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SEVEN TENTHS OF A SECOND. IN THE WORLD OF F1 IT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE . . .

‘Brown has overseen McLaren’s evolution from a team stuck in the shadow of past glories to one that now sits atop the F1 world once more’ NEW YORK TIMES ‘Zak Brown has become one of the most influential figures in the world of F1’ DAILY MAIL ‘There’s arguably no hotter name in motorsports right now than McLaren’ GQ ‘McLaren fans, your unwavering support, passion and dedication are what make this sport so special.

Whether you’re cheering trackside, watching from home or engaging with us online, you’re an essential part of the McLaren family. We race for you, and we couldn’t do it without you’

ZAK BROWN

In 2024, Zak Brown led one of F1’s most iconic teams to its first Constructors’ Championship in over a quarter of a century. But McLaren Racing’s return to the top went hand in hand with a wellearned reputation for fairness, loyalty and a one-team approach. In Seven Tenths Of A Second he gives readers a chance to experience it for themselves, with all the straight-talking, integrity, drive and good humour he has brought to leading one of the most storied teams in motorsport back to the front of the grid.

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Sharing stories and lessons acquired through a life in motorsport, Seven Tenths Of A Second offers unprecedented insights into life at McLaren Racing and beyond.

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But what made him the leader he is?

Seven Tenths Of A Second shines a light on Brown’s own road to success, taking readers behind the scenes and into the paddock and boardroom to understand how the team fought its way back to winning ways under his leadership, and revealing what it takes to succeed in a sport that constantly pushes the boundaries of technology, innovation and engineering.

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NEVER STOP RACING . . .

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Born and raised in California, Zak Brown raced professionally around the world for ten years before developing his skills in motorsport’s business and commercial worlds. In 1995, he founded JMI, which grew to become the largest and most successful motorsport marketing agency in the world. As Chief Executive Officer of McLaren Racing, he has led the transformation of the brand and culture of the McLaren Formula 1 team and put in place the people, resources, infrastructure and mindset that has enabled McLaren to return to racing at the front of the F1 grid.

He is married with two sons and several dogs, lives in Surrey in the UK and can be found on the golf course on his rare days off. Seven Tenths Of A Second is his first book.

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Seven Tenths Of A Second

Seven Tenths Of A Second z ak brown

P E N GU I N M I C H A E L J O S E P H UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia India | New Zealand | South Africa Penguin Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com Penguin Random House UK, One Embassy Gardens, 8 Viaduct Gardens, London SW11 7BW penguin.co.uk

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No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. In accordance with Article 4(3) of the DSM Directive 2019/790, Penguin Random House expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception Set in 14.8/18 pt Garamond Premier Pro Typeset by Six Red Marbles UK, Thetford, Norfolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. The authorized representative in the EE A is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library hardback isbn : 978–0–2 41–78892 –9 trade paperback isbn : 978–0–2 41–78894–3 Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.

This book is dedicated to my brother Kasey.

Contents Abu Dhabi, 2024

1

A Competitor at Heart

15

Chapter 1: Taking the Brave ​­Pill – ​­The Mick and Me

35

Chapter 2: Finding Inspiration

45

Chapter 3: Fortune Teller

55

Chapter 4: An MBA in the School of Hard Knocks

63

Chapter 5: Green Flag

71

Chapter 6: Hustle

81

Chapter 7: A Passion for Deals

93

Chapter 8: The Fire Always Gets Bigger

109

Chapter 9: School All Over Again

119

Chapter 10: The Papaya Era

133

Chapter 11: Timeout

143

Chapter 12: Weekend Warriors

153

Chapter 13: Crisis Management

165

Chapter 14: Stick or Twist

179

vii

Chapter 15: Rebirth

189

Chapter 16: Lando and Oscar

203

Chapter 17: The New Piranha Club

221

Chapter 18: Fast Forward

233

Triple Crown

247

Acknowledgements 257 Index 259

viii

Abu Dhabi, 2024 I sleep okay the night before the race. Not great. I never sleep great. I drink a lot of coffee. I’m a million-​­miles-​­an-​ ­hour guy. Sleep’s a casualty. This is going to be the biggest day of my life, either the good way or the bad way, and I sleep okay. I’m surprised.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix doesn’t start until 5pm, local time. So I have to get through the day and try not to think too much about the evening. I host a lunch at the Hilton for our sponsors. A lot of big-​­hitters are here.

Around sixty, I’d say. The food’s good. I make a speech.

