YouSaid · the spoken record

James Watt

lines on the record: 131
first: 2022-07-04
most recent: 2022-07-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Think so, yes. I do. I do. Maybe even more demons when I was younger. So to kind of see that I've been able to build something and achieve something and see that I've got lucky enough to have two fantastic, amazing little darters and stuff. So I think my younger self would be happy and proud of what I've done.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, our view was even if we outsource things a little early, the partner's never going to care as much as you care. They're not going to know your business, your customer, as much as you do. They're not going to be fully aligned in terms of incentives with what you're trying to do. So also back to that philosophy of would or could another company do this? If you outsearch things, you're going to get solutions. You're going to get answers at other companies would do. So the more of that you can do internally. Still use partners for execution, for reach for bits and pieces, but with us, the more that we can do generate internally is get BR tone of voice, it's GitB, our mission, it's going to be our passion. And we think that makes it more authentic. And we think that means it's going to resonate better with customers, which a lot of our marketing has done in the past.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely, and that comes back to a key fundamental part of our approach, which is love a constraint. So most people look at a constraint and see it as a limiting factor. If you do that, you've lost the game before you even start. You've got to look at a constraint as a potentially beautiful catalytic force that allows you to find a better way to do something. So our business has all been about constraints, but our philosophy with a constraint is, okay, well, we can't do this in a normal way. How can we find a better way, a new way to do that? And that's where equity punks came from. That's where given away our beard recipes came from. That's where learning the skills that we needed to succeed ourselves in doing so many things in-house came from. It's by looking at a constraint and using that, okay, this constraint is here. Let's make it beautiful by using it as a tool to force us to think differently, to come at this from a different angle, and to hopefully find a better way to do something.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Barcodes how to do the paperwork for international customs for shipping beer to America, how to set up an online accounting platform for the business. We had no money at all, like outsourcing any of these things simply wasn't an option when you've got £200 in the bank account. So for the first eight or nine years, the business, we were teaching on the edge of financial oblivion almost every single day. And my view was, if we're not, then we're not pushing the resources we have hard enough because we've got to be pushing, we've got to be stretching, but it also means you've got to be very considered with how you use your money, with what you're investing. Can we find a way to do this cheaper, faster, better? Can we do this ourselves? If so, let's do it ourselves and not spend that money.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's the least fun, it's the least interesting, it's perhaps the least sexy bit of your business when you've got a startup. So therefore, it's a most likely to be ignored. But for me, finance is the language of business. It's the square keeping system of business. So if you can't keep score, how do you know how your business is doing? And it's something that so many small business owners, entrepreneurs, just ignore, and that is the seed of their downfall. And like everything else, when we set up the business, we like to think we're punk in that we've got the same DIY approach. So we had to learn the skills we needed to exist outside the system to be able to beat the system. Learn the skills you need to succeed yourself so you can be self-supporting and then you don't have to depend on anyone for anything, which is really important when you're a startup. So it was just self-taught, but we had to self-teach ourselves how to generate.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think that's typical of how disingenuous some of the BBC's claims were. The single reason we hadn't started planting trees is we hadn't received the consent that we needed to start planting's. So we had to do environmental studies, we had to apply for permission to the Scottish Forestry Commission. We were given that planning consent last week. We're starting planting in August.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Out of the climate crisis we're in at the moment is businesses. So we think governments and politicians are incapable of making the change it needs to be made because the timescales they work on is just too long for the pain that we need to take short term. So to get us out of the climate crisis, I think it's the best businesses working hand in hand with scientists to put things in place. And I think when it comes to members of the public as well, they can almost have more of an impact when it comes to sustainability with how they spend their money than how they vote. So it's making sure that our community are engaged and excited and come in the sustainability journey with us. But the three pillars of our business for today and going forward, sustainability, looking after people best we can and making the best beers that we can.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Here as well, which we're moving into. So, huge investments to reduce our footprint, but we also wanted to take ownership of the problem ourselves. So our carbon is our problem. Let's do something ourselves. So we bought $9.5,000 acres.