Wayne Finch, Interview transcript, December 7, 2017
Brendan: So what's your name and what kind of position do you hold and at what organization.
Wayne: Sure it's Wayne Finch and I'm the CEO of a private investment council and
also run a charitable organization and I have a number of boards.Brendan: Ok so what part of your personal biography or background led you to
this position you have today.Wayne: I would say multiple experiences over time deciding as you go what area
of vocation you want to go into what things interest and what you're good at. So I would say it evolved over time, it wasn't something I had figured out when I was 20 that I wanted to do, it kind of evolved over time.Brendan: So growing up in a city like Toronto, a big metropolitan area, do you
think that changed or maybe helped you go into an area like finance as opposed to a smaller city?Wayne: Absolutely. I think there are certain cities most cities around North
America and around the world where an industry or two was highlighted and it's kind of natural that people would tend to go that way because more people you know growing up have been in the same industry friends family members been in the same industry and Toronto is on the top financial capitals in the world. And certainly the top one by far in Canada. A significant number of people that I know are in the industry and we're you know even from high school college days people an interest in finance and I don't think that would be the case if you're in a city for example like Nashville where you are more likely to be geared towards music or healthcare.Brendan: So what experiences have most shaped you as a leader?
Wayne: The experiences in this industry are quite varied and are usually
immediate. So stock market crashes or large moves in markets from a people's preference to how they invest. Those all require almost immediate action and immediate reaction is one thing is very interesting about this industry and can quickly determine who is a leader and who's not. Something like an auto industry factory, you just - if something changes you can't move that thing probably for 10 years probably five or ten years. Where with markets moving every second you don't have time to wait and you need to react extremely quickly. So I would say that the experience of that and the requirement to always be reacting to the circumstances around you does help a lot in becoming a leader, not only for that reaction time but you've been trained to react to every single event that takes place. So I think you end up with a bigger picture because you're always reacting you're always seeing what's going on daily. And that allows you and I think to concentrate more. I guess relentless in making change. And I think especially in this day and age change is required all the time. And as a leader you need to be able to thrive in change not just accept it, you have to thrive in it. And I would say that's for me to probably the number one thing. I love being able to react and react quickly and I think it turns even in other industries, when youre taken outside of here and you just want to always be ahead of everybody else when you're in that mindset and beat your competitors.Brendan: Yeah, it's different from like a mundane task where every day its just
putting together something like a car, just not really thinking about it, just kinda doing it. In finance you have to manage with the stress of making decisions like you said and be on your toes pretty much. So were you called into leadership or did you seek because of held convictions.Wayne: It would say early on it was probably more of a calling at least early
on. I think when you get into an industry where there's so much happening and so many different areas you know even if you look at the most prevalent degree in the area of the CFA you take that it's so multifaceted that you end up learning about so many different things, economics to fixed income and equities. It just goes on and on. So when you come into this industry you realize you don't know a whole lot about the industry because you can only know a little bit about each of those by the time you're in your 20s. So I don't think you come in with a whole ton of knowledge and think that you're going to be a leader. I think you can be called that as you thrive in that industry I think you can start to evolve into a leader not only you're leading in the way the firm is run or reactions you take. And then ultimately the people that you lead. The financial industry probably is, in a lot of cases, less leadership people more leadership of their resources. There's still people obviously in some organizations and in the bigger ones like banks and stuff there is, but its a lot different than a huge conglomerate organization. So I think you know after a while when you get called into it than I think you get convicted that you're doing this you're doing and maybe perhaps better than other people. And then it is a conviction and then you want to take it and thrive with that leadership. And I think it ends up not only in this industry but allows you to do other things. Like I said earlier do charitable things where I need lots of people there but it's because of how you grow in this industry.Brendan: So you kind of wanted to be the boss or kind of run your own company so
you have more freedom you didnt want to really be someone who's working for someone else, right?Wayne: Yeah well I think that also evolves too. I don't think you go in to that
thinking I don't want to work for somebody else. I think in this industry where you have to react so quickly to changing events even within a day you end up having to make so many decisions yourself and can't rely on necessarily other people but you end up making more and more decisions. Obviously the more decisions you make you can grow into a leader and you feel like you're empowered to make decisions make decisions make decisions. So it becomes I would say it harder and harder when you're in that industry to actually go and work for somebody else. I think we naturally become a leader and just because of all the decisions you've made you feel like you can lead and because you've been forced to.Brendan: Is there anything that maybe you'd change kind of building your way up
to where you are now as a CEO. Maybe there are experiences that maybe would have helped more along the way.Wayne: You are somewhat constrained by the environment you are in and I think in
this industry, like I said you're making a lot of decisions early on, relatively young in your career and more are financial decisions more are market decisions and they're less about people. And I would say that is probably a negative overall. It takes a lot longer I think for people in the financial industry to end up being really great leaders of other people. Because they spent so much of their time leading either the firm within the industry or just trying to beat the market so you spend a disproportionate time on reacting to events. And your subordinates are probably doing the same thing and there's not the, necessarily, the time or the weight given to managing people and I think if there was more of that it would probably be more helpful for most people in this industry.Brendan: Those experiences and maybe obstacles, how have you learned from those?
