McLaren F1 Racing Culture

We are joined by Paul Teasdale, a performance expert. Paul uses his experiences from Formula 1 to coach business leaders to improve the performance of their teams. Paul explains how to create a winning culture, find the leaders in your team, and manage imposter syndrome. 

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Talking Points:

{06:47} How to improve performance in your team.

{13:28} Authenticity always wins the day.

{15:32} Creating a Winning Culture.

{19:24} Finding Leadership in your virtual environment.

{26:39} Managing imposter syndrome in a high-performance environment.

{31:15} Why you should never hear, that’s not my job.

{32:50} Dropping the ego to end the politically driven culture to become performance-driven.

Resources and Links:

• Website: https://paulteasdale.co.uk  
• Social: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljamesteasdale 

Connect with Tom Finn

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Welcome, Welcome, my friends, to the Talent Empowerment Podcast where we support business education through the stories of glorious humans. Let's borrow their vision, their tools, and their tactics to lift up your own purpose, and find your happiness, whether that's within your organization, your teams, or your community… That would be lovely. I am your purpose-driven host. The real Tom Finn. And on the show today we have my good friend Paul Teasdale. Welcome to the show, my man.

Oh, thanks so much, Tom. My absolute privilege to be here looking forward to the conversation.

Well, Paul, you have a really cool background in Formula One and racing and I just want to introduce you to the audience for just a second here. 

So, Paul has 20 years of helping businesses to drive performance, most recently spending some time with McLaren Racing. Now he helps clients take the approaches and ways of working that deliver elite motorsport performances and, of course, apply them to their own world through facilitation and speaking, and consulting. 

Paul worked for seven years with Formula One and supercar manufacturer McLaren, and has a ton of stories, examples, and approaches that can be applied to any organization that's really looking for high performance. 

He also believes that people drive performance, not just automobiles, and when supported by the right process and technology, organizations can thrive. So, let's start there. Paul, you worked for McLaren for a number of years. What was the most important lesson you learned working with a Formula One racing team?

Oh, great question. I mean, there are so many of them. It was such a privilege to work in such a high-performance environment and work with teams that were literally at the top of their game in a global sport. 

I think it's the counterintuitive things that really stick with me. One of the key ones and one of the things that is most applicable to any of us out there, is about how to make decisions and specifically about using data to make decisions. If you think about the world of Formula One data-driven, you know there are huge amounts of data to the extent that on a race weekend, they talk about it being the biggest data experiment in the world because there's so much data coming off the cars and being transmitted over the world and being sort of modeled and simulated in the background, all this stuff to make better decisions. Such as when to pick the car and what to do next, what strategy to take. 

One of the key things I learned in the early stages was they were taking a different approach to data-driven performance and that was performance was the very last thing on the list. Which you know I've, I've. Took me a while to wrap my head around and then it was like, well, it makes sense if you think about the world of Formula One. You've got a car that needs to perform and go fast and go around the track fast. If you need more data, you need more sensors. You need more telemetry. You need things on the car that come with the weight, no matter how light those things are, they add up. And that weight is counterintuitive and counteractive to the performance he tried to drop. 

So, ultimately what you're looking for is the smallest possible data set. That helps you make better decisions and gives you the insights to help you make better decisions. And so, I've used that as the basis of what I do now and the basis of how I help people around what I call rapid performance. 

So, it's about starting with the results that you're trying to drive. Understand the actions that you have at your disposal and the things that you can do to impact those results. Understanding deeply the people who the people are, how they interact, how they manage each other, work as a team. 

The I for insights. What insights do those people need to make better decisions? And then the D is for data, and it's what's the smallest possible data set you can bring along that generates the insights that you need. 

And this goes counterintuitive. Then counteractive to the approach that a lot of us are taking, which is more data, more data, more data. Or more reports. More information brings it all to me and I'll digest it all and hopefully, I'll make a better decision off the back of it. 

Actually, if you think about it and put it the other way around, start with the end in mind. What are the results I'm trying to drive and then you can work backward and say what's the smallest statement that I need? 