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“2030, huge changes needed today, and we want to hopefully set a new standard when it comes to sustainability. So we became the world's first carbon negative beer business. That means we take twice as much carbon out of the air every single year that we emit. That includes all the carbon in our supply chain. We publish a report every six months. It's fully transparent. This is the carbon footprint of our business. This is how it's broken down. And this is how we've then helped take that carbon out of the air. We've made huge investments across our business and becoming more sustainable. We recently invested 12 million in a bioenergy facility that came online last week in Ellen. And this is amazing. So it takes our wastewater and it turns our wastewater into water we can use again and biomethane green gas that we can use to power our system. So our system is now fully powered by green gas that comes from our waste also reduces our water usage and then we're also able to use that green gas to use in vehicles which transport”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. So we thought we were doing our bit for the planet. We thought we were doing our bit for sustainability. And I was fortunate enough to have dinner with Sir David at Inra. It was just before lockdown. It was in February of 2020. And I was just hit with a blindingly stark realization we are not doing nearly enough and we're a part of the problem. And the problem is way more severe than I thought the problem was. After we'd stabilized our business in the middle of a pandemic, we completely pivoted and we thought, okay, we're going to put everything on the line for what we believe in here. So we found an amazing expert. We worked hand in hand with Professor Mike Berners-Lee, one of the world's best sustainability experts, and he's been our lead scientific advisor ever since. And I think it's so important to do that. And we would have made so many mistakes in our sustainability journey if we hadn't had his help. But we decided, even though it's in the middle of a pandemic from a sustainability perspective, huge changes needed today, not in 2040, not in 2050.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You should expect us to focus even more in the three most important things in our business, and that is sustainability, that is people, and that is beer.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Two very simple reasons I want to be the best dad that I can to my two amazing little daughters and I want to be the best leader I can to the amazing people that work in the business and I felt okay The more I can understand myself, the better I can do in those two things. So I did it as much for my daughters, my team as I did it for myself. That's why I did it.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So useful and urge everyone to do that, but the more you can understand how you're put together as a human. And so much of that is like the things that happen in your early life, how that informs the filters you use to see the world means you can understand your behavior and means you can avoid default patterns which are not helping you. So I would have default patterns which I would just fall into subconsciously, which didn't help me. So now I understand, okay, I think this way because these things happen, this is how I view the world usually. This is how I can put a better perspective on it. This is how I can then react better in certain situations as opposed to following default patterns, which maybe didn't help me.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's just an understanding of myself. So I actually did last year five days of intensive therapy in the woods outside of Nashville. Not a year as I was living in a little hut for five days and kind of doing a intensive course. And I think it's just...”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I actually started when I separated from my ex wife. To kind of help us through that transition, help us be the best co-parents we could to our two amazing little darters through that. And I've continued going because I just think it's really useful. And just kind of back to being a CEO is lonely. In the tendency is okay, let's just bottle all this stuff and let's keep going with it. I think I can be a better leader if I've got someone to talk to you about those things, a way to work through the difficult challenging. Emotions means that I can take the best version of myself to work every single day, be the best leader I can, and I owe it to my team to be the best leader I can be.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but I mean, that quote that I shared with you, it's like the first rule of CEO psychological meltdown is not to speak about CEO psychological meltdown. Don't let people know it's tough. Don't let people know it's difficult. Suck it up Buttercup and just get on with it, which works for a certain amount of time. It's definitely got a shelf life on it as well as a philosophy.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“90 businesses are starting to speak about it far more as a business and they just think with lockdown with COVID with everything like the impact on people's mental health and I'm glad people are talking about it more It is a challenge and I think the more people talk about it there's less of a stigma and there's kind of more openness about, okay, these things help with the mental health side of things.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Death work is really good, so I usually do a daily breath work practice, which I think is really key as well. And I think overall as a society, we're trending towards being more anxious. And I think our relationship with social media, our relationship with technology, which is why monitoring how many minutes I spend on my phone each day is very, very important. But I think the amount of anxiety we're seeing in a society today is so much higher than it would have been 10, 20, 20 years ago. As a company going through these challenging times as well, we've put in mental health first aiders who go in a mental health first aid course. They've got a huge amount across the business as well.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just when you feel like you're under attack, and we felt like we've been under siege for large parts the last couple of years. And some of that has been with things which are under you as well, which just kind of makes those kind of blows kind of land tougher. So you just kind of feel your body kind of convulsing with the cortisol and you just feel yourself getting an”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of going through the last few years, I've had hypervigilance, I've had anxiety just when you're constantly on alert. Yeah. Yeah, so you're kind of jammed in a fight or flight. And it's just been like from a business perspective, it's been really tough, from a personal perspective, it's been tough as well. So that's been a challenge.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And as hard as it's been, and it's been hard. Think we are better long term because of that, and that's what we're focused on doing.