S04E10: Business Acumen for LSP Leadership

Intro

Hello and welcome to the Translation Company Talk, a weekly podcast show focusing on translation services and the language industry. The Translation Company Talk covers topics of interest for professionals engaged in the business of translation, localization, transcription, interpreting, and language technology. The Translation Company Talk is sponsored by Hybrid Lynx. Your host is Sultan Ghaznawi with today’s episode.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Welcome to this episode of the Translation Company Talk podcast. Today I am speaking with Shamus Sayed about the importance of business acumen for leadership of language service provider companies.

 

He is an expert in this area and has a passion about mentoring executives from LSPs and how to run their businesses. I am very excited to be hearing from him about what skills, talents, and the type of intuition one needs to run a successful LSP. Shamus Sayed is the Chief Operating Officer for Interpreters Unlimited or IU, which is a full-service LSP based in San Diego, California. He is an operation executive with a business development background and driving sustainable growth through revenue-maximizing strategies and enduring client relationships. Throughout his career, he has secured $3 million in acquisition funding via multiple investors, advised and partnered on a business purchase in 2007, and has since grown by revenue 600%. He has led three strategic acquisitions and oversaw an integration into parent company and generated $8 million in revenue through consultative selling in biopharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing.

 

Shamus, welcome to the Translation Company Talk podcast.

 

Shamus Sayed

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Sultan.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I know we’ve been talking about this for a while. I really wanted you on the show because of your business background, your expertise, but for those who don’t know you, please introduce yourself. Tell us about your company, what you do these days.

 

Shamus Sayed

Well, thank you. Well, my name is Shamus Sayed, Vice President and CEO of Interpreters Unlimited. We are based in San Diego. The company’s been around for over 50 years. We did not start the company. I say we; we’re a family-owned company. My father started his career in engineering. He was an engineer for about 20 years, left, started a company in food services, a restaurant and food services in the late 80s, took it public in the 90s, sold it in the mid 2000s. It was operating airport concessions out of something like 40 plus airports with 100 plus locations throughout the country.

 

Parallel, I did my undergraduate work in general molecular biology out of UC San Diego. I was pre-med for about 15 minutes and chose not to go to med school. I went to, I jumped right into the biotech industry and all the biotechs I worked at are all now one. They’ve all consolidated and fired and merged, you name it. But the one thing that was common, as I zigzagged my way in the industry was that I had horrible bosses. With the exception of one, I had horrible bosses. That’s just enough when you’re single to take some drastic steps. My father was the recipient. I’m the middle of three. I have an older sister and a younger brother. He heard me bitching pretty much on a weekly basis on my bosses. So, Interpreters Unlimited fell into our lap. When you say that God has a plan for you, we looked at all types of businesses, pizza stores and moving companies and dry cleaners. You name it, we looked at all types. We were less concerned about what they do, but more concerned about how they do, looking at the financials and the logical aspect of the business versus the emotional side.

 

One day, one of his former board of directors says, hey, I know that you’re about to make an exit from your company given the recent sale. He says, I know you’re looking. He says, I’m a godparent to this family, this other father-son team that’s selling their company and they do interpretation and translation. We said, what the heck is that? It was just so vivid. My father, my brother and myself vividly remember this. On a Saturday morning, we go to Interpreters Unlimited’s then corporate office, which happened to be next door to my father’s corporate office and about a mile and a half from our home. We walked in Saturday morning, cup of coffee with a smile of skepticism. We walked out with a smile of, are you serious? It was a heavily leveraged acquisition. That was in the beginning of, end of 2006. In April 2007 is when I joined. In April, I quit my corporate job, got married and I had a destination wedding in Dubai. My wife is from London. I moved my wife out from the UK, moved out of my parents’ home, took a 60% pay cut. And started and came to Interpreters Unlimited within a 30-day span.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

What an interesting and fun journey. So, Shamus, about the industry, I mean, it was more or less accidental for you. It was not planned, right? When you started, what were your thoughts? What were you thinking in terms of expectations?

 

Shamus Sayed

I am beyond where I wanted to be. You know, look, I joke around about my age, but I’m in my mid-forties. My father is in his mid-seventies. And we’re going strong and we’re loving every minute of it. When you envision where you wanted to be 20 years ago, when you think about where you wanted to be here today, 20 years ago, I wasn’t married. I had no kids. And then when I got married and, you know, the needs and wants are different. So now fast forward, I have two boys, a 12-year-old and a nine-year-old. I’ve been married for almost 17 – 16 and a half years. So now where I want to be is I am exactly where I want to be. I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. I, as you, as you do as well, Sultan, you, we work our butts off, but at the same token, we have a degree of flexibility so that tomorrow I can be there at my son’s basketball game or see my other son compete in a science fair or pick them up from school. So that’s the flexibility, it’s exactly what I wanted. At the end of the day, as business owners, we, our bosses are our clients. That’s our team. Those are our, that’s who we report to. So as long as I continue to be, remain available and provide the guidance, the insight and provide them the tools, that’s the fun part. And that is where I want to be.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Shamus, in terms of your journey, let me ask you one final question. When you started in 2006, 2007, officially, since then, what has stood out to you as a significant event or change in this industry, something that was disruptive, that’s always you think about, and it shaped your journey as well in terms of where you are today?

 

Shamus Sayed

Wow. Where do I start, Sultan? I feel like on a daily basis, there’s some sort of disruptive change. Let’s not talk about what’s happening present day. Let’s go back. Interpretation was not really part, not really considered part of the LSP realm. It was always the translation and localization companies. And that was very indicative of when you look at the association language company member base, it was very heavily weighted on that of translation companies. So, the one major milestone, at least in my tenure in the industry, is the acknowledgement and appreciation or significance of the on-site interpretation space.

 

In the client’s eyes, they’re hand in hand, right? There are many reasons why these companies, why our company, these companies exist. One person says, hey, you’re interpreting, can you do this document for me as well? Or you’ve done this document, can you also come out to this meeting? Because they’re always done hand in hand. In fact, most people don’t know the difference between translation and interpretation. They don’t need to know the difference. It’s our job to know the difference. But many end users don’t know the difference. So that’s one thing. It’s just the acknowledgments and understanding the significance of the interpretation space.

Another major milestone is the ongoing struggle between independent contractors and employees. Some of the milestones in that process were not good. And some of those milestones were very good. Right now, in California, we are still defending what had some of the positive milestones, but those are coming to test on a daily basis. When you look at the other major milestones, the overall awareness of language services has increased significantly in the years. Obviously, we knew of the title six of the US Constitution’s title six. Now when you look at positions 10 years ago, 12 years ago, you didn’t have positions of interpretation manager, patient experience. And interpretation was not part of these considerations. It was a by the way, service. Look at some of the major Fortune 100 companies now all have a translation and localization department at senior levels. And so, you’re the overall awareness of our industry is a major milestone. And that is just accelerating every day. You’re hearing more and more companies or verticals realizing the need for this.

 

Those are really the top three that I can say right off the bat more on a general basis. The acknowledgement of interpretation in the mix, worker relationships, and overall general awareness of the industry. Those are three key milestones.

 

Yes, I can talk about artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, Google Translate, machine translation, I can talk about all of those things as milestones and or disruptors. But I’m not going to go there right now. That’s a whole other discussion.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Absolutely. Those are tools and enablers. Now, Shamus, you are very, very active at the Association of Language Companies or ALC where we’re both members. You always share your business experience there. I wanted to speak to you today about how language service provider management executives, how can we build business acumen and expertise? And if you could tell me about what is the current state of management skills in terms of professionalization, in terms of their ability to run their businesses across American LSPs today? I mean globally it’s an issue, but how about the US?

 

Shamus Sayed

On a macro level, when you look at our industry as a whole, the average, we have roughly about 100, say 150, 170 members of the ALC, each with the average business tenure of about 12 years. So just within our industry, if you take 170 companies, multiply that by 12, you’re looking at well over two millennia of years of experience, business experience in this industry within that. And that’s phenomenal. And we’re not even talking about the small ones that are not part of the association, which we want them to be. We’re not talking about the single language. I’m just talking about actual members. So well over 2,000 years on average of experience that the Association of Language Companies brings to the forefront. Part of that experience are people that started their companies because they were that single language provider. They were a husband-and-wife team, father-son team, mother-daughter team, husband, wife, and their three kids working in the business. And they started off helping out their community. Now they have a million, two million, three-million-dollar business offering all services, all languages. But they started out helping out their communities.

 

Let’s go the other extreme where I’ll use ourselves as an example. We are not from the industry. We didn’t start this company. That aspect of it, you know, you could say, well, we didn’t start it. So, we lack that part, that piece of that puzzle, piece of that pie we lack because we didn’t start it. Or we came into it with 100% business mind, which brings me to the micro level, Sultan. So as a macro, we have 2,000 plus years of collective experience, an array of ownership types. So as an ownership for us, we came into it from a business eye. And now on a micro level, independent of what brings us all together, which is language companies, we are all businesses. In business operations, business acumen remains the same, whether you’re selling widgets or you’re selling language services. In that, the management skills, you see many of our colleagues, everyone has a different hot button. Everyone manages their companies differently but using the same KPIs. You know, we all look at, of course, our top line revenue. Everyone looks at our gross profits. Everyone looks at how much we spend on our overhead. Everyone looks at how much cash we have in the bank. Everyone looks at our receivables and our payables and so forth. So, on a micro level, on a direct operation, that is something that is shared across all of the companies, regardless of the ownership type. And when you look at the current state of the management skills across, it’s impressive, especially within the association. It is very impressive.

 

One thing that we don’t do as well as an association, is focus on the micro level acumen. We spend many times, we spend a lot of our conferences talking about the industry, which is wonderful. That’s why we go. But how much time are we spending on discussion of actual business best practices? Is our company healthy? So, when you look at it, just really on a micro level, that’s something we would like to see more of.

 

Personally, you’ve heard me say this many times, I’m a long-time member of Vistage. Vistage International is a CEO peer group. It’s an international association group. And we have many ALC members who are also Vistage members. What’s nice about that is that in that environment, we talk about the nitty and gritty of our businesses. We talk about the problems. It doesn’t matter if I reach out to my group and say, look, my gross profit dropped three points. I need to identify what and where. Well, it was OK. Was it your interpretation, translation? Who are the interpreters, et cetera? So, we can get down to that uber micro detailed level, because whether I’m selling widgets or selling insurance or selling interpretation services, I have a group of 17 people in the room that can approach it from a financial perspective and help you resolve that issue. And that’s something I wish we would see more of within our association. Yes, we are all available to help with language pairs and projects. I need an ASL interpreter in Chicago. I need someone to help. And we’re wonderful for that. But how many of us are actually reaching out to you or to our colleagues and say, hey, I’m having a GP issue or I’m having a cash flow issue, or I got 12 percent of my receivables over 90 days. How do I approach that? Or I might not make payroll next month. Help me find the cash for it. And these are real business issues. And so that’s what Vistage helps us with. And that’s the acumen, the general business acumen is what Vistage helps with. So, I’m obviously a very big proponent of that.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let’s talk about business acumen in general. You talked about micro level and macro level. But let’s say if you have the right business acumen and a service, language service provider as a leader, what advantages do you have? If you know the ins and outs of running a business versus winging it like most people do.

 

Shamus Sayed

Well, I don’t have a good answer for either, Sultan. I don’t want to imply that I’m an expert by any means. God knows I got a ton to learn. It’s about perspective, right? When you have an association like ALC or you have groups like Vistage, they bring a perspective, a vantage point, which you may not have. Not that you can’t attain it, but you just don’t have it. We when we’re in our business, we’re myopic to a degree, even though we try to be objective. But we’re very myopic because we are too close to our business to really identify what the issues are, because it is natural for us to justify why things are working or why things are not. Being very candid, we would like to expand our outbound business development effort. But the first thing that comes to my head is, oh, we can’t do this because or we tried this 10 years ago or I wish we could do that. But if I can’t, we don’t have that in the budget. But having an external factor, if you were in the room having the discussion with us or the insurance company person who I was referring to you from my business group, there your vantage points bring something that I don’t have and that I might be missing.

 

So, it’s not about what I’m doing, what advantages I have. It’s the resources that I have available to me and quite frankly, to you as well. I don’t know everything. So the advantages that I have is that I reach out and I leverage the resources that I have available to me, whether it be my father, who’s got 60 plus years of business experience, or it’s reaching out on the ALC chat where I have one hundred and seventy companies averaging 12 years of experience, well over 2000 years of collective experience on the chat or reach out to my business group who know me, know my business, know my family and know me personally. And so, it’s the resources that I have available to help guide the right decision or help guide me and fix me through or help work through the wrong decision. There was my last Vistage session, the whole two and a half hours, three hours of the morning was talking about the concept of failing fast.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

That’s actually a very good segue to my next question. And you talked about this briefly. A lot of people in our industry were translators who simply added additional languages and outsourced them, or they basically became a single language service provider and grew their business. They formed an LLC, or a corporation and they started billing their clients, but they didn’t have the proper business education, an MBA or anything of that nature. Now, given that nature of our industry, of these LSPs, they have to learn how to manage on the fly. What is actually the problem with that, Shamus?

 

Shamus Sayed

Well, that’s the experience that I lack, Sultan. And that’s what I mentioned. Because we didn’t start this, we acquired this. That’s that piece of that puzzle or pie that I don’t have direct experience with. And good, bad, or indifferent, I have tremendous respect for those that have done that and have had to learn on the fly, because that’s an area that I was fortunate or unfortunate to not have to experience because that structure to a degree was already there. Yes, as we grew and as we grew fast. And then when we slowed down pandemic and have to make the upswing changes and the downswing changes. Yes, that is something that I had not had to experience but had to perform. So, what can I say?

 

So, the strengths of what I see, at least amongst my business colleagues and my business group, those that have bootstrapped and built from scratch, there’s a direct understanding of expense, in my opinion, a direct understanding. Because tomorrow, today they’re making a dollar, tomorrow they’re making two. And then once they’re making that third dollar, they realize that they have to bring in someone to help. Now, that third dollar is worth half as much than that second dollar was, because now they have to, they have to bring in someone. So, then you scale that even further. Now you have the tenth dollar. That tenth dollar is like, OK, I need four people. I need structure. I need infrastructure. So now when you win that initial dollar was nearly 100 percent in your pocket, that ten dollars, probably 10 percent in your pocket.

 

So, I feel that those that have started from scratch have a solid understanding of bootstrapping and a solid understanding of their expenses and their bottom line. I think that’s a better way to put it, not their expenses, but their bottom line. I’ve worked for large corporations. And when I went to if I say, hey, I need a new computer monitor, I need a new computer, or my chair is broken. You just fill out a purchase requisition and you get it. Two days later, you have an IT team that comes and installs it for you. But here, you know, that is not the case. OK, well, now I have to budget those two thousand dollars. I can’t do that this month. I might have to wait till next year to do that. So, it’s that mindset shift that someone that started from scratch as a single language vendor and has scaled. It’s that aspect that they have a tremendous understanding of. They know exactly where their expenses are. Generally speaking, you know, I could speak. I’m sure I can speak for you. I can sure as heck speak for me.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Absolutely. And I think we are all on the same boat. Now, speaking of Acumen, one is basically the ability or the intuition of being able to do things. But can Acumen be learned through universities or colleges? I mean, some of them offer executive level education. Are these sufficient for LSP managers to go and retool and retrain themselves to build that Acumen?

 

Shamus Sayed

I would say yes, but not exclusively. I usually have. Well, I recently we recently moved offices. Otherwise, I would pull some of these from my shelf. But they’re still in a box at the moment. As the books that I read and that I was strongly advised to read by my father over the years to help develop that Acumen.

 

So first of all, again, I mentioned this. This was the main purpose of me having joined Visage was to acquire and gain that business Acumen, period. That was 10 years ago. And by God’s grace, I have developed that and will continue to develop. Number one.

 

Number two is being present at the big president situations that you normally would be. Numerous times, even today, many died. Ask my father. Include me in that meeting. Include me in that call. Let me be the fly on the wall. I don’t need to say anything. I don’t need to contribute anything. I just want to be present. I want to experience that. What they… there’s that saying that closed mouths don’t get fed. So, you definitely need to ask. I asked earlier in my career. I one of the major biotech’s that I work for took on a new CEO. The guy was 40 years old, Harvard MBA, used to run GE Medical Devices and now is running CEO of at the time of the company I worked for was only a billion-dollar company. And I thought he was, I was impressed with the guy like I wanted to learn from him. So, I went down, and I set up a meeting through his office to see the CEO of this billion-dollar company and I said, hey, guide me, teach me, you know what? Give me some words of wisdom. So, he says, the one thing you need to be aware of is change is always constant. The only thing constant in life is change. And I said, OK. And that definitely stuck with me that 20 years later I’m having I’m mentioning it to you. I said, OK. I said, give me a business book to read. And he says, oh, the places you’ll go by Dr. Seuss. I said, OK, didn’t think of that. And he elaborated why. And if you’ve read the book, you can now see that there’s so many articles about the business relevance of all the places you’ll go. Fast forward three weeks from that meeting, my specialty sales group was disbanded, and I was laid off. And but those things definitely stuck with me.

 

Now, fast forward. I’m a big follower of Good to Great and Jim Collins and then his follow up book, The Breakthrough Company. I actually read The Breakthrough Company first before having read Good to Great and Good to Great is an excellent book along those lines. Emotional intelligence 2.0 is a phenomenal book to help focus on the logical aspect of your daily life and being able to manage the emotional aspect. All of that is great. And they even tell you how to use that in your personal life and in your married life. And, you know when it comes to that, that just goes right out the window. We never exercise that, that the emotional intelligence and in our personal lives. But jokes aside that I’m reading this book now. Well, about a third of a quarter of the way through it. Seven Daily Habits, Stephen Covey. These are all known business books.

 

So, yes. Answering your question, does going to business school help you attain that acumen? Absolutely. Exclusively? No. And that’s where the books, your environment, asking the questions from those that do have that experience will help you get there as well. And just to be very clear, Sultan, if tomorrow you said, Shamus, here’s two years of free time. What are you going to do with it? I’d probably go out and get my MBA.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Absolutely. Well, that’s actually a foundation for being a good leader to have the right education and the right experience, obviously be surrounded by the right people. And leadership itself is a very niche skill.

 

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Sultan Ghaznawi

A lot of people confuse acumen with a skill, as you just mentioned. How can a leader develop both for the benefit of their business?

 

Shamus Sayed

That’s the million-dollar question, Sultan. I think that really is a million-dollar question. I don’t have a direct answer. I told you ways that we can help attain that knowledge, attain that acumen, and attain that skill.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Would it help, for example, to find a mentor like yourself that you could always follow? And that is acumen, a transferable skill, for example, that you’ve developed over the years, and you can now pass it on to a new leader?

 

Shamus Sayed

Well, first of all, thank you for that. And I appreciate even being regarded as such. And yes, if someone is willing, they will get it and they will learn it. I don’t feel that one mentor is the answer. There’s going to be multiple. And mentors can come in obvious and not so obvious forms.

 

I was with an ALC colleague over the weekend. She was visiting from D.C. I’ll mention her name, Carol Valencia. She was in town for a conference and the conference was a conference based on the mentorship that she has. It’s a group of, from what I understand, new business owners. And I was single parent last week. My wife was traveling. So, the only time that I had was when I was sitting out at my son’s lacrosse game on Saturday morning for three hours. So, she was nice and met me over on the lacrosse field, sitting there and sitting on a lawn chair watching the game. And she made it very clear that, you know, she says, look, Shamus you are a mentor of mine. I have many mentors. I have multiple business mentors, spiritual mentors. And that is where I get my insights from and my knowledge from. And that’s how I’m influenced. And I have these books that I read. So, she was very clear and that not one mentor will do it, but you need multiple.

 

And as I mentioned earlier, everyone brings a different vantage point. Look at what we started off the call talking about on something that I had no idea that before the end of this call, I want to have another discussion with you. So, you know, so you yourself are going to mentor me in something that I had no knowledge of. So, mentors come in all shapes and sizes. They are obvious. They’re not so obvious, but it’s not just one. It’s something you’ll need multiple of.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Shamus, just share a little bit of my own experience. I’ve seen life through different angles and experience many, many different situations. But I’ve come to a point where I believe that everything that happens in life must be welcomed. I welcome and I appreciate, I accept what is thrown my way. And I think if we do that again, same thing would mean for different mentors. If you look, even my son could be my mentor tomorrow. Maybe he knows something that I didn’t know. We were talking about that earlier. But let me get back to, you know, how you develop experience. How do you develop those skills? Many LSP leaders today, from what I know, work with business coaches to address gaps in their skills and experience.

 

Shamus, you understand this from inside out, basically work with lots of people who probably even do coaching for others. What has your experience been with coaches? Have you worked with them? Are there advantages to work with them?

 

Shamus Sayed

Yes, absolutely. So, I have a coach through Vistage. I have a group of companies. My group, as well as my individual, the chair of the group, is my coach. And I think it’s very important, very important. Most of these coaches that are in the business and the Vistage are executives, retired executives, business owners, former business owners, etc., themselves. And then they work with 15, 20 other business owners and companies and learn their businesses inside out. They have their own personal experience that they bring. And then they have the insight of 20 other personal experiences that they know intimately.

 

So, the once a month that I meet with my coach, we sit across from each other, have teacup, coffee in hand, notepad, and we talk about everything. A coach will point out to you that your business performance is not just that of how we do behind the computer screen, but everything around us. Are you healthy? What’s your personal relationships like? How is your marriage? How is your relationship with your kids? How’s your health? You know, did you go for your checkup yesterday? Things like that. So that’s what coaches why coaches are important, because they, a good coach will focus on every aspect of your life because all of it impacts your performance in your business. And the other flip side of that coin, Sultan, your business also impacts and influences how you are in your personal life.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Are coaches necessary to run your business or is this something that you can develop on your own, these skills?

 

Shamus Sayed

I think coaches are, either a good mentor or a good coach, I think are necessary. But you can argue using American football as an example. I think we can say that Tom Brady is one of the greatest players that has ever played. But he had a coach. And you can apply that to business as well.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

There is no such thing as a complete or perfect leader with things constantly changing. And you mentioned change is the only constant today anywhere in the universe. One has to stay abreast of all developments, and everything related to business. So, Shamus, how can you create that agility and second nature to deal with business challenges and opportunities?

 

Shamus Sayed

Great question. I’ll use the pandemic as a great example. As an on-site, as three years ago, on-site interpretation was the main chunk of our business and our service offering at the start of the pandemic. So vividly, March 17th, 2020, overnight, I’m watching the news. And here you have the governor that says no one can go out. Businesses shut down immediately, effective now. No one leave their home. So, you talk about an oh shit moment and trying to figure out, oh, great. What do I need to do?

 

So, when you look at. So, you talk about agility. That was that very moment that was putting your agility to the test. When I went back, I keep on mentioning Vistage throughout this because it is a major factor, a major part of how we, I have grown from leadership skills and general business acumen. We met daily. We had a 30-minute Zoom call with our group and our coach and individual daily calls with the coach. Just quick check ins on a daily basis. So, I have expenses going out, but I have nothing coming in. And you talk about, OK, how do we manage the changes? How do we manage the overhead? How do we reduce the overhead? How do we manage the layoffs? How do we manage getting federal assistance, the PPP? How can we work together to accelerate getting PPP quickest? What banks are you guys working with? Who are your relationships with at the banks? And Vistage members within three weeks of PPP being released, 100 percent of our business group got their money within three weeks. One hundred percent of our group received the assistance. Once that assistance was offered, when I talked to my colleagues outside of Vistage, many took them three months to get it, four months to get it. So, it’s having that network of knowing, sorry, excuse me, of having that understanding of having that group around you and those resources around you to get that assistance. How do I then look at continuing the agility? How do you monitor your KPIs so that you can be on top of it?

 

Now, switching from the pandemic onto general business. Tomorrow, I see that, oh, my gosh, I’m making three points less than what I was making the month before. What do I need to do and how can I pivot my business to change? And I think that goes back to what I mentioned earlier. When you think of agility, it’s that mindset of understanding that change is always constant, change is constant. So as long as you’re always in that mode, that as long as you’re not on autopilot and you are always in that mode, then that agility comes quickly, comes naturally.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Well, Shamus, that’s a very, very good point. But let me ask you a follow up on that. We have a lot of people in our industry who are very experienced and knowledgeable, and I have a lot of respect for them. But then there are other veterans who resist change and don’t adapt. What do you have to tell them to evolve and improve their business acumen by accepting change?

 

Shamus Sayed

Well, that’s something that I don’t have a direct answer for, Sultan. You’re now to tell people that you need to accept change, that has to be a part of your acumen. That’s tough. This book here that I’m reading, granted I’m only a quarter of the way through it. Emotional intelligence, emotional intelligence, 2.0 and seven daily habits. All three of those books tell you in some shape or form that you can’t change anybody, and you can’t expect someone to change. So, it’s to tell someone that they need to learn this, or they need to change this and change their thought process and change their thinking is as a bit of a fallacy. I can’t tell you that, Sultan, tomorrow you can’t wear brown sweaters anymore ever because brown sweaters do X, Y, Z. And you might have a closet of brown sweaters and that might be what you wear on a daily basis. But if I told you that, you know what, you can’t. You need to bring in other colors and you need to do that immediately. You know, how open would you be to that? Because you’ve been doing this for the same thing, the same way for the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years of your life. So, two sides to that coin, expecting the change, me expecting you to change is a fallacy.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Absolutely. If we don’t change, then there’s also the possibility that we might go extinct, as is the case with so many things these days. Right. Industries are constantly changing. But if you have that mindset of not changing, there is a massive cost associated with that. And does it represent lack of business acumen for us?

 

Shamus Sayed

I could say yes, confidently. Yes. We need to be open. We need to be open minded. Absolutely. At present time, AI right now, I’m sure AI is on everyone’s mind. I follow a group called Visual Capitalist. Highly recommended. It’s a great way to waste 10, 15 minutes every day, but for something educational. And well, two weeks ago, they posted up a great chart about industries that are going to be impacted by AI. Top 10 industries. Guess what showed up as number 10? Interpretation and translation.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Absolutely.

 

Shamus Sayed

What professions? Interpreters and translators.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Our business and our industry at large are undergoing pivotal changes. As you mentioned, AI is one of them. Machine learning has introduced so many new opportunities. And then all these changes are primarily propelled by technology. And if you look at it, they are all outside forces that are forcing these changes upon us. As a leader, what do you need to keep abreast of in order to navigate this chaotic and sometimes rough waters as we are passing through these pivotal changes?

 

Shamus Sayed

Don’t be naive. Don’t underestimate what these changes could bring positively and negatively. You got to keep your eyes open. You got to keep your mind open to understand them, to learn them and how to pivot. You know, I last month, last month in April at my group session, my business group session, I brought this issue up of again, you have the opportunity to bring up an issue and the group has a discussion and guides you on how to address various issues specific to your business. So, I had 17 minds in the room talking about how helping me determine how I can work through this threat. And so that’s an interesting vantage point to have these people help guide you. But it’s having 17 people or multiple people’s vantage point is critical because it helps you see past your myopia. We know we’re so close to our businesses. And when it comes to managing change or embracing change or having that agility, that myopia is going to come in the way.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

No discussion about leadership these days is complete without talking about equal representation of gender and diversity. What do today’s LSP leaders know and have as qualities to facilitate the fostering of an inclusive leadership board?

 

Shamus Sayed

That’s a great question. Sultan, well, it lets us by virtue of our industry, we are very diverse on so many levels, on so many levels where I think we are the epitome of diverse leadership and inclusive leadership. In my opinion, I don’t think there’s much that our industry has to learn about that because we are really the example, the epitome of it. Before it was ever a subject, we were the epitome of it.

 

Just look at our ALC chat, our membership, our member chat. I might go out to say that I want nearly 90, at least 90 plus percent of our association are that from a different culture. A nice chunk of that you have a good balance of gender representation. You know, we are if you look at things that we celebrate on the chat, we celebrate all cultures from Holi to Ramadan to Yom Kippur to Christmas, Kwanzaa, we celebrate everything and we genuinely celebrate.

 

So again, I can go on various examples, Sultan. We are we’re blessed and privileged to be in an industry that by design is inclusive and diverse, naturally inclusive, and naturally diverse, not forced.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

That’s one of our strengths. I think diversity is a strength in our industry and that’s what has propelled it and strengthened it over time. So, you explain very beautifully where our industry stands today. But where do you see it going from this point, Shamus? How do you interpret the environment for leaders and people working under them in the coming few years? What type of changes do you anticipate?

 

Shamus Sayed

Change today is happening quicker than it has ever happened. Tomorrow it’ll be quicker than today and so forth. We the industry is going places that we didn’t think we’re going to go 10 years ago today. We didn’t realize some of these things were going to be taking place. We need to be aware of it. We need to be on top of that. We need to just embrace the change and work with it and be open to it. Again, I bring this up again. We cannot be myopic in our thinking and in how we approach our businesses. I think that’s the environment that we need to be around.

 

And so, going back to your question is, where do you see the industry going and how do you interpret the environment? The environment is more fluid than it has ever been. And we need to embrace the right people to help us foster that and work best with it. Good to Great describes four or five levels of leadership. I’ll spare the details of each of those, but level four and five, arguably only level five. Being realistic, level four and five is really where we want to be. Level four leadership is where the top people in the organization dictate the objectives for those subordinates. Level five is where key people in every department embrace the has the ability to make those set those objectives and implement those objectives. That’s a flywheel that every department, everyone is all working towards the same objectives concurrently, simultaneously, all together. And that’s having that in the book, the analogy of having the right people on the bus.

 

So, at the bare minimum, having a level four of having the top people being fully aware of what’s happening in the industry, fully aware of how to pivot their business and steer their business, and then ultimately having the right people to do that with them and for them in various departments.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

In closing, Shamus, what advice, and words of wisdom do you have to share with LSP executives to become better businesspeople?

 

Shamus Sayed

Keep an open mind and have fun. Let’s not forget why we are doing what we’re doing. I love what I do, Sultan. I love coming in here. I love having discussions with people like you. I love learning from people like you. I have a wonderful team who put me in check on a daily basis and it’s just really keeping an open mind and having creating opportunities for your team to excel and grow. And that is tough to do when you’re in a family-runned business because the growth is limited. So, trying to find avenues to help your team become better is going to be a key piece of advice. And that’s something I, too, need to implement and learn from.

 

But really just having fun, not losing sight of why we did this, why we are presently in it and continue to have fun. Be good. Be good to your team. Understand that you need your team, need your clients. You need your linguists all to be in harmony for you to move forward.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Shamus, those are amazing words of wisdom and something that resonates with me because I believe that leadership is all about changing people’s lives, whether it’s your own life or the people who work with you or your clients or your clients’ clients, or the end users of your clients’ products. So somehow, even if we are transforming words from one language to another, we are changing someone’s life by making them understand something better or maybe solve their problem or something like that. So, I agree with you 100 percent. If we enjoy that, if we have fun doing it and if we are open to new opportunities, I think it will be a very pleasant experience.

 

With all of that, I think we had a very fascinating conversation today and there was so much to process and learn from you. Basically, I think that this is one of the many conversations that you and I will have where I will be asking you lots of questions to poke into your wisdom and learn more.

 

The objective of my podcast is to educate and professionalize our industry. And I’m sure today we hit that, we nailed it. And with that, let me thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts with me today.

 

Shamus Sayed

Thank you, Sultan. I’m privileged and really appreciate the opportunity.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

OK, it’s time for my roundup of the interview and my analysis as to what has been discussed. The language industry is an interesting business sector where most of the service providers have some sort of a personal attachment to the business. Whether a translator became a single language service provider and formed an LLC or formulated a language service business with a plan and objective, it is clear that one must possess certain business leadership skills and basic management abilities. Among the skills needed to run a business beyond knowing about the product or service such as translation and the nature of the language pairs involved, an LSP owner or executive must also be able to understand how the finances work, how to measure the health of the company, implement business development plans, generate sales, and instill confidence to shareholders, employees, lenders, government, and other stakeholders. There are a lot of resources available to learn about these concepts, both officially through institutions like business courses offered by colleges and universities, online courses or even from mentors for hands on experience.

 

A business is only successful if its leader has a vision to grow and that can be developed and translated into actionable targets once the leader knows every aspect of their business. It pays off to learn about the business, developing the necessary acumen and traits. And I’m sure you agree our industry could use more structured discipline and professional leadership.

 

That brings us to the end of this episode. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Shamus as much as I did. Please keep your comments and feedback coming. It will help improve the content and delivery of this podcast to you. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Translation Company Talk Podcast on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your platform of choice. And make sure to give this episode a 5-star rating.

 

Until next time!

 

Outro

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