Therefore, I can be efficient with my data. I don't have to pay as much. I don't have to invest in data that I don't need, and it frees up your headspace. And it helps you and your teams to make better decisions and that's the biggest thing that's hit out in the whole experience really is just those counterintuitive lessons that you take.

Yeah, I love the way you explain that because so many of us in a business context are always looking at employee survey reports, pulse reports, annual cultural reports, you name it… we're looking at it and we're trying to figure out what people are really feeling and thinking, right? 

And it feels a little overwhelming. And I think your analysis and example of the car we can all visualize, right? How many different sensors do we need? Do we need 10,000 sensors, right? That adds 50 pounds of weight? Do we need 22 sensors that give us a very prescriptive data set so that we're able to make decisions? I love the way you explain that because it now gives us all a visual of how this actually works. So, when you get past the data, there is a performance component. So, help us understand how you improved performance For McLaren.

So just to give a context as well, when I was at McLaren, I spent seven years there working in a part of McLaren called McLaren Applied Technologies or applied as they're known, these days and I was there almost as a consultant, taking the ways of working and the methodologies and some of the technologies that they developed and approaches to technology. And taking them out to external clients. 

So, I was working alongside our key partners, we it was KPMG, to begin with, and then Deloitte. So those are the big players who bring in the big customers and then we would come along with the shiny and say, you know, this is the McLaren mindset, this is the McLaren approach to the challenges that you're facing with everything from the supermarket shelf-stacking oil and gas drilling airport operations, all sorts of wonderful setups where you go. If we were approaching this from a Formula One standpoint and Formula One performance, we would want these kinds of insights. 

I see a difference in terms of what I would expect and what's actually happening in the real world and the businesses that I've worked with. People are provided with data and information. The facts and the figures and the facts and the figures are put in a slightly different way, or maybe with a bit of trend. It's the reports. It's just pure data that’s put in front of people, maybe with that information element to it. 

What I'm looking for is insight. How can you bring those bits of information and bring those elements of data together? In such a way that you can show people the decisions that they have in front of them, the options that are there, and the potential impacts that they would see from making the various decisions. And then you're giving people insights as to what to do. Or what they could do. 

And then people are making decisions off the back of that and wrapping the human element over the top of it. And it's the difference between automation, which is the data, and it tells you exactly what to do when it goes ahead and does it for you. But actually, you want that human in the loop for high performance. That you're always going to be having something, some level of experience, some on the ground, nose to the grindstone. You know people… Someone's going to know something that the model or the simulation or the way in which you're bringing all this data together doesn't know. 

So, you can bring that additional context and the question in a business environment moves from what decision do we take? Why shouldn't we take this decision? And that's a very different conversation. It often becomes a much richer conversation and leads to better performance as well.

So, we start with data and then we pretty quickly get into insights on how we utilize that data to create something that is performance-based. So, I know we're going down this path, but I want to. I want to stop for a second. Are you a Formula One fan?

One of the first things I said when I applied for the role and started having the conversation was, I'm not an F1 fan. Partly because I've never grown up with F1 in my environment, and two even now that I've been in amongst it, I would never dream of calling myself a fan because F1 fans put the fanatical element to it in a big way. You've got to be really, really deep into it if you want to call yourself a proper fan. I'm a fan of performance and I'm a fan of how high-performing teams get together and move forward. 

So, I don't have a background in loving F1. I do still follow, and I you know, I've got more and more into it as I've gone along, but it's a different relationship than a lot of people would have gone in and saying I really want to work for McLaren. It's my dream. That's the passion I've always supported McLaren all my life and that's the dream to work for. It wasn't the case. For me, it was still an amazing experience.

And did you ever go to any of the races when? You were a part of the team.

Funnily enough, I didn't. The original remit was given to me. So, I booked the job when I was coming back and moving back from New Zealand. I lived and worked in New Zealand for a number of years and was looking to move back to the UK for family reasons. Yeah, I had a friend of mine who worked in the simulation team there. He still works there now, and he was like look. We're looking for people. We're looking for people to do performance consulting in some way. You need to speak to this demo guy who's heading up the team. 

