Vanguard Magazine

GAmE chaNGeR 42 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 www.vanguardcanada.com See the full interview online Q What is your current role? After a privileged final few years in the RCN as a senior officer with platoon of staff, I find that I am now "it". I am ev- erything the business needs, from busi- ness development to accounting to lick- ing stamps! However, I have a full roster of talented associates, with specialist ex- pertise in naval architecture, computer programming, marine biology, emer- gency management, and (of course) na- val operations. My principal job is really scoping and estimating jobs and then coordinating these diverse team mem- bers to deliver what the client needs. What I find most engaging is devising methodologies to address unique risk- assessment or analytical requirements. Q What was your most challenging moment? Getting quickly out of my depth. I un- dertook a job that was not as straight- forward as I anticipated, and so I had to develop an approach that involved building a computer simulation to gen- erate data. I am not a computer geek and my first-year college course in For- tran was a thin foundation to start with, so the project was fraught with massive over-runs of effort on my part. In the end it was a great success and fully vali- dated my approach, but it did teach me not to assume too casually that the prob- lem is straightforward. Q What was your aha moment or epiphany that you think will resonate most with our reader, tell us that story? I am still learning, and have revelations on almost every project. The one thing that sticks with me, however, is the re- quirement to have a detailed conversa- tion with the client at the start of a proj- ect. I often have to address a Request for Proposal without the chance to interface directly with the client before winning the contract. I do my best to meet the perceived requirement in a competi- tive manner, but "maintaining the aim" throughout the project requires that I really understand the expectation better than is usually expressed in the RFP. A couple of false starts have taught me to be very sure that there is no miscommu- nication at the beginning of a project. Q What is the one thing that has you most fired up today? Variety. I am always invigorated by the prospect of a new job, a fresh challenge, the prospect of helping a client both de- fine and solve a problem. I love the chal- lenge of competing for a new job – of finding the perfect win-win proposal for the client and myself. Applying a range of skills to a new problem, developing a new methodology, is particularly re- warding. Today, I am especially charged up by the prospect of a totally new ex- perience – travelling to Africa for the first time to join a ship as ice-navigator bound for northern Baffin Island and three round trips to European ports with iron ore. Not only is this practical work personally rewarding, but it enables me to make practical sense of some of the more extreme views of the Arctic being touted in the media. Q What habit contributes to your success? Listening to others. [My wife Deborah says this is still a work in progress]. It is too easy to launch into a project with a fully formed notion of how to conduct it. To a certain extent, I have to do this to generate the right focus and momentum at the beginning of a project. But team members bring valuable insights and can frequently identify key issues not immedi- ately apparent to me. I try to keep myself open to suggestions as we progress. Q How has innovation become engrained in your organization's culture and how is it being optimized? This is easy enough to do as we (GMSL) are small enough to talk through issues directly, both between ourselves and with clients. I try to adopt an open attitude to new approaches and encourage this among my colleagues. But every project is a fresh challenge, so we do not have time to get formulaic in our methodologies. Q What technologies, business models, and trends will drive the biggest changes in your industry over the next two years? As a varied consultancy, it is hard to identify any particular factors that most impact GMSL. The winds and currents are continually shifting, and we trim our sails to make headway in a direction that looks most interesting at the time. For me this is more like coast-crawling than oce- anic racing! At the same time, I do have a competitive streak and enjoy the chase. What GMSL brings to the quickly chang- ing business environment of consulting is a wide variety of different expertise, an ingrained habit of collaboration, and a collective ability to quickly map out a project plan or campaign. This enables us to leverage flexibility to meet any of the changing conditions we meet. Nigel greeNwood CEO/PrinCiPal COnsultant Greenwood MaritiMe SolutionS ltd.

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