Interview with Nuclear Sector Director of TetraTech

Summary

In this episode of the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast, Chris Watson, the Nuclear Sector Director at Tetratech, shares insights from his extensive career in the nuclear industry. He discusses the importance of cross-sector learning, the unique challenges of nuclear leadership, and the need for diversity and inclusion within the sector. Chris emphasizes the significance of feedback, personal development, and time management for leaders, while also outlining his vision for the future of nuclear energy and offering advice for upcoming leaders in the industry.


Takeaways

Nuclear leadership involves unique challenges, especially around safety and security.
Cross-sector learning can enhance the nuclear industry by bringing in diverse perspectives.
Diversity of thought is crucial for effective learning and innovation.
Leaders must inspire the next generation to view nuclear as an exciting career.
Building relationships is essential for trust and collaboration in leadership.
Feedback is vital for personal growth and confidence in leadership roles.
Women in nuclear face unique challenges and need encouragement to pursue leadership roles.
Time management is critical for senior leaders to focus on growth and development.
Personal reflection and mentoring can enhance leadership effectiveness.
Empowering people over processes leads to better decision-making and outcomes.

Creators and Guests

Guest

Chris Watson

Nuclear Sector Director - TetraTech

What is Nuclear Leadership Network?

The Nuclear Leadership Network was established to fill a gap in leadership development. By the time leaders hit a certain level in their path, it becomes more and more difficult to know what development steps to take to ready yourself for a shot at the top executive leadership roles in the Nuclear Industry. As you climb the ladder the number of people available to help you on your path become fewer and fewer, and your journey becomes a much more personal one. There will always be a need to collaborate with others, seek advice and guidance from those around you and take feedback from others seriously, but when you get to a certain point, you realise the more you are on your own. It’s up to you to develop yourself, through conversations, self reflection, making mistakes and being brave enough to learn from them. Not having all the answers, but being bold enough to seek the answers, is where much of that later growth in leadership occurs.

Matt Gavin (00:30)
Hello and welcome to the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Chris Watson, who's the Nuclear Sector Director at Tetratech. Hopefully I said that right, Chris. Welcome, how are you?

Chris Watson (00:43)
Very good today, thank you and yes you got me right.

Matt Gavin (00:47)
Excellent, yeah. Yeah, thanks for joining us today. I'm really excited to just explore your leadership journey in the nuclear industry to date and discuss maybe what the future might hold for you in this exciting industry. Just to kick us all off, it'd be great if you just give us a little background about your role, what you do and how you've sort of generated that journey into senior leadership.

Chris Watson (01:09)
And so currently, as you mentioned in the opening gamut, the nuclear sector director for Tetra Tech. So we're a global professional services organization working cross sector and in the nuclear. And it's an interesting point just to start with about cross sector learning and how we bring in infrastructure across all sectors. so nuclear is a fantastic industry at the moment. It's the most exciting time in my lifetime to be in nuclear. But actually, a lot of nuclear is about bringing that wider learning from sectors. And so we bring that.

to the opportunity right now. And then my history, I guess, started out in the private sector in the supply chain, principally around safety cases and environmental assessments related to nuclear. And then I progressed into all sorts of roles on the client side. And I was in the NDA group for about 16 years doing a lot of different roles, starting off more technical, moving into management, moving into leadership, and then eventually progressing into kind of executive leadership and then sitting on boards and the likes. And the last few years I've gone back into the...

supply chain and the private sector again to guess, bring that breadth and depth of knowledge and experience and apply that hopefully to bring some different focus and solutions.

Matt Gavin (02:15)
Yeah, great. You talk about the cross sector element of your business and how you operate Chris there. Just interested, what does the term nuclear leadership mean to you? Does it mean anything differently? Does it not? Has it got unique challenges, unique opportunities, or is it something that any leader can apply themselves in this industry, do you think?

Chris Watson (02:33)
I think there's some unique elements and some common elements, to be honest. And I think we all recognize and respect how important safety and security are within the nuclear sector. But I think many sectors have very high standards in safety now. So I think any heavily regulated sector has those common expectations around safety. I security is more unique to nuclear because of the nature of the materials that we deal with, the nature of the external hazards and threats that we're exposed to.

I think the security aspect is unique and safety and security together, we have to hold the highest standards. But I think that, and I'll expand on that in terms of information management as well, and managing information in a secure way is a constant threat, a constant challenge. We have to have people who are security cleared, they need to understand the type of information that we deal with and how appropriate to manage it. So they do set us apart. But I think then if you go more broadly than that, through many decades of my career, think nuclear has been seen as special.

And there are some elements that are, but most of what nuclear is, is major infrastructure projects, it's heavily regulated industry, there's lots of parallels with transport, with water sectors and the likes. And I think therefore there's an awful lot we can learn from leadership across those different sectors in nuclear and they're equally valid in nuclear. So some aspects are unique, but many of it I think are common and we should be able to take the learning of good practice from all sectors.

Matt Gavin (03:51)
Yeah, great. It's interesting you talk about learning there and learning from those cross sectors and a lot of career nuclear industry people potentially don't get that opportunity. So as a, you know, as a senior leader, as an executive leader.

What role do you play in terms of ensuring that learning is embedded in organizations? What can you do as a sort of senior person, a company leader, a thought leader in the industry, let's say. What can you do to make sure that learning is embedded and shared? And what was your role as a leader in that?

Chris Watson (04:23)
So a couple of things I probably want to say there. First, we talk a lot and increasingly importantly about equality, diversity, inclusivity as a sector, but also in the workplace in the UK and many other countries. And I think it's a diversity of thought that's really, really important in all of this. You only get the learning if you get people with different perspectives around the table together. And that's where I think the cross-sector learning, those who are experienced and knowledgeable of ways of working in the nuclear sector with those who bring learning from other.

projects, programs, enterprises in different sectors, you get that richness. I'm less of a fan of process in terms of learning, I'm much more a fan of people and experience and bringing that to the fore in terms of the way you approach things and find innovative solutions. So that's the first point. I think the second point is about how we inspire the next generation. We're a fantastic time in the nuclear sector in the UK with growth opportunities across civil and defence nuclear.

And we know we've got a pipeline of resource that significantly has to grow. And I think we need to talk about nuclear as incredibly exciting and varied sector. Pretty much every role you can think of in society is required somewhere in nuclear. And dispel the myths of the past about it being negative and maybe people got views about waste management challenges and decommissioning. But when you look at the full life cycle, the richness of opportunity, we as leaders have got a really important job to sell nuclear as a great career.

and that I think extends across all my colleagues I work with, we've got to make this an exciting place that attracts people and retains people and encourages them to move around and not just stay one role for too long within their early career.

Matt Gavin (05:56)
Yeah, that's really good insight. And I think working within the nuclear industry, I'm seeing the excitement, you know, in a day to day, but potentially the external facing view of that is not quite where we need it to be. As a sort of senior leader then, what kind of conversations are you having across sort of your peers and things to make sure that that sales, if you will, of the industry is happening? What conversations are happening? And just to add to that, where do think we are as an industry, certainly in the UK, but...

globally as well. you think this is a, should we believe the upper trajectory? Should we believe the excitement? Is there a bubble that's here to burst? What's your view on that?

Chris Watson (06:32)
I think we should believe the excitement, we should believe the hype. I think this is the best time I've seen for many decades in UK nuclear. I think the interest in nuclear new build, whether it's gigawatt scale or small modular actors is enormous in the UK and many other nations now are realising that if you're going to have reliable, affordable, sustainable energy, then nuclear is the solution. So fantastic to go with a mix of renewables.

but a mix of renewables is not reliable and therefore you need that sustainable base load. So the more and more I read, the more press coverage is about positive spin and increasingly various organisations are opening up to finance nuclear. So I think it's real. I think on top of that, with the disturbances geopolitically, globally at the moment, I think defence nuclear is also on a growth trajectory. There's a huge amount of infrastructure and recapitalisation required. The UK government's committing budgets to it.

So you put civil and you put defence nuclear together and then we've still got liabilities and decommissioning and waste management to manage and we've got an existing generation fleet. What a fantastic mix of opportunity for life cycle. I do think the commitment is there. I think one of the challenges we still have is how do we increase the pace of the front end of decision making to take these opportunities and make them happen.

Matt Gavin (07:48)
Yeah, yeah, I certainly agree with that. think you raise an interesting point there and just to follow on question, if you don't mind, in terms of your role and your position as a sort of business leader, the business sort of, you know, the top of the business sort of leadership perspective, but also as a nuclear advocate. So how do you split your time? What's your, as that senior position, what is your role, your balance between a, you know, running a successful or, you know, being on the leadership team of a successful organization?

but also being that advocate for the industry sort of externally or

Chris Watson (08:21)
Well, there's a number of angles to that. I think relationship building is always essential and you've got to build relationships within your organization. So you have the trust, you have the understanding, you can lean on people when you need to, but similarly they can lean on you. So you're reliable. You've got to build relationships externally, whether it's with client organizations, whether it's with government sponsors, whether it's partner organizations, but you need to build that trust whichever way in those relationships. So that's the first thing.

I think secondly for me is understanding the market, the market conditions and the market opportunities and knowing where you want to play. Because we know that particularly with public procurement, the time and investment required to be successful is quite significant. So you need to really understand where your strengths play in the market, which opportunities to pursue and then how best you pursue. And that's often in partnership with other organisations. Importantly, think choosing organisations that have a similar culture.

a similar approach you know you can work with. And it comes back to that trust element again. The best organization to work with technically may not be the best organization to deliver good outcomes with. And really understanding that difference and distinction, I think is key. Another angle to this is around resourcing. And there's a number of different facets to resourcing. Firstly, there's so much opportunity now. You've to be careful what you go after and make sure you can deliver it. Because reputationally, you can win lots of things, but if you can't deliver them.

reputation will get damaged. There's then a regional challenge, we've all got strengths in different parts of the country in different disciplines, how do you have the right disciplines in the right place at the right time, because geographically the opportunities are diverse, you know, the length and breadth of the country at the moment all around, and then how do you recruit and grow new capability to be able to exploit these opportunities, and that's everyone in the supply chain looking to recruit and grow at broadly the same time.

So you've got to really invest then in how you recruit and train and develop apprentices and graduates and give them real opportunity. Let them get their hands dirty and learn. That's got to be essential going forward. And I guess one point on that is I sometimes see training courses set up maybe because of the apprentice levy and similar, where it's quite a dry course for young people. It's not really exciting them. It's not really giving them the opportunity. They may take a

professional standard or get a certificate. But what we've got to do is really give them exciting opportunities to really, you know, get their hands on something, learn some things, make the mistake with minimum risk and properly invest in them with opportunities.

Matt Gavin (10:53)
Yeah, you talk about exciting opportunities and I agree with that. I'd like to bring the conversation to you a little bit and your journey, if that's all right, Chris. Did you know from a point in your career that you were on a trajectory that sort of could lead you to an executive sort of, know, very, very senior position in an organization, you know, the clues along the way and what opportunities did you get that you think absolutely shaped that, shaped that journey through your career?

What should young leaders be looking out for in terms of opportunity?

Chris Watson (11:18)
you

Okay, so this may be a fairly common answer, but I didn't have a career trajectory. I didn't have a desire to head in certain direction or otherwise. I was very much take opportunities as and when they arose and if it was interesting and it was good people, then that sounds like something you should pursue. And so I bounced around quite a lot. I would say I'm a jack of all trades master of non because I've moved around organizationally different roles in different organizations.

And I've always valued and welcomed that breadth of experience, that breadth of knowledge across all aspects. I wouldn't say therefore I'm a specialist in any specific discipline, but that's, you know, everyone's got that choice to make. Do you like the broad big picture? Do you like to get involved in lots of different things? Or do you want to become a niche specialist who, you know, could become a national, if not international recognized expert? They're choices that people take. In terms of trajectory when I was younger,

I wasn't an overachiever at all in school or early twenties. I do remember towards my late twenties, one of my bosses at the time kind of said I was on a very high trajectory growth and I would end up in senior leadership roles. It was probably the first time someone mentioned that to me. It wasn't something I was looking for, but it was a vote of confidence from a leader at that time. So that was welcome. And then when I joined the NDA in about 2006 and I was working in their supply chain,

And I was kind of approached by someone I was working with who made a bit of a play for me and said, come and join this team. We'd really welcome you, Rinpo. And that was a significant step up for me in terms of probably belief and expectation. again, someone showing that confidence in you, someone you delivered some good work for and you had a really positive relationship with, they're the opportunities you're looking for. And it's interesting. I originally turned the opportunity down. Young family, geographically, was it the right location for me?

And I was very, very fortunate enough to go back a few months later and say, that opportunity still potentially open? And it was, and I was able to take the opportunity at Second Bite and I've never looked back really. So yeah, had I not taken that opportunity, you do wonder where my trajectory would have gone. But at the same time, incredibly appreciative of the individual at the time who pursued, left it open and really encouraged me to join and take forward what was a really exciting role at that time.

Matt Gavin (13:36)
Yeah. How important did you think that sort of vote of confidence, if that's what you want to call it, Because we've not spoken to a leader yet who hasn't had doubts, fears, know, and all that. You know, sometimes we look at senior leaders as super humans who don't have the same emotions as the rest of us. And this is a beautiful part of the story in my head that where actually everyone has those doubts, those fears. And how important are those sort of votes of confidence, peer sort of support in?

you making a decision that's perhaps a little bit out of your comfort zone to stretch yourself.

Chris Watson (14:08)
I think very important that sort of goes into the broader context of that feedback and how easy it is to give or not give feedback, but how important positive feedback is when someone's done a good job or behaved well or whatever it may well be. And I think there's many leaders still possibly don't give as much feedback as they can. All feedback is good. Sometimes it's a learning point rather than a pat on the back. You've done fantastically well. And I think my experience in my sort of probably mid to late 20s was

I probably didn't have the belief in the confidence that I could be something, I could be a leader and achieve a certain level. So it's those people around you. If you're doing good work and getting good feedback, that grows your confidence. If individuals are fighting your corner or giving you opportunities and really trying to encourage you to take them, that gives you the belief as well. So I think there's a whole network around you of positivity that you need to harness and grow.

And I think that's one of the big challenges for, historically for many people progressing through the careers is just having the confidence to say, yes, I can do this and really taking a bit of a risk. And I will draw out a gender difference there. And I've been fortunate enough to be involved in women in nuclear for many years and mentoring. And I think historically we've often had males who've been very bullish and if they can do 80 % of the role, they'll say, yes, I can do this. And we've had female colleagues who maybe could do 90 % of them.

and are questioning the 10 % they couldn't do. So a recurring conversation I've had with many female colleagues over the last 10 years is to give them that extra confidence to say, yes, of course we can do this. We've been achieving this level and performing fantastically for a long time and just take that step. And there's always other circumstances related to that, but I think people should go for opportunities. And even if you're unsuccessful, you'll learn something on the journey.

Matt Gavin (15:54)
I've got a few follow ups out of that. Chris, that's really interesting that you touched on diversity and inclusion and we had a really good guest speaking about that earlier. I think before we move on to that, which I'd like to get to, just touching on a point now where you said, you know, not all feedback is part of the vaccine. You're doing a good job is obviously that developmental feedback as well. What were the key things you've learned as a leader the hard way? know, when things didn't quite go to plan, your back was against the wall.

what skills have you adopted, developed and learned as a result of those more trying experiences, should we say.

Chris Watson (16:31)
Probably one of the most important ones is controlling your emotions. When the chips are down, when things are going against you, when you probably feel like you're going to get in a bit of trouble because you've not necessarily done the best piece of work or you've not taken the right decisions, try not to make it personal and try and take the emotion out of it. And if you can do that, if you can be quite objective about what other conversations to come up in hand, you can learn an awful lot from it. But if you get...

emotional, you get defensive and usually things escalate in the wrong direction. So I think there's an element of preparedness and readiness for difficult conversations that we all need, whether you're receiving or giving. You need to be in the right environment, set the right tone. And if you can look at the positives in terms of learning, then I think you can always move forward. And this is one of the key things in leadership is almost allowing other people to learn.

their mistakes and share what they've learned and try not to call them out yourself it's almost asking the open question for them to say what they could have done better or differently and I think that's really really important and something I've probably learned the hard way as I've moved from management into leadership is if you're trying to identify potential weaknesses in individuals it's not received very well but if you ask them the open question and say what could you done differently you usually have a much more rich conversation and they probably get an awful lot more.

from the conversation.

Matt Gavin (17:52)
Yeah, I think certainly as a leader myself, I the conversation is really important, way more important than probably the formalities of capturing the conversation is key. Is there any times you've got that wrong, sort of, not quite walked that line as well as you could have and you've strayed a little bit into that, not giving the feedback needed, but also potentially giving the feedback in a way that's had a negative impact.

Chris Watson (18:15)
I'd be a liar if I didn't say, of course I put it wrong a few times. That's when you learn the most. I have to be careful with my words, I think, on this response. I think sometimes different personalities, where you've got a very different personality and working out the best way to give feedback is quite challenging. And so what you think could be perfectly reasonable choice of words or tone can be taken very differently by an individual. So.

Yeah, that's probably where I've got it wrong or used one inappropriate word for them. It may not have been appropriate in my vocabulary, but it was inappropriate for them trying to get a message across and someone's reacted to a word or a tone you've given some feedback. So I think learning the hard way is probably one of the ways I've learned on this. And I'm sure I'm still capable of getting this wrong. But I think giving feedback, feedback to individuals is really, really important. And it can be as simple as

You can be in a meeting with many people, 15 people in a room. You can sometimes have individuals who dominate and you might want to say to them afterwards, you were quite dominant there. didn't really allow space for anyone else to offer their views. You may also want to check in with people who've been very quiet or unusually quiet and say, everything all right with you? offer, you weren't as involved as normal today. It's not a bad thing. People have got choices. People have good days and bad days. But I think just checking in and giving feedback in different ways is really, really important just to make sure.

You're noticing other people, you're reading other people, you're aware of, you know, the dynamics in a situation, whether it's one to one or one to many.

Matt Gavin (19:42)
Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I'd love to come back to the diversity question because it's come up a few times and it's such an interesting topic. think, do you think that the industry, obviously a lot of work to do, I think is what all the studies say. We've got a lot of work to do to create more diversity in this industry. As a leader, does that change your, I guess your priorities?

Chris Watson (19:54)
Thanks

Matt Gavin (20:06)
a little bit or does it make you look at the world slightly differently when you're, you know, obviously there's a scarcity of resource in this industry, certainly in the UK. There's a challenge with lots of good things happening where we want to grow the industry, but then there's also this diversity question around, well, how do we hire for a diverse workforce and not fall into the trap of creating an undiverse workforce? Is there any leadership challenge there for you as individually?

Chris Watson (20:30)
It's a very large topic for debate really, but I think if you start from a position that pretty much everyone has got some form of bias, whether it's conscious or unconscious, whether that's a preference towards people who are like you or a distaste for people who are like you, depending on, we've all got some kind of bias. So I think the first thing is taking out that kind of bias or at least acknowledging that bias and trying to remove it from any processes.

And those processes go beyond that because it's all around personal interactions and discussions you have with people. So I think people need to be aware of those and try and eradicate those or manage those to one side. That's the first thing. I think the second thing, if we take it around gender, we've made some great strides, I think, in the last 10 years to get better gender balance in the workforce. I think that's in terms of types and diversity of roles, trying to break down, you know,

things where, for example, at school and secondary school, we still have many females in engineering. By time we get to early 20s, you've lost a lot of them. And how do we sustain that pipeline and get the fantastic female engineers to go on to be leaders in their disciplines? And we're making progress in all those areas, but I still think more needs to be done. How long will it take? Well, it'll take as long as it takes. And there's times when you can maybe, I wouldn't say force the issue, but it encourage more diversity beyond gender.

There's other times when you may only have a very narrow pool of people who can do certain roles and you may not have as diverse a group as you want. And if you've explored all avenues, then you've still got to pull a team together and move forward. But I think there's been some great examples in the nuclear sector. I'll call out NWS nuclear waste services who have really driven greater gender balance across the organization from leadership down and achieved that in quite short time scales overall. So there are successes. It can be done.

I think it's very much about where there's a will, a way. And I think that expands to, we do have a problem with UK nationals versus, you know, people work from abroad because of security clearances. So sometimes you may not be able to get international diversity into the equation. Not always, but sometimes. But beyond that, think increasingly I'm seeing an improvement. But I also still walk into rooms when

there could be 40, 50 people in a room and the lack of diversity is astonishing. So we've got a major challenge still, we're making good progress but we've got a long

Matt Gavin (22:46)
Yeah, yeah, I think we've all got a job to do there for sure. That is for sure. Moving on a little bit to sort of talk about development, personal development really. Obviously, you know, high profile roles, senior roles, figureheads of businesses, your time's precious, no doubt, everybody wants a piece of you and obviously you want a piece for yourself as well at times. How do you continue to develop? So from a senior position where obviously you're very busy, very in high demand to a...

to the step above, how do you find the time within that space to continually improve, continually develop yourself, develop your leadership and how much of that is organic and how much of that is forced or engineered or designed as part of your time that you have in the day. Just really interested in how you get that balance right.

Chris Watson (23:37)
And I think it's an ongoing challenge for anyone senior in an organisation. How do you manage time best? I think sometimes it can be organic. Opportunities open themselves up and you may want to take them. But I think you've also got to have a degree of control and find the time yourself. So I think time management is a really interesting discussion point always, because in a day where most people get many tens, if not hundreds of emails.

You can become a slave to the computer, the keyboard, the emails, which means you're not controlling your time. And I think we've got to work out how to control your time, your diary, make sure you're focusing your energy and you may have best energy start the day, end of the day, but your energy on the most important things that matter, investing your time and energy in other people and the growth of other people. And I think everyone needs to continue to grow. And I think it's, you know, maybe one area where our sector.

has struggled in the past is individuals staying in organisations in roles for long, long periods of time. They'd be almost becoming movable. And I think if you, you may well be very experienced and very knowledgeable, but you're probably not learning that much anymore. And I think what we need is a lot more churn. So my personal view is exposing myself to new challenges. So the role I have now probably has a much more, much more greater focus on contracts, commercial, legal aspects than I probably had in previous roles.

So I've had to go on a learning curve there, which you do. You kind of understand better. You don't always get it right. And I think as long as your roles are evolving, you've got different challenges, you've got different flavors, they're all different stakeholders. You keep on learning, keep on growing. And I would challenge people who are listening maybe to think about, have I been in a role too long? Am I still growing? And if not, what are you going to do about it? You've got choices. And that's a key thing for everyone to understand is you've got choices to do something either different or do it differently.

Matt Gavin (25:22)
Yeah, it's a really interesting, really interesting point about time management. And I'm sure every new leader and every, you know, developing leader is, feels the pinch of that. I certainly feel it daily. And I know a lot of my team do. How much time do you spend sort of maybe away from the sort of workplace learning environments and more in, you know, a personal development space? much time do you reflect on?

you know, am I managing my time well? How can I manage my time better? How can I sort of get some time to think a little bit differently? You know, what is your balance? Obviously there's the learning through taking on different challenges, but then there's the personal bit around, you know, how can I reflect on this a little bit more? How do you manage that time and those resources, I guess, that you've got to learn from? And how much time do you spend, you know, with other people and learning from them? What's the balance do you think? And how do you...

constantly evaluate whether that's the correct balance.

Chris Watson (26:14)
I think to be honest,

every day and every week is different. I'm a firm believer in exercise and exercise is my wind down from the day, but often I have my greatest thoughts when I'm exercising from a living beautiful part of the country. I live in the Lake District. So if I'm going for a run of an evening, I've got time to sort of take stock of the day, just to synthesize the day and maybe pull out one or two key nuggets that take me into the next day as priority things I need to work on. So everyone needs to find some time in the day to do that.

selfish thinking almost just to take stock of where you are, what you've got to do, what your priorities are. It doesn't matter what level in an organization, everyone needs to feel like they're in control. So finding your time in the day for your reflection, I think is important for everybody. And then I've also enjoyed mentoring both internally within the organization, but I mentioned before with women in nuclear and, and it's good time for you to think and you to practice what you preach as well. So just thinking about

how you engage with someone else, how you're asking open questions, how you're providing support and encouragement, but not advice and direction. And just thinking about how you develop other people and listen to their challenges is really quite insightful as to, you know, there's always snippets you can learn from or think about in your own time. But that's me being selfless, but actually getting quite a lot from it by not really thinking about my priorities at the time and thinking about someone else's life and priorities wherever they are on their journey. But I end up

thinking quite a lot afterwards about the interactions, about the conversations. finding, I think it's within your busy day, busy week, busy year, finding times where you get exposed to different environments, different conversations, different individuals who just give you a different perspective is enormously powerful. And I'm in a role now where I can attend conferences and things like that. And sometimes you may be there and you're really focused on what's being presented or interacting with other, you know.

peers and stakeholders. But sometimes you may just find half an hour, 45 minutes just to talk to somebody who's completely different to you, sees the world in different lens, and you can learn a huge amount from that. So some planned, some accidental, but find that time I think is really, really critical on a daily basis.

Matt Gavin (28:25)
Yeah, that's great advice. Thank you for that Chris. That's awesome. I'm sure everybody else would be really interested in hearing that. A couple more before we finish. One question, open question to yourself. What's next? How do you move on? How do you continue to develop and grow? What's your, obviously seeking out new challenges you spoke about, but what's the next five, 10 years look like for somebody already in a very senior position?

Chris Watson (28:47)
If I knew the answer to that, I'd be bit delighted. we'll go back to the growth agenda, I think, in terms of nuclear is really, really exciting at the moment. And I want to continue to grow and move with that. So I'm very much open to how the market evolves and where the best opportunities are from a market perspective. I think that's important. I'd encourage everyone to think that way as well. Go with the market rather than fight against it, I think is important. And secondly, you know, I'd really love to see a fleet of small modular actors.

not only in the UK, but developing in European nations and then progressing into Africa and globally. I'd love to see the potential within SMRs be realised so you can have local or regional energy, electricity generation, you can have off takes for it to support industrialisation or industrial heavy demanders. You can hopefully have reduced price electricity.

within certain regions that are pro and small margin reactor. I'm not anti-gigawatt by the way, but I'm just using SMR as a different model. So I'd really like to see that come to fruition. So any role I can play to support that progress, I think is really, really important for globally and for the long-term future. And if you look at it from a more pro-ocular lens, a UK lens, we have one of the most expensive electricity costs, certainly in Europe, maybe in the world.

our electricity costs are astronomically high. And for UK to have growth, I think now we have to have cheaper and more reliable energy. So that security of supply, that reliability and affordability, I think is such an important factor for economic growth in the UK. So for me, I'd really like to be part of that next wave of nuclear power with a national community that's very supportive, very pro-nuclear. And we realize the benefits of it.

What that means specifically I can't answer but I want to be part of that movement over the next five ten years.

Matt Gavin (30:38)
Yeah, it's a fairly big vision. I'll follow you on that one, Chris, that's for sure. Obviously, this is going to outlive me and you, this nuclear industry, and there's a lot of leaders today that will be listening to this. To realize that vision, you know, we're going to need strong leaders throughout the sector. What would be your advice to an upcoming leader, someone who's potentially new to leadership in the nuclear industry, but will be that player?

Chris Watson (30:45)
Okay.

Matt Gavin (31:03)
you know, making your vision that you just outlined there happen. What would be a sort of one, two pieces of nugget advice for those people?

Chris Watson (31:11)
I'll probably go with two things actually. So I'll refer to a TED talk I watched back in 2010 by Simon Sinek. It's called How Great Leaders Inspire Action. And effectively it's the most simple chart in the world. It's why in the center, how in the middle circle and what on the outside. And the narrative more often than not with individuals selling something, whatever it may well be, is they talk about the what and the how. And he says, people don't buy what you do.

They buy why you do it. And so people follow a purpose, a cause, an inspirational leader who stands for something. They don't follow organizations that make money. They don't follow organizations that have nice people to work with. They want a nugget of inspiration about why should I join this organization? Why should I pursue this career? Why? And if you can articulate the why in a really powerful and personal way, people will follow. And I think it's proven.

It's proven by individuals, it's proven by corporations. You can go and look at examples around Apple and similar. But it's a great 18 minute TED talk. know, people should watch it. It's very, simple, the message. But if you make things personal, if you have real purpose in what you're trying to achieve, then generally we can make a lot happen. And at the moment, I think in nuclear, we really want that kind of outcome articulated. Many, many people want that. So if we can articulate the why in a very passionate and convincing way.

people will follow and people will join the sector or make it success. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is probably a learning point of mine over my career is around people over process. We can, for good reason, end up being very process heavy in nuclear and tying ourselves up in knots sometimes around process and taking the person out of the equation, making everyone risk averse. But actually it's the people that make progress. It's the people make decisions. It's the people that deliver the outcomes that we want.

And we've got to find a way of really empowering people to make progress within a framework, within certain constraints. We've got to find a way of not being so process heavy and really investing great people to make great decisions. So they're my two nuggets, I think, going forward is why to really inspire the next generation and then empower those people to make great decisions to deliver it.

Matt Gavin (33:29)
Yeah, it's a great message to end on Chris. Hopefully our future leaders can all find the vision and find the people to make that happen. So brilliant. Thank you so much for spending a bit of time with us today, Chris. Really appreciate it. think people are going to find that very inspiring and interesting to listen back to. So thanks very much. It's been great speaking to you.

Chris Watson (33:48)
Thank you, Matt. I enjoyed it,

Matt Gavin (33:49)
Some great insights there from Chris. Thanks Chris for his time and giving us the insights into his leadership experiences in the nuclear industry. He discussed the importance of cross sector learning and the unique challenges that nuclear leadership and the need for diversity and inclusion within the sector. Chris emphasized the significance of feedback, personal development and time management for leaders, while also outlining his vision for the future of nuclear energy and offering advice for upcoming leaders in industry.

That's it for this episode of the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast. Please subscribe and like all our content on social media and follow us through your favorite podcast service. And we'll look forward to speaking to you next