And so, it all just came about through that Channel. It is such that it came about in a slightly different way, but I just got this opportunity to have that conversation with people and as I flew over from New Zealand to have an interview, it was like, yeah, first thing first, I'm not an F1 fan, but yeah. I'm sure you've got plenty of them, and that's one of the other interesting things that McLaren would do in particular is they would look beyond experience.

And you know that that's the specifics and they look for capabilities, I think that's it. The critical thing as well is when you're looking for the right people. Then what are the capabilities you need in that role? Not what's the experience you need because experience does not necessarily mean, particularly in a fast-paced, fast-changing world like the Taran. If you've had the experience of 20 years doing F1 this way, that's a different world already. You know you've had. If you've had two years of experience, it's a different world, so you need the capability to adapt more. Anything that's what they're looking for in those capabilities.

And that's a really great lesson because we all think that jobs are just bestowed upon us. Or many do for sure. And I think what I heard is you leverage your network to make a move right for family reasons. Great. We all move around the world for different reasons. But you leveraged your relationship with a friend who already worked there. You got yourself an interview. You got on an airplane. Take the initiative to get over and meet them in person and then when you got there you are leveraged. These are the things that I do really well and ohh by the way. Hey, yeah, I'm not really a race fan, but I can do a really good job for you. 

And so that's actually a beautiful interview moment because I can imagine most people, even if they're not race fans, want to go into that discussion saying I'm a Race fan. But you went the other way and that's I guarantee you that part of that is why you got the job.

I mean, I learned this early on in my career in an interview for a consultancy, level work for it. If you try to pull the BS, if you try to claim that you know something that you don't. You're going, you're going to get found out. 

So, the best thing to do is to be open and honest about it in the early stages and the consultancy role I had. It was the whole interview I found out, later on, was set up to test and test and test in terms of 1 what you knew. But when would you actually admit that you didn't know something? Because that's what they wanted their consultants to be saying to their clients, you know, this is all the stuff we know. But if we don't know, we're not going to try and pull the wool over your eyes, we're going to actually tell you this is the situation. I'll go and find out. And that was my response to a question about that so I don't know the definition right now. I can go and find out for you later on if you like and come back to you. But I'm not going to try and pretend that I know the answer.

And I've given that advice to so many people over the years, as you know, be open and honest, and it's also that you're interviewing them. You want to work for someone who is going to be expecting you to be deep, put yourself into a hole, you know if I'd gone in as some real big Formula One fan, tell me about this race on that day and what happened, you know did you really like this scenario when that happened? Well, I would be found out pretty quickly there. So yeah. Be yourself and be open and honest. 

Yeah, good. Good advice. Authenticity always wins. The day, my man always wins the day. So, as you're thinking about the consulting work you did inside of McLaren outside of data, we understand data, we can visualize Formula One and the data and the cars and all that kind of stuff. But was there something from a cultural standpoint? That you saw that was just a little different or perhaps elevated.

And many things. There are a couple of lessons that I often talk about. One I'll talk about is looking at the eyes. Now this is a lesson that I learned from a story about one of the senior leaders. The senior Operation Leader was in the pit lane with a client, and it was just before a race. I think it was Fernando Alonso's, but I'm not going to pretend that I Know for sure It was about to go out. On the starting line the car wouldn't go. And you've just got about two minutes for the car to get onto the grid, and if it's not on the grid, you can't start and it doesn't take a lot to think if you can't start, you can't finish, you can't finish, you can't win, or at least get some points. 

Therefore, you know this is a big deal. The car needs to start. You've got a team of generally young mechanics who were there literally under the car with their spanners and their wrenches and trying to figure out what's going on, and the senior leader from McLaren standing there, by all accounts looking calm and collected. And the client who is next to him was saying what are you doing, you know? Why aren't you there? Why aren't you panicking? What's going on? You know, this is a major moment. This is huge for your organization. Why aren't you stepping in and helping out? 

Two things going on here. It's about decisions and the point of most knowledge. Though I'm not the most knowledgeable person in this situation, the guy who's under the car with the scanner knows exactly what's going on, and I should have given them enough tools and techniques, and enough understanding to solve these problems. And if I haven't, it's my fault. 

