Meet the ‘Godfather of the EV’ and the former CEO of Switch Mobility, Dr. Andy Palmer

[Transcript]

Jan Griffiths  00:08
Welcome to the Automotive Leaders Podcast, where we help you prepare for the future by sharing stories, insights, and skills from leading voices in the automotive world with a mission to transform this industry together. I'm your host, Jan Griffiths, that passionate rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales with over 35 years of experience in our beloved auto industry and a commitment to empowering fellow leaders to be their best authentic selves, stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership. 

Let's dive in.

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Independence, it's not just how you think but how you act.

Get ready to meet the man who has been described as the Godfather of the EV. Yes, it's Dr. Andy Palmer, former CEO of Aston Martin and COO of Nissan. Andy returns to the mic for a conversation with me for a second time. Only this time, we'll go much deeper into the story of his relationship with the EV at Nissan. And we find out what he's been doing since he left Aston Martin and so much more. In this episode, you're going to hear a conversation, of course, about EV. Yes, about leadership and the challenges that face leadership in the automotive industry as we look into our future. But we're also going to talk about punk rock and chocolate biscuits. Dr. Andy Palmer, welcome to the show, or should I say, welcome back!

Andy Palmer  2:23
Oh, it's great to be back. Great to be back. Good to see you again.

Jan Griffiths  2:27
It is great to see you too. It has been two years since we last talked.

Andy Palmer  2:31
The way time goes. Just shoots by, doesn't it? 

Jan Griffiths  2:34
What has happened? Two years? So, let's get right in. And let me ask you, what have you been doing since Aston Martin? What has life been like for you?

Andy Palmer  2:45
Well, it's been really good, actually; coming out of Aston was very iconic. And I sort of spent a little time just thinking about where I wanted to go. And as you know, way back 15-16 years ago, I was leading the Nissan Leaf. And at that time, you know, way back, it reminded me that we wanted to be net zero carbon, or what we deemed to be ‘well-to-wheels,’ Zero well-to-wheel, back then. But in spite of our best efforts, nobody really believed in electric cars back then. And nobody was ready to buy into the concept of zero well-to-wheels. So, the best we could do, I think it was pretty good, but the best we could do was basically zero emissions. In other words, an electric car without a tailpipe. Coming back out of, you know, what was ironically, really the pinnacle of the gasoline engine at Aston, re-asking myself that question, I thought it was somehow appropriate that the twilight of my career should concentrate on achieving net zero carbon. So, what I've done is I've built the sort of rest of my career around that concept of everything I do is net zero carbon and that starts with becoming Chief Executive and Executive Vice Chairman of a new company called Switch. Switch is basically a company that acquired the assets of Optare’s electrical capability in the UK and Ashok Leyland’s electrical capability in India. The group came together to create basically a new company that is all around electric, EV buses, and vans. And so that's gone from basically an order book two years ago, of about 40 vehicles and today stands with an order book of over 10,000 vehicles. So, that's one area, and the second area I took on the chairmanship of a company called InoBat. InoBat is a startup three years old now in the battery space, the EV battery space. Obviously, it's not my first rodeo on batteries but the tech technology has moved on interestingly. And we're just about completing our R&D center in Slovakia with the intention then to move on to giga factories in the east and west of Europe, so back in to the battery business. I also basically became chairman of a brand-new company we've just been through our Series-A, which is called Hilo, which is an electric scooter, EV scooter business. But it's basically aimed to be the, I would call it, the Volvo of EV scooters in so far as it's all about safety. I'm basically a senior independent director on a company called Pod Point, which is the largest home charging capability in the UK. And so, what you see is basically the ability through what I've done to be in the value chain for zero emissions, with the battery and the charging infrastructure with Pod Point. And then basically part of this, what I'll call the last one mile in terms of buses, vans, taxes, and scooters. So, it's how you can have the biggest impact, not necessarily on the total CO2 but definitely on urban air quality. And so somewhere between the two of improving the air in which we live and demonstrating to the world that it's possible to do Net Zero transportation, not in 2035 or 2040 but in 2022, I felt that that was where I should really spend my effort.

Jan Griffiths  06:32
It seems as though you are living life very much in line with your values and your mission. And I'm thrilled that you didn't fall into another OEM, you know, at another traditional OEM; CEO, another big-name company; I'm thrilled to see that you followed your passion. Do you miss anything from the corporate world? I would say the traditional corporate world.