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The silver lining is that they can last 12 months is a phenomenal opportunity for us as a business, us as an employer, me as a person, me as a leader to get better. And I think we'll look back in a few years' time and as tough as it's been, we'll be grateful that we received that feedback and we took that time to pause, reflect, and learn and make changes. We've made more changes in the last 12 months than we've perhaps done in the history of the company. I've made more changes in my own leadership style than I have in the kind of history of the company in the last 12 months as well. So I think the silver lining is as tough as this is. This is an opportunity for us to double down on what we value as a company, for us to work closer with a fantastic team members we've got all over the planet and for us to build something together with them where they're incentivized, engaged, rewarded, motivated, played a key part in the decisions and how we're building things as well. And as tough as it's been.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I got it, but I just chose what I did with a lot of feedback, which was chose to ignore it and just keep going. So it's only when you stop and pause and reflect a little bit that you look at feedback in a slightly different way.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely need to do better in empathy 100% Kind of one of the learnings as well that I've been so focused that I was like, well, don't need any empathy because it just takes up mental capital that needs to be determined, resilient driving forward, hitting this objective, going for the next goal. And I think some of the issues we've had in the past has been because of that. And this whole thing is a learn and this whole thing is a journey. I think I've reflected and learned more than I have in my entire life over the last 12 months, which I think we had to do insight the feedback. And one of the things I'm definitely working on at the moment is how can I be more empathetic as a leader. And I think that'll make me a better leader long term.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because of that exact quote. Because of that exact quote, and I was like chatting with my doctor, and I was like, do you think this mate? And she's like, I thought that for a while, James, quite possibly. So yeah, I'm working with a specialist at the moment to see if there's a diagnosis there or not, but it's something we're looking at. But based on that exact quote, which is very spooky that you're editing out just now.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. So actually, off the back of the time that I spent with Josh and looking at that feedback, I started exploring as to whether I am a little bit artistic. And it's still something I'm exploring at the moment, but working with some specialists, I think I might have some kind of light level autism. In the mix that would explain some of the social cue thing, some of the mindset thing and some of the awkwardness as well.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but then the next, the week after, what do you do? How am I going to spend my time? What am I passionate about? Let's start another beer business and then build it. Let's start another company and build it. So if we had wanted to sell, we could have sold this thing at a huge valuation 100 times over. I could be sitting in a yacht somewhere sipping Marguerite as never have to worry about anything ever again. So if we wanted to sell, we would have sold it. It was never the intention to sell it. It was to see is there an opportunity to work together strategically or in distribution that helps us grow the business. We're fully committed to 15 years in. We're fully committed to the next 15 years and seeing where we can take this thing. And that's the fun and that's the challenge and that's what we're focused on.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No truth in that whatsoever. So we had discussions about distribution, about potential partnerships, but there was never any intention to sell the company. And if we wanted to sell this company, we would have sold it a long time ago. So we have had so many offers.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I then, without thinking about it too much, decided okay, well, I'm going to buy this. I'm like, hey, guys, I can't hate you too much because I've got shares in you. So that was the kind of design and concept behind it. And whilst we don't want to be owned by Big Beer business, we do distribution deals with them. We've done a distribution deal with Asahi in Japan and we work with other Big Beer companies on a distribution basis, but not an ownership basis. I naively felt it would help us get a distribution deal done. We didn't get the distribution deal done. And yeah, definitely one of the most stupid things I've ever done. I would love to go back and take it back, but I did it. I own shares in Heineken, which is kind of like, I don't know, Luke Skywalker owning shares and Darth Vader's latest startup.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Keep your friends close. At that time, and it's the most stupid thing that I've ever done. If I could go back and change a single thing, that would be very high in the list just because of how odds it sits with our values and how we do things at company. So the intention was to try.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So they said I held 500k's worth of shares. I invested 500k. I quickly sold it down. So at the time they said it was 500k.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Business, and I think being a father has changed my view on a lot of things. I mean, it's not just since myself and Martin became fathers that they're suddenly became baby changing facilities and all of our venues and that kind of thing, but in a kind of deeper level, a lot of what we're doing from a sustainability perspective is because I want to be able to look my kids and I and know that we did our bit to save our home planet, that this didn't happen in our watch, that we put things on the line here. And then in terms of the culture, we're building as a company as well. I want to be able to when there's grown up speak to our daughters about, okay, we try to make it amazing for everyone by doing these things. This is the values that we held true to us. Did we always get it right? No.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I allowed to drink it and stuff. But yeah, I mean, it's stuff. I mean, outside of the business, I mean, my daughter's the most important thing in my life, full stop. And the main focus of my life outside the...”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If she doesn't drink it, she smells it and she picks out the hops and she picks out the mall and then she designs a label and she gives it to the document.