So that's the, you know, I'm going to empower my people. I'm just going to say you've got the power to do that. I'm actually going to demonstrate it and not step in and allow people to do the best they can in those scenarios.

OH Paul, I got to stop you. It only. Took you 16 minutes. It took you 16 minutes to get empowerment into your discussion on the Talent Empowerment podcast. Well done, checks in the mail. OK, so that's .1 and it's a great point that you made, right, which is if you're not delivering as a leader and your people can't do it without you, what are you really doing in terms of developing them? Right. 

So that's .1, so I'm OK. I'm back in the pit. Yeah, we're under the car. We're trying to get it started.

And the other point was the senior leader saying my job as a lead. Is to look for the eyes and I love the terms. What do you mean by that? It's like when a problem like this is happening when the proverbial has hit the fan and you know your team is under high pressure, it's high stakes and something's happening. My job is to look where they are looking. Who are they looking to for help and support within a team when things are under high stress and under high pressure, people will naturally look to the leaders in that. And they will be looking at them and, you know, almost begging, you know, what would we do here, you know? What's your opinion? 

And it's like I'm looking for the eyes because I need to identify where the real leaders are in my team, and I need to maybe they're not in a leadership position, maybe that's something that, you know, naturally they have The X Factor that draws people to them in those scenarios, so I need to look and identify where those leaders are so that I can do everything, I can to nurture that leadership and get the most out of it from my organization.

I really enjoy that phrase. Look for the eyes because you can. You can also visualize this, right? The A-Team of people looks at who they all are looking for help, right when things are going a little sideways. I wonder how you do that in a virtual or mixed virtual environment that we're all in and let's be honest. That we're not all going back to the office, there's going to be some level of virtual probably for you in my lifetime and maybe beyond. What do you think in terms of virtual? How do you look for the eyes? In a virtual environment.

It is a tough one because I mean if you are in a Zoom meeting or something similar, you know where you can actually look at where the chats are happening. You know you can identify what's going on there or you may have to dig deeper behind them after the fact to talk to people and ask them some questions and just ask them what was happening and who you are talking to at that point. And if that were to happen again. Who would you be bringing into your team? J

Just give some scenarios or tests. Their thinking and talk to me through what was happening at the time, and I'd love to know what you thought about it. That thought through that problem and whom you helped, or who helped you, and give them a slightly different angle to what's gone wrong. What are you going to do differently next time? 

You know how you almost have a scathing view of you. You know you've done wrong, do better next timepieces. Actually, let's talk this through. What could we learn? And I think that's a big thing that learning organizations like McLaren do is they are open about performance. They're very clear on performance and they're open about it and say... Yeah, it happened. We're not going to stand here blaming people we know what's happened because the facts and the figures and the data are so trusted. 

And that's a big, big word in itself. Trusted data. 

The data is so trusted, there's no way to hide if there's no way to hide. You can build the culture around that. That says who is when there is nowhere to hide. Who are the people who stand up? And say it was my bad. Yeah, that was me. What can we do? What can I do to help this from not happening again in the future or to mitigate the problem now that it has happened? And that's the culture that you really want is not the mistakes not happening because they will. It's the reaction to those mistakes that are key.

Yeah, we want a culture of accountability. Look for those of you out there that have kids. You want your kids to have accountability, right? For those of us that are in working environments, we want our coworkers to have accountability. 

And we tend to put accountability onto other people's shoulders. But the key is you've got to point the thumb, not the finger. You got to point the thumb. You have to be accountable first. Whether you're a parent or you're a leader in business or you're on a McLaren racing team in the pit, you've got to point the thumb 1st and be a partner with everybody else in terms of accountability and accountability starts with guess what? I totally agree, man. 

I love where you're coming from on this. So, when you think back to some of these lessons, we've talked about data, we've talked about culture. How did you feel in the McLaren culture?

To begin with, like any situation where you come in there, you are dealing with some amazingly clever state. They are people who know their stuff inside out, so I work quite closely, certainly in the early stages as well with the modeling and simulation team, but these are the people and they're generally young people… Not too far out of university now they've still got that academic element to what they're doing and it, but it's state-of-the-art and they are bringing modeling and simulation techniques that are... Way beyond my understanding, you know I can do an Excel spreadsheet with them, but this, you know, streets ahead. 