Maybe you can point out a specific one or just in general.Wayne: [00:12:09] One thing that I think is great for leaders in this industry
and probably in most industries is to do something outside of your industry. And I think for me that it did require a different skill set when I started to go on corporate boards or run a charity there's different skill set. So it forces you you know you know how to make decisions you know how...just the intensity that's required in that financial industry but if you could take that same intensity onto a board or a charity but you realize it's required in different areas so a charity with all really limited employees and lots of volunteers. It's different. So being a strategic leader and strategic thinker I don't think it's difficult but it does force you to look at how do I take my skills - market skills and turn them into skills like we used to lead or inspire people. I think the more you can do things outside of your little realm of day to day is helpful for both organizations, the one you're working at and also the one where you're volunteering or on a board or something like.Brendan: This is a bit of a broad question but what does leadership mean to you.
Wayne: Well I think leadership, there are obviously lots of different areas but
I think it's stewarding something or somebody and you know a good leader creates more leaders it doesn't create followers. I think poor leaders create followers. I think to be a great leader you start with people that want to follow you. I think they get inspired they want to follow you. But if you can create other leaders that is, to me, is a big deal. And I think that's what makes a leader with people. I think in just keeping like stewardship I guess is probably the best word because even for the organization if you want to steward your organization the best way possible a leader needs to take that organization and keep it at the forefront, make change, make it relevant and be successful.Brendan: And how would you characterize the leadership style?
Wayne: Primarily I'd be a strategic leader, I think that's probably the number
one things for me is strategies and just relentless thinking about every aspect of the business or other company boards or charity. It's just being super strategic. So that obviously makes it work better in organization where thoughts can turn quickly into successes or failures. And I think in this industry and growing in more and more industries where you have to be able to react I think strategic thinking is critical. If you are a really great manager of people and are strategic about it, in this day and age its just not going to work, sooner or later your company will not be relevant anymore. So I think that be my style and then managing as far as managing people I would say my leadership style is really to empower people. I've always kind of run my career on working myself out of a job. I always thought that if you do you empower the people below you and then they do can do everything you do then you've opened yourself up for bigger challenges. And I think you can do that. Sometimes people do the opposite, they like to hog the puck, not pass down things try to do it all themselves. And I think that's a career-limiting move. I think working yourself out of a job is a great leadership style.Brendan: So you touched on one of the questions. Leaders help turn ideas into
action and empower others. So do you feel it is important to delegate. If so why and when or how do you delegate.Wayne: I definitely think you need to delegate and I think that's what creates
that leaders. And I want to firm where its all leaders and we kind of have that. How you delegate and when is - I don't think there's a straight answer it certainly depends on the person. But I would rather delegate a little too early than a little too late and that does create potential opportunities for learning experiences. But certainly mistakes. But I think people being empowered is a tremendous thing and I think you end up showing people that they can do more than they ever thought they could do. And there's a lot of jobs out there where that's not the case where people are stuck in a mundane job day in day out. If they were ever given the chance and empower to do something else, they'd grab it and their self-esteem goes up dramatically and I think you can see that in volunteer organizations where people have potentially a boring job day to day and you give them something empowering to do in their spare time for free and they grab it and they love it and I think it builds them a lot and I think that's what you do in your own company when you start delegating is you just empower the people below you.Brendan: If you empower some people you can see so much change just from someone
going from getting a job and just doing it versus getting a lot more freedom and then he can see kind of creativity stem from that and maybe just new opportunities for them or stuff they never thought were possible. So what are your professional strengths and weaknesses?Wayne: I would say my strengths are probably just determination to be on top all
the time, be the best. And I think that ends up you just being relentless in you know every aspect every thought all the time. So that is, I would say a professional strength is that youre just all the time relentless and I would say for the organization that's awesome. I would say that could be in other areas of your life a weakness because you're super focused on the organization and there are people who say work life balance is a myth and I would probably be one of those. If you're relentless at what you do for a living it's hard to turn it off. So I would say that's professional strength. I would say in this industry and probably for myself a weakness probably could be direct training in leadership of people. A lot of times in this industry you're kind of required to be on your own and learn on your own and react on you're own and people are busy all the time. I think you don't have the time that you would have another job to sit with someone, mentor them in the same way on every step along the way. So I would say that's a weakness for myself and I think in this industry it's a weakness generally of how the industry works.Brendan: What or who has been your greatest influence. Someone that's a public