Andy Palmer  6:58
I mean, not going back into the big car companies was a conscious choice. And I had that option. I wanted to spread; I wanted the ability to influence different parts of the industry. Honestly, I wanted the ability to be able to speak without the suit to politicians and the press and not be shackled by the corporate PR machine. Do you miss anything? Yes, of course, you miss the big infrastructure that sits behind you when you're part of a big company. And you know, it was a little bit of a shock to sit down and write my own speeches again. But in many respects, getting back to that core, in the same way, in the same joy that I have, sometimes going back to academia, allows you to resurface some of those thoughts and beliefs that you've maybe held through your career and bring them to the surface and re-context them. So I find the ability to talk about slow progression towards net zero, the demise of the British car industry, I find it really empowering to be able to say what I want on social media or in the press about what I truly think is the problem rather than pandering to a corporate position.

Jan Griffiths  08:22
Yeah, I would agree. And one of the things that I loved about leaving the traditional corporate world is this ability to learn and grow, I think everybody should step outside of their corporate role for a period of time because I've never read so much in all my life, and talk to different people and just being all over the place, different events, different activities, different associations. Did you find some of that?

Andy Palmer  08:49
Yes. And honestly, I think there's a tendency when you when you're coming, as you're doing non-Executive Director or LP type roles, I think there's a tendency to almost take on too much. And I certainly did that I've recently cut back on a couple of things, just to make sure that I'm giving everything the right level of attention. But there's that tendency to want to work and make sure that you're working full time. And at the end, I was working seven days a week and 15 hours a day, which is not you don't give attention enough. So I was delighted, just by the number of opportunities that came my way. As I stepped outside that role and was able to get back in and do what I love. I mean, I love everything to do with cars and transportation. I'm, I'm honored, really happy to be able to in that space, but with the freedoms that the way that I'm doing, it allows me to have.

Jan Griffiths  09:47
Yeah. So, let's talk about the EV and the evolution of the EV. You've been described as the Godfather of the EV. So, I have a very simple question for you, Andy, how do you know? How do you know, way back when with Nissan with the introduction of the Leaf? How did you know that this was the future?

Andy Palmer  10:09
Suppose I can make a very good story up here. But that looked like a genius. But that would be that would be unfair on history. How did we know? We didn't know? We didn't know. What we did know, was the block. First of all, I was lucky enough within my group to have a market intelligence group and led by Mr. Tino. And that was basically a group of individuals that were often psychology rather than car industry backs. And we're looking at social trends. Now, in most cases, those individuals didn't really fit into the corporate world of medicine, but I was able to build an infrastructure that protected them. And so we were able to look at what we thought might be happening 1520 years hence, we were looking at the generational changes. And that was certainly throwing up the greater need to think green for once of a better expression, that the millennials were likely to be much more engaged and their purchasing behaviors influenced by the effect of the car on the planet. So that was one important data point. A much shorter-term data point was that Nissan had been broadly speaking one of the first vehicle manufacturers to move to hybridization. It did so with the Tino in Japan, and then he walked away. And that gave Toyota an open road to introduce the Prius. And Toyota built almost, the Prius, brand's reputation was almost bigger than Toyota. And of course, the sales and marketing guys, particularly the Japanese sales, and marketing guys, was screaming and saying, We need a Prius, we need a Prius. And I wasn't prepared to give them a Prius. Because for me, that wasn't the brand direction of this one, this one was all about innovation that excites and doing a me too product didn't seem to be the right thing to do. So the third data point is that partially because of the compliance vehicles that all manufacturers were doing to meet the California regulations, the sun had in its varied in its advanced engineering departments, it had some nascent technology around batteries, and particularly around lithium ion batteries. And so bringing those three data points together, allowed us to establish the idea that rather than me too hybrid, that we should jump a generation and go directly to battery electric. And ultimately, that's what we did. Ironically, untold story, actually, is that the first vehicle initially, that was going electric would have been the ENV 200. And I was responsible for commercial vehicles in Nissan. And that seemed to be a good idea to get it into the vans for that last one mile, exactly where we are today. But ultimately, I felt that it was better to go with the car. And that's how we ended up with, with leaf being the first and ENV being being the second, it was probably ahead of its time, it didn't achieve everything that I wanted some of the hypotheses that I made what we made were wrong, or at least wrong. In the first instance, I'll give you an example, our great belief that to make an electric car affordable, you had to have a small battery. So we went with a 24 kilowatt hour battery. Well, what we've seen after launches, you know, basically, this so-called range anxiety, mostly driven by the lack of infrastructure, and that was our problem. That's why we couldn't get to net zero, we couldn't get a hold of the infrastructure, the stuff that car companies don't do. And so, what you've seen in the last 15 years, I suppose, is a growth of the size of the battery. So, you look at a test as a day. And as you note, so well over 100-kilowatt hours of battery, that's a heck of a lot of weight, and cost, that you're towing around often redundant if you want to get to and I think humanity has to get to affordable cars, $15,000 MSRP, at the bottom end, all the way up, of course, including the luxury ones. But to get to that, let's call him that $15,000 car, then you're not going to do that by cost-reducing everything else. And you're the technology; the battery isn't coming down Moore's curve quickly enough to make that possible. So one of the things that you've got to do is you've got to improve your charging infrastructure and reduce your onboard battery size in order to make the car affordable. And I think that's one of the one of the keys to addressing that A and B segment market, which is so huge around the world. And I'm thinking of China and India in particular. But also, of course, even into the US. It's very much I think the next phase is around infrastructure development.

