Award-Winning Broadcaster Monty Halls on the Importance of Leadership in Business

Former Royal Navy officer, marine biologist, writer and broadcaster, Monty Halls first found fame in 2004, but is perhaps best known as the presenter of the eponymously named BBC Two series, Monty Hall’s Great Escapes.

Despite a long and illustrious TV career – he starred most recently in My Family and the Galapagos on Channel 4 – Monty also heads up a Bristol-based production company and runs leadership and teambuilding courses from his base in Devon.

We caught up with Monty to talk about leaderships, latest global adventures and some of his business ventures a little closer to home.

Tell us a bit about your business and your role.

We are a production company that creates television programmes, commercial films, and – latterly – online content of all types to distribute globally. This includes VR material and social media films for various brands. Our last campaign created a 600% increase in customer interaction for the brand we worked with, so we’re pretty good at it! But at our heart is powerful story-telling, which is a universal currency and (in my opinion) always the best way to engage an audience. 

What is a typical working day for you?

There really isn’t a typical day (which is part of the joy of the work of course). One day we might be in the Galapagos trying to film an elusive lizard species, and the next meeting Land Rover in Coventry to discuss an impending VR project. The consistent theme is trying to create original and compelling angles on things that people might have seen hundreds of times before. Our recent Channel 4 series “My Family and the Galapagos” reflected this philosophy – how to tell the story in a unique way of a group of islands that have been filmed literally thousands of times. We try to do the same with the brands we work with, so I’d say a typical day involves a lot of planning, a lot of (sometimes random) ideas, and a great deal of coffee in our offices in Bristol. 

What do you enjoy most about your job?

The people! We’ve got such a great team at Seadog, and the organisations who approach us tend to want something a bit different to engage their audiences/customers, so it’s a wonderful process putting them all together and watching what emerges. I genuinely feel that – after several years of evolution – we’ve got an ideal mix of young creative tyro’s in the office combined with a few industry veterans to keep them in order (I’m definitely in the latter category). The work can be challenging, demanding, and pressured, but it’s certainly never dull, and I think that’s down to the quality of our people.

What are the most challenging aspects of your job?

I think our challenges reflect those of the wider industry. It’s a hugely competitive field, we’re still a relatively new and shiny company so sometimes have to scrap for attention against more established competitors. There’s also the reflection of the wider economy as well – there’s simply less money around than there used to be (both in TV and commercially) and organisations want real accountability now. They want bang for their buck. As such we’ve become pretty good at working with limited budgets and timescales to turnaround quality projects – we’ve had to learn to punch way above our weight.

What's the best piece of business advice you've ever been given?

Oddly enough it’s actually a John Cleese quote. He noted that if he has three good working days a week, where he feels creative and the ideas come readily, then he’s really happy. The other couple of days you just grind it out (and that’s coming from John Cleese, one of the greatest of all creatives in his own field). It’s hard sometimes in our work as we have to pitch for a lot of stuff that doesn’t come off, and that means you’re constantly creating and thinking of new angles. At times this can become wearing, and it’s good to know at what point to push back the office chair, and shuffle off for a coffee. The other piece of advice is from my days as Royal Marine – a long time ago I hasten to add – in that for any problem there’s always a solution. Sometimes it can just take a bit of finding…

What do you think are the biggest challenges for the future generation in business?

My heart goes out to them quite frankly. Brexit, Trump, trade wars, and environmental challenges mean that they really do enter an uncertain world. Sure, there have been amazing technological advances that have opened up some very exciting new fields, but blimey it’s a tough world in which to be a young graduate. Having said that, quality and a sound work ethic will always stand anyone in good stead, but I think the unpredictability of the global economy will create some really challenges. Having said that, wherever there’s change there’s always opportunities too, so for those with the ability to predict future trends it could be a very fruitful few years, but sometimes I fear for the majority, I really do.

Do you have any tips for people looking to progress their career in leadership roles?

I would hardly hold myself up as a paragon of leadership (just ask everyone in the office!), but I’d say two things. The first is that you never stop learning, and the second is that leadership is a deeply proactive process. There is a basic requirement to constantly assess your own performance as a leader, to question how you could do better, to try to evolve as your organisation evolves. It’s nonsense to say that leadership is not important, that it doesn’t shape the culture and success (or failure) of a company. As such it’s something that needs examination and development just like anything else. You’re never, ever the finished article as a leader.

Name another business that you admire and why?

There are many production companies who are a benchmark for us, producing material of incredible quality, maintaining their creative integrity, and eternally finding new ways to tell stories about the wider world. We’re really lucky in that we have loads of them in Bristol – Plimsoll, Icon, Ammonite, John Downer…the list goes on. They create truly world class content.

What business people inspire you and why?

Films@59 where we’re based are run by great people. They go out of their way to help new companies get established, and are a real creative hub within the city. The company is run by two really, really nice people (that's George and Gina should you happen to be in that neck of the woods). And after all is said and done, being nice is important….  

Monty Halls is speaking at the Business West 'Business Togetherness: An Evening with Monty Halls and Chamber Networking' on Thursday 11th October.