Fire yourself, make the business thrive without you in six months (Nick Hale)

Richard Medcalf 00:00
Founders, CEOs, what if the energy holding your company together is you? What if the gaps you keep filling are the exact ones your team never gets to grow into? And what if the most valuable thing you could do for your business is prove it doesn't need you? That's exactly what we're going to explore today. I'm Richard Medcalf. I work with pioneering leaders in one of two moments: either the next big leap isn't happening fast enough, or you've achieved more than you imagined and you haven't yet recalibrated to what's now possible. In each episode, you'll see how elite CEOs handle high-stakes decisions they haven't rehearsed, so you can fold the principles straight into your own business. I hand them a defining move they haven't made yet, live and unscripted, and we find out what's on the other side of it. Today's guest is Nick Hale. Nick is the group CEO of Movera, a private equity-backed home moving group of seven brands and more than 800 people, and he's building an open infrastructure standard for property transactions across the UK. Nick's one of those rare leaders who can walk into a room, lift everyone's energy, set an audacious direction, and make people believe it's possible. Get ready to find out what happens when I take him out of his own company and give him six months to make sure it can thrive without him. Welcome to the defining move, Nick. You've been scaling Movera, which is a PE-backed home moving services group with seven brands, over 800 people. Now I know you have ambitious growth plans for the business. I think you've over a 4x market share increase, perhaps in the next three years, as well as building an open infrastructure standard for end to end property transactions in the UK through your joint venture with Connells. But before we get into that and today's challenge, what do you think that you bring uniquely as Group CEO.

Nick Hale 02:05
What a question, and one I think the most most most people are probably not that that comfortable with. I I believe that I have consistently through my career brought a strong desire to do something special where there is a clear need and opportunity to do so. In this case, it is a you know a purpose and a mission to make home moving better across the UK. And what I believe I bring to that is a I guess a a mindset and a behaviour set that says, you know, I believe anything is possible. I spend my time working out what it is that will give us greater scapability, greater scalability. What is it that will see us fundamentally change the customer experience and match what what consumers expect and receive in other segments of their, you know, of their of their lives.

Richard Medcalf 03:04
But again, if I were going back to that question about the unique thing that you had, what I was hearing was that it was first of all by kind of setting the bar high in terms of this is what we're shooting for, and yeah,

Nick Hale 03:14
yeah, energy and belief.

Richard Medcalf 03:16
I I know you a little bit. I think you're being quite humble and modest yourself because I also know that you are, yeah, like you say, a high energy leader. I think very inspiring as a person.

Nick Hale 03:25
Yeah, look, in a quiet moment, you know, I recognise that I don't really understand why, but I do seem to have the ability to raise people's energy levels, and I am able to clearly articulate the direction we are going, why we're going in that direction, and to convey a you know an energising and inspiring view of you know what we're going to achieve together.

Richard Medcalf 03:57
Great. So let's move in. I'm going to hand you a defining move, right? So this is going to be a scenario where you've already done something which changes everything on the other side, and we explore that. So here we go. Here's a scenario: you've just announced your resignation on Reveiro, perhaps so that you can lead a new spinout or joint venture, right? Perhaps you're going to continue to pioneer in the property sector in some other way. Now, your stock options have survived. You've still got a financial interest in in this in the success of this business, but you've realised that you can't do both things, and so you've had to let go of the reins of Movera. So you have six months to ensure the greatest long term future for this business in your absence, right? Without the the nick magic of the energy and belief, so that this business can blast through its EBITDA margins and and make the impact that you want in into the into the into the industry. So that's the defining move. So let's play. First question is like, what comes up? Does emotionally. You like what you know? He's like, oh heck! I've just made this decision, this defining decision. I've now got to kind of find somebody to fill my shoes in the next six months, or I've got to recreate that in the business. What's coming up emotionally, even at this stage?

Nick Hale 05:12
Well, to honestly, taking me back to a moment I had back in my BT days, where I sat in the CFO's office one day, and he said, "Gavin, that's Gavin Pastern, who was the CEO at the time. Gavin and I decided to set up a ventures unit inside of BT, and we'd like you to consider leading it. And I suddenly felt really emotional about the fact that I was leaving the role I was currently, you know, I was in at that time. And his wise words were, "Nick, there is never a good time, and you know the work is never done, or something. You know, something along that line.