And it's easy to have impostor syndrome in that space. But I learned early on in my early years in my career, shall I say when I took a move into the world of banking. And I worked for a business banking team in New Zealand. No experience in banking whatsoever, I've spent money on credit cards. Sure, I've done that for a fair bit in my time, but that's about it and I joined this business banking team. And I came in thinking I know what I want to do here. I want to bring my experience for sausage making there, funnily enough, that's what I was thinking in the early stages and actually said that to my boss. 

And then I started to get in. Well, let's find out. What's really happening? Here, let's think about the actual culture. And after about three or four months, I found myself becoming native, you know, I was just in amongst it, and I was as bad as the problems I was. 

And so, I took a Step back and said right. What was it? I was thinking of doing it when I came here. What's the value I brought? It brought me here because I had a different experience. You don't bring somebody into an industry or an organization from an external source if you don't want their external experience. 

Though I was right, how would I do this? And I brought that experience, and I brought that different perspective and that had a huge effect on the performance that we were trying to drive for the changes we were looking to make. Hey, yes, we're looking to drive. 

Because that gave me confidence. When I then moved to McLaren, it was quicker for me to come in and go right. Use the phrase you've got some really clever people here now. Now you need me. So just to counteract that, you're going to need me to balance this out. 

And it's because you've had people doing things right. Now when you are that elite, particularly in that modeling and simulation world, they want things to be as accurate as possible and the best newest approach possible. And I was there to do the right thing, but to make sure they were doing the right thing. Because what they were solving, they were solving interesting problems. You know, the academic interesting problems I wanted and solving the business value problems. And they weren't always the most interesting. It's about how you balance that out and that was the value that I can bring. I can bring a different perspective. I can bring different challenges and different questions.

And if you've got that confidence in the value you're bringing. Then it becomes a lot easier. But yeah, I mean just the whole setup, you can go to Google Maps and look up McLaren Technology Center and you can do a walk-through of the thing. It's an uber impressive building, you know, it's a. It was, I think, at the time of build it was 200, three, £100 million and you know it's a, it's an amazing state-of-the-art facility. 

And it's all in itself that is all about performance. Because it's there to inspire people, not only to work there to remind them of that performance, but it's to inspire people who come to the site potentially to bring their money in some ways, either through buying the road car products or potentially sponsoring or working with the family in a different way. 

You impressed them with the history, with the, with the performance, Nate Culture that is there and you show that, and you demonstrate it in everything that's there. And that's what makes a huge difference to people.

And you mentioned one thing which I didn't know that you were going to go there, but you used a phrase that we use in business, which is impostor syndrome, right? A lot of impostor syndrome for entrepreneurs or senior leaders, or gosh, even if you're, you know, a pianist that's on a stage, you might feel that impostor syndrome. Why am I here? Why am I on the stage? How did I get to figure this out? Everybody else knows more than me. Right. How do you manage through that in a high-performance environment?

There are a couple of things that I do that have worked for me and one of them is to try to be clear as to what I'm bringing. Yeah, it's like, well, why if they brought me in, you know, high-performance environments if you're coming into it, they haven't brought you in for no reason. You know you. There's this whole piece of people getting paid lots of money, in some cases in sports. 

You know, why do we pay athletes so much? Not because we love throwing money at them, but because we know that by giving them money and recognizing their performance, they're going to drive performance for the franchise, for the organization that we're in. And in turn, they will deliver more value in one way or another. Then what we're paying out, you know, simple business. You're not going to go and say we're going to pay a top athlete $100 million if you don't think they're going to generate more than $100 million in Sales and revenue in viewership, whatever it might be. 

The first thing is to be clear with yourself as to, you know, what is it that I'm doing? Why am I different? And that's about asking other people, but it's also about asking yourself and having that reflection. That's where having a coach can be a really great value. You know, it's just having somebody. It doesn't have to be a professional coach. 