Jan Griffiths  15:19
Yeah, that's fascinating. Let's stay with Nissan for a moment; Carlos Ghosn has been in the news a lot lately. And I just watched that movie again for the second time. And as I'm talking to you today, and I talked to you two years ago, and I obviously follow your career and what you do on social media, I see a man who's very comfortable in his own skin. You're truly an authentic leader, you're leading in line with your values and your beliefs and your mission. And I gotta believe that when you work for a guy, like Goshn, and this is kind of a long-winded questions, so bear with me. How do you and this is not just targeted at him, but he seems like he's a good example. And he's in the news. So we'll use him. How do you work for somebody who perhaps does not align fully with your value system? Maybe it's a different kind of leader. How do you how do you live? How do you work in that environment? How do you bring you know, as they say, your authentic self? And I've been asked that question by clients just recently, and they said, You know, I want to be an authentic leader, I want to come to work, I want to give everything for my people. But my boss doesn't really think that way, the same way that I do. How do you deal with a situation like that?

Andy Palmer  16:43
I can't comment on the ongoing situation itself, because that's still subject to all sorts of legal procedures. And as you know, he's a felon on the run in both Japan and in France. So I won't prejudice myself by talking about going himself. But the issue of values and the difference of values with your boss, I think you can only ultimately be true to yourself. So I think to make predictable decisions and look at our staff that work for us all want to think that there's predictability when they go to their boss, I think, you've got to believe that my boss today is going to think in the same logical pattern that he thought yesterday and the day before that, basically, he's connecting the dots from positions that he took in the past to positions he's going to take in the future. We've all worked for people where that's not true. And you don't know which particular boss, you're getting the next time you walk into the office. And I think that's not something that people genuinely accept, from good leaders, good leaders need to be consistent, and they need to have a fairly understandable value set, and then live to those values every day, I would like to think and certainly the further up the tree you go, the wider impact you have, you can't always protect those individuals, from what the bosses, is thinking, but generally speaking, you have a delegation of authority and at least your bit of the organization can work to, to your values. So, and then, of course, if the value set becomes so mismatched with your boss, got to leave them. And you know, that's happened to me in the past, where I've walked away from situations where I no longer deemed it appropriate to work with those individuals. And I leave it out there where that's happened. But it's happened a couple of times in my career.

Jan Griffiths  18:52
Yeah, I would agree wholeheartedly. I worked for a guy once. And he was only as good. His opinion was only as good as the last office he came out of. And that's, that's so difficult to work for a guy like that. And you're so right; consistency and predictability generate a sense of security. And people feel safe. And they feel they feel trusted. And then theory, they will give you their best work. And they will do anything for you. So, I think there's yeah, there's, you're right, there's a lot to be said for that. And the idea that you're going to work for somebody for your entire career where you're going to be 100% aligned is okay; if it happens, great. But that might be a bit of a stretch; you're right; you can control you.

Andy Palmer  19:43
There are always points in your career, where you're where your belief is that we should go left in the organization that we're right, but that doesn't necessarily make it away from your value set. I recall, and this, basically being the only person on the executive committee that didn't agree with the way that Datsun was going to be deployed into India. That was okay; I made my point, and we went and deployed Datsun to India, and I was able to live with that decision and get behind that decision because it didn't compromise my value set. But at other points in my career with other decisions, but basically, things are gone, okay, that's, that's, that's beyond my red lines. And I either have to compromise myself or leave. As you get older, but in particular, and as your mortgages are paid off, and you're a little bit more financially stable, then it's easier to make those decisions. But I, you know, I was called upon to make those decisions earlier in my career as well, and that's stressful. However, if you truly believe in the values set that you've set yourselves, then you've got to stand behind them. Otherwise, you become fake. And everybody can see that you're fake.