I’m grinning a lot. I’m faking the grin. Inside, I’m not grinning. There’s too much at stake.

I say it’s business as usual. I say that to myself, too. But I know it’s not business as usual. To look at me on the outside, I’m in a great mood. I’m upbeat. I’m smiling. The sponsors are smiling. Everyone’s patting me on the back.

They’re saying, ‘You’ve got this thing wrapped up.’

Our drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, drop in to say hello and press some flesh. They bring the 1

stardust. They’ve nailed it in qualifying. Lando’s on pole. Oscar’s next to him on the front row.

On top of that, Ferrari is struggling. Ferrari is the only team that can ruin this day for us, and even though Carlos Sainz qualified third, his Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc, is way back in nineteenth. ‘You got this,’ everybody keeps saying. ‘It’s over. It’s done. It’s in the bag.’

Here’s the math: we’re going into the final race of the 2024 season with a twenty-​­one-​­point lead over Ferrari.

We need to score twenty-​­four points, between the two drivers, to guarantee the constructors’ title. Or twenty-​ ­three, if Ferrari does not win the race.

If one of our drivers wins, that’s enough. That’s the simplest way to seal it. If Lando wins or Oscar wins, we’ll have our first constructors’ title since 1998, when Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard are our drivers.

That’s more than a quarter of a century ago. A quarter of a century since McLaren won the constructors’ title. A team once so mighty it pits Alain Prost against Ayrton Senna in its cars and wins fifteen out of sixteen races in 1988. A team that takes Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt and Niki Lauda and Prost and Senna and Hakkinen and Lewis Hamilton to the F1 drivers’ title.

If we don’t win the race, there are other permutations.

We could still win the constructors’ title by finishing second and seventh, say. Third and fifth would be enough, too. And, anyway, Leclerc’s nineteenth on the grid and 2

we’re one and two. Maybe I don’t need to worry about the math.

But I’m bound to worry. This is big. This is big for me and it’s big for the team. I’m a hustler and a disruptor, I’m a Valley boy from Los Angeles who doesn’t do great in school and comes to Europe to try to make it as an F1 driver, and hustles and works hard to build up the most successful motorsports marketing company in the world and make a success of myself and now I’m here.

When I join McLaren at the end of 2016, don’t forget, everyone says I’m a brash American and they’re a lost cause. Everyone says they’re finished. They’re stinking the place out. Road & Track magazine runs a feature on me a couple of years after I arrive. The headline reads: ‘Zak Brown’s Impossible Task: Saving McLaren Racing’.

We used to call it a ‘journey’ that we were on. At some point this season, I change the word to ‘quest’. A journey is how you get to work every day, pretty boring, point A to point B. Flying to the moon is a quest. That’s what we’re on.

I never think it’s an impossible task. It’s tough, but with a lot of help from a lot of very smart people, a lot of very good people, we do save McLaren. We turn it around. And we bring it to this point, where I’m in Abu Dhabi and we’re within an ace of bringing twenty-​­six years of hurt to an end.

At the lunch, people are still patting me on the back.

But I know it ain’t over till it’s over. In business, time kills 3

deals. Don’t get lazy on the five-​­yard line. You’re not in the end zone yet. Things happen. So don’t let up. Make sure you’re in the end zone before you spike the ball. You can fumble on the one-​­yard line. I’ve seen it happen.

Anticipation, excitement, adrenaline, nervousness all start to build. Being with the sponsors is a good distraction. Wyc Grousbeck, then owner of the Boston Celtics, is at the lunch. He’s brought his Celtics NBA Championship ring and he’s showing it to all of us. He’s saying that if we win, we’ve got to get rings made up to celebrate.

After the lunch, I’m driven to the track. I’ve got the Netflix Drive to Survive crew with me in the car. We get to the Yas Marina Circuit. And now I’m starting to get myself into the mindset that I have to tackle it like it’s just another race.

Stop thinking about the championship. Just approach it like you’ve approached the other twenty-​­three races this year and everything will be fine. It’s one of those things where you pretend you’re not thinking about it, you’re trying not to think about it, but of course you are thinking about it.

I walk into the garage, say hi to the team. The mechanics are prepping the car. Go into the engineering office. Business as usual. Business as usual. Keep repeating it. Andrea Stella, the team principal, the best in the business, my right-​­hand man, the man who runs the 4

racing team, and I talk to the drivers, just as we do every Sunday before a race, to go through strategy.

This time, what we talk about mainly is Max Verstappen. He’s qualified fourth but we know he could still be a factor at the first corner. We know he could pull something. And, most of all, the last thing we want is for Lando and Oscar to get into a tangle with each other at the first corner.

Not only do you not want them to take each other out, but they also need to help each other. If they’re too cautious, you’re leaving the door open for Max and Carlos to come through the gap. So you can’t be so concerned with not hitting each other that you end up getting done by the second row. The instruction to Oscar is not to fight Lando too hard, but don’t give him so much space you’re inadvertently opening a gap for someone else.

The red lights go out. The cars accelerate off the grid.

My heart’s pounding. Max has already won the drivers’ world title by then. He’s got nothing to lose. He’s aggressive enough when he has got something to lose, so I guess it should be predictable that he’s going to do something aggressive.

That’s exactly what he does. He careens into the first corner, a left-​­hander, and takes Oscar out as Oscar turns in. Both cars spin round in a pirouette blur. Max rejoins.

Oscar rejoins, too. But he’s at the back of the field.

Lando’s clear in front but Carlos is second. And 5

Leclerc? He makes up eleven places on the first lap. He’s up to eighth by the time they come back around and cross the start–​­finish line for the first time.

Before the race, when everyone’s slapping me on the back and saying, ‘You got this,’ we know something really radical has to happen for Ferrari to have a chance. It all has to go right for Ferrari and it all has to go wrong for McLaren, and that’s effectively what happens in Turn 1.

Put a heart monitor on me at that point and I think the screen would explode. Lando’s clear in the lead and looking good but now we’re only one mishap from disaster. The idea the race might be a McLaren procession is gone. It’s disappeared. Now things are unbeliev­ ably tense.

The next two hours are the most stressful of my life. Carlos is never far away. I worry about reliability issues. I worry about pit stop issues. And so, to sit there, to be in a position where you must win, for two hours, is hard.

You start telling yourself you can hear stuff in the car, just as you do when you’re a driver. There are phantoms everywhere. You start worrying about safety cars.

So even though Lando looks serene and I’m totally comfortable with how he’s doing, I’m watching other cars battling it out for eighth and ninth and I’m thinking, ‘If they crash into each other, the safety car’s coming out and then all bets are off.’

6

It doesn’t matter if eighth fighting ninth is nothing to do with the championship. It can still have consequences.

It’s what happens in the duel between Max and Lewis in Abu Dhabi at the end of the 2021 season.

Lewis is winning the race and on course for the championship. There are only six or seven laps left.

Then Nicholas Latifi puts it in the wall at Turn 14 and everything changes. The safety car comes out and Max gets his chance and everything Lewis has worked for that season is over.

So, again, Lando’s the least of my concerns. He’s been on fire all weekend. He’s been dominant. When Lando gets into the zone, he can be unbeatable. It’s extraneous things that concern me.

I sit there on the pit wall and I keep my counsel. You might think it’s all sound and fury and heat and dust sitting there a few feet away from cars flying past you down the straight, but I find it quite calming.

Once you put the headset on, you’re in your own world. And the team is extremely disciplined from a communication standpoint. It’s all business, no emotion. It doesn’t matter if you’re first or twentieth, you run the race kind of the same way.

You don’t see the cars in front of you. You’re staring at a bunch of Dell computer screens and data. You only see the cars when you turn around for a pit stop. So I actually find pit wall to be quite soothing.

7

The rest of the day, there’s so much activity and so many sponsor commitments, and then the race starts and you get on the pit wall and it’s kind of like you’re in a bubble, and you’re listening and everyone’s calm. Everyone’s got a process, no banter.

Every communication has a purpose. It’s not that different to when you’re racing cars. When you put that helmet on and you’re sitting in the race car, you’re by yourself. There’s a freedom to that. I’m in my world now.

Nothing’s going to distract me.

Even when the carnage at the first corner happens, the team stays calm. I pay lip service to the idea that it’s just another race. They actually put it into practice. There’s no panic. They’re problem-​­solving, they’re adjusting, they’re focusing on what we need to do. And, now, that means getting Lando home in first and making sure Oscar has the best possible recovery from last place.

I’m doing the math all the time. How many positions does Charles have to gain? Can Oscar recover enough to win points? I’m thinking championship thoughts and, even if the team is too, all their energy is expended on managing this race.

I look back on it now and I think the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is almost all my life lessons coming together to try and get across the line and win that world championship.

We have to keep our composure. We have to be perfect.

8

Lando has to be perfect, strategy has to be perfect, reliability has to be perfect, the pit stops have to be perfect.

You cannot let the emotion of the situation creep in, because I am a big believer in the fact that passion is great but emotion is very dangerous, and there is a fine line between the two. Just like my chairman at McLaren, Paul Walsh, always says to me: ‘There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity.’

If you get emotional, you start to not think clearly.

You make mistakes. Over the course of that season, we make plenty of mistakes, so now’s the time to learn from all of them, to eliminate all of them.

When I see Oscar get taken out, I don’t get on the radio to Lando. I stay off the radio. It’s not my role. I don’t interfere. It’s not my job. I’m the CEO. I’m not the team principal. We have a streamlined channel of communication between team and driver and I am not part of it and I don’t want to be part of it.

And anyway, the last thing you want to do is give Lando information that is not going to help him. We need Lando to win the race whether Oscar is seventh or eighth or wherever. We know if Lando wins the race, it doesn’t matter what else happens because that will win us the championship. So we become laser-​­focused on winning the race.

Giving a driver information that he doesn’t need or can’t use puts things in his head. He is trying to win the 9

race, but if you add the pressure of saying, ‘If you don’t win, we are not going to win the world championship,’ he is not going to drive any better. He is already doing everything he can.

You are just putting incremental pressure on him. He doesn’t need to know that. He doesn’t know what’s going on further back down the field and that’s intentional.

I am just talking to Andrea Stella. I don’t start getting in the ears of everyone else in the team in a situation like that. We have a very strict protocol on conversations. Only one person talks to the driver and that’s the engineer. My conversation is with Andrea on the pit wall.

Now is not the time for me to jump in. That is not what I do on pit wall. I observe. I ask questions. I make suggestions. Andrea runs the racing team. What we have to do is stay on plan.

When we make a mistake at Silverstone in the British Grand Prix earlier in the season, a race we should win, it’s because we don’t trust our instincts and we go off plan and we lose the race. Everything that we learn over the course of the year, we put into practice in Abu Dhabi.

Maybe, after the mayhem of that first corner, it looks easy for us. Lando continues to lead but he is under an immense amount of pressure. He can’t afford a mistake.

We can’t afford a mistake.

We start thinking about his pit stop. We know that Ferrari has gone for the undercut and has done a 2.​­2-​­second 10

pit stop with Carlos, and so we know everything is riding on Lando’s pit stop on Lap 26. Have I got trepidation when he’s coming into the pit lane? Have I got fear? All of the above.

It’s so easy for it to go wrong. The driver needs to stop perfectly on his mark. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. If he doesn’t stop exactly on his mark then someone in the pit crew has to adjust their body slightly to apply the gun or change the tyre.

Someone has to lean forward. Someone has to lean back. Maybe someone has to take a small step to the side.

That can cost you a tenth of a second. Maybe a fifth of a second. That can be fatal.

You are only as fast as your weakest link. Do people wheel-​­nut strip? Do they not get it on right? Does something get blocked? There is so much that can go wrong.

So it’s the same with the pit crew as it is with Lando: try and forget the stakes; just keep doing what you are doing.

They are trained to do two-​­second pit stops. There is no point saying to them, ‘Guys, if you screw this up, we lose the world championship.’ Everyone understands the consequences of failure. There is enough pressure as it is.

Carlos is a couple of seconds behind Lando. The undercut is usually the way to go. You pit first. You will make up some lap time because you get on a fresher set of tyres sooner. But when you are enough in front, you can key off of letting the P2 car pit first because you know 11

they are going to try to close the gap. So the trick is you pit right after they pit, the following lap.

Ferrari pits first and does a 2.​­2-​­second pit stop. That’s fast. We try to do our pit stops under 2.5 seconds. So 2.5 seconds is an average pit stop. It is not good. It is not bad.

But when you are running a race simulation, you assume you are going to do a 2.​­5-​­second pit stop.

So, after Carlos pits, we know that if we do 2.5 seconds, Lando is going to come out of the pits 1.3 or 1.4 seconds clear of him. That’s out of the DR S zone but it is going to be very close.

Lando comes in. I’ve been looking at my screen throughout the race on the pit wall, in that bubble I’ve been talking about. But now I turn round to watch.

Everything is riding on this. Part of me can hardly bear to watch. But I have to see it.

I know exactly what’s required. I know what the numbers are. If we do a 2.​­7-​­second pit stop, Lando comes out nine tenths of a second ahead of Carlos going into Sector 2. Sector 2 is where you have a long DR S, and if Carlos gets past him, once you get into dirty air, even if you are faster, it is harder to overtake.

If we do a 2.​­7-​­second pit stop, Carlos is going to be nine tenths of a second behind Lando. That gap, Carlos probably gets him in DR S. Would Lando have got him back? Who knows? Suddenly, Lando’s in the pit lane, coming up to his mark and everything is in the balance.

12

I’m stressed. More stressed than the guys in the pit crew? Maybe. At least they’re doing something. There’s an immense amount of pressure on them and they rise to it magnificently.

It’s over so fast but I know it’s good. I know they’ve nailed it. The clock confirms it. They did the pit stop in 2.08 seconds. The fastest of the race. Unbelievably good under the circumstances.

It makes all the difference. Lando’s back out on the track with a 1.​­6- or 1.​­7-​­second lead. Big enough that Carlos can’t get him under DR S. Big enough to constitute breathing space. Big enough to keep him ahead. Big enough to send him towards the win.

So the difference is seven tenths of a second. If we are 0.7 seconds slower at that pit stop, Carlos has a chance to take the lead. By then, Leclerc has carved his way through the field, too. He ends up finishing third. If that pit stop’s 0.7 seconds slower, all our dreams of that championship are in jeopardy.

Seven tenths of a second. After twenty-​­four races and heaven knows how many miles of duelling, of emotion expended, of tears shed and hopes rising and falling, it comes down to seven tenths of a second. Nailing that comes from practice, practice, practice. Hard work.

Teamwork.

I’m not saying there aren’t anxious moments after that. The fear of the safety car is still there. The fear of 13

mechanical failure. Engine failure. But it doesn’t happen.

Lando is flawless. Absolutely flawless. All these years we’ve been together, I’m so proud of what he has become. I’m so proud of how he drives. I’m so proud of the way he stands up and leads from the front when everything is on the line.

He wins, in the end, by 5.8 seconds, from Carlos in second and Leclerc in third. Oscar makes a fantastic recovery to finish ninth. In the moment Lando takes the chequered flag, I don’t quite know how to react. The relief comes later. First, there’s just happiness and satisfaction. Then there’s exultation. There’s lots of yelling and screaming. I hug it out with Andrea on the pit wall. I seek out my wife, Tracy, and my kids, McGuire and Maxwell, in the garage.

And on the podium, I run around like a madman, spraying champagne and whooping and hollering, and I catch sight of the drivers looking at me as if they are looking at a man who has lost his senses.

Seven tenths of a second could have taken all this away.

But seven tenths of a second means this moment will live with me forever.

14

A Competitor at Heart I’m used to being the boss. It suits me. I have no problem with delegation, just as long as I’m the one doing the dele­­gating. I have no problem with people being smarter than me, either. It happens all the time. I like having smart people around me. I don’t feel threatened by them. I feel bolstered by them. I love a strong team.

My management style has always been massively passionate. It’s about leading by example. I’ve taken that all the way through my working life, from when I started my first company, Just Marketing, until now, when I’m the CEO of McLaren Racing and the ​­co-​­owner and chairman of United Autosports.

At the start, I’m involved in every aspect of the running of the business. I can’t say that about McLaren because I’ve not worked on race cars, but when I start Just Marketing, which later becomes Just Marketing Inter­­ national ( JMI), it’s only me.

So I answer the phone, I make my own coffee, I open the mail, I do the deals, I do it all. I am a one-​­person 15

company. And I think because I’ve always gotten along with people, people have enjoyed working for me for the most part.

I’m switched on 24/7, so not everyone can work for me. The weak don’t survive. The lazy don’t survive. Those who are not entrepreneurial do not survive. The same for those who do not learn by their mistakes.

I’ve got a lot of respect for learning, for trying, for honesty, for being a workaholic. These are the key attributes in someone who works for me. If you’re not that, you’re gone.

I’m relentless more than ruthless. I can be ruthless against my competition, but I would say I’m more relentless with my employees. I’ve gotten better with having some patience with email communications. But if I send an email, I expect a response quickly.

Leaders have different ways of leading. I’m open to changing my mind. Often, I’ll come into a meeting and I want to get the conversation started, so I’ll be the first to put my cards on the table.

But sometimes people have better ideas than me. Or new information has emerged that I’m not aware of. So I’m very open-​­minded. All I want to do is leave the room with the best idea. I don’t care who the author is.

I want all my managers to take the same approach with their people and foster a culture of communication. Challenge each other, share opinions, and then once decisions 16

are made, get on with it. That is the difference. Whether you are a believer or not, once the decision’s been made, everyone needs to be aligned.

The other things that you need are immense trust and transparency. I have not really been burned at the very senior levels of my leadership team. I trust them and they repay my trust. I share a lot. I’m extremely transparent.

That informs people so they can make better decisions.

I don’t think there’s anyone on my leadership team who would stitch me up or undermine me. I’d jump in front of a bullet for my leadership team, and I feel they would do the same for me. That’s how I feel about McLaren as a whole and I’d like to think that that’s how McLaren feels about me.

That’s what makes a great manager, right? What makes a great manager is when the players respect and trust them, and I think the area that I continue to grow in is, hopefully, being a great manager, managing an organization at pace. Some people can cut it. Some people can’t run at our pace. If you work for McLaren, we’ll find out if you work hard.

But I have got smarter about that, too. I know there’s a danger of overworking people and burning them out.

At one point at JMI, probably when I have about 200 employees, I send a company-​­wide email sometime around midnight on a Saturday. It’s a simple question.

‘Who’s thinking about work?’ I write.

17

It’s a joke. I’m joking. I’m sitting in bed, working, but I’m joking. Everyone takes it seriously. Half of the people respond immediately and say they’re thinking about work. Then I get a few people who see it around 3am, presumably when they get in from a night out, and sound terrified.

They’re having a crisis of confidence. They respond at 3am so now they’re worrying that I think they’ve been out drinking. Should they have responded at midnight?

Should they not have responded at all? What do I think of them now? Do I think they should have picked up their phone earlier?

Some people say they have been at church. Some have other reasons for not replying. I have created stress, which was not what I was intending and it’s not productive.

So I tell everyone, you never know where I am in the world or what time zone I’m in, so just because you get an email from me, if I don’t say I need something by a certain day, then it’s not urgent. Just get to it when you can.

But I’m still reserving the right to send you an email at 2am on Saturday because I might be on a different time zone and it’s three o’clock in the afternoon where I am and 2am where you are. So just because you’ve had an incoming doesn’t necessarily mean you have to respond immediately.

That’s one adaptation I’ve made. The other is that I give people due dates. I hate ASAP. There is no ASAP in my calendar. ASAP is a term that I don’t allow in 18

the office. If I want something done straight away, I ask: ‘Would you mind doing this now?’

Communication is up there near the top of the list of what is critical in working well with a team. ASAP just totally lends itself to miscommunication. So, I much prefer someone to say ‘Monday at three o’clock’ or ‘Tuesday at two o’clock’. If ASAP means ‘now’, then ‘now’ is a better descriptor because ASAP might be, ‘It’s Friday and I’ll get to it Monday.’

My rule is that you acknowledge people’s communications within twenty-​­four hours, even if you don’t have the answer. If you don’t have the answer, don’t leave it a week to communicate that. If you don’t have the answer, tell me you don’t have the answer and let me know when you will.

I didn’t used to take vacations, really. I used to work on vacation and that’s been one of the big tensions between me and my family for many years. I’m finally doing a lot better. I am not on my phone the whole time. I am present. I am in the moment.

I have actually come to appreciate that I need to recharge my batteries sometimes, and that it actually makes me more productive. You can overcook your tyres sometimes and you need to come in for a pit stop. I think I can recharge my batteries quicker than most. A week’s vacation is plenty for me. If I took a three-​­week vacation, I would just go nuts.

I need to recognize that not everyone thinks like me 19

and works like me, and I have come to appreciate that people want to be around for their kids’ birthdays and that I need to accommodate that. But there are limits to my enlightened approach.

Also, shit happens. So check your phone. If it’s an emergency, we’ll have to call you. Don’t disappear for a week, because business still happens when you’re on holiday and, at the leadership level, you’re going to have to be available when you’re needed. It just makes things more efficient.

From the start, I’m just a total workaholic. And I need people around me like that. I’m aggressive, I guess. Not a yeller, not a shouter, not someone who insults you. I’ve always been respectful, even in my early days.

Back then, I’ll fire you if you are an idiot, but I’ll be respectful while I’m doing it. I think I use a lot of humour and fun, and I do that to this day. I believe if you’re going to work that hard, people are going to want to have some fun, too.

So I’ve always been kind of a work hard, play hard guy.

If I’m not poking you, if I’m not making fun of myself and of ​­you – ​one of the things I love about the Brits is their very dry sense of humour ​­ – ​if I’m kind of not doing that to you, you’re in trouble, because it’s actually almost, with me, a bit of a sign of affection that I’m ribbing you. And I can take it, too.

People can poke me back. A hundred per cent. A 20