You can be a confidant or a friend and somebody in the organization outside the organization just had some ideas off and be open and honest with your feelings. You know if you're. I'm really struggling now. I'm surrounded by all these. People, if you were sitting, put yourself in another situation where if a friend of yours came to you. And we're asking that, and they were showing impostor syndrome. What is the sort of thing you would say to them? I'm sure you know they haven't brought you in for no reason. What's you know? You've brought all this value; you've got all this experience. Try having those conversations with yourself a bit. Yeah, it's the easiest conversation to have and the hardest at the same time, yeah.

Yeah, for sure. And I think this whole impostor syndrome leans itself into mental health, right? And mental health discussions. And how do we support each other in the workplace? How do we support our own feelings of inadequacy? How do we make sure that we are holding ourselves accountable and holding up a high standard of behavior?

But some of it is just a baseline? Can you drop your ego, and can you be open to feedback? And if you can, right if you can be open to feedback and you can sort of let the ego go and know. Not only do I not know everything, but I'm not being asked to know everything. That's why we have a team. Does that play for you with McLaren? Did it feel that way?

Definitely. I mean the other thing that I'll often talk about. Is so crystal clear in the likes of McLaren that other businesses struggle with its purpose. What's your team do there? And how does your team impact the overall performance or purpose? That you're trying to drive. And with a sports car, you know, with a racing car, it's very easy. It's you're there to make the car go faster and get into first place and stay in first place and stay on the podium and win, win, win.

So, if what you're doing is having no. Impact on that? You're going. To have no sense of purpose. Oh, you're going to be. Yeah, it's. I'm doing all these things. It's having no impact or I'm doing these things. Don't even know if it has an impact. 

So, this is where the leadership role comes into place to make sure that people are constantly reminded, and I mean constantly reminded of what they're doing, aligns to the purpose that you're trying to drop. And don't let people lose track of that. It's so easy. No matter what high-performing environment you're in, you can get caught up in the job in front of you. And your job as a leader is to, you know, lift the chin up and go. No, we're not the job in front of us helps us get there but remember there and you're a big part of that and you can’t, and you matter. And then once people see that they're much more inclined to push things forward to help each other, to collaborate, to chip in, in areas that it's, you know, it's not my job sort of syndrome, but yeah.

Oh, oh, you just hurt my heart, Paul.

But oh man, you got me.

Anytime I hear somebody say that's not my job, I just about lose it. And the reason is that you bring up a great point here. The reason is when you work in a collaborative high-performing team, there is no such thing as That’s not my job, right? I mean, did you ever hear somebody at McLaren tell you? Hey, Paul. Sorry, bud. They can't help you. That's not. That's not what I do around here.

Do you hear? I'm maybe not the best person for this. I think there's somebody else that's better. And you can, but it's always based on decisions that are based on performance. The decisions are based on the individuals. I want to get that best performance. 

And this is where you can see and have demonstrated a lack of ego is when people go. I could do this and get credit for it, and I could do a good enough job. I've got some experience, but if I bring this youngster in, he's just come into the organization who I know has got these skills and could blast this through the park and do it in half the time. Right. They, you know, and not expect recognition for that because it gets the performance that we're trying to drive where it supports the individual. You know that that's a real demonstration of a lack of ego and focus on the purpose rather than focus on the individual.

Ohh man, you just hit the nail on the proverbial head, my man. So, for those of you in big corporate cultures. This is where we typically see it…Big corporate cultures might be domestic, might be international, but you are probably in the space of over 5/10 thousand employees all the way up.

We see this all the time when Leader A doesn't want to support a new person who has way more talent because Leader A is doing what… they're sitting on their ego and trying to be political instead of actually solving the business's problems developing the next generation of amazing talent. 

And so, my question to you is if somebody's sitting in a large organization that's politically driven versus performance-driven, how do you help that person navigate? How do you help them drop their ego? How do you help them be more accountable? How do we actually do it when the culture isn't necessary? Thoroughly allow for it.

It is a tough one because no matter what, particularly in the larger organizations you're eventually going to hit a wall of, you know, it might not be my team, it might be my department, my region, whatever that is. It's trying all these new things and experimenting and doing really great stuff. 