Richard Medcalf 05:51
Yeah. But what's kind of coming up in terms of what would you have to start doing differently? You know, now you've got this six month clock ticking.

Nick Hale 05:58
There are there are clear contributions that we need from some parts of our business and some of those teams that probably need to go further and faster than they do today, and are like lots of leaders at all sorts of levels. It is definitely true to say that I compensate for those some of those shortcomings in the way that the team that I am part of compensate for the fact that I have some shortcomings. But if I'm not there, I need them to be able to stand on their own two feet, and I need them to be able to thrive. So I would probably have six months where arguably I would be firmer, still kind, but I hope. But you know, firmer in how I hold people to account because I need them to be really more than okay when I'm when I'm not there.

Richard Medcalf 06:53
Yeah, lovely. I mean, I see it so often in leaders that you know, even hyper successful, hyper competent leaders like yourself, we can always always want to be liked. We want to help out, right? And sometimes that can end up meaning that some sometimes standards slip in certain areas, or some people. Yeah, you said there are certain things that people might get away with that perhaps, in a sense, they should. I

Nick Hale 07:16
don't think it's necessarily. I don't think it's necessarily get away with, but there are, you know, there are there are there are strengths I have that are complementary to the people and teams that we have in place in some areas of the business.

Richard Medcalf 07:31
Let me ask a question a different way. It would be like one kind of behaviour that you would need to start to insist upon that perhaps you don't need to insist upon right now because you can you can kind of fill the gaps.

Nick Hale 07:45
One of the things I do purposefully, and I see as my role, is effectively to manage the the stakeholders that are our shareholders. But I try very hard to make that the role I play there is is substantial, as opposed to administrative. I.e. every time I meet with our private equity partners or I talk with them, as as I do frequently, you know, I don't expect to have someone with me on every topic that we're talking to them about. I expect, you know, I, I, team, you know, everyone should expect me to be able to carry myself. I will have to make a change and make sure that some members of the of of the broader management team are more visible and present in some of those discussions than they would have been in the past, because they're going to have to front them and be accountable for them in my absence.

Richard Medcalf 08:43
So what I'm hearing is muscle building. I suppose I'm going to call it in terms of helping them build. You know, your team build some new muscles in regarding kind of managing the investors, right? And being visible and just holding themselves in those rooms. And then I'm also hearing this kind of like, is it like decision acceleration? Like, as in a few key things that are kind of some projects which are on the radar, you would want to kind of accelerate that process so that the resources are locked.

Nick Hale 09:12
Yeah, I mean, I mean, put put a different way, as I'm as you're speaking and I'm thinking, I'd probably you know want to move to behaving as you know, as a you know, as an exec chair rather than the CEO, pretty swiftly because I'd want the I'd want that group of people that are around me to be out there, you know, running the you know running the next and new and and new rather than the business today, this month, this quarter, this year, and you know, if I I would have to step back and operate differently in that six six month period to allow them to step forward and to assume the space, which they are more than capable of doing, but our natural way of working that's that has evolved over the last three or four years, mean that there are you know there are there are. Certain there are areas where they they will have to operate differently going forward.

Richard Medcalf 10:05
You mentioned one thing already, which is this kind of perhaps practice of not not just going it alone into investor meetings. What would be one other way, for example, that you might need to to break that pattern so that they can step up?

Nick Hale 10:17
Yeah, I mean, just to you know, just just to be clear, I am I am not the sole person presenting on every occasion in in investor meetings that would do a massive disservice to to other people of the team for for whom I am eternally grateful. There is always that there is always a risk, in my view, that when people I don't mean CEOs, but people who are connected externally leave businesses. I.e. people who face the market, face off with partners, face off with regulators, face off with investors. All those things leave a business. Then you you lose the value. You lose some of the value of an outside-in perspective. I think I would have to make sure that some people who have been rightly more internally focused over the last three or four years, which you know has worked extraordinarily well for us, you know that those people live in the outside world more than they do in their professional lives today.

Richard Medcalf 11:22
You talked about being a source of energy and belief. Where would that come from if you weren't in the business?