Jan Griffiths  20:57
Yeah. Well said. What do you think, Andy, is the biggest challenge that we're faced with in the auto industry today, as it refers to leadership and culture is a tremendous amount of change? I see that the traditional OEMs are getting it with the product portfolio. We're seeing EVs coming out. There's always an announcement of new EV companies coming up. But I don't see as much focus on the leadership and the culture. What do you think is the biggest challenge we face within the auto industry today?

Andy Palmer  21:30
Clearly, we're at a juncture, which is probably as big as when we went from horse and carriage the car, as we move from traditional internal combustion engine to new generation of, of, let's call it New Energy vehicles predominantly, EV. And it's certainly true that it requires new companies to come into being and old companies to turn themselves into new companies. And when we get to that, look, you can look at most of the startups, most of the startups have a will fail. And now they have a will, will fail because partially because they've misunderstood the complexity, of designing and making cars, but partially because they haven't got their culture right? And the old companies that are turned that have to turn, some of them will fail. And some of them will fail not because they don't have the technical capability but because they haven't engendered the cultural capability to work with that change, or even haven't believed in the change. So then we're making EVs almost with that 20-year-ago mindset of compliance vehicles; we do it because we have to do any transformation. And as a CIO, I think this transformation is as big as the one in the 1890s. And the transformation to cars. This is so big, that getting your corporate culture, right. Is, is the only way that you could get to a 70% possibility of success. It doesn't guarantee success, but it gets there an awful lot more, if you have people that basically know what they're working for, like what they're working for, consistent in what they're working for, and have the energy to deliver what they're working for. And you only do that by setting the tone and the culture of the of the companies that you're working in. So we're still humans, and therefore that human interaction, the way we work as teams, the way we motivate ourselves to be a winning team, it's still the hardest thing in any organization, the practical skills of how to make a car, to some extent you can buy, or you already have, but how you turn it into a revolutionary vehicle is I think the real skill.

Jan Griffiths  24:07
Yeah. And I think in automotive, particularly, this, there's this idea; obviously, I'm sitting in Detroit in more traditional automotive land. And there's this idea that the California tech culture is the culture that we need to have, that we cannot be weighed down by the legacy and the practices of the past. And like you said, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, even, you know, that type of command and control culture will not see us into the future. And then we tend to look to the California startup the tech culture. But that in itself has issues, too. And I watched the movie about Uber. And also we work, you know, these successful companies, but oh, gosh, the culture. And we hear some horror stories coming out of Tesla, and also Rivian, you know, this idea of this raw culture that's starting to evolve. Any thoughts on that?

Andy Palmer  25:11
Well, I think you have to create your own culture to start with; I don't think you can import somebody else's. And I don't think there's any magic model. I think it's equally plausible that Ford can be successful in EVs as, as can Tesla. There's only one airline in the world, and we're not going to be able to import them into every car company. So I think depending on your brand values, depending on your national background, depending on your technology, depending on your people, I think you have to create your own story, your own, your own challenge, which is unique, unique to your particular position. And something that every employee can relate to. Simply importing a culture from Tesla is, is just going to be confusing, because if you want to work at Tesla, you're working at Tesla. So I think that the onus is on the leader of the organization to take stock of where you are. Take stock of your brand values, take stock of your history, take stock of your technology, and build a roadmap that gets you there and builds people around you who are bought into that goal. It's always, I mean, it has since, you know, basically, humans have fought each other on a mound with swords standing on a hill. It's always been A wrap out rallying round a flag. And as long as you believe in that flag, that then then you'll give it your best. And the persons that are motivated will give their best, even better, and you've got a better doesn't guarantee success, but it guarantees you a better chance of being successful. I think that's the key. And that, you know, depends, I think, you know, national influence has a part of that, certainly when I was, when I developed the second-century plan at Aston, being British, and being British luxury was was part of it, when we were developing the various plans, this and it was very much around bold and thoughtful, which is, which is an expression around Japanese pneus. And in particular, the way that you paint kanji. But I think national identity is a part of that. And the way that different nationalities buy into a mission is also slightly different. So as a leader in me, he might like me, you might have come up as an engineer, you might have come up as a marketing person or financial person. And but I would say ultimately, the understanding of your, the culture in which you work, which is some mixture of national culture, and company culture, is probably the biggest assets in writing those plans. But I'll come back to the fact many of those startups that we talked about today will fail. And some of the traditional auto industry will be slow to pivot and will fail. I'd go as far to say that if you were to take a count of car companies, let's say in the year 2000, and you were to take a count of the car companies, let's say in the year 2050, the number of car companies is probably about the same, although there will be different names on the list.

Jan Griffiths  28:22
Yeah, you talk about failure. I'll give you a quote back from our first interview two years ago, you said, if you're not spinning, then you're not going fast enough. That's still true?

