“I love what I do” Chris Benjamin, Scout Motors

CDN: So, Chris, fascinating discussion about leadership. I’m interested in how you built a team. I mean, Scout. We have just seen the two concepts come out. They look incredible. When you arrived at Scout Motors, there wasn’t a team.

CB: Correct.

CDN: How did you find them and how have you nurtured them to deliver these concepts in such a short space of time? CB: Yeah, yeah, May of last year. It’s interesting because designers that I have on my team are super talented, very dedicated, and at the end of the day, they’re like, cool, you know, and we have a great rapport. A lot of them have worked for me before, so obviously now we have a team of 45. So in a space of 18 months, not only did we design both these vehicles and make the concept cars, but I hired 45 people.

And I think that’s just a testament to my leadership style. I always connect with people on a personal level. What’s important to them, what feels right to them, what do they need? Right? Because for me, like, the creative side of it is a given. I’m not going to hire you if I don’t know how good you are. So that part for me is a separate issue. A lot of leaders talk about loyalty and, you know, being loyal to your company, to who hired you. I don’t talk about that with my team. I feel that if I treat them the way I wanted to be treated when I was in their position, at their level, they will do whatever needs to be done, and they do. And then you earn that loyalty.

They know I’m not going to ask them to do anything that I can’t also do. So if I ask someone to build a model, show me this in 3D, they know I can also do it and have done it. And most design leaders can’t still use the tools, can’t still sketch or do Photoshop or build a car in 3D and alias. But it’s something that I’ve always prided myself on, not being too far away from the craft. I have two teenagers, they both love art. My 17-year old is a senior in high school. He wants to go into entertainment arts. And so that has kept me also up to speed, like helping them, showing them techniques, whether it’s Photoshop or whatever it might be. Yeah, it’s fun. At the end of the day, I absolutely love what I do.

CDN: One, one question that came up, and you made a very interesting point. And that was about AI and this mantra that you. It wasn’t necessarily a mantra, but you said, don’t feed the machine.

CB: Yeah.

CDN: Maybe unpack that a little bit. Because AI is the thing that we talk about a great deal.

CB: There are tons and tons of content creators on Instagram and I love their work. Some I didn’t know were AI at the beginning, and then now they have to put the AI label on. But I still like all of them because they’re super cool. So I have no problem with the premise of it. I just don’t want it to get too good so that designers feel obsolete. If you’re in leadership, you’ll never be obsolete because you have to think about the whole process. You have to think about what the customers want. You have to work with the other members of the leadership team. So in the position I’m in, I’m not worried. It doesn’t. AI doesn’t threaten my job.

CB: But for creative designers who are still from scratch, conjuring things out of thin air, it’s them that I’m more defensive of. It has nothing to do with whether I’m against AI or not. I think AI is cool, it’s fun, it’s all of that stuff. But I prefer people, I prefer my team. So it’s pretty simple.

CDN: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for talking to us, Chris. We appreciate your thoughts.