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The team are helping us build a thing. It's okay. Let's build a thing together with our team because the person who is on the front lines and our bar in Columbus, Ohio or our bar in central London or our bar in Edinburgh or the person who's working in the warehouse in Glasgow or in the Drury in Australia, their perspective on things is so important. I think a strap that I fell into was, okay, this is our culture because this is why I say it is. You can't say what a culture is. The culture is how the people in your team feel and then how they act and you only build that together. So for me, it's been another kiki learning. Let's build the culture together with our team and that's going to give us the strongest culture that we can has the culture always been amazing in the past. No hands up. It hasn't. Can we make a fantastic culture together in the future with our team? I fully believe we can and we're very much focused on that.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, again, we've put in place loads of things, so now we've got an independent ethics hotline, which is independently managed. So there's so many ways now for people to report something they're concerned with. They can speak to their line manager, they can speak to the HR department, or if they want to do it completely anonymously, we've got this independently managed hotline. They can call that hotline, that hotline that then gives the feedback to our directors, to HR department, but it's completely anonymized, so they don't know who that feedback is coming from. And for us, we want to build the most diverse, most inclusive business that we can. I think it's fundamentally important that we are as diverse and inclusive as our customer base is as well. We've now got a diversity and inclusion forum within the business with people from all over the business where they discuss things, okay, we can get better at this, we can get better at that. So it's putting more things in place where we listen to a huge cross-section of our team. And whereas before we've been, okay, we're building a thing.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That evolution is a perspective as well. Before if something went wrong in the steep learning curve, before if something went wrong in the company, blame someone else. And by blaming someone else. You just don't address what the issue is, and then you scapegoat someone else, which is bad from a culture perspective when now it's back to the question, okay, what could I have done to ensure that didn't happen? What can I do to avoid that going forward? What can I do to make the team, the culture, the people as strong as I can going forward so we can be the best representation of this company and build it to how we want it to be?”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was massively, massively horrified here. I was massively horrified for two reasons. A, that it happened, and B, because I know it's my fault. So... Every single thing that happens in this business is a direct consequence of something I have done. So if something goes wrong anywhere in the business and a business with 3,000 people, things are going to go wrong all the time in every different country, like all the time. But I can never ever blame anyone but myself because I've either hired that person, set the tone for the culture, instructed that person, communicated with that person, communicated with their manager so it's all the direct consequence. So when we've got an issue, I can't look at anyone but myself and I've got to take full responsibility for that issue and put in things in place to fix that issue. So it was hard to hear because it's something that should absolutely never happen, but also hard to hear because I know because if I had done my job better, then it just wouldn't have happened in the first place.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To something called DIY dog. So with DIY dog, and we gave away the beard recipe in full for every single beer we'd ever made. So at the time it was 250 beard recipes. So it was the keys to our kingdom. It was everything most companies used to kind of keep away in some secret vault somewhere and like loath to share with anyone, but that transparency has been kind of hardwired into our DNA for a long time in this board, specifically focusing on culture, people, head count, employer score is a key evolution of that.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It does, and I think it's such an important part of our philosophy, and it just got to a point where there were so many misrepresentations that was like, okay, let's just give them the facts in their purest, most undiluted form, and then people can make up their own mind. So if you look at this transparency dashboard at the moment, the latest score that we've got from people within our business is 3.49 out of 5 as an employer. Now, do we want to be 3.49 out of 5 as employer? No. Is that significantly better than most people outside the company would have you think yes, but what we've committed to do in is every 12 months, we're going to do the same survey in the same way and we're going to update people. So we're going to do that at the end of this year and we're going to share those results so people can see, okay, you've done some things. Are you now better or worse than a 3.49 in an anonymous survey from your people? And that's a level of transparency we've committed to here. And I think that commitment to transparency isn't something new in our business. In 2014, we launched.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is going to impact you on a day to day basis. How do you think this is going to go down the team? But ultimately, how can we make this better in the past, the blueprint, I would have just launched it in a vacuum with good intention. We made so many changes to how it works based on the feedback from our team. So we ultimately ended up launching something that was far more impactful, that was far better for our team because we built it in a fundamentally different way than we would have built it before, which is just in isolation. And I think that's a first example of us doing that and me doing that as a leader, which I think is a really important evolution of my leadership style within the business.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I don't think you can change it based on a number. And I think the mistake that we maybe made in the past. When we knew we had an issue with our culture, we've tried to fix those issues in a vacuum. So it would be me and a couple of our senior leaders and, okay, we know we've got this issue here. We want to make it better for our people. Let's do this, this, and this. But we create that in a vacuum and we didn't speak to the people, so we did so many well-intentioned things that we thought was really going to help us as an employer that just didn't help. So one of the biggest learnings on that part of the journey for me, and it really kind of came to fruition with the blueprint is If we're starting to do something that's good for our people, let's build it with our people. Let's not build it in isolation. Let's not make it in a vacuum. So the blueprint, for instance, before we launched it, I did focus groups extensively with cross sections of the company in America, junior people, senior people, middle managers. I did the same for a retail business, for a production business. I did face-to-face workshops on it. It's like, here's what we're thinking about doing in terms of making things better for you guys. What do you think?”