How Might We...?

How Might We ReleaseTime In Our Business So We Can Go On a 6 Week Road Trip

The latest edition of How Might We is out.
In this edition Alexis Kingsbury talks to me about releasing time in business so you can go on a 6 week road trip. And this is not just theory, Alexis was talking to me whilst he was on his trip.
 
He shares insights and ideas on how to document processes and be able to delegate them confidently to others. How this documentation accelerates onboarding, increases performance and engages and empowers team members.
 
Alexis is an award-winning entrepreneur, with over 10 years of experience, currently running two SaaS businesses (AirManual and Spidergap) with a remote and global team. I also support others as a board member and consultant/coach (e.g. Sony Interactive Entertainment). He is an enthusiastic public speaker, podcast interviewee & facilitator, providing practical guidance to help business leaders to onboard and develop amazing teams — getting employees up to speed, reducing mistakes, and freeing up time.
 
Alexis LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexkingsbury/
Alexis Website: https://www.airmanual.co/
 
 

How Might We Guide Our Mind for Success

My guest is Adelaide Goodeve. Adelaide is an elite performance coach, who, within 10 years, went from nearly bedridden to Ironman athlete and go-to performance coach for some of the world’s best companies, leaders, teams and athletes.
In this episode Adelaide talks about her journey and how brain training helped her, and how it helps people change mindsets to become elite performers.
Adelaide's linkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelaide-goodeve/
Adelaides's website: https://www.adelaidegoodeve.com/

How Might We Learn From History To Make Better Decsions

In this Episode my guest is Brad Borkan. Brad has a great interest in how people and businesses build resilience. In this episode Brad shares his thoughts on how lessons from leaders of the past can help us make better decisions today.
Brad's first book was the award-winning book: WHEN YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT: Extreme Decision Making Lessons from the Antarctic. This book puts the reader right into the action of the life-and-death decisions made by early explorers. In it, we reveal unparalleled lessons in leadership, teamwork, and the sheer determination that can help all of us make better decisions in life. It won 1st Place in the Chanticleer International Book Awards for Insightful Non-fiction.Brad's second book, AUDACIOUS GOALS, REMARKABLE RESULTS: How an Explorer, an Engineer and a Statesman Shaped our Modern World, focuses on six epic achievements made by three extraordinary people, one of whom is Theodore Roosevelt and another is the great Victorian-era engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The book explains the mindset they each developed to make monumental impacts in their fields.
 