Andy Palmer  28:34
That's true. That's so true. I mean, so she could you could put it into a more stale analogy with the principle of kaizen principle of Kaizen, which, of course, is the Japanese small improvements; Plan Do Check Action comes from Deming, originally about learning from failures. And if you're not making and braking, as every engineer knows, that means that you're not, you're not close to the, you're not close to the edge, you're not close to optimal. That's certainly true in NASCAR and Formula One, but it's equally true in the car business in general, that you need to make, break, and improve. And the key attribute within that is improved. 

Jan Griffiths  29:18
And I think that one of the biggest problems we have in the traditional OEM world is that this idea of failure is not accepted or rewarded. It with innovation with technology, we know we have to we have to iterate and iterate and iterate. But this idea of if you fail, you know, if you fail a couple of times in a row, you're gone, you're done. There's this tremendous fear in the old-style culture.

Andy Palmer  29:47
No, absolutely. And then the auto industry historically has been one of the worst for that. So there is if you want the two bookends, there's the traditional car company with screw up and get out. Versus let's say, let's call it Silicon Valley behavior, where it's it's okay to fail and learn. Neither of those positions are really acceptable. I think you can see so many of those startups, assuming that the dinosaurs are idiots. And just making fundamental fundamental errors, I don't know how many startups I've advised or spoken to, where they've forgotten completely, the importance of manufacturing maturation, and you can look at their master schedule and say, That car is going to be at least 12 to 18 months late because they weren't able to make it. Of course, what you hear as it goes on is everybody talks about production. Hell, it's only hell because you made it hell. Now, on the other hand, as you say, basically, if you're a traditional car company, and you simply follow the rules that you've established over the years, then you're never going to innovate. And so you need and that's where the culture comes in. You need a mixture of both, and that's why you see sometimes some car companies. I'm thinking of Polestar, for example, where you set up an EV unit within the main car company itself, and you try to give it some degrees of autonomy, to have the knowledge of what an auto engineer an auto manufacturer needs to know but also bring some of that stimulus and reward for innovation and almost reward for some failure.

Jan Griffiths  31:33
Yeah, it's going to take a very special leader to lead somebody something like post I see it with Ford, with Ford separating off EV, as well, it's going to take a very special leader that can pull in both to create a culture that is unique to that company. 

Andy Palmer  31:49
Yeah. And look, those will be the Bob Lutz's of the future; those few people are able to make that transition, able to manage that transmission or transmission, and are successful. Those will be the people that the char industry remembers; there'll be our automotive all-stars.

Jan Griffiths  32:13
Let's talk for a moment about this: The Dark Side of the EV culture and the bro culture that they're talking about. When Laura Schwab left Rivian, you came out very clearly in support of her. And I think every woman in the country, certainly every woman in automotive, was like, yes. Could you speak a little bit to that?

Andy Palmer  32:38
Well, I mean, look, I'm again, I'm not commenting on Rivian itself, because I'm not close enough to the company to know whether it has a raw culture or not. But I will talk to, and I'm very passionate about the importance of diversity. And not, you know, this is not me being, you know, basically super liberal and supporting women's rights or ethnic rights just for the sake of it. This is me being very, very capital-ist insofar as it is my innate belief that if you want to create the best car in the world, you need to exercise all of the knowledge within a company. And that knowledge is not simply embedded in middle-aged white males, that if you're selling a vehicle that is going to sell to women or people of different ethnic backgrounds, the best way of understanding is for representatives to be part of the company that's creating it, its diversity, which ultimately leads to a more successful product. And again, I'll give you the example of the Aston Martin DB X. Alongside the main team, we had a female Advisory Board, essentially a parallel board, that aim to compensate for the fact that Aston Martin didn't have enough women at its senior management level, and it needed the female advocates, because Aston needed to sell to female customers 94% of its customer base was male. So, it needed to open up that route. And rather than middle-aged white guys predicting what women might want, it was much more, I would say, productive to have women from the customer set that we were aiming at telling us what we needed to do, whether that was at the design concept at the engineering of the product, or the marketing of the product at the end of the development process. So to me, raw culture for want of a better word is self-defeating, because it makes your company less competitive than if you can embrace diversity, not so that you've got the right gender and racial mix. But because it makes you a more competitive team. So that you've got people, you know, take a football team. This is Mike's soccer football team, as we would understand it, but you don't have the same person as your fullback. As you do as your striker, you have different skill sets. And the best teams are the ones that can pull those different skill sets together and pass the ball with fluidity. If you're all the same, if you're all strikers, then you're going to be weak at the back. If you're all defenders, you're going to be weak at the front. So, diversity is about creating that mix that team working your way through the difficulties of people thinking differently, but embracing those values. And if you can do that, in my experience, you get a much better product and a much more competitive product at the end of the day.

