An interview with...Lee Houghton

Hi Lee, thank you for your time today! Firstly, to help people get to know you, how would you describe yourself in 3 words?

Hey James it’s my pleasure and always good to chat to you, 3 easy words to describe myself are bald, northern with an accent, seriously though, engaging, creative and fun! I would probably say.

The readers have got to know you and imagine what you look and sound like now too! I know that you are embarking on a new chapter of your career, but before I find out a bit more about what you are going to be doing, tell me about how you’re feeling right now about it – have you had to overcome any mental barriers to get to this stage?

This year has been an absolute roller coaster to be honest, starting with me excitingly embarking on my consulting career back in January, and yes as you say a new chapter impending that has really been brought about through a couple of life changing ‘moments’

This year losing both my Nan in January and best friend (Chris) on 5th July losing his brave melanoma battle, has meant I have done a lot of reflecting. Much more than I’ve ever done and this has led me to realise that I have not achieved what I could and maybe should have done up until now. I have put this down to a fear of failure which has led me to not fully commit to anything fully as I have played it safe and either been a busy fool or just stuck to the comfort blanket. So, to answer your actual question, I am more focused than ever before but that’s only because I have seen and realised some critical lessons.

Before Chris died, and this is a story I shared in his eulogy at his funeral, I asked him for 3 life lessons as his perception of the world was different having a time limit put on it. It took him some thinking and conversations to get to these:

1)   Always be yourself

2)   Make good friends / connections / customers

3)   Time is limited

I think having these has given me more clarity on what I should focus on and also with helping me try to come to terms or get used to him not being here – this means that what I do will always be influenced by him.

Thank you for sharing that Lee, I can imagine those moments did give you some clarity and perspective. So, you are THE Improvement Coach! Tell me a bit about your career and what led you to what you do today – and don’t miss anything out!

Are you really sure? I believe I have probably had the most random journey of most to get to this point, everyone probably says that though.

Everything I have done has given me a little piece of the jigsaw no matter how random.

My dad was a mobile DJ and when I was in my teens I used to go and help him some weekends. At 18 I remember my first ‘proper solo dad free’ disco, I had rehearsed my introduction over and over again but when it came to do it, I delivered it stood hidden behind my speakers! God knows what the audience thought that day, but the week after I went again and then again and again. I have so much to thank my dad for and maybe after this interview I need to call him, but doing this gave me the confidence to grow from being a shy child who preferred not to speak out in class to someone who doesn’t mind having a chat with folk on stage. I have DJ’d in this country and abroad, at one point I was doing every Wednesday through Sunday whilst holding down a day job. I also built up a bouncy castle business, with 8 castles, 2 slides a gladiator duel bouncy boxing and 4 pairs of sumo suits.

Your dad influenced the start of your working life, what did your mum have to say about you following in his footsteps?

I hit a cross roads and needed to make a career path choice, but was it the world of entertainment or stick with the day job?

Now the day job, I think it’s safe to say I never knew what I wanted to do, I went through school and working part time at Tesco.

My mum said I needed a job if I didn’t want to go to university so I applied and got taken on as an administrator within the public sector. I’m going back so far, they still had a smoking room in the office and pub lunches were the norm! It was amazing, I couldn’t believe my luck finding a job that had flexi time and all these perks. I took a career break to go DJ’ing abroad when I was about 21 and when I came back something clicked and I decided to give the whole ‘proper job’ thing a whirl and see where it would take me. I was fortunate to have some great managers who created opportunities for me which meant I could work my way through the ranks and also start this ‘improvement’ thing which I started to like.

I was put forward to be trained by some external consultants on a General Electric “workout” style process, and was fortunate to be one of the top few facilitators leading over 35 separate events identifying savings of more than ￡1m. In about 2006/2007 they embarked on their Lean journey which again I was fortunate to be part of, this really fuelled my desire to do more. I was lucky enough to spend 9 months in Worthing and had the opportunity to work with a consultant called Phil who has probably had the greatest influence on my career to date and at the time gave me a huge push in my learning. I believe curiosity and consistent learning have been key to my development.

I had the opportunity to travel and work all multiple locations and even on the first cross government lean project on Parliament Street.

That’s impressive! So where did it go from there?

Well, I became a senior lean practitioner with a team of 8 working for me across 5 separate locations, and I had also just applied to be a principal practitioner just as the company had moved to become a self-sufficient organisation, not reliant on consultants. It was time to leave.

My dad had jokingly said to me “you’ve not had a proper job yet working in the public sector”. Whether he believed that or not, he knew how to get me to strive for more, so I looked for other lean roles but in a different sector that would give me different experiences. This was the start of my journey towards becoming a consultant.

I received a few offers and finally accepted one with a national telecommunications organisation. To be honest the interview process convinced me they were the right company and I looked forward to working with engineers and travelling the country trying to improve what they do.

I had the opportunity again to work with some great people and my manager enabled me to be creative and go and discover opportunities. After 2 years I realised I wanted to move into consultancy, but wanted one more sector or industry on my CV, so chose logistics as I could follow and improve something physical all the way to the end customer.

It sounds like you were closing in on your ideal job?

Yes and I have a lot to be thankful for here especially some of the amazing people I had the opportunity to work directly with. Because of them it was arguably my most successful 4 years in terms of benefits delivered, capabilities built, opportunities identified and also challenges faced.

It was then time to dip my toe in and test myself in the consultancy world. In January this year I accepted a role at Lean Consulting and so far in that short space of time I have worked in Pharma, Finance and RPA - who knows what is around the corner!

Erm you did say don’t miss anything out!!

Guilty – I did! I see you have developed a “4 D’s” model to provide focus with your clients, please tell me more!

Well, if I am honest these 4 Ds started out as 3 Ds and a means of structuring myself, but the more I have worked with them the more I believe they can help anyone. Simply they are:

DESIRE - Before you start anything you need to have a reason for doing it that resonates strongly and a place you want to get to.

DEDICATION - once you know where you are going and why, it’s important that you keep you going

DELIBERATE ACTION - this is all about focusing on the specific few things that move you quicker, smarter, or even with less chance of failure

And finally, DELIVERY - achieve what you want to do, and know how to choose what’s next.

I am probably stating the obvious and people will probably say that it’s similar to another model, and it is, BUT, when I have looked at successful change these 4 Ds are there, the specifics about how you move through each is independent to each challenge faced.

Tell me, is your ‘service’ about self-improvement, business improvement or both?

I believe there are so many similarities that both self and business improvement can learn from each other.

For me everything is about people and I genuinely believe that even if you are looking to improve your team or your business you should always start with yourself whether you think you need it or not - this is where I believe I can have the greatest impact especially when utilising the 4Ds.

What can we expect to see or hear from you next, and how can people get connected to you?

Excitingly, I am developing a podcast and hoping to get it out in October, I will be sharing more as we get nearer to its launch, but until then LinkedIn is the easiest place to find me!