Transcript
Scott: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of How Mike We, And on this episode, I'm pleased to welcome Brad Balkin and we are gonna be talking about how might we learn from history, make better decisions. So, Brad, welcome. Would you like to introduce yourself
Brad: please? Hi, Scott. Great to be here. Thanks for having me on your show.
I'm Brad Borkin, as you said, and I've written two books that have to deal with history in terms of looking at great explorers and great people in history and great endeavors that were occurred in history and ask what can we learn from this? Focusing on the decision making side of these people and these endeavors.
Scott: And I think, I mean, I like decisions cuz I think we've mentioned before when we're off air is decisions are basically the precursor to every action we.
Brad: Yes, they're at the heart of, of everything. And one of the things when it came to the early [00:01:00] Antarctic explorers was there's lots of books written about them as people, about the expeditions, like what they ate and how, where they traveled and the challenges they faced.
But actually up until the, the book that my coauthor and I wrote, no one ever looked at the decisions. And we looked at the life and death decisions, which were actually the most exciting ones because they all, they all came near death all the time, but they actually very rarely ever died.
Scott: Well, I can't, I suppose dying only happens once, so Yeah, that's it.
Brad: That's that's true. But, but they, but they came, they came, they faced all sorts of commodities and, and challenges and, and you know, these, these, you know, everything from frostbite, curvy to, to flowing, harasses and, and all sorts of things and that, but somehow they, they were sort of at one level sort of indestructible.
Yeah.
Scott: I think the interesting thing is, as I say, you make a, you make a decision. I think we've talked about this as well before, is, and basically you're trying to predict the future with a decision. Cause when [00:02:00] we don't know the outcome, until we actually make that decision and enact it.
Brad: That's right. Yeah.
And, and, and actually a good, good point is, is I retired from my main job in 2021 in, in July, 2021, which coincide with to launch my second book. And inflation was 2% and the stock market was slowly growing and the world was at peace. And a year later, you know, it seemed like a sane. Normal rational decision.
Inflations at 10%, the stock market is down 25%, and the war, you know, at least Ukraine and, and Russia at war. And it's, it's just a complete un perhaps not predictable, but it's, it's the, the outcome of a decision that you, you don't know until you look back many years later on. What's that? A good decision or a bad decision?
Scott: Well see, I, my view on decisions is I think the decision, we make decisions, and usually it's one of the, with the. Capabilities we have at that time, whatever they may be with the best [00:03:00]intentions for the outcome that we want this, that that's there. So I would say a decision either has the desire, Or unexpected outcomes.
Brad: Yes. And I think one of the things that's exciting about life and about looking, whether you're looking at explorers or you're looking at, at his great people in history, is that you can't, no one could predict the future. And even for them, like, just like we can't predict the weather that well, we really can't predict what the outcome is.
Whether you're heading to the South Pole and you're running outta food and you're trying to decide what do we do next? Or you're trying to build a Panama Canal and you're dealing with workforces, dying of yellow fever and, and all sorts of other engineering challenges and building the Panama Pinella.
It's like you just, you, you make. Best decision you can. But one of the things we learned, my co-author and I figured out in looking at these great decisions and great people, was that it's not about making the best decision, it's [00:04:00] about having the resiliency to recover from a bad decision.
Scott: Okay. And I suppose that's, especially when you're talking about the, the extremes in which they were doing the Panama Canal and the and the explorers is they are extreme.
And I imagine that a decision has an impact and you can see that quite quickly. And then you have to say, make a recovery decision or a
Brad: another one. Right. But that's true in modern life as well. I mean, in a sense like we all have to make the, we all make decisions about jobs and houses and cars and all the things that we do in our, in our day to day lives, relationships, all sorts of things.
And you can strive to make the perfect decision by, I've got a friend who tr want to buy a car, and he spent years, several years analyzing, looking at websites, trying to find the perfect car. as opposed to just going, buying a car and being like, Oh, if it's not the one for me, I'll just sell it and buy another one.
It's you can't it. We have so many tools at our disposal to make perfect decisions, or we think we can make perfect decisions that we're actually [00:05:00] better off making a decision and it might be the right one. As time will tell, or it may be not a good one, but there are many different ways to recover from, from a not good decision,
Scott: I suppose, making.
Well, the other thing I'll say is not, deciding not to do anything is a decision in itself.
Brad: That's right. That's right. Yeah. And, and there's some famous quote from Teddy Roosevelt about something like, you know, the something to the effect of the best thing is to make a decision, and the worst thing you could do is just not make a decision.
It's, it's that to make. The, It's better to even make the wrong decision than to make no decision. Cause at least then you're taking action that you're not being
Scott: on the path, aren't you? Something's happening. You've got momentum, right?
Brad: And if you're on that path and it's wrong, As happened with Panama Canal, you can start making, making the right decision.
So what? Yeah, the interesting thing with the Panama Canal was that the question was do you build a sea level canal? Basically you build a big trench and let the Atlantic Ocean of Pacific Oceans fill it. Or do [00:06:00] you build a, a canal with locks as the p Panama Canal exist today? And they started out with this idea, well, you just build a big trench and.
Dig across Panama and across all the swamps and the jungles and the rain forest and you big build this big trench. And, and it, and the problem was, it was the wrong decision. You just couldn't, they, the. The soil of the clay, the, the very wet, dense material earth that's there, that kept the more they dug, the more they had landslides.
I was just destroying the work they were doing. And they had, And what they found was that, So let's go back on the original decision and say that was the wrong decision. We try to the wrong decision, now we've gotta go to build locks. And they end up building 12 locks, each lock being like a thousand feet long and you know, three times bigger than any lock ever built in the world.
And they built 12 of them in 19, you know, in the years between 1910 and 19 four. . [00:07:00] So it's looking at a decision and saying, Okay, now we've got, make the wrong decision. Now it's gonna cost a whole ton of effort and money to to, to correct it, but we will correct it, and they were successful.
Scott: So in your view of all these, the, the people that you've done, they've all not been afraid to make decisions and actually enact on something and then say, Oh, that's not quite worked out properly.
And then made have say, the resilience then to make corrective.
Brad: Exactly, exactly. You saw that, we saw this in Antarctica a lot. Mm-hmm. that there's a wonderful decision that Shackleton had to make. He was, so this is his first expedition that he led in Antarctica, and it's lesser known than the expedition where the ship got sunk.
Ice and got crushed in the ice and, and sunk and, and called the endurance expedition. And this was called the Nero Expedition. And he and four men as part of this expedition left base [00:08:00] camp, and they were treking to the South Pole and they got to roughly from the coastline to the South Pole was about.
800, 850 miles. They got to within 103 miles of South Pole and realized they were running out of food and they were either, they had this choice, which is they had choice of either we go forward. And we probably dial all the way back. Almost certainly we'll die because we don't have any food together.
Sch back and we don't have any, There's no communication methods. There's nothing that they can call back the base camp and say, Hey, come rescue us. Or they turn around. And so two years setting up an expedition, checking out 700 something miles saying, Hey, we're 103 miles from the South Pole. We just need to turn back if we're gonna live to see it another day.
And he came to the decision and you'd think, Okay, this is a binary decision. This is either we go forward and we'll probably we'll hit our goal, but we'll probably die on the way back, or we go turn back at this [00:09:00] point. And he chose a third option, which was, he said, What we're going to do, I think it was January 8th, 1909.
And he said, What we're gonna do, we're gonna leave all you know on. On this day. We're going to leave everything. The tens, the food the sweeping bags. Everything that we've got, we're gonna leave behind. We're gonna walk south as far as we can for one day. We're gonna plant the British flag and that.
Then we'll turn around, head back to, to the camp site that we had, and the next day we'll start heading back. So the question is, why did he do that? And his reasoning was to cross the a hundred mile mark that it seemed a lot better to return to Britain being, Hey, we got within a hundred miles of South Pole than to say we got 103 miles to the South Pole.
And it's that ability to say, it's to make a decision, but to say, often we as human beings wanna find, make a binary decision. We wanna say, Is it A or B? Is it X or [00:10:00] Y? Is it Stop or go? Is. , you know, forward to back and he's was able to say, Look, there are third dis, there are third options. Yes, we have to go back if we're gonna live.
But taking that one extra day to plant the flag that much further meant to think it was sort of declare victory. It wasn't of, it wasn't a real victory, but it was a enough of victory that they go back to England and he could start raising money for another expedition.
Scott: So I think the thing for me is When your decision making is looking at the impacts of our decisions as well.
So and so we could stop here. It'd be a failure. We can go on and we can die. And you say there's, they see quite binary and he, he somehow picked up that third. And I think that's really important for how we're in business today and moving forward. Cuz the world is very ist binary.
Brad: Exactly. And I think this is the thing that, but it, But our human brains really like this.
We really like to. Make a decision. And I think when [00:11:00] you get into boardroom decisions, you find that, as, you know, as teams of people are analyzing things in big corporations that's trying to be like, Okay, I gotta get, you know, make, help the boss make the right decision. You've gotta go into the boardroom and be like, Here are your choices.
Your choices. A, your choices B. And often the choice is way more complicated than that, but it's been boiled down to A or B because that's easy to go to a boardroom and say, Here are your choices CEOs, cfo, whoever, and, and this way, you know, and, and here's my recommendation, as opposed to being, Well, what's search, searching for that third alternative that may be.
Not a, not B, but something that will enable us to plant a flag. And, and it, it may be a better solution. Cause you can't, like we were saying, we can't predict the future. Mm. So
Scott: even if it had gone to that day, somebody could have got injured or something that could have never made it back or whatever. So there was no guarantee of actually still being alive in the Arctic.
It would just reduced the risks. Of death. [00:12:00]
Brad: Yes, exactly. Everything's, everything's calculated risk, but it's, it's trying to say what, what gives you momentum? So it's, it's yeah, it, it's, it's fascinating. It's a fascinating study of when you're looking at people like Imbar Kingdom, Renell, like Teddy Roosevelt, like Gold Robinson, who was the first head of South Pole and first through the Northwest passage.
You looking at Shackleton or Scott or any of these people or any really anybody in, in, in history that, that they're just, they're one of, and one of the things we learned as well, which was interesting was none of them had an easy. Path. They, we look at people today and I think we often glamorize that, Oh, someone, you know, someone was successful because it was really easy for them.
And when you look at someone like Teddy Roosevelt, born into a wealthy family, could have he was very intelligent. He was very sickly as a young boy. He could have just put his feet up and. I just wanna indulge my, my fascination with the natural world and [00:13:00] collect rocks and insects and, and study mammals and, and birds and, and all the things that he was fascinated by.
But he decided that's not the life he wants to lead. He wants to live, lead a life that gives back to. To the world and went into politics. So it's an interesting thing. You think, Well then, yeah, but even for him, it must have been easy. And it was, you know, the press was brutal to him as, as a presser today.
And, and, and so people, we look at them and they be like, Oh wow, that guy had an easy, that woman had an easy, and it's not like that they had. Real, honest to God challenges that they, they overcame and all of them brunel allinson, all these people had real, real obstacles that they constantly hit. But what was different about them was that they were able to overcome them, or they saw them with a different mindset than, than most people do.
Scott: I, there's, there's something that, there's a guy called Astro Teller. He runs Google. [00:14:00]Google. It used to be Google X. And I think one of your things you are saying is we're gonna try something. If it doesn't work, that's fine. Because we are gonna learn on the way.
Brad: Exactly, exactly
Scott: we are. Well, and the story he talks is about is when Google were creating their drive driverless car and he's talk about the driver's car and he is having an, they're doing it.
And they came from this assumption goes, this goes back to what you're talking about, the pan maar. There was an a canal. Sorry, There was an assumption built into that. That we would have some level of control still as drivers. Like people say, You're not gonna, we're not gonna be fully autonomous. We're gonna have some level of control.
He said, But when they actually got to the point of testing people in the car, they realized that no people didn't do that. The, actually, the behavior of people was, I'm not driving this and now I, I will not stay alert cuz they just, they just won't do it. So they then had to go back to the drawing. And the key assumption that whole design ethos was built on was changed overnight.
And it's their willingness to say, Okay, doesn't work here. It won't work in its present format. And it's either, it's [00:15:00] too big an obstacle, so we do then have to learn to ditch, ditch it, or we still think we can overcome that obstacle by doing it this way.
Brad: Yes, yes. You can't, you've gotta bake human. Nature into these things and, and you can't just, just automatically assume that that people will always make the right decision.
And yeah. One of the things, actually, one of the interesting ar areas that I've gotten involved in is disaster. Response management and emergency management. So I've been writing articles for a magazine called Crisis Response Journal, which is for people who are the, when there's a flood, earthquake tornado, hurricane, whatever, that these are the people who set up the.
That either they're working for charities or working for government. They're working for private sector, they're working for nonprofits. They're, they're the people come in and try to try to support humanity and the, the masses of people who are affected by these, these natural disasters. And what I'm trying to do is draw the lessons from [00:16:00] people like Shackleton and Scott and SSON and, and Roosevelt and different people into helping crisis managers look at how these people are from history and look at crises.
And it's, it's an, it's a, it's a different application to, to decision making. You've gotta take into account how humans make decisions. And I got drawn into this area because when I was in graduate school and I was studying decision sciences, the, I got involved working for a professor, and the professor was doing a.
This is many years ago, and the study was about floods and earthquakes and saying, public policy is based on the idea that, and lets talking about America, that people may live in a flood prone area, but if the government offers low cost flood insurance, they'll buy it because there, if the house is risk of flooding, Well, it would make sense, Wouldn, if you know the flood insurance isn't too expensive, you think people living in front point areas, they know they're in the [00:17:00] flood front areas, they'll naturally buy the insurance.
The whole organization will work well because people are insured against this risk. And what our study showed was people don't behave rationally. And when we get down to these low probability situations and a flood and earthquakes, low probability situation, even a flood print area, The people don't behave rationally.
They'll, they'll take a low probability and, and discount it down to almost zero. . But alternatively, when you look at a lottery, people look at a lottery ticket and being like, Well, of course I'm, I could win when the odds are so much greater at not win. You know, the, the, the, when is a really, really low probability, for example, winning lottery.
Mm-hmm. , we up that probability. And so humans have this real mix of how we deal with things. So with the driver, less cars is, is the same thing, which is you might think, well, people behave rational. They'll always be looking out for their, their safety. And if everybody is, [00:18:00] is no, we're actually really good at tuning things out, or misjudging or saying, Well, the probability, the, the driver, the autonomous car will work properly.
Is enough that I can just tune out. So it's so, yeah, so it's, it's interesting when you're looking at human nature and looking at policy and looking at how do you deal with things, whether it's floods and earthquakes, whether it's adventure explorers and things
Scott: like, I think that's the question, isn't it?
Don't, don't do what you think people should do, but what people are actually gonna do. And there is a difference.
Brad: Yes. Yes. There great difference. And I think it's real. It's, and that's what's absolutely fascinating is that you and, and it is, it is often hard to predict. And that's sort what, what leads to trends and fads and, and different things when you think, I