Jan Griffiths  35:58
Yeah, absolutely. In 2021, you were awarded the ‘Men as Allies’ award by the Women's Engineering Society.

Andy Palmer  36:07
Oh, it was a great honor. It was nice to be recognized. And it's one of the things that I'm most proud of. 

Jan Griffiths  36:13
Yeah, yeah. It's tremendous. Of course, we love that. Okay, let's talk about authentic leadership. You've had a chance to look at my 21 traits of authentic leadership, which I have managed to curate after all my many years in automotive and interviewing phenomenal leaders like yourself; which one resonates with you the most, Andy?

Andy Palmer  36:35
I'm gonna say, look, I there's nothing on your list that I disagree with, I think the most important thing is that you have, to some extent all of them, and that you tune them together. So, I don't think there is a singular, a singular value that marks our leader. In fact, I would say that it's not having a singular value, that basically it's having multiple, multiple points. Clearly, there are things that stand out like the innovation and the vision to see where you want to go. But there has to be more than that. Even just having a vision isn't enough to be able to deliver it. So, a good leader is a very rounded leader that is able to empathize with people that is able to empathize with different positions and brings many of your 21 values into one person.

Jan Griffiths  37:33
Yeah, that's a good point. Let's talk about this working from home versus working in the office. Where do you stand on that?

Andy Palmer  37:42
If you had asked me before COVID, I would have adamantly told you that I believe that people should be in the office. And they're better than they told you that because of all of my values that stated around teamworking. And humans need interaction. We went through COVID, right? We spent two years, I mean, the switch was a baby of COVID, we've launched three new products, three new buses, during the COVID period during working from home, it was a bit extreme. And I'm not advocating that we should go 100% to working on Zoom because I think we're social creatures, and I still believe in that need for bonding. And I know in the case of a switch; we're now having to overkill a little bit in terms of getting people together and having management seminars where we get to know each other a bit better. So, I think I fall down somewhere in the region of hybrid working. I think it's important in terms of employment of millennials that expect it. I think it's important in terms of efficiency that we're at least I speak for myself, that I'm more efficient when I'm on Zoom. But we also have to acknowledge that some people are less efficient. So I think that the concept that you're three or four days a week in the office, and you're one or two days a week on Zoom, or teams, I think is a good mix. I think it may change individual to individual, I think it may change, depending on where you're in the organization. But I think that inevitably, we will be as we go forward. Part of hybrid working it's just normal and natural. And the technology is marvelous. Thank goodness, thank goodness for Zoom. Where would we have been without it? If we'd have been having the COVID crisis a few years earlier? I don't quite know what we've done. But you know, we can create things by Zoom, and sometimes it's just more efficient. So, I'm fully in the hybrid camp.

Jan Griffiths  39:58
Yeah, I would agree. There are some face-to-face meetings that you just can't, you just can't have on Zoom. And often, it's not the meeting that you're having on Zoom. It's the meetings that you have before the meeting when you're face-to-face. And the conversations that take place after it we somehow have to protect those. But it can't be mandated. It can't be you must be in the office three days a week, because I said so that can't be it. It's got to be a bit more intentional and a bit more thought out than that, right?

Andy Palmer  40:29
Yeah, look, I'm a great believer in management by consensus. That's not the same as weak management, that's about basically making sure that the people in the room have come to a consensus that they can all bind to even if they even if they didn't fully agree with it at the beginning. The key to consensus is what the Japanese would call Nemawashi; Nema washi is basically the pre-discussion. And it's about having your say, spending however long it takes to convince or be convinced with your with your peers. And I think that things like zoom and teams can be a great aid to that because you can have those private conversations. Not necessarily in the in the middle of the room where everyone's watching you that you can have those conversations beforehand. Lobbying is another way of saying it, but I prefer the expression of number washy because it's consensual. And it's not one way. And I think therein lies part of the importance of culture. I think that the historical top-down culture of the history, the sort of legacy car companies, doesn't work anymore. It doesn't work with particularly Gen Z madman, millennials. And therefore, you've got to get to a more consensus or conceptual model.

Jan Griffiths  41:51
Yeah, talking about Gen Z. Let's talk about the days when you started your career, you were an apprentice, and I know that you believe wholeheartedly in the idea of an apprenticeship. And the Palmer Foundation is a script being created very much to support that; talk a little bit about why you believe so passionately in apprenticeships.

