Authentic Achievements Episode 9 with Special Guest Phill Robinson
In this episode, I am delighted to be joined by an old friend and colleague Phill Robinson. Simultaneous with his appointment as the CEO of a large International Software Company, Phill was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. After the initial shock, Phill has become a Parkinson’s activist focused on removing the disease’s stigma, he also Chairs the Development Board of Cure Parkinsons, which focused on a cure in the next five years. Phill discusses authenticity and vulnerability as attributes of inspirational leadership.
You can find out more about Cure Parkinson’s at https://cureparkinsons.org.uk/ and for more information on Broadwave get into touch with Phill at phill@phillrobinson.com
#leadership #authenticachievements #cureparkinsons
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Full Transcript:
Kim-Adele
Hello, and welcome to this episode of authentic achievements where it’s my absolute pleasure to be joined by a friend and old colleague at Phill Robinson. Phill. Welcome.
Phill
Hi Kim. How you doing?
Kim-Adele
I’m doing really well. Thank you. How are you?
Phill
I’m great today.
Kim-Adele
Good. I’m really pleased to hear it. And you’ve had quite a journey haven’t you and are continuing to have quite a journey. Could you share some of that with us please?
Phill
Oh, crikey, Where do you wanna start?
Kim-Adele
Well, where would you like to start? Cause I, I know, I know some of your in it’s so fascinating. I think you’ve had, well, it’s been such an adventure, hasn’t it? From your corporate life, your current life, just, just the whole thing. Really. So wherever you’d like to begin,
Phill
I was brought up in Lester. I had a passion to see the world and get out and about and, and learn. And so I did, I was the first person in my family to do a degree in computer science. And from there I left to go to California and work for Oracle and they were very small back in the eighties, writing software for a manufacturing application.
Phill
And I’ve worked in software ever since. And I, you know, I worked for a number of American software companies in Europe. So subsequently to help ’em build their European businesses. People like, well, Oracle, first of all, then cyber C and salesforce.com most recently where I was a chief marketing officer in the 2002, the nor I guess you’d say. Yeah. And then more recently, the last 15 years I’ve been running businesses with private equity investors in the UK and also in the Netherlands.
Phill
So I ran a company called IRS software, which I was accountancy software here in the UK and built that up and then moved to the Netherlands to run a business with a similar sort of business called exact software, which is a Dutch business. And then about 18 months ago, I retired. I’ve had Parkinson’s for about five years and so felt it was a good time to, I say retire. I’m still busy, but not work full time. And do some of the things that I might have wanted to do in assignment later in life, but do them now because I may not be able to do them later. So I am, but I’m super busy. I’m, I’ve got a number of things I’m doing, which are sort of work related, but not for all time.
Kim-Adele
Wow. It was such an amazing journey. And I know having got Parkinson’s in my family, so my, my dad was diagnosed 20 years ago. It’s still a very misunderstood illness. Isn’t it? And I know that’s one of the things that you are working on as part of your, I say retirement, cause I’m sure it keeps you really busy, but with cure for Parkinson’s that’s one of the things you you are looking to do is that one find a cure, but two help people better understand this illness.
Phill
Yeah. I think when you conjure up an image of Parkinson’s people think of somebody that’s very old and probably shaking, and that is one of the symptoms of Parkinson’s, but there are 30 it’s everything to do with movement in your body. So Parkinson’s is caused by a lack of dopamine in your brain, part of your brain that creates that substance, that coordinates movement die is off slowly and therefore the disease progresses. And that can include your voice, which is movement your iris in your eye, your agro, your stomach, the, or you adjust food, anything that’s either conscious movement, which is mechanical or your arms and legs and limbs, but unconscious movement. So this sort of the also not processes of your body. So as a consequence, you know, I struggle with sometimes my voice. I can’t speak very well. I struggle with digestion. It’s a big issue for me, but able to digest things and then things that also do with brain chemistry.