Nick Hale 11:27
There are with there is without doubt a a very healthy kind of heartbeat inside the business of people who are really engaged, really enthused, and are passionate about what we do. I so I don't. I actually don't worry that people are you know going to somehow turn up and you know on a Monday morning and think, oh you know crikey, how do I you know how do I motivate how do I get mobilised and motivate myself this way? I mean that's just categorically not not where we are. We've got brilliant brilliant people who are you know passionate. The the there are there are a small there is a minority rather than a majority who probably come out the blocks not questioning whether we're doing something that, frankly, would have you know would appear would appear overly stretching or just or just not possible, and I think I would need to find a way of making sure that those people were clearly, clearly put in a position where they kind of had the the authority and and the ownership of that space.

Richard Medcalf 12:54
Kind of building in this pioneering kind of yeah. We need yeah. I'm trying not to use

Nick Hale 12:59
words like you know, we you know we need a incubation team or you know the strategy team team to lead it up. We just you know we we we need to make sure that people are explicitly asked to you know to come up with things that stretch who we are today and what we think we're going to be able to achieve.

Richard Medcalf 13:21
Got it. Yeah. So, so the role that right now you often do that by bringing these new ideas. Let's go fast on this. This is what I see the opportunity. You're saying kind of actually somehow semi structurally without overly indexing on governance, but the people who actually have that mindset and can perhaps carry blame and somehow elevate the their their position or their span of control, or yeah,

Nick Hale 13:46
and this is this is probably a really bad way of articulating it, but you know, I don't know, we got you know we got to north north of 35% EBITDA margin last year in our sector standards. You know, that's really pretty good, and you know, if you're our private equity backer, the question in you know the board meeting was was not, you know, it was a statement how wonderful this is, and this yeah, and they are brilliant, by the way. We have a great relation with them; they've been fully supportive. But it was, yeah, the question inevitably was, you know, what what got in the whales? What stopped you getting to 40?

Richard Medcalf 14:19
Yeah,

Nick Hale 14:19
right, and that's absolutely fine. I think as a business, we are very, very, very rightly focused on doing what we said we would do, and there is a tension all of the time between landing a plan that we've committed to and stretch and stretching our ambition and and and what we kind of set in terms of our goals and what we're striving to to achieve.

Richard Medcalf 14:44
So you're at day one. You've got this six months stretching ahead of you. You almost need to start to write down like a three to five point plan. What's what comes to mind in terms of that kind of mini guidebook that would need to kind of be your reminder of I've got to stop doing this and start doing this or do. Less of this and do more of this.

Nick Hale 15:04
Top of my list would be making myself more available to people simply to talk to and be used as as a sounding board. In part because you know it's a six month opportunity to coach in what hopefully would feel like a really safe environment for people, but it's also an opportunity for for me to hand over to somebody or some people or you know or to exit with a with a very clear objective perspective of all the things that are great and all the things we need to course correct, and all the things we haven't got to-kind of magic and baggage type, you know, philosophy. So that so that that's number that's number one. Number two, I I would for effectively the management team that I am part of be very would try and be very intentional about what we and they are trying to achieve over the course of the next six months.

Richard Medcalf 16:06
How would that be different from what you're doing already? I think you're already quite intentional.

Nick Hale 16:11
Yeah, I am intentional, but I I believe I give people a lot of space to perform. I I for fully. I think we have a brilliant team, and I fully respect that. In their own functional areas, their level of expertise is significantly ahead of my ahead of mine. And I'm not a person who will. I'm just not a person who will attempt to micromanage something as an enthusiastic amateur, but I think there are elements of their role where, if you said that we had six months to strengthen and that's all they were going to need, then it just you know you need to be more intentional about getting what you do in that six month period to get there. And then I think on the on the third one, what what are the invest what are the what are the things around growth or transformation that we need to do for a multitude of reasons. See, you know, there are potential gaps or weaknesses in the strategy of the business, and you know, barriers aren't quite as high in certain areas as we as we think we can get them. As an example, I would be I would be very intentional about those things, and. I would be working with you know, in particular, the investors in the management team to try and make sure that known gaps that we'd been living with were consciously addressed or not addressed before I exited. That's what I would try to do, and recognising that I, you know, I fully believe you know it's better to. It's always more important to leave well than arrive well. You can you can mend arriving badly. You can't mend leaving badly.

Richard Medcalf 17:53
If you could teach perhaps your leadership or even the whole company like one part of how you think that would be the best thing to kind of instal into the collective memory or into the or into the mindset of your leadership team. What's that one thing that, if you could instal it over the next six months, would really allow the business to to have its maximum impact without you?