Andy Palmer  42:16
To start with, we should probably correct the Z to a Zed. Since we're both Brits. Gen Zed, we fall into Americanism easily, don't we? The way of training people, historically, has been the master teachers, the apprentice, and it's a well-proven model. Over the years, I've talked about the British system, but I know it's true in many other systems; we've tended to encourage our children or our students to go to university. In the UK, the university is about 50% of the student population. In my humble opinion, and based on my experience, many of the degrees that have been studied are a waste of time; they're a waste of talent. And many of those individuals would have been much better pointed towards a more hands-on approach, something that was more to their skill sets. So, classroom teaching doesn't work for everybody. And I would say for many, a better approach is basically practical training. So, I'm not decrying universities, I think university education is a marvelous and important method of education for some people, those that are more, let's say, academically minded, and perhaps more stem focused, or specialist in their particular function. But for the rest, an apprenticeship is almost certainly a better way of reaching higher education. And you get you; I mean, I got me; I got my bachelor's, master's, Ph.D., and MBA; I got those along the way in my career; I didn't finish studying until I was 40 years old. But you so you can get there if you if that also is a passion. But equally, you know, I left school at 15. And I was in a four-year apprenticeship at 16. And I probably learned more about my career and, and about engineering in those four years. And I definitely learned more about myself in those four years. And I did it any other any other parts of, of my career. And I fail, I felt and I continue to feel that I'm a better manager of automotive people. Because somehow or other I've made all the bits on a car that I've cut my fingers on the steer loads, I've formed the plastic. I've forged the bit, the wishbone or whatever. There's somehow or other you, I mean, crudely put, you sort of know where the bodies are buried as a result of, of coming from the Japanese word from the Gemba from the shop floor. And you probably have more kudos with the people that work for you because you've come from there. So again, I think it's part of that analogy of football again about strikers and defenders, left wing right wing goalkeepers that any good team has to have a blend of practical people and academic people. You definitely want the smartest guy in the room to be on your team. But you also want the best deliver to be on the team. And often, those are very different types of characters. And the skill of the leader is to be able to bring those different types of people together in order to get the best out of them. So yes, book apprenticeships are really important. Another problem that I've seen over the years is you still see too many privileged kids going into apprenticeships here. And often, kids from deprived backgrounds that are not necessarily particularly good schools, maybe don't have both parents around them to guide them, maybe fall into gangs that sort of 14, 15 years old. The foundation that I set up is about trying to catch those kids. Male and female mixed-bag rams that basically would otherwise fall out of love with STEM subjects. That is, these are the science subjects that keep them on track. Essentially, the foundation acts as a mentor through those difficult 14, 15, 16 years, gets them an apprenticeship, and pays for their apprenticeship for the first two years. In other words, during the period when they're not so useful, and then the company takes them on thereafter or puts them at one of the great universities in order for them to catch the degree. The goal is that by the age of 21, whether they came from that difficult background or whether they did Harrow and Oxford, they're at least equally good, and they're on the start line at the age of 21. With equal chances of success.

Jan Griffiths  47:16
I remember years ago, those tool and die makers, you know, when I was starting in purchasing, you could go to one, you didn't have to get on some AI program, you could just go to them and say, ‘Hey, my supplier has got a problem with this stamping, will it work or not? Should I push them or not?’ And they go, ‘Yeah, they should be able to make that or no they can't.’ I mean, it was like a five second discussion, that knowledge that these guys had unbelievable.

Andy Palmer  47:42
You know I've got 100 stories like that, the same, if you've never really made something, then you don't know the difficulties. And I saw this as a designer and a draftsman drawing stuff up. To give you an example of putting the center point of an arc in midair rather than against something that's referenced. And the guy milling, it will come to you and say, ‘How the hell do you expect me to make that? Basically, you're taking my datum out of midair? Couldn't you do it another way?’ And it's things like that, if you've done it, if you've known you can't find the datum in midair then when you design the part, you're designing it in a different way. Ultimately, of course, that makes the part better, makes it cheaper, and also creates a certain reputation with the people around you for being a smart engineer.

Jan Griffiths  48:41
Well said. Okay, let's get into some personal stuff, shall we? Be afraid. Be afraid!

Andy Palmer  48:47
Sounds a little scary.

Jan Griffiths  48:50
Okay. Did I read somewhere that you're a punk rocker? Or do you like punk rock? Did I read that?

Andy Palmer  48:56
Well, a few years ago. So, you know, my apprenticeship days, I left school in 1979. And it was, it was right in the middle of the UK punk rock era, the Sex Pistols and The Stranglers and all of those great groups. I grew up to that kind of music. And so, as you get older, of course, you also you tend to remember the glory days to quote Bruce Springsteen, and so you tend to gravitate back to that music. So, I do enjoy punk and I do enjoy rock. Likewise, sometimes I enjoy jazz and classical. But yeah, I would say I've got a full collection. I've got a full collection of punk rock albums.