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whereas in the UK, I think it's maybe a bit more jealous of success and they don't think it's going to be them, so therefore they're jealous of success, which I think is a bit to play there as well. So yes, some of the elements of feedback that I felt wasn't coming from a genuine place where some of the kind of hired us to hear, whereas the other bits of feedback that was fair and genuine, I was there for all day long, but the disingenuine bits of feedback were tough because they just all get reported the same way in the media.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Other side, you've got people taking advantage of that moment just to try and inflict damage on me and the company for whatever reason we've always had haters as a business as well, perhaps more than any other business. And I always felt to have people hate you. You need to be successful doing something that you love. And I think there's a big difference here. And you spend some time in the US between how US people relate to successful business people and how UK people relate to successful business people. And I think in the US, they cheer you on from the sidelines, they support you because their mindset is they think that can be them someday.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think for me. Difference between okay, this is genuine feedback because people had a valid concern and because people want to help make us a better business which Fully accept, want to listen to that feedback all day long with us, there's been unfortunately two things mixed together. So there's been the valid feedback, which we listen to, which we accept, which we want to become a bit better business. There's also been people who have been on a mission to inflict as much damage as they can on me and on the business, with mistruths, with misrepresentations, with dishonest statements and dishonest claims. And I know a lot of these individuals. Unfortunately, I can't say too much at the moment because there's two ongoing court cases, but there's been a large amount of criminality involved in this as well. And hopefully one day I'm able to speak about it with some of the things that's happened in the background are completely shocking. It's almost like a movie plot. So you've got the kind of two things mixed up in our case. You've got valid feedback from ex-employees about, okay, you could have done better here. You didn't invest enough in HR. These things were difficult that we fully hear.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's completely fair to say that I, at times in the journey, have been too intense, that I have been too demanding, that I have set standards for the team which I would set for myself, but then for a lot of the team members, that is unattainable. And I fell in this trap. And I would just pick bits and pieces without kind of taking maybe the whole philosophy, and I just pushed for such high standards, unrealistic deadlines. And it was because I was so focused on, let's build a thing, let's create more jobs, let's create more regression opportunities for our team, let's deliver more value for our customers, let's create amazing moments of customer magic. Let's continue, let's continue building so that intention was 100% good and because I was so bought in and so focused in that, I did, I did push people too far.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is my life's work and some of that feedback was fair and valid. I think some of the feedback was disingenuous, but we took the approach of whether we agree with it or not. We get to use this as an opportunity to get better. Maybe in two, three, four years' time, we can look back and say as difficult as this was, we've become a better company because of it. How can we engage with this and how can we use it to get better? Because ultimately our people are the most important thing in our business and we want to be the best business we can long term and we've just got to use it as a catalyst for. For getting better long term as a business.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Made a whole host of changes, we invested in HR, we put a page release and placed across the board, we added resource where we felt we were under resource as a company, we put in place an independently managed ethics hotline and loads of other things. I think we had a few years where we missed the mark from a people perspective, high growth, inexperience in my behalf, unrealistic expectations, difficulties in COVID. I think we've reset things now. I think we've put some fantastic things in place. And then on top of that, we've launched the blueprint, which I think helps create a whole new model for business going forward, which is something we're very excited to do.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say that's completely not the case. Firstly, let me speak about how we've been this employer. So I think it's completely fair to say there's been points on the higher growth journey of this company where we could have done more to look after the people. As a first-time CEO leading a company that was expanding super rapidly in the US, in Germany, in the UK, at times we didn't invest enough in HR. We had unrealistic expectations of our team. And I think a fair amount of feedback in that letter was valid. So we've always wanted to be the best employer we can be. The aspiration has always been to be a fantastic place to work and we've always believed that our long-term destiny is determined by how well we look after the fantastic people in our business. And I think that has been core to our DNA since day one. Have we always lived up to that in the higher growth periods? No, we haven't. And I think we fully accept that. And off the back of that feedback, we did a full independent review of culture. We spoke to over 1,000 people inside and outside the company.”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At the moment, ambition are things that can be measured objectively because that objective measurement helps with helps that voice. But at the same time, you're right, the voice is like, well, if you lose me, you're going to lose your edge. makes you able to do all these things and”
2022-07-04 · The Diary of a CEO · Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT