HR Magazine interviewed Stephen Bourne, University Printer and Chief Executive of Cambridge University Press to get his take on staff development within the global publishing giant. Cambridge University Press has approximately 2,000 staff working in 53 offices in 37 countries worldwide. Almost half are stationed in Europe, a sizeable chunk in the Americas and the remainder span the globe covering Asia, India, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil, Iberia, the Middle East and North Africa. With over 36,000 book authors in 120 countries, the Press currently boasts 34,000 in-print titles, growing at a rate of 2,800 new ISBNs per year. As the Press publishes in new media formats and establishes a presence in emerging educational markets, the future looks set for further growth and diversity. HR Magazine grabbed a chance to interview Stephen Bourne, University Printer and Chief Executive of Cambridge University Press to get his take on staff management within the global publishing giant.
Ensuring diversity and inclusion
How do see your role in managing and motivating these staff? How do you ensure diversity and inclusion in your offices globally?
The geographical dispersion of our staff is something that provides the Press with great resilience on the one hand, but also presents many challenges. As someone who has spent so long working abroad, including eleven years in Hong Kong, I fully understand that colleagues in far-flung offices could easily feel that they are not adequately recognised as members of the Cambridge family, and that they receive little direct inspiration from the centre. In my view, it’s a large part of my responsibilities to get out there into the field and spend time with my people in as many offices as I can, partly so that we get more than a few occasional minutes together, and partly so that we may focus on their particular markets and engage with them and their customers first hand. This involves a considerable time commitment—I spend about a third of the year in overseas offices—but the payback is fantastic, in terms of the responsiveness of our people, but also in terms of my personal understanding of the dynamics of our business around the world.
At the management level, we have made a point of developing a team of directors in all of our major locations who come together as a group twice a year, in Cambridge or somewhere else, and who consequently feel part of a single management team and who gain valuable ideas from each other.
What key challenges have you encountered from a cross-cultural perspective—with staff from so many different countries?
Interestingly, the Press has had very few difficulties in terms of cross-cultural understanding. That is probably because, with the overseas background that I and some of my other senior colleagues have enjoyed, we have a broad understanding of the different ways in which people work and view things in different countries. As a consequence, we have not made the mistake of trying to impose a single operational culture on offices that would have difficulty with aspects of the British way of doing things. Conversely, we have also found that the desire of our staff to be associated with the University of Cambridge means that there is a tremendous willingness in our offices all around the world to behave in ways that are entirely compatible with the ethos and culture of our University, and that is an extremely helpful dynamic.
Talent management
Many organisations use a ‘build from within’ strategy that pipelines talent directly from the University and develops it within the organisation. With such strong ties to academia, in your opinion, how does this strategy compare with attracting academic fresh blood to the organisation?
The Cambridge University Press of today is an interesting blend of academics, educationalists and business people. It’s probably true to say that the emphasis recently has been on the last of these categories, as it has become increasingly important that we have the right kind of people to compete with other publishers whose whole ethos is about making money. We therefore find that we can recruit from three rather different pools of people, which gives us a certain strength, particularly at times when there are people around the world who are looking for durable positions with great organisations. While it is true to say that we hope to build a large part of our future talent from within the organisation, we are not going to make the mistake of limiting the Press’ vision by excluding external talent. In recent years, a number of new faces have joined the Press at senior levels, bringing experience from other publishers but also from other industries, and this has been invaluable in creating our present growth rate, which leads the whole of our competitor group.
Leadership development
What would you say are the essential qualities of a leader?
I would say that key qualities of a leader include: a broad command of all aspects of the business; the ability to articulate the business’ special culture; a tangible desire to make a difference; a spirit of personal sacrifice, rather than greed; empathy with one’s staff; and above all, the ability to provide a vision and to inspire people. Without the ability to inspire your team, you will fail.
What steps are involved in developing leaders within your organisation?
I think that management can be learnt, but leadership requires certain innate qualities, all of which are things that employees look for: a sense of authority; vision; personal presence; inspiration; the willingness to accept risk and share responsibility while remaining supportive.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
