Operations, Leadership & Risk Consultant | Career Coach for Operators
pauldavidmather.com
My career began in the Army with old school boots-on-the-ground ops in Afghanistan, then I joined a very early stage Deliveroo as the 2nd ops guy and leveraged tech to automate processes. After we scaled the business 500x in 5 years, I moved to Antigua in the Caribbean and ended up becoming a digital nomad – out of necessity because Covid blew my EV business plan out of the water! I've spent the past few years consulting, coaching and mentoring for founders and operators across the world. Now I've gone full circle and am back getting my hands dirty in search and rescue and disaster response, while I find my next challenge combining my skills to make a positive impact on the world.
I've learnt that plans are never certain but planning prepares you for uncertainty. If you have a plan A, you should have a plan B... and probably C and D just in case. I find it more useful to have an overarching vision, mission and goals.
Bringing my soldiers home from Afghanistan in one piece and not causing any civilian casualties. My boss drilled it into us that doing no harm was more important than any other aspect of the mission – he was absolutely right.
I'm told I ask good questions, even if people don't always want to answer them.
Notes on my iPhone/MacBook to track priority tasks – simple and effective.
Knowing I'm not actually on fire – things could always be much, much worse.
Truly understanding your people and what makes them tick.
Ops isn't a function you can put in a box; it's the essence of an organisation that touches every person and process, and without it you're dead in the water.
In an increasingly complex and confusing world, with more tools and data at our disposal than anyone really knows what to do with, we've never been in greater need of pragmatic values-driven operators to cut through the noise, match solutions to actual problems, and leverage technology for the greater good.
Have an end in mind, and use tech as a means to reach that end faster, but don't forget the fundamentals: ops is about people and people are what matter.