Richard Mulholland, South Africa’s radical boardroom rock ‘n roller

“Question Everything,” reads the tattoo on Richard Mulholland’s arm, and that includes the tattoo itself. He wears it, among many others, as a badge of pride, a declaration of his disavowal of common wisdom and outmoded ways of thinking and doing business. 

A serial entrepreneur and founder of Missing Link, one of South Africa’s leading presentation companies, Richard takes a Rock ‘n Roll approach to getting the job done and the message across. He does it with flair, grit, “delusional self-belief” and a good dose of hardcore energy, rooted in his early days as a sound and lighting technician for bands on the road. Kicking out at convention, Richard spreads the gospel that innovation doesn’t begin when you start doing something new, it begins when you stop doing something old. He cleared some space in his hectic schedule to chat with Ruda about his love of change, the joys of family and fatherhood, and why he would rather be significant than be rich.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Change Exchange, my guest today, Richard Mulholland…How shall I…In which box shall I put you? A serial entrepreneur? An expert on communication? How do you describe yourself?

I prefer how you describe me. It sounds nice to be an expert or a serial entrepreneur. The truth is I think I’m a bit of a passionate hobbyist that pursues interests with a vengeance until I get bored.

Well, that sounds like a success recipe. But we’ll get there. So, you were born in Scotland. And, I suppose, the first really big change in your life was when your parents brought you here? You were nine?

Yes, that’s correct.

If you think back, or if you look back on that now, how has that influenced your life?

Okay, well, I’ll state the obvious of being in a different place meeting different people, having a different perspective. Also, living in South Africa gives you a very different perspective on things. There were subtler changes that were very important. First of all, the reason why the change happened, the reason why my parents moved, is they wanted to hit a bit of a reset on their relationship. I think they felt that they were going in one direction that they weren’t comfortable with. And they both decided that they needed a significant change if they were going to make a go for it.

And did you, as a child, know that?

I think we were aware. I was the youngest of three, and we were starting to be aware of the problems that my parents were having. And I guess it’s kind of exciting – that next year, for their 50th wedding anniversary, we’re going back to the little town in which they got married as a family, to all be together. So just the act of that change was so important because I think to many degree it’s why my parents are still together and great and fantastic. That’s what they needed – a reset button.

And it showed you at a young age that one can actually take control in that way – that you can make a change.

It’s very very hard to read the label from inside the bottle. And sometimes if you want to make a meaningful change in your life, you have to help yourself. And often the best way to do that is to make another a different meaningful change and put yourself in a different situation. And all of a sudden … I always say to people it’s amazing how we find these different little things to become enemies on. It could be a religion or it could be different politics or points of view. But if an alien invasion started tomorrow, all of a sudden that would seem small and we would all be in it together. And I think that’s what happened with my parents maybe … it’s to some degree they were against each other. They were in this parochial little Glasgow region Scottish community. And all of a sudden they were two outsiders in a new place and they had to bond together. And I really think that that probably drew them together. It kept them together here.

As a young person you traveled around together with rock bands doing their lighting.

Yes.

How did you get into that?

I used to love a band called Depeche Mode and my father was very involved in Rock and Roll and always in broadcasting. And he worked for sound for SABC for many years. That’s why we came out here in the first place … It was a job offer. And when Depeche Mode came, I said to me dad: “Please, I’ll do anything!” The word I used was: “I’ll lick the stage clean for free if you can get me some work.” And he did and I was supposed to be a one little … a stint as a stage hand. But I really enjoyed it and I didn’t have much else I was doing. I was doing some sales work and some waitering. So I’d find a way to manoeuvre myself to constantly be there and then it was a job and I managed to grow quite well there. It became my first kind of obsession.

And if you’re going to be a runner on a set, be the best runner.

Yes. Well I put myself everywhere. Whatever needed to be done, I said I’ll do that. To the point where I realised that there was a problem with offloading and onloading of trucks, so I paid the truck driver to let me sit in the trucks with him. So I can get to the different venues and always be there when they needed me. And I tried to make myself as necessary as you can be as a stage hand until somebody noticed and said: “Hey, come and work with us.”

So what brought that to an end? Did you grow up?

Firstly, there was a couple of things. First thing was the realisation that I was offered the next step, which was a world tour. And I realised … So I went back to my girlfriend at the time, who became my wife and we discussed it. And the realisation was that if I did that … we were all pretty young and that was the end of it. And I decided that I didn’t want that. And I think I also always knew that it was a young man’s job and it felt like a nice novelty, that for me it didn’t feel like something that I was going to do for the rest of my life. So I thought that I’m not willing to sacrifice this at this stage of the game and I decided not to. And the second that I realised that I was never going to take the next logical step, then I felt like I was going to stagnate if I stayed. And so for me it was a very easy decision at that point.

Is that when you started Missing Link, your own company? Or was there something in between?

The only thing that happened in-between was I went to my boss at Gearhouse, the company I was at, and I said to him: “I’d like to explore other avenues, not on the road and I’d like to start a division within the business itself.” And even there, I kind of manoeuvred as much as I could and put myself where most people didn’t want me and I became the marketing manager and I started a commercial division called PSL Conference Services. So I would sell the Rock and Roll kind of stuff to big corporates. And after I did that for about a year and I was maybe 21 just turning 22, I realised that I was solving the wrong problem. You don’t fix a bad conference with pretty lights – you fix a bad conference with better content. So I had no idea what I was doing but I knew that I was frustrated enough with how it bad was to get interested in it. And that’s why I started a presentation company; not because I loved presentations, but because I really disliked them.

And you were 22 and you believed you could do this? Better than the people who were doing it?

I always … So, one of my principals is that with entrepreneurs, is that when you’re starting you have to have … the most important asset you have is not money or funding or anything. It’s delusional self-belief. Self-belief in yourself and your mission or whatever it is you’re on that defies logic. And it completely defied logic, but I believed it whole-heartedly – so much so that the people around me thought that if this guy believes it that much then it must be true. And when I think back to some of the rubbish I spoke in those meetings, in those days – I had no idea what I was doing. But I said it with such conviction that people bought into it and got excited as well. And luckily I was open to enough to learning that over the years we got better because I believed in the mission enough. I believed the hate … the thing that frustrated me enough, I was hell bent on fixing it. and that’s how we built up the company. That was 20 years ago.

So, what exactly do you do?

Well the company has evolved. I guess with the same purpose. With that business, at that time is … the language used is that we wanted people to suck less in public. I believe that if you’re standing up and you have something important to tell people, but you’re boring them to tears, you are never going to get your point across.

Duh!

But yet people do it every day! They stand up and they deliver these messages and they deliver these presentations to people in a way that is all about them and is not about the audience. And even with just that basic understanding, I was already ahead of the curve of what my client were doing. And for years we built up … we wanted to become the most meaningful presentation company in the world. And once we had been appointed by TED to be the official trainer of their TED Fellows programme and trained many TED speakers around the world, I realised that we had reached a point where I feel like I achieved a level of mastery in that regard and I wanted to do something else. I also realised that it doesn’t matter how well you communicate your business strategy if your strategy is flawed at the beginning, then you just communicated the wrong thing anyway. So we wanted to get deeper into the source of the problem.

Let’s go back to the beginning just for moment. Who was your first client … who first paid you money to do this?

What happened was, that while selling for Gearhouse where I was at … and also I built up some relationships as the marketing manager, I was brought in to do a job for the Airports Company and a lady by the name of Charmaine Lodewyk, and I was setting up the lighting sound in AV and when I looked at the presentation stuff they were doing I said this is just not good. I know a designer guy who can help you with this and he was a person who helped me with the marketing and it was never meant to be a company, and I phoned him and I said: “Tim, can you help out?” And he said yes. And I ended up having to consult and it was a complete fluke and I made a bit of a kickback and I though, okay, this is quite nice and I feel like I’m doing a better job. So I was trying to value-add, so it was a bit of a happy accident. By the time I quit Gearhouse we had five employees and had become a bit of a business already.

How did you get to TED?

I attended in 2005, first of all. And Malcolm Gladwell had written a book called “Blink” and the premise of that book was that if you look at somebody, you’ll make a decision in a split second and you’ll never change it. And I challenged that – I felt like this was a flaw because I felt like part of the reason we’ve been successful is that people misjudge us when we walk into the room. At first, you think that these idiots, and how do they look and things. And over the course because they put me at a two out 10 and at the end of the meeting, if I left at a seven out of 10, I’d please them by five. Whereas if somebody walked in at a five and left at an eight, they please them by three and we were winning work doing this. So I wanted to challenge him and I knew he was speaking at TED in 2005, so I applied to be there and then I applied to do a three-minute speaking slot called “First Impressions Lie”. And I ended up getting to do it. Ironically he had cancelled at the last minute, so he never arrived, but I was … that was what started and I attended 2009, 2010 and we’ve been chatting and in 2011 they asked us if we would do coaching and they’d heard about our business and thing like that.

What is the one thing that people need to know about presentations?

That you have to buy their attention before you sell them anything. You have to give them a reason to care.

In that moment? Or about the bigger thing, whatever you’re talking about?

You have to buy their attention … let’s go to TED for a second. I remember seeing a guy speak – his name was Garik Israelian and he does this talk on spectroscopy, which is basically the study of gases in space. And he’s talking about all these … it’s a very intellectual audience and he is talking about all these intellectual things. About this telescope he is building to see certain gasses in space and you’re trying to listen, you’re trying to stay interested. And you’re doing your best and you can just see people tapping out throughout the audience as he talks on and on. And then at the end of it he says : “And that’s how we’re going to prove to people if there’s life on another planet.” And then, I’m thinking, geez, lead with that. If you open with …

Hook them in first!

Hook them in with something they care about – guys I’m going to talk to you about something. If it was me I would have probably done something like: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m so excited to be here at TED 2020 to answer a question that we’ve been asking for all of time. Is there life in another planet? And I can tell categorically that the answer is … but I’m getting ahead of myself. This actually started 10 years before.” Draw them in, make them … you have to make them get invested in your message. But we don’t do that, we just kick-off and we start talking.

I always said to producers on Carte Blanche and other programmes when I trained them: “Think of the promo line first. On Sunday night … what … why should people watch?” And that’s what you’re also looking for … that … anyone who’s ever written a headline knows that.

That is exactly why funnily enough why I would watch Carte Blanche episodes. Not because I would watch Carte Blanche episodes but because something would happen in the promo during the week that would make me think, I care about that. The moment I care about that I’ll work through everything you make me work through if I care enough to get there. So I’ll listen to the back story and the preamble of all these things because I want to get to that hook. And if you can make your audience … if you can create an itch in your audience’s mind that they want to scratch they’ll hang on for anything. But people don’t do that, they walk up to strangers and they just give them a scratch. Without the itch, we don’t want the scratch and I think that’s what we need to fix in presenting.

You wrote a book called “Legacide”.

Yes.

What does it say and why did you feel it was necessary?

It says that legacy thinking is a silent killer of innovation. We solve problems that exist and then at some point in business, I realised this myself … it was a lesson I learnt for myself and then I realised it was broadly applicable. I set out to solve a problem in 98 around presentations, or in 97 and how they should look and be. And then I solved it to some degree and I managed to get some momentum. But you don’t make money in the solving of a solution or problem; you make money when you’re finding a solution. So for the next 10-odd years I was trying to make a solution better. How can I deploy faster, how can I do it better and all of these things. And it was in on day when I realise that why is everything slowing down, why aren’t we advancing? And I said to myself: “I’m still doing the same stuff. It should still be working.” And I realised I was solving a problem that was no longer the same. When I got in to this space a presentation was an overhead transparency or a very bad PowerPoint, and at this point everyone had seen the TED talk, the Steve Jobs presentation and I was still solving problems like it was 98. And I realised that I’d taken the thing that made me successful and in the early 2000s and thought that that would still make me successful today.

And that became the box that confined you.

And we started this innovation lab called 21 Tanks and we thought that it was going to be so exciting and we’re going to make the next … whatever it is. We’re going to invent all these cool things. And over the period of a few years, we realised that innovation doesn’t happen when you start doing something new – it happens when you stop doing something old. You have to be willing to slay the legacy of your thinking in order to open opportunity for something going forward. It amazes me how often we’ll … I was running a lab with a life financial services institution yesterday and there were things that they were frustrated with and they were arguing. And I said to them, what problem when you originally solving with A and B? And not one single member of the Exco team could tell me what it was. And they all just said that by the time we joined the company, this is how they did things. And I said way back when this was designed to solve a problem and if the problem is gone; you don’t have to continue doing the solution. But we do – we just keep it as it is –doing the same thing over and over again. And that is what Legacide is about – it’s about not letting the success of the past act as an anchor for where you wanna go in the future.

You let go of one marriage for more or less the same reasons, I think?

I don’t think it was just me. But I think that was … I remember my … almost exactly that, you hit the nail on the head. My ex and I, we went for counselling and we were getting on really well and we knew it wasn’t great. We went to see a counsellor down in Cape Town and afterwards we decided to go for brunch – we went to Café Neo and we were drawing this picture and the picture basically said that up until that point … you know that the marriage working and sometimes you find yourself going down a bit of a slope and every now and then you catch yourself and you are like, wait. We’ve gone down far enough and we’re going back up the hill back to where you were. And I was drawing this with my ex, and the realisation was that she wanted me to run back up the hill and I had no interest in being that person – I wanted maybe to go down the bottom and run up to the other side of the hill. And as soon as we realised that we were at different places and we wanted to end up in different places, it was a very easy decision. We had a hug, we went home, I remember picking up the kids, we all hugged, we all cried, we shared a lawyer over a lunch as well, and that was that.

And how did it change your relationship with your kids, and being a father, being a dad?

I never, ever want to advocate a divorce to anyone. I certainly don’t want to feel like I’m this cynical person who says marriage is bad and you should be divorced. But there is a beautiful side-effect. And the beautiful side-effect was when we were married – a mom can take on so much and they do so much and I can run around, feeling like an assistant. And this is not in any way taken away from the mom, it’s just that I naturally let her lead. But when we started fighting, we were fighting about weird things like bath time and all of these things, when all of a sudden the kids will arrive at my house, where you can’t be the assistant. We had a one-year-old and a four-year-old, and all of a sudden you just have to be dad.

You’re it?

Yes, and you realise that you’re … It’s not about your presence. It’s not just about being there. It’s about “being” there. So I went from a guy that was sometimes there, to being the person that was their everything for every weekend. And it started being so nice, that it actually used to bother me when people came to visit, because this was my time with the kids. And I think that a lot of the relationship that I have with the kids is so strong because of that. So again, I don’t want to advocate it, but what I would say to dads is be very aware to the point of saying every month have a weekend with you and the kids. Make sure you take some time to get that closeness.

When they’re small?

When they’re small. Where you can’t just hand them off. Where you’re not just there to help with the baths and the chores and the things like that. Be fully responsible for your kids, as often as you could. I used to think that if my ex wanted to go to the shops and she was leaving me two kids, I’d think: “I can’t see me like this. How can I care for two children?!” And then I had to and I realised that they don’t break and I was fine. So it made me mature as a dad – a lot. In retrospect I think I’ll have a lifetime of gratitude for that maturity.

And now you’re married again? How did that happen? How did you know that here was a person … That a new partnership could work?

I was so scared. I was petrified. It’s hard not to look …

How long were you on your own?

Not that long. I dated … I actually realised … The first thing that I’m not great by myself. I think that I … It’s bizarre … Because I’m very much of an introvert, so I need to not be with many people, but I need to be with someone. I need to have a person. But when I met my wife, I had no intention – I’d say I’m never getting married again, and this is absolutely it. And this was mostly out of fear … It was a fear that if I got divorced once, I still see it when I look back at my life … I have not failed at many things. But no matter what happens, no matter how I look back at my marriage and see the success with the children and even the time with my ex … It broke, and it wasn’t supposed to. So it’s hard not to chop that up as a failure. And generally what I’ve learned is when you’re really bad at something, try not to do it again. So I decided I wasn’t going to, but when I met Jasmine, I realised that … there was a lot of times … First of all she didn’t have the benefit of that. So for her, she hadn’t made that mistake and she wanted to get a go at it. And you know that point when you realise it’s all very worth the risk? And if those two things happen simultaneously … The first is I realised that it’s worth the risk, and second thing I realised is that maybe risk was the wrong word. It doesn’t have to be a risk. And in the third thing, I guess I realised was: “You’re better at this.” You know, you always hear about entrepreneurs saying you have to go through the one business to make your mistakes, to learn what to do the second time round. And I am a far … But I was a bit of an ass the first time round, and I was not great. And not through lack of effort, but I think lack of experience and knowing what to do when I was young. But I think I’m better. I hope I’m better. You have to ask Jarmine, this time round …

What made you decide this was worth the risk?

Because … There was a few things. First of all …

He makes lists.

Ja. My children. My children were always happier when we were all together. And I realised that I love the idea of the family dynamic. I’m quite traditional that way. My wife’s name is Jasmine Jagger, and it was, like, a cool name. She’d say “hi”, and it’s like a cool name. And I go: “It’s going to be Jasmine Mulholland.” Because I wanted to feel like a family again. And I understand that my ex and her husband, they have a family, we have a family and I missed that. And I loved that idea of that. Now when I saw that relationship growing there, I thought that was a very special thing.

Between her and your kids?

Between her and the kids. And I knew instantly that was a very, very special thing. And sometimes I actually say to my ex … Sorry, to my wife … She’ll say: “We don’t have kids, and we’re not having kids.” And she’ll say: “I might not experience what it feels like to be a mom – because it is different. And equally – I will never get to experience what it feels like to be a step parent.” Because there are some beautiful things happening there that I’m actually quite jealous of. Because as a step parent she gets to be a parent, but she also gets to have a little bit of a friend-thing. The kids will go to her with stuff that they will never come to me with, and Marco – Andrea’s husband, as well. It’s a beautiful relationship the kids have with him that I value. I think the kids are so much better of by having …

How old are they now? 13. My son Calum is 13, my daughter is 9. Bailey. But, I think there’s a point at which you realise that you simply can’t understand the concept of your future where it doesn’t have that person beside you. And even when you try and imagine it, you realise that’s not the path you want to take. And it was a very – from absolutely not … Was a little bit of a logical couple of bit of processing I had to do to realise: “No, absolutely.” And then it became easy.

And how has it changed your life? Setting up the family again.

It made me so lazy. Because I am spoiled rotten. I really am. I live the life of Riley, but you know … I hate saying this, because I feel like I’m being disparaging to my ex – it was in no way that, it was me and not her, but I look forward to coming home. I sit and I think I could stay at work, but I could get home, because it’s fun there. And I love my job and I love my team, and … But I just … It’s just all different. And partially because I … You don’t just get married … You invest in a marriage. Right? It’s not like you put money in the bank and you count once and you leave it. You actually have to continue investing in it. It’s an ongoing investment and if you want to get that compounding return, you have to keep putting the money in to some degree. And that’s what I do now. That’s the difference. And the nice thing is we both do.

It’s a shift in focus.

Right, and priority. So that is a priority. It’s even to the point that before I thought I wanted to be rich. Now, I realise I want to be significant. And I don’t in any way tie the significance with wealth, other than that is required as a pragmatic thing. But I realise a big part of my significance is having the support of a family around me that loves me and is in my corner and vice versa. And so it has just changed everything.

And where does this happen? Where is your home … How did you decide on it? What makes it your home?

Monday to Thursday is Joburg. And Thursday to Sunday is Cape Town. That’s been nine years now, of that. And the idea is that it will end in a year – I don’t want to make ten. I’ll still have to commute every week, but I’ll just be maybe a day or two, but …

Commute up here?

Yes, up to Joburg. So the idea is to move down to Cape Town pretty much full time and then not actually have a house here. Right now I’ve got two houses, cars, motorbikes, everything is replicated. I’m a board gamer, so board game collections, everything is replicated. But home … Geez, I hate the cliché that I … It seriously feels that tonight, Jas and the kids are in Cape Town and I’m staying up in Joburg … It just … I walk into the house, I bypass the lounge, I go upstairs, I climb into bed and I treat my own home like a hotel room when they’re not there. I get onto my laptop and I watch a TV show, because it simply doesn’t feel like I want to sit around there, because the house feels completely empty. And I love my home – it’s not big, it’s not ostentatious in the least. I love it, but it’s simply a staging area, and it really is empty. And that’s just how I feel … and I hate the cliché of home is where they are, except that it’s only a cliché because to me it’s 100% true. It’s just not home – it’s just a room.

I won’t keep you. I’ll let you get back to them.

Thank you.

Thank you so very much. That was most pleasant.

Thank you very much – I enjoyed it too.

Until next time. Goodbye.

  • This interview first appeared on the Change Exchange, an online platform by BrightRock, provider of the first-ever life insurance that changes as your life changes. The opinions expressed in it don’t necessarily reflect the views of BrightRock.
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