Jan Griffiths  49:40
Who's your favorite back then?

Andy Palmer  49:43
Back then, probably The Stranglers. I liked Siouxsie and the Banshees as an example.

Jan Griffiths  49:50
No, you did not.

Andy Palmer  49:52
I watched them.

Jan Griffiths  49:53
That's my favorite. You know, she was I would call her a major influencer for my style growing up. 

Andy Palmer  50:01
Well, there you go. She had a great style and helped and was abetted by Vivienne, but at the same time as, well, with all of the stuff that she was doing around Sex Pistols. In fact, I would encourage you to watch, I think it's on the Disney Channel, and it's the history of the Sex Pistols. It's really, really good. I enjoyed watching it. Yeah, absolutely. And Siouxsie is in there isn't she? And has a big influence on Vivienne's fashion and direction.

Jan Griffiths  50:32
Well, I'm a huge Vivienne Westwood supporter. In fact, I usually wear her little necklace. I love that when I go back to Cardiff, I always go back to the Vivienne Westwood store. And I think she's in her 80s now, I think?

Andy Palmer  50:44
She must be, yeah. But she's still around, I'm pretty sure. Which compensate for everybody else around.

Jan Griffiths  50:51
She survived. But she's a woman who was also mission-driven. She's very much around the mission of fashion, and you know, we buy too much, and we shouldn't be buying all this stuff. But I love her success, I love her style. So, I can't believe you're a Siouxsie and the Banshees fan. Wow, it's fantastic. Okay, so tell me, during COVID, what did you binge-watch? What show did you binge-watch? Do you have a series that you liked?

Andy Palmer  51:20
You know, I don't think I did. If I did anything, it was basically, I have an old vinyl record collection and I went back to playing some of those old albums that I got around me. And I probably did the opposite to what lots of people did, which is I'm not exactly the fittest guy in the world, but I started walking. And so, I ended up walking for an hour and a half every day, which was a real luxury because I've never been able to find time to do exercise. So, you know, I also lost a little bit of weight, and felt a lot better for us, unfortunately, because now COVID is gone, I’m back to my old ways, but those are the two things that come to my mind, at least, during COVID. And I can't say, I mean, the lockdown was terrible for so many people. But, for me, it was actually a little bit empowering that I could spend a little bit of time with my teenage daughter. And as I said, walk and listen to some great rock albums.

Jan Griffiths  52:24
I love it. Now, tell me, what is the number one distraction that you fight with? What takes you, I mean, we all have them, right? For me, it's Facebook, bloody Facebook. I go on my phone to check the weather. The next thing you know, I'm down a rabbit hole, watching some stupid thing on Facebook so I have to really work on that. So, what's your number one distraction that you have to fight with? The demon of distraction.

Andy Palmer  52:50
So, undoubtedly, Twitter. I enjoy being present on Twitter, but you can get, as you say, you can get led down rabbit holes. And the other distraction is food. So, trying not to snack, which is my great weakness. I love food and wine. And, you know, that's the idea that I know over there that there's a drawer where I've got two chocolate biscuits left. That's a distraction. 

Jan Griffiths  53:20
Is that your weakness? Chocolate biscuits?

Andy Palmer  53:24
I mean, I drink tea by the gallons, but that's not so bad, I suppose. But the snacks are not good. All those redundant calories.

Jan Griffiths  53:37
Yeah, I know. I can relate. Okay, so in closing, Andy, what would you like to share with our audience, the audience being leaders of all levels in the automotive industry? One closing thought for our audience today.

Andy Palmer  53:57
It's trivial to sum all of that up, isn't it? But I think there is, obviously, a work ethic is really, really important. And you don't get to be a leader if you don't have a work ethic. So, I would say that's almost a hygiene factor. So, I'm going to come with the importance of being genuine, the importance of being yourself, the importance of having a clear vision on your own values, and then living by those values, and the ability to disagree with your boss, but not necessarily in a violent way. So, learning to influence by doing and not simply blowing in the wind, which so many people do. So, I'm going to go with that authenticity message, I think.

Jan Griffiths  54:44
Yes, lovely. Lovely. Well, Andy, thank you so much for your time today. It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you again. 

Andy Palmer  54:52
See you in two years.

Jan Griffiths  54:53
Ah, yes. 

Thank you for listening to the Automotive Leaders Podcast. Click the listen link in the show notes to subscribe for free on your platform of choice. And don't forget to download the 21 Traits of Authentic Leadership PDF by clicking the link below. And remember, stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership.