John Amaechi OBE - Organizational Psychologist & Founder of APS Intelligence

Colbert Cannon: Welcome to Season 9 of the HPScast. I’m your host, Colbert Cannon. If you’re new to the pod, HPS is a global investment firm. We manage over $100 billion in assets for a broad range of institutional and individual investors. That capital is invested across private credit and public credit strategies.

Each week, I sit down with key relationships to, partners of, and friends of the firm to learn from their experience, ask how that experience shapes their current roles, and give insights into HPS and how we operate. So, with that, let’s bring in our guest. Our guest this week is an organizational psychologist and founder of APS Intelligence, a consulting firm that helps businesses create high performance ethical workplace cultures to drive productivity, growth, retention, and success.

Now, normally I start out these intros with someone’s early education and work their way up to where they are today. I’m going to go a little out of order this week because this gentleman is quite literally a multi-tool athlete. He has a professorship at University of Exeter’s Business School. He’s a research fellow at the University of East London. He sits on the board of several companies. He’s a celebrated bestselling author. And he and his firm are trusted advisors when large and complex businesses need help with cultural challenges. He is, at his core, a mentor and teacher to both individuals and organizations.

So, how’d this man get there? Well, he grew up outside of Manchester in England, and at the age of 18 decided to pursue a career in basketball. His journey took him to the U.S., to high school in Ohio, then Vanderbilt, then Penn State, and he finally became the first British man to ever play in the NBA. His path took courage, and maybe never more so than when in 2007, in his memoir, “The Man in the Middle,” he became the first former NBA player to publicly come out as gay.

What I love about this man’s story is that it’s one of personal accomplishment paired with impactful leadership both in small and large ways. He made himself into an NBA player, and since his retirement, rather than fade into the sunset, he’s made the world a better place in everything he touches, and that, to me, is remarkable and inspirational.

So, without any further ado, I’m honored to welcome in this week’s HPSCast guest, John Amaechi, OBE, psychologist, and Renaissance Man extraordinaire. John, welcome to the pod.

John Amaechi: Thank you, Colbert. That is going to be hard to live up to.

Colbert Cannon: Well, listen, I just try to match the intro to the guest, John. I like to start from the start, though, John. Let’s go all the way back. Where are you from originally? Where’d you grow up?

John Amaechi: I grew up in Stockport in England, which is a suburb. It’s actually almost consumed by Greater Manchester now.

Colbert Cannon: Now, I mentioned your path, and I don’t want to belabor it, because honestly, what you do these days is fascinating to me. But give our listeners a simple version of how a boy from Stockport, England ends up playing in the NBA.

John Amaechi: A man came up to me on the street and told me that I could be great at basketball. And it was the first time anybody outside of my family had suggested, teacher or otherwise, that I could be great at anything. Although I was a large child and a nerdy child, and I’m now a large, nerdy adult, I’m really more interested in books and pi than I am in physical activity. What was alluring to me was this idea that there was something I could be great at, and I started playing at the age of 17. I immediately found myself with this tribe of people who, when they looked at me, all I could see reflected back is my own potential. It was seductive.

Colbert Cannon: Okay. So from there, you show talent, you have physical gifts. You’re a tall man, you’re a strong man, but, you still have to have the skills to get this done. Tell me about then how we got from point one to point two.

John Amaechi: I had two really excellent coaches in a man called Dave McLean and a man called Joe Forber, both of whom were formative in my basketball career. So, I spent a year and a half in England, and I then I wrote 3, 000 letters to America, because this was in an era before email.

I found a book by the Fulbright Commission that had the names of high schools in it, and I simply flipped a few pages, dropped a pen, and wherever the ink splotch was, I wrote a letter. So I wrote letters, and I got three replies. One of which was from a school in Toledo, Ohio, which I’d never heard of, but I did find a group of people there who really took care of me and taught me my basketball in a more serious way.

Colbert Cannon: Okay, so you show your talents, you get better, you get to college. As I said, you play at Vanderbilt, later Penn State. Millions of basketball players out there aspire to play in the NBA, but you got there. Tell me about the transition from college to the NBA and what that experience was like for you.

John Amaechi: I suppose it’s important to note that I didn’t come to America to go to high school, and I didn’t come to America to go to university. I came to America to go to the NBA. That was the point, and I wasn’t going to leave home and my mother, who was sick – she passed away of breast cancer, unfortunately – but I wouldn’t have left home for anything less than playing in the NBA. And so, that was the whole point of it. The plan was to get recruited to a great college, one that had a really good psychology program – hence Vanderbilt, hence Penn State when I transferred – and then get drafted, which of course didn’t happen, fabulously out of the picture for being drafted. So, I had to do a really hard route of going around to teams and saying, Who can I try out with in the pre, pre, pre-summer camps?

Colbert Cannon: I don’t want to belabor your time in the NBA. You had a good career. You played for a number of teams. You were focused on psychology. Were you always thinking about what you wanted to do next? You’ve clearly shown a great range of interests in your life. Tell me about that and how you juggled that as a player.

John Amaechi: I think it’s always an incredibly dangerous thing to be what you do. So, I’m always slightly insulted when people say, “Oh, you’re the basketball player.” And it’s like, no, I am not now, but I also wasn’t then. I was a psychologist who played basketball is the reality of it.

I knew that basketball is fleeting, even if I was really good, and I was not really good. I was just average for an NBA player, and so, I knew that my advantage would be to study, to learn, to take advantage of all these brilliant experiences you can have with basketball, where you get access to all kinds of spaces that you perhaps wouldn’t as just an ordinary student. And that’s what I did. I took advantage of all that knowing that what I wanted was a career afterwards that would have me as fulfilled psychologically and mentally as basketball does for the body.

Colbert Cannon: So, it’s 2003. You finished up your last season with the Utah Jazz. What was it about psychology? It’s what you studied. You built your life around it now. What is it? What’s the appeal?

John Amaechi: My mother was a general practitioner, a family doctor. Back in the day, they used to go on visits, so they literally used to get in their car for part of the day and travel to different homes to deal with people who were sick.

My mother worked a lot in palliative care, so I saw her dealing with very sick people and with utterly distraught families. I would sit as a seven-year-old in the living room of a group of people mourning the person who has not yet passed away upstairs. And my mother would be administering whatever palliative support was required and pain relief, and I would be left downstairs with this family.

And in those rooms it was hard to breathe. The air was heavy. And I would watch as my mother walked back into the room and just look from one side of the room to the other, scooping the room up in her attention, making it so that everybody knew, even though this is a four or six-minute visit, she’s nowhere else but here. And I watched the impact of that – the ability for people to cope after she left, even though nothing had changed. Somebody was still going to die. And I thought that is remarkable. I would never be one for blood and guts and cutting and cadavers, but the idea that, with your voice, you could change someone’s outlook, mentality, sense of hope. It was deeply compelling to me.

Colbert Cannon: It’s amazing. Okay. So, from that idea and from your studies, then you’ve had the success you’ve had academically. We’ll talk about APS intelligence in a moment. How, though, post your career then did you make this all happen? Take me through then that path from wanting to do this and having that inside you to then being able to make a career out of this.

John Amaechi: I finished playing. I spent about six months discovering red wine and seeing just how much cheesecake I could eat. And the answer is, more than you can possibly imagine. So, I did that for six months, and while I was doing it, I was thinking about what I wanted to do. And I thought quite small. I thought I needed a vehicle for me to do stuff. And that’s how APS Intelligence started off, as a vehicle for me to talk to individuals and coach them and help them with their mindset and be a performance coach for them. I started doing some advisory work early in those days and then also discovered that I loved to tell stories.

I think the job of scientists, whether they be social scientists in psychology or pure scientists in physics, is to speak in such a way that your knowledge becomes somebody else’s – that your expertise is eventually redundant, and that’s what I love about storytelling. It enables that in a way that I haven’t found much else that does. So, yeah, that was what I did. I started off that way and then realized I had a massive ego, and I wanted to work with more people. And there was no way I could work with more people if I was working alone. And so, I realized these people are out there, and I just wanted to gather them up and see can we join together and do something amazing.

Colbert Cannon: Let’s talk first about what APS does. For those less familiar, what do you actually do? What’s an iconic intelligence assignment?

John Amaechi: Let me first say this. We are not just the company to come to when stuff hits the fan. Though, I will say we are very commonly approached when stuff hits the fan – when you’ve engaged in a transformation and it’s not gone right, when you’re looking at a reorganization, when you’re dealing with staff or unions or something else and it’s all gone awry, when you’ve got individuals who’ve misbehaved in a way that has caused risk to the organization. And also, when sometimes senior people misbehave, it causes these fractures across and an incongruence between what the organization says it stands for and what it actually stands for. And so, in all those circumstances, we are there.

The thing that we love, at least I love the most, that I’m doing at the moment is the in-house performance coach role – the idea that I’m just virtually available for people, but also I’m on site with people. There is something about this ability to really get to know people – not just a sector, but an organization. You hear something over here, and something over here, and something over here, and all of a sudden, you can pull that together into something that is a really cogent opportunity or risk amelioration. And so, that coaching, advisory, and analytics – but practical analytics, not that kind of, ooh, aren’t these graphs interesting, but rather, does this tell us how to solve this problem, or does it just show me a graph that describes the problem? Because no organization just needs the problem described prettily. We need the practical solutions that are based on your organization, because it’s different if you’re a partnership. It’s different if you’re global and matrixed. It’s different depending on what kind of organization you are.

So, we’re quite geeky about this as you can tell. I think it’s really exciting to be able to go into a place knowing that you can actually provide solutions. I love that.

Colbert Cannon: You talked about how you started as you and then started bringing people around you, building a business like that. That sweat equity is real. Why was it important for you to start APS and grow it as opposed to applying your trade at an established organization doing this kind of stuff?

John Amaechi: Yeah, ego. I should just be honest. It’s just, it’s just ego. How can I do something that’s amazing? And part of the thing that we’re doing now is not just that my ideas and philosophies permeate lots of organizations. It’s the idea that I get to introduce lots of organizations to people they would otherwise definitely overlook because they didn’t have a marquee name or they didn’t have a weird kind of sporting background or something else. I get to live vicariously through all of this positive change, especially in these times of disruption.

Colbert Cannon: You know, culture is something we at HPS think a lot about, and I don’t think it just happens. I think firms have to have intentionality around it. How do you advise companies on creating and sustaining a strong culture?

John Amaechi: We normally start with something quite ordinary, and it seems simple. We audit people’s websites and their careers page because, most of the time, who you think you are as an organization is demonstrated on your website through your values, through the images that you choose to use, through the narratives that you have on the careers page, especially that talk to those who are not yet part of the organization.

And we look at it and then we do what we call is a cascade map. So, instead of starting and saying your culture is terrible, we just say, in order to achieve this culture that you’re talking about, you say this is what you are all about. You say your manager will take an interest in your career. And so what we do, is we say, here’s the cascade map of what that actually means because it means, if you’re a utilization culture, if you’re a heavy billing culture, does anybody really think taking an interest in a career is like twice yearly appraisal?

So, that means there has to be actual spots for you to have substantive conversations with these people. And if you’re a manager with 10 direct reports, that’s 10, hour-long conversations and not just once a year. But it’s not just the time. What if you’ve got to have skills, like coaching conversation skills.

Colbert Cannon: What are you actually doing with that time? Exactly.

John Amaechi: And so, this cascade map, it helps other people to see, it helps our clients to see, not what we insist is the way forward, but in order for what they say to be true, to reduce that gap. And the reason that’s important is because attrition –  everybody knows that we’ve got this issue, I think it’s really poorly named, “quiet quitting” – but “quiet quitting” and people leaving jobs and turnover is high, churn is high, that’s happening, in part, because the gap between what is promised to an individual and their actual experience is widening. And while that happens, people will always look elsewhere.

So, it’s a really practical thing we want to do with culture. It’s not just: “Oh, wouldn’t it feel better?”  It’s: “Let’s be more high performing.” Let’s have more pro social behavior from people. Let’s have more engagement from people. Let’s have better behaviors around risk because we know that, psychologically, safe environments are much better for reducing risk events. So, all of this is what we want to achieve.

Colbert Cannon: Well, and per your point, this is really practical and pays real dividends for organizations. Minimizing turnover, all these things, there’s huge externalities that come out of this.

Let me take you outside of work for a second, John. You’ve given back to the community you grew up in with the ABC Foundation in Manchester, among other things. Tell me about the work you’re doing and what that means to you.

John Amaechi: I can name the people who helped me transform myself, and that’s what I want to do, whether it’s with ABC Foundation, the Centre in Manchester – which I think the last time I checked is like 2,000 kids a week going through its doors – or whether it’s my work with the Activity Alliance. That’s a disability charity that does policy work because people with disabilities are routinely on the short end of most government policy, not because the government hates people with disability, they just don’t think about them.

People imagine such weird things about people with disabilities, that they’re drags on economies, drags on an organization with the reasonable accommodations too hard or whatever else. So, this helps with that, but it also works with young kids who often find integrated sport is absent in their schools.

So, they can literally be sat on the sideline while the rest of their class is taking part in activity. And so, this organization does such a wonderful job to engage them.

Ballet Black is a ballet troupe for black and brown people. There are lots of different types of people, but we all know that in ballet, you don’t necessarily think of black people first, and they have this wonderful scheme that provides pointe shoes in not just salmon pink, but also in browns and blacks. And it’s so beautiful to watch these kids who thrive in movement but didn’t want hip hop or didn’t want something else or maybe in addition to that. they were drawn to the beauty of ballet. And so, that’s not a complete list, but I would point out that all of these things are just utterly enriching for me. It’s just so rewarding.

Colbert Cannon: You’ve really impacted people in an impressively broad way, which I have so much respect for. Let me ask one question about that.

You’ve spent most of your life in the public eye, and you’ve written a great book, an intensely personal one called “Man in the Middle” that I highly recommend to our listeners. I don’t want to rehash ground that you’ve covered thoughtfully elsewhere, but as someone with family members and friends who identify as queer or non-binary, your courage in 2007 is a moment that I think is important to note and celebrate.

So, let me simply ask this. You made the decision. You came out as gay. In your memoir, there was a range of reactions, from full support to predictably and sadly negative ones. In those moments, what reactions surprised you the most?

John Amaechi: I’m going to go backwards slightly just to say this. I was out to lots of people. I think people misunderstand coming out. They think because you don’t know, I must have been in the closet, but I was out to some of my teammates. I was out to my entire family. I was out to nearly my whole friendship group, if not all of my friendship group.

And so, it’s important to say that, right? Because people think I must have just saved up my life until that point. But it wasn’t that. It’s just I thought maybe I could do something more than just be out to my friends and family. We could do more.

And so, I knew that I would get hate, and I was worried about that. And then I knew I’d get some love, and the love was amazing. I remember a visit to Philadelphia and going to a restaurant and a couple of bars there after doing a book talk and going to Atlanta as well. And even now as I think about it, it was almost palpable, the warmth and favor that I felt from lots – this wide range of individuals – not just queer folks but just a wide range of individuals.

The hate I was braced for. It was small. Ten or 15 percent of the overall noise was vitriol. Twitter wasn’t around at that point. I think that could have made a big difference.

The thing that hurt the most was the shrug in the middle. It was the sense of, so what? He wasn’t very good anyway, and so, so what? Or the thing that people say because they think it’s kind, but it’s actually really cruel, which is, I don’t care if you’re gay.

It’s like when people say, I don’t see that you’re black. I get stopped and searched every year in London as opposed to a person who lives in a penthouse in Covent Garden.

I think people do see it, and that was the bit that was really disappointing. The idea that people don’t realize, even now, today, after all we’ve been through with the pandemic and the differentials of people who died through that and through the George Floyd incident, murder, we still have people who don’t realize that there is a fence in between those who care about human dignity and those who do not. And you cannot sit on it.

Colbert Cannon: John, before we get to the last segment of the pod, I want to shift to a quick speed round. I want to rattle off some quick questions. I want you to give a quick answer. First thought, best thought. John, are you ready?

John Amaechi: Yes, let’s proceed.

Colbert Cannon: Favorite restaurant in London for a big, fun dinner with your friends?

John Amaechi: Beast.

Colbert Cannon: Tell me about Beast.

John Amaechi: Beast is a steak restaurant. You go down the stairs into this place, and the first thing you see is these Alaskan King Crabs with an arm as big as mine. And they’re all sat in these tanks, and next to them is a freezer full of the most amazing steak you’ll ever have. The staff and colleagues there are just joyous. I think being in hospitality is so thankless, and they exude joy. I love it. I don’t go very often, but it’s amazing.

Colbert Cannon: What’s your cocktail of choice on a Friday night after a long week?

John Amaechi: Gin and Tonic if it’s early. If the sun’s gone down, it’s an Old Fashioned.

Colbert Cannon: What’s your favorite rum to drink?

John Amaechi: Zacapa or Trinidad, though I hate the name of it. There’s a Trinidad and Tobago plantation rum that’s really good.

Colbert Cannon: Yeah, I’ve had the former. I’ll try the second. Alright, favorite vacation destination or last great trip you took for fun?

John Amaechi: So, it’s a tie between Marrakesh and Mykonos. On the face of it, two very different locations, but just joyful, both of them.

Colbert Cannon: Love it. If you had to live in one city other than London, what would it be?

John Amaechi: I lived in Scottsdale in between seasons, so I was there for 20 years. It would be a hard choice, but maybe Scottsdale to revisit the old days?

Colbert Cannon: You described yourself as a geek earlier, and like you, I love Star Wars. Favorite Star Wars movie or show?

John Amaechi: So, “New Hope” is the classic. It’s the thing that made me want to be a Jedi and makes me still to this day consider that I might be. So, that’s hard to beat. I know they’re divisive, but some of the new Disney Plus stuff – I liked Obi Wan. I’m really enjoying Ahsoka right now.

Colbert Cannon: I thought Andor was fantastic.

John Amaechi: It is fantastic. Rogue One, as a film, was amazing, though, I mean, talk about creating a bit of tension around that little thing that helps destroy the Death Star came at a cost.

Colbert Cannon: You mentioned Jedi. If the internet is to be believed, you’ve been granted Honorary Jedi status by none other than Mark Hamill, a fact that presumably would have blown 16-year-old John’s mind. If you had one, what color would your lightsaber be, John?

John Amaechi: Oh, there’s no if. I have a collection of lightsabers.

Colbert Cannon: Amazing.

John Amaechi: This one right here is Mace Windu’s, and yes, it does have a blade, and it is purple.

Colbert Cannon: I mean, this is perfect. Dear listeners, you need to know that a lightsaber was just waved around on screen. And listen, if it’s good enough for Mace Windu, it’s good enough for us.

Colbert Cannon: I want to go back a bit to your basketball days. What was your favorite arena to play basketball in?

John Amaechi: This is for a very bad reason. Dallas was my favorite arena because of two things. They were the first arena and the first club to arrange for the bench seats to be these amazing, comfortable, plushy like Recaro seats. And the second thing was that they put on the best post-game food ever, though I only got to have it twice because the other two times we lost so poorly. The Utah coach took the food and dumped it on the floor and said nobody’s eating after this one. But it was this amazing kind of Texas barbecue stuff.

Colbert Cannon: An incredible answer. Alright, who was the toughest opponent you ever had to guard?

John Amaechi: So, Tim Duncan remarkably difficult. Shaquille O’Neal, remarkably difficult, but there are no scrubs. I hope people realize this. There are no scrubs in the NBA. They’re all so remarkably good. If you decide to take a day off, you will get thumped in a way that is so embarrassing, and it may only take three minutes and they’ll have four baskets and there you’ll be on the bench.

Colbert Cannon: That’s amazing. Alright, last one. Best teammate you ever had? Yeah.

John Amaechi: He’s a man called Michael Cage. I remember when one of the players, one of the rookies who was a drafted rookie, came in to the underground parking area in a brand new car. And Michael had come in right afterwards and he said, “Did you just buy that?”

Michael put him in his car and drove him back to the dealership and made the dealership take the car back. He’s like, “You think you’re making a lot of money, but you need to be smart about this. This is the second car that you bought, right? You need to be smart about this.” I just thought, what an amazing thing, because we often think in workplaces about good collaboration and innovation as being a sign, but what about all those things that are just about making sure you’re safe? Just wonderful.

Colbert Cannon: I love it. Well, John, speed round is over. Great to hear about your path and what you’re up to at APS. Exciting stuff to come. Look forward to hearing more.

With that, I want to move to the last segment of the podcast, something we call “Best Ideas,” where we offer up something that’s added value in our lives recently. “Best Ideas” because our goal, as investors, is always to maximize exposure to those.

John, you’re our guest. I’m going to ask you to go first. What is your best idea this week?

John Amaechi: My best? Let’s see, I have four.

Colbert Cannon: That’s allowed. We’ll allow it.

John Amaechi: So, E-Ink notepads. I told you before about the chaos that happens with these random pads everywhere, E-Ink notepads.

Ember Mugs, because I get stuck in my work, and then my tea is cold, and I feel this real sense of loss and annoyance.

“In Your Face,” which is an app if you’re a Mac user, but I get lost in my work, and I find I miss things.

And then, this. This blanks out every screen and flashes and reminds me I’m supposed to be in another meeting in two minutes, which I love.

Colbert Cannon: “In Your Face” is the name of that app?

John Amaechi: “In Your Face. It’s an app for Mac. I don’t know of its equivalent for a PC.

And the last one is this. As you get older, especially for the men listening, schedule your friend time. Stop messing around. Stop doing that thing where on Sunday, at 4:00, you’re thinking, “Oh, I should have called. Oh, I should have hung out.” Schedule your friend time because, as we get older, especially us men but for everybody, our friends become ever more valuable.

Colbert Cannon: I love all of those. I particularly love that last one. I’m a big believer in that. And there’s all sorts of scholarship that shows that as you age, you friend groups and holding on to those friend groups pays unbelievable dividends for one’s health, like for everything. So, I couldn’t agree with that more.

Listen, befitting a man as multi-talented as John Amaechi, we got four great ideas this week. So, thank you for all of those.

For mine then, as people know, I like to be inspired by the guests of the week. John, as I mentioned earlier, has OBE after his name, and for our listeners less familiar, that means he’s been honored by his country as an officer of the most excellent British empire for his contributions – a real testament to what he’s done in his life.

I watched a TV show recently featuring another OBE, the incomparable Idris Elba, an actor whose work I consistently love going back to his star-making turn as Stringer Bell in the groundbreaking TV show, “The Wire.” So, my best idea this week is a fantastic show that just came out on Apple TV called Hijack. Without any spoilers, as the name implies, the story takes place on a plane that’s hijacked. It’s a great plan by the hijackers right up until passenger Idris Elba gets involved. So, in honor of our guest, one of Britain’s favorite sons, let me recommend a great piece of work by another, the show “Hijack” on Apple TV.

John, any chance you’ve checked that one out?

John Amaechi: You know what? I just favorited it the other day when the Apple TV updated. I saw it scrolling through and I was like, oh my goodness, because you’re right, anything with him in it is quality.

Colbert Cannon: With that, it’s time to wrap up for the week. John, truly a pleasure and an honor to have you on. Appreciate all your thoughts and look forward to catching up with you at Beast at some point soon in London.

John Amaechi: Look forward to it. Thank you so much.