Hamish Taylor
About
About Hamish Taylor - Award-winning CEO and Global Keynote Speaker Leadership, Innovation & Branding:
Hamish Taylor has a CV that the Times describes as “takes some beating.” His energetic, thought-provoking and humorous keynotes are based on a rare combination of real stories - and a fantastic ability to inspire audiences with tailored advice and practical tools. Regularly featured in broadcast media, today Hamish acts as an advisor to some of the world’s largest companies (and even Governments) - assisting with specific innovation projects, customer focus and/or people leadership.
Hamish is an award-winning CEO whose career has taken him from the international consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, consultancy firm Price Waterhouse and British Airways - to become CEO of the channel tunnel railway Eurostar, and then CEO of Sainsbury’s Bank… all before he was 40! In all cases, he left behind a record of significant business growth triggered by a willingness to challenge the normal way of doing things - so much so that his advice and assistance is now sought by organizations all over the world in many different industries.
As the self appointed “chief dumming down officer” in each of his roles, his approach is simple - but highly effective in delivering breakthroughs.
- The first thing that has to change is the way you look at your customers (both internal and external) - if you look at your customers the same way, you will get the same answers and keep doing the same things
- Secondly, you need to use your customer insights to create a new leadership tool - a simple “customer promise” as a platform for ALL future activity that puts customer benefit at the heart. Your customer doesn’t care about what you do, but about how they benefit as a result of what you do - so use this as your key purpose
- Thirdly, you must look to other environments and industries if you want breakthrough ideas - for product, service, process, leadership and much more. The Inspired Leaders Network dubbed Hamish the “Master thief” due to his track record in this area
- Concentrate your major energy on changing the way you engage with the team that will deliver the customer promise
Hamish’s keynotes will demonstrate the major breakthroughs that can be achieved by changing your approach. Hamish’s message can be tailored to a variety of topics and levels within an organization.
Topics
What Hamish Taylor Talks About:
The Customer Promise: Putting the Customer at the Heart of All Activities Within Your Organization (or Department)
Changing the way you understand your customers (both internal and external) brings new insights that enable you to create a Customer Promise. A change in the definition of the business (or individual role) – to a statement of customer benefit (rather than a description of your expertise). This was the key to both driving innovation and creating a simple leadership tool that unlocked the potential of the whole organization.
Attendees will learn about:
- How concepts such as “soft insights”, “customer expectations, “customer’s customer” and the “blank sheet of paper” approach – gave new insights that enable competitive advantage
- How the Customer Promise provides a simple leadership tool that places the customer at the heart of everyone’s work
- Implications for both Customer engagement and Leadership
Masterthief: Lessons in Driving Innovation and Change by “Stealing” Ideas from Outside
If you want a breakthrough, look outside your current environment! From yacht designers and Disney assisting British Airways, to rugby referees in Banking risk management – the need to look for stimulus from outside your current environment has been at the heart of the approach Hamish has brought to organizations.
Hamish will acquaint the audience with:
- The Customer Promise as your new starting point for innovative masterthief approaches
- How to steal ideas from the most unlikely of sources that are highly applicable to your challenges
- How to get the team onside for the new thinking
Playing Reverse Football: Lessons in Making Sure You Take the Organization with You
The biggest challenge we face is to ensure employee engagement with the change journey.
Hamish will provide an overview about:
- The Customer Promise as a new simple leadership tool to focus activity
- Setting the right ambition to drive innovative behaviour
- Unlocking the potential of the whole organization – and, as leaders, learning when to let go
- Great communication is, of course important, but other lessons learned include – the “Power of Ambition”, “Ruthless simplicity”, “Champions”, “Customer-focussed organizational design” and the “Make it Easy” model
Recent Publications
Hamish your presentation at our Sales event was dynamic, inspiring, engaging and thought provoking - and most importantly it was on brief. We value all the real cases you shared to illustrate your point - it was very helpful.
SC JOHNSON