But it's hitting the brick wall because other parts of the organization or the other politics are coming into play and it's a long game and you've got to recognize that that's the bit of Are you doing the right thing? Are you doing the things for the right purpose and are you trying to do this for the right purpose? Even if it doesn't go anywhere if you've got a great idea. 

You did a great project and you've put it all the way to the as far as you can get. Maybe a great proposal and it gets shut down for a political reason. How do you quickly shrug that off a little bit and say right? That didn't work for the performance of the thing I'm trying to drive. Maybe I have to acknowledge the politics. Maybe you have to say, right? How do I navigate around it? But ultimately, I'm still going to be focused on driving that performance, no matter how much you knock me down, I'm going to do what I can to chip away at That performance and get noticed. If it comes to knocking your head against the brick wall for so long that it is certain that it is affecting your own mental health and things like that, then there are options to move on. You know, you don't have to stay where you are all the time. So, recognize that maybe that's not the environment for you or maybe I can add more value somewhere else. 

It's just keeping that having confidence might be the wrong word, but the ability to just go I believe I'm doing the right thing for the right reasons. And if I do this. It's for the right reasons to drive the performance of the organization and something beyond me. If you currently drive something beyond you. Other people can much more easily connect with that. And support it in different ways. 

It might be beneficial for you, but actually, you know if you focus the attention on the performance above you or the performance of the organization, people can connect with that in a bigger way than they can go in or this gets me that I'm doing this for my next promotion. Well, who else who's interested in your next promotion? There's only one person there. Well, maybe two, if you count on your spouse or your partner, but. Yeah, it's it. It is just that. Yeah, you've got to be doing things.

Well said and I just want to know when you've now sort of walked away from McLaren, you're doing your own thing, you're consulting, you're coaching, you're preaching, you're really helping others figure out how to build the right cultures and the right organizations and ties together. Well, what do you take away personally from your seven years with a racing team?

Personally, it's a privilege, you know. That was it. It is still such an amazing brand. There's, yeah, I joined when they were riding the Crest of a slump, as we say. Yeah, it really hit rock bottom at the time when I joined, and it sort of had a few tough. Years they haven't been performing as well as they possibly could have.

But even within that, I think because people who have worked with have been with the organization or had been the organization for years and they've seen it in the days when McLaren was winning championships. And they had people on the podium week after week and that brings in itself a completely different feel and the privilege to go to Red Bull last year and see that organization and there you know at the top of the game and it's a different feel there. They're doing the same thing, but it's more to keep themselves on top than to get back to the top. But it's that privilege of just working with great people and doing things that if you've got that clarity on performance, everything else starts to come into play.

Yeah, beautiful, and a small Shout out to Zach Brown for the work that he's doing to improve performance in the Formula One team McLaren. I think he has been the right man for the job to kind of help turn that corner and get people rocking and rolling and get that organization moving in the right direction. 

And so, for what it's worth, my man, Paul, thank you so much for the work that you did at McLaren and for teaching us these life lessons that come from, you know, one of the greatest racing teams in the world, that is McLaren. 

So, Paul, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to check you out. They want to work with you. They want to find more. Out about what you've been up to.

How are they? And so, I'm very active on LinkedIn. You'll find me. I think I'm Paul James Teasdale. I'm on LinkedIn, and I'm sure we can provide the links. And my website is probably the best place to go, which is Paulteesdale.co.uk. And the first thing that will pop up is the opportunity to have a book in a free 30-minute conversation with me. And all I want to do is chat about what this means to you and the opportunities that are there or how it resonates. 

Maybe you've got challenges for me, and you think it's all a little lonely and it's never going to work. Give me a shout. Set something up. I'd love to talk to you and see what I can do to potentially help or add value in any way. And that's what I'm all about, bringing my experiences and my expertise to help people in a valuable way.

Yeah, beautiful. And that's what we're all about here on the Town Empowerment podcast. So, thank you, my man, for joining us. It's been really fun to learn a little bit more about you and certainly hear some of the stories from a great racing team.

Thank you. It's been a privilege.

And thank you for joining the Talent Empowerment podcast. I hope we've helped you to find your purpose, advance your career and create a life of happiness. Let's get back to people and culture together. We'll see you in the next episode.