Nick Hale 18:16
I think the sector we operate in has been talking about the same challenges in slightly more detail for years and years and years, whilst rarely actually doing something intentional about it. That is changing, and it is changing fast. And there will be winners, and there will be losers. And we're growing, and this is you know and and that's just a wonderful journey. We have to change, or change will happen without us. And if it happens without us, rather than because of us, then that that will be either problematic, you know, or or something that really you know has the potential to get in the way. We need to make sure that really is how the organisation feels and thinks and plans and acts. But if we if we carry on with the mindset that we've got today, you know, I I honestly think that you know Movera will you know can become a story that we proudly talk about for many years to come.

Richard Medcalf 19:20
I'm wondering how we could turn that into a question. It sounds like you have this question in your mind, which perhaps you're asking that not everybody is asking. So, for example, some people might be asking, "Are we growing okay? Whereas I'm hearing you, you, it's something more about what is good, what is going to be different structurally that we need to take advantage of. Am I along the right lines? Yeah,

Nick Hale 19:41
no, that's absolutely that's absolutely right. I mean, I think it's it's deciphering where real change is an opportunity that will be embraced or thrust upon us. What changes upon us that that we can use to help us thrive further and faster? And what changes do we think we can be part of creating that give us the opportunity to be a more significant actor in the sector and and to create a business that evolves from where we are today that you know that that is unrecognisable in you know in a good way, building off you know the the heritage and the track record that we already have and that we are rightly very proud of.

Richard Medcalf 20:23
If you can kind of reach up and that into like the Nick question that is let you know is left in this hypothetical scenario with the business, then suddenly everybody will kind of be thinking about that, even when you're not in the room.

Nick Hale 20:33
Everybody needs to be driven by the business, as it will be three or five years from now, not the one we have today. And every you know every move matters. Everything needs to be done through the lens of where we expect to be three years or five years from now, and expect it to happen quicker.

Richard Medcalf 20:49
What would be different if you had that six month runway? What would need to be the watchword for yourself over that next six months, as compared with the default, where you stay in the business and you keep running the business. The

Nick Hale 21:01
guiding principle would be anything that I'm starting or deciding upon or shaping has to be able to flourish independently without me. Essentially, you almost need to go overnight into that. You've got Nick here; he's almost in an advisory capacity. He's there, but essentially everything is about everybody else in the six months. It's not about me, and you know one of the changes I would make is, you know, those people I work with may you know you know may may you know chuckle mildly at this month. I I would need to be less in the detail. I I would need to be removed a little bit further from what plans are we making and how are we going to achieve these things? You're going to give space for you know people to decide what those things are, how they're resourced, what they're going to you know what they're going to achieve, and how they're going to get over their own barriers that they that they identify. I'm not there anymore. Scary thought. So

Richard Medcalf 22:03
that was the conversation. The moment I keep coming back to is right at the end, when Nick said that the guiding principle would be that anything he starts has to be able to flourish without him. And then, almost under his breath, he said, "I'm not there anymore. Scary thought. Here's where he put his finger on. I want to draw it out. Nick's signature is being the source of energy and belief in his business. It's real and it's powerful, but energy in one person is leverage that's been concentrated and not distributed. He talked about all of this as what he'd do if he was leaving: be firmer, move to the exec chair role, get his people carrying the investor room, but none of that is about leaving. That's just what it looks like to move his leverage out of himself and into the team. He said it beautifully: it's more important to leave well than to arrive well, because you can't mend leaving badly. What he didn't quite name is that leaving well isn't an exit plan. It's a design principle for a business built to outgrow you. So, if your own energy is what holds your whole business together, sit with that. The version of the your company that needs you is smaller than the version of your business that doesn't need you. That's exactly the work that I do privately with leaders, finding the leverage that's trapped in you and moving it into the business. We just use your real situation and not a scenario. So here's my challenge this week: Imagine you had six months and then you're out of your business. What's the one behaviour you'd start insisting on tomorrow that today you let slide because it's easier to fill the gap yourself? Find it and start insisting now. If you like this episode, you might like the episode with Andreas Wilhelmsson. He's just made his company profitable, and I take that profit away, and ask what happens when the thing paying your bills is the exact thing standing between you and what you actually set out to build. If all of this has stirred something in you, that's what the leverage letter is for. Every week, I write a short email to leaders about exactly this: how to build more impact without simply adding more of yourself to your business. Come and join us at xquadrant.com/letter. I'm Richard Medcalf. This was the defining move.


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