figure or just someone who when you're working, you looked up to.Wayne: I think I had a few people in my career and I think they've been huge
influences but they also shown me that little decisions on people seem like little decisions on people can have a huge impact and early in my career I purposely decided which people in the industry I was going to grab onto their coattails because they were in more senior roles than I and you can learn from them and they mentor you. And I think those have been huge influences. I still manage to keep in contact and deal with those people on a regular basis and they're also CEOs so when you're in your early 20s mid 20s and you've caught on to people you know four or five years older that are moving up in the organizations and in the industry at a rapid pace it's pretty easy to grab on. I think you get motivated. You see what they can do, what they've done and watch their careers move up and I think that's inspiring and you know inspiration is big especially in that age bracket where you've got things like starting a family buying a house and all these other things that can distract your mind. And when you see these people that have gone before you and done extremely well I think it's motivating.Brendan: How would you measure success and how do you learn from your failures.
Wayne: In this industry success is pretty easily measured. Which might be
another bit of a negative for the industry. But everyone gets paid based on assets so you know the better you do, you immediately get more money and so money ends up being a measure of success all the time. So it could even be a trade. So if you if you're a trader you make a trade you quickly realize that you made the company a hundred thousand dollars. It's very easy to measure your success or you lost them money. An investment management firm as you grow your asset base you get paid more. And if the asset base shrinks you paid less. So in that way there's a measurement of success and it's monetary all the time. I think we need to do though is transfer that quick measurement that happens, then you have to figure out why. Why were you successful and measure that first yardstick which is so easy. Oh yeah we made way more money in this month than we made last month. We're successful. If you left it at that sooner or later those would disappear. So I think the next measurement is how are we successful and what's going to make us more successful going forward. So having that yardstick though is fabulous because you get a yardstick virtually every day, you know if you did better than the day before where most industries don't have that. It takes a long period of time to get trend going to see whether it's successful or not. And some of them may not even be monetary and that's more difficult to measure. Sorry, the second part of that question is how do we learn from failure. And again I think failure can happen obviously again monetary its quickly recognized and because it's so competitive in this industry you are required to quickly learn from any failure like that. And I think some of that can also translate into the people around you and in your organization is a failure from the people is a failure from either not empowering people or not investing it hard enough into those people or did you not have the proper management structure in place. I think because of the industry and you're always reacting so quickly. I think you learn to look at failure a lot sooner than it would happen in a lot of other industries. So you can react quicker and I think that's a huge benefit in this industry. That you don't let the failure go on too long. You really can measure it almost every day and quickly change it. And I think when you take that mindset and you take it to another industry, board or charity you're just always intense about these things and intense about making sure if there's just something that's not working right. You quickly change. You just don't have time to wait. Use change as fast as you can and you try to be ahead of the curve. I think that's extremely beneficial and more and more as things change more rapidly, some of the top companies in the world weren't around 5 years ago even, things are changing so rapidly. I think that's a critical thing to do, measure and learn from your failures as quickly as possible.Brendan: And what do you think separates leaders for followers the most - could
be a personality or characteristic.Wayne: Again, I've used this word a lot of times but I think it is intensity. I
think most leaders that I know are the hardest working people in the organization and you can learn different things but it's hard for someone that's lazy and not intense on building an organization or making the organization successful, they're not going to be the leaders. The other thing I think that separates leaders is what is their goal with other people. I mentioned earlier I believe that a good leader builds up other leaders and you end creating a multigenerational effect if you're a good leader and your legacy goes on for another generation or two because you've created other leaders that are going to take over. I think followers are more reluctant to do that. I think the more protective of their existing space. They don't want anyone to know what they know to retain their jobs a lot of cases so that's probably the biggest characteristic. Just work the hardest, think the hardest and will do anything for success.Brendan: You were saying before how years and years ago before the Internet or
anything. People will be successful if they kind of knew they had knowledge about you know all these different things whereas now you could have access to everything at the palm of your hand so pretty much anyone can know anything but it's probably more about hard work and putting hours into it and learning quickly. Following up on that. What do you think the difference is between now and years ago in the 60s like how has it changed? Just for people in leadership or just in general working.Wayne: I think you highlighted that point and that it is crucial, the access to
knowledge is so quick now I think nowadays when you can learn that much so quickly just searching on the Internet you can find out or any topic extremely fast. I think it widens the scope for leaders so before to be a great leader in an automotive company you probably had to grow up in the automotive company to know everything about the automotive company. So you would certainly probably grow within and you would promote from within. And most people and most CEOs would have a lot of history in the organization or in the industry and that's dramatically different now. You don't need to really know that much about an industry because you can learn it so quickly. So management style and leadership is more important now than before. Knowledge was probably a bigger deal then, now I think it's leadership. You can quickly find out a lot of information so if you're my great leader, you're a visionary. I think your chances of success are a lot better now than they were before. And I think the range of companies where you can put your skills to work is limitless and that's a huge difference from 10, 20, 30 years ago.Brendan: And what are two to three action steps to enable others to be
successful or move up the corporate ladder. Maybe they're just at the bottom of the ladder just starting out - what can they do to become a leader and maybe the CEO of a company one day?Wayne: I think as a leader of the organization or charity you really do have to
invest in the youngest generation. And I think that is...there's a number of things. First I think they need to see you as a true leader and visionary and see you in that role rather than seeing you do tasks because I think tasks are again something that anyone can do or anyone can learn. You can do tasks all day long and not be thinking that bigger picture of really what you're about or what the organization is about. So I think it's critical for younger people to see that, to see the bigger picture and not see all the tasks that are involved. And I think too if you buy into the bigger picture of whatever organization you're a part of or charity wherever. Than it's a lot easier actually to make decisions along the way because the decisions relate to the goal of the company, youre personal preference or your personal ideas are really secondary. And I think that's also critical. If you look at your personal preference and whatever idea it is versus the company's end goal which is to be successful, and even when you look at those two together a lot of people just their own preference without looking at the bigger picture but if you look at the bigger picture your preference is you want that thing to succeed you want that big picture to succeed so your ultimate preference is the big picture. So you need to train in your own ideas of personal preference for the bigger goal I think that's something that's probably hard for people to see and its not really taught in school. It would be kind of hard to do that, you can say it. But it's hard for people to see it unless you're in it.Brendan: Is there anything specific that should be instilled in the youth today
or be taught more in classes that would make better leaders? Could be more critical thinking classes or something like that.Wayne: I think this whole idea of personal preferences is a big one. I think it
kills a lot of people when you start taking your personal preference into account. You just don't want to do that. And I think the other thing that probably isn't taught a lot is when you're making critical decisions, you can go with the instinct and again sometimes depending on organization and depending on the type of role, sometimes instincts are good thing. In our industry we trading stocks and stuff like that some part of that is science and some of its art really. And you can study all the time and never be a good stockbroker. So you are you know using both of those. I think one thing to try to do is always try to prove yourself wrong. So you're going to make a decision. If you try to prove yourself wrong, relentlessly try to prove yourself wrong. If you can't then you're on the right path and people don't necessarily want to second-guess themselves. But I think that's the way to build confidence. The way to build confidence is make sure you're right. So if you try to prove yourself wrong and you can't. Then you have more confidence you've got the right answer and confidence can take people a long long way. And I've always viewed the best way to get confidence is to be right.Brendan: So do you think there should be more leadership courses in schools
right now or just critical thinking decision making those type of thing more than say history not knocking history or philosophy or those types of courses because they're more broad and they're needed every single thing.Wayne: Correct, and I think that is the thing it's about thinking now. It's not
about knowledge, before every school pretty well whatever course you take was about knowledge and gaining knowledge so that you were prepared. Now you can get knowledge so quickly. I don't think that all schools have moved fast enough or other education institutions move fast enough to get people to be critical thinkers and grab the knowledge that surrounds you but it's all about decisions, making decisions and also leadership as well. Sooner or later you are going to be a leader even if you are an entrepreneur you going to be a leader. I think leadership skills again are probably more important than the knowledge of any particular industry.Brendan: Do you think universities or schools today do a good enough job at
empowering students to work hard or maybe be in more leadership type roles or do they kind of just tell them to do what they love but don't really encourage them to be the best that they can. I guess is a better way of phrasing it.Wayne: Yeah I think maybe unfortunately the guess is that universities are
trying to make a mass appeal. And I think there are differences from people who want a total balance in their life and just someone who has a defined goal in their life and this is really what they want to do and maybe in some cases people aren't old enough or have experience to actually make that decision. So there's certainly a case to be made that a wide range is helpful in some cases but yeah I think there needs to be more focus for sure and I don't think there's as much critical thinking although certainly more than there has been before. And then I would say the hard work is. I don't think it's just higher education. I think it's all education; it doesn't really push people as hard as it could. I think when they get in the real world they will realize. And again depending on the industry is a lot different. You go into investment banking they expected to work 15-20 hours lots of times in a day people just aren't prepared for that and are they prepared for the time or are they prepared for the mental energy is going to take to pull that off. I think probably they're not ready for either. I think again maybe the wide range of courses that are offered at universities and there's so many of them seem to me that there should be in some cases more specialization and probably less schools. There are a lot of schools and that creates a lot of bureaucracy lot of overlap that probably doesn't need to happen.Brendan: So in Canada right now there's rules where you can't fail a student or
everyone gets participation trophies nowadays where when I was younger that wasn't the case. And even marking on tests, you're not really allowed to mark an X to show that they're wrong. Do you think this really hurts the youth today and when they're growing up they won't be as competitive, they will be lazier.Wayne: No I 100 percent agree. And you know even in sports where everyone takes
home a trophy. That's just not the real world. Not everyone's a winner and you're not going to always succeed. And I would way rather learn that lesson when I'm 5 and 6 than when I'm 25 or 26 and the consequences when you're young learning the lessons are nothing. The consequences if you don't learn that you're older could be devastating. And I think needs be more of that needs to be measurements of success and marks are a measurement of success just like money is a measurement of success it's not the only measurement but it's easily done. And money has been a measurement of success for thousands of years. And rightly or wrongly it is. It's pretty easy tool to measure. So we should always be using measurement tools and I think if you're not succeeding you need a wake up call and it might hurt your feelings. That's OK. That's how you get stronger.Brendan: What advice do you have for building relationships and trust in an organization.
Wayne: It probably depends on the organization and how you actually do that -
I'm in a small organization so building relationships is pretty easy now with those around you and outside the organization again in this industry you're kind of forced because you are relying on other companies, investment banks, brokers and clients. There's a lot where you are kind of forced to build that relationship where you won't have a successful business. I think certainly honesty is the number one thing and unfortunately I would say as a society we've built so many rules and so many regulations that it almost is an anti trust environment, people just don't trust each other. The organizations are set up with so many protections and so many rules that it almost takes the trust out of the equation. And I think while you do have to have some rules people are always going to break them criminals or people are going to do shady things and are always going to break anyway. So it's having rules for people who will be rule followers and would have that trust, is that a good thing or a bad thing and its a bad thing. And in our organization, it's a small company; we all trust each other all the time. We all could leave our doors unlocked if this was a home or our computer screens on and we know nobody's going to come in because there is that trust. The advice for building it is you need to hire people you trust. And I think ethics is a big deal. And with what's going on in the U.S. right now. Trust is a bigger issue certainly in developed countries and I think it's critical.Brendan: What do you want your legacy to be?
Wayne: I would say probably that I you know created other leaders and created
something that will last generations rather than disappear when I disappear and I think if you can do something in your life that people remember for a long time and maybe multigenerational that's great. I think I want to have built up family that's the same and leaves a legacy and companies I'm involved in to leave a legacy. Sometimes companies merge get bought out, whatever. But if you're part of that and you were part of moving something forward that's great. And I think it's your organization can change people's lives. That's amazing. It could be changing your clients lives because you made something for them better or it could be changing lives of your employees and you empowered them to do something way beyond what they ever thought they could do. Now those are all great feelings and those are not anything to do with money but they are feelings and up being probably more of a legacy than the money that disappears when you disappears. So I was just like it to be multigenerational.Brendan: I agree I think that it's the impact on other people that makes the
difference. Well thank you for joining me for the interview. It was great to hear your thoughts on leadership.Wayne: Thank you very much