to navigate in stormy conditions, and stormy conditions, I guess, is what we have right now. And the major question that we want to circle around today is Jeff says leadership is hearing the calls for help. Now, jeff, what does that mean and what kind of help do we need to address these days?

Speaker 2:

You know, one of the main things about getting into leadership is listening. You know, when people actually typically have a problem in their business or in their relationship at one level, it's because they're not listening. So when you move into leadership, it's like you need to move into the center of the wheel. And when you get to the center of the wheel and when you get to the center of the wheel, while you're connected to everybody, you're not working hard. You know you you're in the center, you connected, but you're steady, you're calm and in that place you listen and it's kind of like you listen for people and and answer their calls for help, because so many people want help. And the thing is is you recognize that as you go and help them in whatever they're facing, what it does is gives you real awareness about what's going on for you in your environment and you get all the inputs you need so that you can adjust, so that you can position yourself about what's going to happen.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think that is a. The picture that you're sharing is what I call the mirroring picture, right? So whatever happens in your outside world, it's a reflection of your inside world. So can you explain why this is also true for business?

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely, you know. I mean in business, before you know you've had the sort of the so-called old-fashioned leader, you know, and when the going gets tough, the tough get going, all that kind of thing, but but that's, that's really. Old-fashioned leadership is about the willingness to share your gifts, to share your qualities with other people, and so that's the important thing about being willing to make a difference. And in business it's like seeing you can't be in a business and someone has a problem and you don't have a problem. I mean you at some point. Yes, it looks like they have a problem, but someone I have a problem too, too, jeff.

Speaker 1:

I find to myself, I acknowledge that idea and I find it true to be in my life and many lives. However, I find it incredibly difficult. I mean, the concept behind it is accountability, right? Yeah, I find it incredibly difficult to convey that idea that, whatever happens around me within my team, if there's a conflict, for instance, right, that there's also a conflict inside of me. You know, people go as far as I go. Yeah, give me a nice tool how to fix that, or I send them to a mediation or whatever, or you coach them, but it's not about me, so me? So how can we build the bridge for everybody to understand that power, that it has and the difference of that to be like I'm a victim or I have to suffer that now? So how can we build this bridge?

Speaker 2:

Well, the first thing mainly, especially in leadership is to take responsibility, which means you don't have to carry people, but you need to have the ability to respond to everybody in every situation. However, if you want to become an effective problem solver, you've got to start with yourself. Solver, you've got to start with yourself. If you're going out there trying to fix everyone else's problems and you're unwilling to look and examine your problems, you're going to become part of the problem, not part of the solution. And so if there's something outside of you a couple of people in conflict you need to look at yourself about where you're in conflict with other people, because if you're unwilling to do that, then you want to go to them and tell them to stop the conflict. Yet you've been unwilling to do the same thing for yourself. So now that will result in you being ineffective and, more than likely, making the conflict worse. You've got to start with yourself. It all begins with me. That is leadership, that's accountability, that's responsibility.

Speaker 1:

So that sounds gosh.

Speaker 2:

That sounds actually like a lot of work, because it becomes like you're a construction place but you see that the other part that you've got to get and this is really important now in business, because the future is not looking so rosy as it used to be because we we didn't look towards the process, the natural, how naturally things unfold we were going for growth, growth, growth, and then suddenly there has to be this correction which all of a sudden now it's like okay, this is the other side of that cycle and we need to work more with the cycles, we need to work more with nature, we need to work more with how things unfold and to be unaware of that, you just keep like full steam ahead. It's only a matter of time before you sink full steam ahead.

Speaker 1:

It's only a matter of time before you sink. So the picture you're sharing is like one that where you go like a full steam ahead, you're focused and this is at least it has some advantages towards. You know, if you're a result driven, that's the shortest way to your target. But I, I guess we are shown at this stage that maybe your target wasn't the right one, so maybe we can. This unfolding thing, you know, when you talk about unfolding, you know, in my picture about unfolding is maybe in some other areas to unfold someone or something. But I mean, what is that unfolding? Or where should my awareness go? Or why is awareness important in the first place?

Speaker 2:

Well, awareness makes you see what's going to happen. You have awareness, you get good at leadership. It'll lead you into true vision, which will give you you know what's going to happen before it happens. When you into true vision which will give you you know what's going to happen before it happens. When you have no awareness, what takes you out? You never see it coming, and that's kind of what's happened now. You know that started was a little thing and it took us out, and now we've got a whole nother racist thing. It's like some huge forces at play here and and it would be great if you were aligned with those forces instead of you marching against them.

Speaker 1:

This sounds a little bit like having the instincts, or is it a capacity that I can train? I mean, it sounds like okay, or either I have it or I don't have it. But it's not true. It's something that we can develop, right absolutely, and you start valuing it.