Phill
So I, I don’t sleep well. I I’m work at most monitor to that’s one. I most at work actually, cause I can do at two o’clock in the morning. So I think it’s really misunderstood. It’s a, it’s a sweet of symptoms. And everybody that’s got Parkinson has, has got a different combination of different times of their progression. And, and it’s also something that’s got a sort of a stigma attached to it. People sort of don’t tell their colleagues until they really have to. And they sort of offer alone and feel they’re gonna be prejudice against professionally. If they tell people for what they’ve got, because people think they use or not to do their job. And of course nothing be further from the truth they can. Of course they can. So yeah, I’m, I’m up for trying to help people change the image of disease, the disease I’ve got a blog court stir, not shaking.com. Yeah. Which talks about how you change the image of the disease. And I’m also a chairman of the development board for a charity called cure Parkinson’s, which is looking for a cure in the next five years.
Kim-Adele
Wow. Amazing because it, it is such an, it’s such a changeable illness, isn’t it? I know, I know with my dad he’s sometimes have symptoms for a couple of years and then they’ll disappear completely and different ones will come in. You know, he’s had periods where he was in a wheelchair and then periods like now he can walk. So it seems to be a kind of an ever evolving. It’s not like you, you, you can tick them off the list. Is it like, oh, I’ve got these now. That’s what I’ve got. Cuz they, it changes so, so rapidly, doesn’t it?
Phill
Yeah, no I’ve an example would be right now. I’ve got a problem with my knee, which I think is tendonitis. I’m I’m run. I go, running’s one way to keep fit. You need to really need to keep fit and healthy while you’ve got Parkinson’s. And, and so I couldn’t understand why I’ve got this problem with my knee and also like a real cramp in the top of my foot. And it turns out when I’m asleep in bed, my a, my leg turns inwards. Right. And so during the day it doesn’t. And I realize that now, but because it’s twisting inwards with Parkinson’s, it’s called dystonia where your muscles contract and voluntarily when I’m awake, I don’t have that. So I then don’t understand why I get, keep getting injured when I’m running on my left leg. And the reason I’m injured on my left leg is cause it’s from eight hours day twisted in bed. So it’s example of something you would never have thought of. Yeah. And it’s just one of many things that the comes and goes in Parkinson’s so it’s really hard to put your finger on. Have I got these three symptoms? Well you might have now, but maybe two months later you might have some other symptoms different.
Kim-Adele
Wow. And I mean, you did go and tell your colleagues, didn’t you. I remember you sharing that story with me. I would love it if you would share that again, but also share with us how you, how you approached that, how you know, that was a really courageous thing to have done. I’m I’m sure you, cause you, like you say, you, you worry what people are gonna say and what they’re gonna view of you. So to, to stand up there and actually share that must have been quite an achievement.
Phill
It was scary, for sure. So I had joined exact in 2017 as CEO. So I was interning for the job in that summer with the, the, their private equity investor at the time company called Apax finance and almost the same day that they let the previous CEO go. And then obviously no going back for, then I was gonna be the CEO. I got this diagnosis of Parkinson’s and I was in the UK, this sort of crisis, which is do, should I go to the Netherlands and take my family to the Netherlands and do this job when I’ve got Parkinson’s and talked to the specialist. And he is like, well, you know what, you’re perfectly capable to do this job for many years to come, so you should do it. And so I took his advice and went and did this job. I didn’t tell anybody at the beginning, I felt terrible that I’d taken this job and maybe this was gonna constrain my ability to do the work.
Phill
And I had no idea what was around the corner. Cause it was brand new to me. I’d never had it before and I didn’t know anybody else that had it. So I didn’t know whether I was gonna degenerate or, or progress with a disease in three months, six months, six years, 15 years now. I, and so I sort of, this started this tentative journey of being in the Netherlands, doing this job, but also finding out what it was like to live with Parkinson’s cause I had no idea. And so I got to learn and understand the disease, but it took a while. And during the period of time, which was probably two years, I didn’t tell anybody that I had it other than my family. And it felt like going to work every day was living alive because you couldn’t tell your colleagues what was going on inside your body.
Phill
And some days you felt good and some days you didn’t. So it was awful to keep that to yourself and not tell everybody, not be authentic about or even be vulnerable to, to other people in work. And one of the reasons I didn’t tell people was I thought it would undermine the valuation of the business at the point, which we would sell it because anybody, if that’s selling a business and product to a new owner, wants the new owner wants to know that they’ve got a management team that they can rely upon for the future. And so I did tell when we got to a process selling the business in 2019 to the new investor, which was KKR, I did tell them that I couldn’t do this job full-time forever. And at some point in the near future, I did part-time or leave. So I was clear with them.
Phill
I didn’t tell them why. And immediately the deal was concluded. I told ’em exactly what happened. And so I sort of came out to them as the investor and they were super supportive. They could have been more supportive, they were helpful, they were thoughtful. And they, they were delighted that I was authentic with them and told ’em exactly what was happening. And so we moved together as a team from then, and that gave me a confidence to say, well, actually now what I need to do is tell out 2000 employees around the world, but this is what’s going on with me. And that maybe I won’t be here doing this forever because of this disease. So I, I didn’t know the best way to tell them. So we, we used to have a, a sort of a company, all hands meeting and video conf for around the world.
Phill
And I made a level video explainer explain Parkinson’s what I had. Cause I didn’t know that I, I could even stand on the stage and say these things I thought I might break down or be really upset or whatever in front of a crowd of people. So I was on stage and I said, look, I’ve got something to tell you, I’m gonna show you a video. And then, you know, at the end drink and you can ask me some questions. So I showed ’em this video. And at the end of like this slight pause and then this massive round of applause for what I’d done, which was in their eyes heroic, I thought was the least I could have done. And I think it was a learning point for me. You know, you talk about being authentic and vulnerable. I, I, I, earlier in my career, certainly felt like it was important to be a strong leader and to be a strong leader, to be stoic and you know, not vulnerable and, and, and impregnable and, and strong.
Phill
And actually people couldn’t meet up to you. They couldn’t, they didn’t know who you were. They didn’t understand you and you were unapproachable. And I think telling this story on stage showed me more than ever that being vulnerable and being able to tell your story to your employees is super important because it allows them to know who you are, connect to you and show your values. So it was a lesson in, in more ways than, about being a leader, as much as it’s about being a, being a leader, as much as it’s about being a CEO and a human being.
Kim-Adele
Wow. I, I, I can’t even begin to imagine what must’ve been going through all the emotions that you must have been going through, standing up there. And like you say, being even vulnerable, because we were told when we were, as leaders years ago, you can’t be vulnerable. Like whatever happens, don’t show any vulnerability. Yeah. And yet we’re all vulnerable about something. Aren’t we, you say when we are not sharing our vulnerability, we don’t create an open space for people to be able to share theirs. And therefore we can’t grow as effectively as we, as we could. And yet we often don’t find that out doing until much later when we realize it’s, it’s about sharing vulnerability without losing your credibility, isn’t it. And if we’re vulnerable about literally everything, then they’re not, I think we’ll lead them, but, but having some vulnerability, being able to say that actually, you know, we’re not made of steel does allow people to, you know, to better connect. So it must have been also, I’m just thinking back you, you made the move. So not only had you just found out that you’d got Parkinson’s, so you had all of the out that was new and you were going to a new company, albeit doing a role that you’d done before. You’re also moving to a new country with your family. That that must have been a lot for you and for them to, to kind of process and, and, and go through at the same time.
Phill
I know I’ve never done it the easy way.
Kim-Adele
Never. It was a lot.
Phill
It was a lot, but I glad I did it. It was a great experience. It’s probably the job I’ve done in my career that I’ve enjoyed the most. So if you like ending on a high and doing something you really enjoyed doing was great for that four years. So yeah, I mean, as you say, you, you taught certainly, you know, 20 years, you talk to be a superhero. If you’re gonna be a CEO and we’re not superheroes, we are all vulnerable and actually explaining who you are and bringing your whole self to work. Whether you are a CEO or an individual employee is really important. Leaving parts of your personality of the door is not a recipe for success for anybody. So I think it’s important that they know that you are vulnerable so they can their whole self and bring the whole self to work, too.
Kim-Adele
I love that. That is, is so true, isn’t it? Because we wanna connect with people. And when, when we, when there is a lack of authenticity, we waste our time trying to work out what it is that we don’t trust, rather than if people just share it. We go, okay, I know what, no, this is Phil. And therefore I can, I connect with him. So what would you say? I mean, there’s so many, I’m sure it’d be difficult to, to hone it down, but what would you say has been the, your proudest achievement so far
Phill
Or professionally,
Kim-Adele
Whatever, whatever, whatever you are most proud of.
Phill
I think I’m proud of what we did at exact. I think we took a business which was struggling a little bit in some markets and we refocused the business, set it off in the right direction. And you can talk about, you know, the financial outcome or the revenue or the EBITDA, and, and it’s done great. We were turning over 180,000,060 of EBITDA, and it’s now 400 million revenue business. So it’s done really well. But I think more than that, it was about creating the right environment and culture so much more proud of the soft elements of the business, which we, I think put it in the right direction than just the hard, tangible, you know, financial results spent a lot of time working on culture and working on making sure people could bring them their whole selves to work. So an example was we had a, a really big office block right on the main motorway.
Phill
And they used to use the side of the building, the, the windows to put a huge freeze, if you like, or big sticker, across six stories to communicate a message to the passing, passing cars and travelers. And we used to sponsor maximum staff. Everybody knows that the formula motivates all champion now. And so his image would be plus across the building. And like, we came to pride week. This would’ve been 2018 maybe. And I’m like, I don’t want the max staff and sticker on the, the window. I want a huge pride flag, which is six stories tall. Yeah. And I say, everyone’s welcome to work here. And it was a statement of intent from me about how we wanted to change the culture and for everybody to, to be included, no matter what their background or what their preferences were. And I’ve got a lot of passive resistance, it’s like, Hmm, you really want to do that.
Phill
You don’t. I think the council will not allow us to do that. We’re not allowed to side of the road. We’re not allowed to do this because the council’s gonna make us take you down. I’m like, no, let’s it up? And if the council makers take it down, we’ll take it down. So there was sort of this passive like attitude, and I’m like, no, we’re doing it. We did it. And we couldn’t have better response. It was all at all across the front of the newspapers, across the, the Netherlands. It was law, lots of people on the main roads, shouting and screaming and saying, well, great job. We’ve done. I think our employees enjoyed it as well. I think we definitely created an open, more open environment internally Fort community, where they were sort of hidden. Nobody knew who was in that group. Yeah. And we started off with, were trying to run some workshops after we put this flag on building and nobody turned up, nobody turned up.
Phill
So a year later, we, we continued to work on this. A year later, we built the, bought these badges, which said I’m a, I’m an advocate. So I’m a supporter. And we’re a flag. And basically by this point, I got a thousand people wearing these badges in the office. So that people that were in that community knew it was okay to be gay or, or BI or whatever it is, you know, whatever background they had, it was fine. And it fundamentally changed the culture of the company. And we spent a lot more time to about, you know, equality for women equality for back different feel from ethnic backgrounds. And so I’m more proud of the way we change the culture than I am about the financial results. I think one helps achieve the other, but if you can’t bring your whole self to work, you can’t do a great job. And we create an environment it’s okay to come to work and be whoever you want it to be. And that’s probably, I’m more proud of that. And the coach where we created than the fact that we sold the business for, you know, an awful lot of money to the, to a new investor and set the business up for success in the future.
Kim-Adele
I love it. And it’s so true, isn’t it, you know, that getting the culture right, getting the, the environment right for our people is critical to the real success of an organization. And, and we measure the hard things. Don’t we, and it always makes me smile that we call them soft skills. Cause if they really were soft, why do people find it so difficult? You know, we say, we say this often we, the amount of leaders that I meet that can’t do it, that can’t connect with people that don’t consider. What’s it like to be here? What’s, what’s it? What culture am I creating? Are you able to be your best and to be yourself whilst being your best?
Phill
Yeah. I think also think in previous jobs, I learned the difference between management and leadership. So certainly at Iris in the early days of virus, I was, it was, haven’t been new to what it was sort of flat in terms of growth. I wanted to improve the performance of the business and I was working like, you know, 15 hours a day, six days a week. And basically it was making a difference. The business was doing better, but I was miserable because I was working so damn hard. Yeah. And I just went, was driving to work one morning. I had saw this epiphany, which was, what can I do? I’m really stressed. I’m really miserable. I know it’s making a difference, but I can’t continue to do this. What would happen if I just nine to five? What, what would happen? And then I was like, M not sure. So I tried it for a few weeks. I just like worked from nine to five, maybe nine to six, but like not hours a day. And guess what happened, nothing
Phill
Continue to do well. I, I was forced to, to trust other people, to, to delegate to them and let them do their job and do it well versus trying to do it for them or with them. So I, I changed from being a manager and trying to manage every detail in the business and working with my backside off. Yeah. Being able to lead the business by basically letting go, being able to delegate stuff because I had to cause I wasn’t to work any longer hours. And actually that made the business much more scalable. So instead of every position coming to the eye, open needle to one person, it’s going to a group of people in the management team. So that was another lesson for me in actually building a business and being a leader and actually doing it in a way that you could enjoy yourself as, as a person, as an individual, I wanted to learn how to do this.
Phill
I wanted to be happy doing what I was doing and enjoy my job. And I was until that point, pretty miserable. And from then I really enjoyed Iris as well. Cause there was great team around us and I felt the ability to let go and trust them to do the, the right things. And, and I took that, that lesson of being a leader to exact. And then I think I took it to another level. If you like, and focusing on cultural change and building the bright sort of environment for six success, as well as working on the hard skills, as you say, of driving revenue and growth and success.
Kim-Adele
I love it. And I think it’s, it’s true, isn’t it? That you, you know, once, once you let go, once you do delegate, not abdicate, but delegate what it is that we’re doing and allow people to step in into it, you get that opportunity to see them grow as well. Don’t you cause they’re learning new things and they’re getting that belief from you. Cause when we ask somebody to do something, we’re sharing our belief that they’re able to do it. Cause if not, we do it for them. Right. You say, because we don’t trust that they can get there. So did you, did you see a, a lot of people really develop as a result of that?
Phill
Yeah, absolutely. So at exact now was a guy that had been there for, I think 25 years. I called Paul. Who’d worked in various executive management positions, but somehow had been passed over for the CEO when I was recruited. Cause didn’t feel like he was up to it and I felt he was more than capable of doing the job actually. So I saw him, I gave him more responsibility. I gave him a bigger role. I worked with him and basically created a succession plan as I was leaving full-time work. So he’s now running the business and he’s doing a fantastic job. He’s he’s grown, he’s thriving and he’s is, is doing a super job as CEO of exec. Now
Kim-Adele
That’s amazing. It’s lovely. Isn’t when you, when you hear stories like that, where people perhaps did get overlook for whatever reason, but you’re able to spot that talent and, and shine a light on it so that they get their opportunity. So it sounds like you’ve had so many lessons. What would you say has been lesson that you’ve learned so far?
Phill
I think to be authentic and vulnerable is really important. I know you talk about a lot about this with other people, but I was always as a child, my mother was quite stoic and I think I took that into my adult life and I was just sort of plow on, just keep going. Don’t tell anybody how you feel, keep it to yourself, just go on and deliver something and do something and do it well. And I’ve learned in later life actually been vulnerable is as a strength, not a weakness. So that’s an important lesson. And I think that, I think the other thing that I, I really like the idea here that your life’s in three stages. And I think I’m in the third one, which is, you know, you go through the first phase of your life, which is you educate yourself or you get educated as an education phase.
Phill
There’s then sort of this accumulate phase, which is not necessarily about accumulating money and wealth, but accumulating experience and knowledge and ability. And the third is to redistribute she’s to take that experience and knowledge that you’ve got and to help other people. And so, you know, I think I can contribute to the software industry today, but I can’t do in the, in the traditional role as a CEO. So we’re just about to launch an organization called board, which is a, not for profit, which is a building, a community of CEOs, chairman NEDs, and investors in software. So they can get together and share best practice and mentor one another for the success of the software industry. And so that’s something I’m, I’m doing at the moment, which is about my third phase of my life, which is redistributing. If you like, and then also working with cure Parkinson’s to find a cure for this terrible disease. So yeah, that’s the way I’m thinking about life now and, and I’m trying to make a difference and contribute, but doing it in a different way, just because of this, this disease that sometimes gets in my way. I have that.
Kim-Adele
That’s amazing. It reminds me, I’ve always loved a quote. It reminds me of the Pablo Picasso quote, which is purpose of life is sorry. The meaning of life is to find your gift. And the purpose of life is to give it away, which is kind of, I guess, what, what you’re saying is like you accumulate all of those experiences. You get the knowledge, you, you get the education, then actually you give it away. You start to help other people and, and pass on that experience so that they can end up better as a result of it. And I really like the idea of that community for people in the, in the software industry. Cause we need to create that space don’t we, where people can collaborate and co-create rather than, than constantly compete.
Phill
I dunno whether, you know, being a CEO in another industry is any different, but being a CEO in software for me was a lonely job. You were often sitting on your own trying to make a decision that you couldn’t really ask for. Help what from, because if you ask your board, they’d think why isn’t this going know this already? You’d, you’d real like sort of, sort of exposed. So you sort of sit there trying to make your own decisions. It’s quite a lonely role. And I felt like it didn’t need to be this way actually. Why couldn’t we be more connected as a community of CEOs and software and actually speak to one another and discuss these ideas and, and issues and come to a better answer together. So that’s what Broadway was about. And we were, we were just about to launch it in the next few weeks. And as I said, it’s not for profit. So if it turns out we were able to make more revenue, then we, we then the cost, the cost of running the community, then we’ll give it to charity.
Kim-Adele
I love it. It’s a, it’s a really great idea. And it kind of links back to the mastermind idea. Isn’t it? The Napoleon hill came out with in 1927 and he’d researched really successful people around the world. And he identified that. One of the things that was true of all of them is they had a mastermind group, which was seven or eight people that they could call on that probably at the same level as them, or, or even, you know, greater level than them. But when they had an issue, they could call up and go, can we just brainstorm this issue? Because I just need, I just need some advice cuz you’re right. Whenever you are a CEO, it’s very lonely. It’s not quiet because everybody’s buying for your, nobody wants you to give them an answer, but where do you go for that sounding board? So I think it sounds like an amazing thing. I could literally chat to you all day, but I’m conscious with getting close to time. So if you had to go back and give your younger self, some advice, Phil, what would it be?
Phill
Don’t take life so seriously.
Kim-Adele
That is great advice. We do take it seriously. Don’t we? And what’s next for you? So obviously you’ve got the new community, you’ve got cure Parkinson’s so they’re bound to be keeping you busy, but what, what would you like to say? You’re going to be looking back and, and smiling on of the year’s time.
Phill
How many years time
Kim-Adele
One let’s go for one or three.
Phill
Well, I wanna make sure Boardwave launches with great success. We’ve got a launch event coming in September. In the meantime, we’re building the community of CEOs and chairman and Meeds and their investors. I’d like to see that we make a big contribution to the funding for cure Parkinson’s because they’ve already, they’ve been going back 10 years. They’ve now got a globally. There are four phase three trials of drugs that are curative for Parkinson’s. I believe the curity of Parkinson’s they’ve found two or they’re supporting two hour four. So this in the UK has massive influence in the research for a cure. And so I’d like to think that we can help them accelerate the research by giving them more funding or helping ’em to find more funding for them. So they have an international body of neuroscientists that prioritize all the research that’s out there every and pick five projects that we believe need funding. And so they do that every year. So although they’ve got two phase three trials, there are 43 other substances that need research that they prioritize that they haven’t got to yet. And I want to get them to deliver that research in the next five years, not in the next 15. So I’m trying to find ways to raise more capital for curing this disease and accelerating the research that everybody that’s got Parkinson’s can find a cure for them.
Kim-Adele
Amazing that is amazing. And how can people get in touch in help
Phill
They can get in such in a number of ways. So on, on, on the Parkinson’s stuff of this blog called stir shaking, not sorry, stir, not shaking.com, gonna have a look at that, cause it sort of shows you a bit more about the disease and that it’s not just about shaking. So other things as well, I’ve got a, just giving page, have a look on there or just go to cure Parkinson org, UK, which tells you all about their mission, what they’re trying to do and how to do it and fun things you could do to help raise money to, to cure this disease.
Kim-Adele
Fantastic. And for, for Broadwave, how do people get in touch with that
Phill
Broadwave The website’s live in about three or four weeks time. You can email me at Phill@Phillrobinson.com. The Phill’s got two l’s in both Phill’s and I can you more information if you’re a CEO and software or an executive and software and investor and we can connect and we can get you to be a member when we start in about a month’s time.
Kim-Adele
Amazing. Thank you so much. And I will make sure all of the links to that are in the show notes so that you can get in touch with Phill and help him continue his journey. Phill, it’s been an absolute joy as always really looking forward to our next catchup. And thank you for sharing your story with us. I really appreciate it.
Phill
That’s a pleasure, Kim. Thanks very much for inviting me.
Kim-Adele
Pleasure.