The Wisdom of Lord Mark Price

Lord Price hardly needs an introduction; former Minister of State for Trade and Investment, former managing director of Waitrose, former deputy chairman of the John Lewis Partnership and Board member of Channel 4. The list goes on.

Although Lord Price had a hugely important political role, it is easy to tell that he is a businessman at heart. Lord Price has kindly set aside some time to share a bit more of his experience, so here’s The Wisdom of Lord Price:

What do you think are the most important skills for young people to have or to develop when starting their career?

To listen, learn and show empathy. Work is not study. You need to relearn an art. To make things happen you have to work through people. 

What would you tell your younger self at the start of your career? Is there anything in particular you wish you would have known back then?

A business life is a marathon not a sprint. You judge your career over 40-50 yrs. Do not be in a rush and enjoy the journey 

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

If you are not pushing the boundaries and experimenting you are not learning. You must learn from your mistakes and those you see from others. You gain more from this than anything else.

What advice would you give to young people who cannot figure out what career path to take?

Go to Engaging Works and take the workplace happiness test. See where you might improve. You can also take a career test and a MBTI test to find the right type of jobs and roles for you. You should feel happy at work.

You should feel happy at work.

Lord Price started Engaging Works because he's a firm advocate for workplace happiness and fairness for all. Driven by his belief that happier employees can transform businesses, he champions the 6 principles below for all businesses:

 1. Reward and Recognition

Being fairly paid is a huge concern for everyone, and if you are not paying a fair salary no amount of recognition for a job well done will be enough to make your employees forget they are not being paid enough. Your pay scale has to meet expectations.

2. Information Sharing

Everybody in your organisation needs to have a realistic and well-sourced view of where they work. Not sharing information makes employees feel an unimportant part of the business. Engagement and commitment can be eroded by this. The closed-door approach doesn’t just have a negative impact on engagement, it can directly impact on decision-making and therefore profitability and success. How free is information in your organisation?

3. Empowerment

Nobody is perfect but a team can be. The aim of any business must surely be to make their employees feel empowered and this means making them a key part of the decision-making process, listening to their ideas and integrating their suggestions to build and refine into your strategy. Our experiences inevitably bring us all to different solutions and ways of achieving them, but only by listening to all views can the best outcome be reached.

4. Well-being

There is a growing body of evidence to support the idea that well-being is an essential aspect of employee engagement. It leads to improved production, lower rates of absence and stress, and higher levels of motivation. In other words, employee health and well-being has become a hard economic factor.

5. Instilling Pride

Have you ever heard any of your employees respond to ‘where do you work'? Employees who love what they do and feel proud of where they work will speak openly and positively about it to colleagues, potential employees, customers and people in their community. Instilling such pride is not just about stirring speeches, sharing growth figures, or saying a few well-placed thank yous. It centres on having a purpose and helping everyone see that what they do each day is worthwhile. A big part of that is to do with how your business interacts with the wider world. People want to work for an organisation that cares about how it impacts on society. How proud are your employees to work in your organisation?

6. Job Satisfaction

We have nothing of greater value than our people. High levels of employee engagement is the key to unlock organisational success. Happy employees equal a solid, successful and long-lasting business. But what makes people tick on a personal level? In other words, what makes workers happy and satisfied at work? More importantly, what can we, as business leaders, do about it?

That was the Wisdom of Lord Price. Thanks for reading!