Speaker 2:

So, when you start valuing it, when you start listening and you start recognizing, oh you know, as, as the team becomes stronger, what it does is makes you more effective, makes you more efficient and makes you more immune to, you know, big disasters out there, or really bankruptcy and big things going wrong.

Speaker 2:

See, now typically is a time of we're going to go into a recession of one kind or another, of we're going to go into a recession of one kind or another, and the recession is a time when you can spend it wisely and really look at all the things that aren't working, because it's like the tide has gone out. You can see all the rocks and the wrecks underneath the waterline a life image and it gives you an opportunity to clean, clean up. So when the next cycle comes which will come then you'll be in a good position to take full advantage of the next cycle. If, on the other hand, you just try and hang on for grim life and we'll get through this and just cut the spending and keep your head down and we're going to get there, then when the next cycle starts, you're not going to be in a good position to take advantage of it, because you'll still be carrying all the old baggage.

Speaker 1:

So my first kind of, or one of the takeaways from this conversation is it's kind of time for homework doing, it's time for preparing for the next cycle. It's like understanding that business works in cycles. Actually, there was a novel price, I guess, about this already, that it happens in cycles and we're starting with this idea that up until now, our business models are geared toward growth. Yeah, and and I don't really agree it's not about growth, but it's maybe about a different kind of growth. The growth is an insight growth. It's. It's a growth in, in Consciousness, it's a gross in awareness. It's a growth in.

Speaker 1:

And if you want to lead a team, a company, a ship, I guess you first want to be able to lead yourself. Yeah, a company, a ship, I guess you first want to be able to lead yourself. Yeah, yeah. So what is the homework that we have or that we want to choose to do now? As to grow in ourselves first, and then comes the mirroring law in that, because if we grow inside, we can grow the quality of our business and have it sustainable. So what are the first steps towards that?

Speaker 2:

The first steps are really being willing to grow your awareness about just becoming more conscious about what's really going on. I mean, when people are creating damage in the world or in their businesses and things like that, you notice their level of consciousness, on one hand, is really low and they're just not aware of what they're doing. So what's important is to get that awareness, that self-awareness, and understand how your actions are impacting the people around you, how, what, what you're doing and what you're saying, the real effects it has on people, and then for you to start listening to what they have to say. And and you can see that so vividly in the world today, especially in america, where you're just going they're not listening, and so you're going, and so they're gonna have to revisit all that stuff later on down the road because they're not listening.

Speaker 1:

Jeff, how can we train and, to use the word, unfold, or develop our capacity of listening?

Speaker 2:

Just start valuing it, start valuing other people's inputs, start valuing what other people have to say and recognize that it is through that team, it's through everybody coming together in that way, that we find the way forward. You just cannot do it by yourself. I know, you know many of us, especially in business. We achieved wherever we got to by being independent and doing it our way, and you know, know the right way and you know you, the best man for the job is obviously me and you know all that sort of stuff. It's like no, no, none of that stuff is real. It's just the furthest that's going to get you is to be super competitive and we need to get past competition.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's an interesting topic now, because I think most of us believe in competition. Most of us believe in if we are the best version or if we compete, we can win. So what's so bad about competition and what is the alternative and where will it lead us to?

Speaker 2:

yeah, you, you're exactly right, it's about winning. In winning, you win, someone else loses, so it's that doesn't work and the losers just get upset. What we do is, when we compete, we confuse winning with success. Success is a much holer, better thing, something you can share, something you can achieve, something you can build on Winning you just do it, someone else loses, and then on again. You win again and really you don't get anywhere. And competition is all based on a belief in scarcity. Therefore, competition always destroys relationships and your personal relationships, your business relationships. Competition will destroy them Because sooner or later, you play win-lose with them. So what we need to do is get past that, to start valuing partnership, to start valuing other people's opinions and ideas, and really learn about mutuality, cooperation, even not only within our companies, but also with our companies and other companies. And you can see that sometimes in some of the telecom industries now, they realize that they do much better when they cooperate rather than when they compete.

Speaker 1:

I guess we have to do a series of leadership in business. There's so much depth in there, we can't have it all in one go. Yeah, yeah, jeff, for now, uh, I'm very, very grateful. Thank you for uh, for uh sharing these insights. And they're only the tip of the iceberg. There's a whole lot more to discover. Uh, and and uh and just uh, we'll set up another one.

Speaker 2:

I, we'll set up another one. I guess I'd love to do it, I'd love to share, and you know we live in interesting times and really there's got to be a better way than there was before. We can't go back to that. We've got to find that better way.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and I think we address this to all the leaders that have the courage. Courage comes from the curl, the fringe, you know, the heart or the Latin, and I guess, or at least I think it was like, but anyway. So questions and comments as usual below, because, never forget, we are better in this together. As Jeff said, it's about partnership, mutuality, equality, cooperation. So we co-create that future together. So until next time, be inspired. What else? Yeah, thank you.