Scott: think that as a game in psychology called the ultimatum game And I, I can't remember if I can get, I've gotta try and explain this to people who aren't, cause I can't draw it.
So imagine you're, you're in pairs, so you've got a group of pairs. So you might be B and rba, and I've got a hundred dollars and I'm a, And I say to you, I [00:19:00] don't say to you, You get an offer from me of how many. So I might say to you, I'm gonna give you so many dollars. Out of that a hundred. You have a choice, you accept it or don't.
Okay? So just automating me either gonna say yes or no. There's no negotiations. There's no communication. If you say yes, We both get what was agreed. If you say no, we both get nothing. So unless you were offered zero, logically you should say yes to everything because it's a, is financially beneficial for you.
Even if I say, Well, I'll give you $1, you say yes, you're gonna walk away with a dollar you didn't have. I'll walk away with 99, but you'll walk away with the one. But I believe it's a around about 35%. Once people drop below 35% of. Being offered. So anything under $35 out the hundreds, the, the amount of no expense goes up.
Wow. Okay. So that decision is based, I, I believe that decision is based on fairness. People saying, So I think in organizations, whatever [00:20:00] decisions say, Well, they should say yes, they can be a benefit from, they say, Well, if they say no, it might not, because they're not looking at the benefit, but they're looking, Well, I'm not letting you get away with it.
And if I have to suffer because of that, then that's fine. Great. Cause it's not there. And I don't want to be party to an unfair decision that I'm on end of mm-hmm. . Yeah.
Brad: Yeah. And we see this in business all sort, or in all sorts of different ways. I was talking with somebody the other day about, remember the Blackberry phones with the little keyboards on them and how Blackberry's like, Whoa, we're gonna focus on making the keyboard better and better and better because people are saying these long emails with our, with our phones.
And then all of a sudden the world just changed to text messages. And I think there was a story that. The person or the small team that invented text messages thought no one would ever use them. They're like, Well, we can do this thing, but probably never take off. And, and Blackberry went out of business because their, their focus was on something that was like, you know, e sending emails by phone was not as much fun as sending [00:21:00] by phone.
And you could do that without the fancy keyboard.
Scott: Yeah. I, I think there, there history litter didn't there with people who made decisions, they. Decisions based on information they had about predicts in the future. And those decisions turned out to be less than ideal. And it's then again, it's how quickly can that organization, that person, that then realize that they're on the wrong path.
Brad: Yeah. Surpri surprising. How many don't realize that? I mean, Google and Apple are very good at at, at realizing, oh, we're taking the wrong path and we they course correct. And then you look at places like Blockbuster. Blockbuster had a chance to buy net Netflix for $50 million and turned it down because at that point, they were opening one new store every 17 hours.
They were just going into every high street in the UK and the US and, and just you and, and they thought, who, you know, Netflix is just some online streaming service. We don't need this. [00:22:00]We, you know, it's, and, and, And then you look at, at other situations, whether it's you know, book sellers getting preempted by Amazon, whether it's but there's so many examples of, you know, even, even Kodak and Kodak actually invented the digital camera.
Which is sort of not always known because people are like, Well, Kodak was just doing film, but that was their focus. They were doing film and then a team within the Kodak realized they could make digital cameras, and the company was so focused on making film. They're like, No, no, that's just, that's never gonna take off.
Okay. But they never went back to it. They didn't go back to it quick enough or, or fast enough. But then other companies do, I mean, like Apple, hp, a lot of companies haven't made mistakes and, and of course
Scott: corrected. I don't, I don't think there's a journey where there hasn't been, Oops. Yeah, along the track, isn't it?
There's gonna be bumps along. So things happen that we don't expect or we say when we have got all the information available to us. And yes, we [00:23:00] say we, we, we believe we are good at decisions, but in some ways we are quite flawed in our decision making process. So there's a book called Thinking Fas, either Think Fast, Think so, or Thinking Fast Thinking.
Yeah. Think. Yeah. Right. And he talked about and the amount of information you said, like you said, we've got so much information we zone lots out and we kind of go into autopilot to make decisions. And sometimes these complicated decisions we simp. Then it's easier for us to make them cuz we like elections.
He talks about elections as a result and we kind of said, you like this person or that person. That's how we kind of make a choice, not really looking at the manifesto and the policies too much.
Brad: Yes. I mean, if there's playing out without getting too much into policy instead of playing out big time in the US right now with the Supreme Court decisions and the fact that people are like, Oh, I can't believe they just did this, you know, to returning Roe v.
Wade and. It was so clear that the, the, it was, but people wanted to photogenic or they didn't feel Hillary was photogenic enough or, or [00:24:00] it, it, she didn't have the right persona for, for television or whatever. It's, it's just, it's fascinating how you'll make decisions. They make decisions about, Things.
They vote on things, they do things, jobs they take, and we do this all the time. And relationships. Mm-hmm. , there's a fascinating book by Malcolm Gladwell and I'm trying to think of the name of it, but it's, it's about the idea that. We are actually, as humans are not, we think we're really good judges of character.
We think we meet someone, we can assess them, assess them, or assess them out within a few seconds. And what he approves in this book over and over and over again is we're actually terrible at that. And our ability to dilute ourselves, I think, Oh, that person looks like a criminal. That person looks like they're a good person.
That person looks like they'd be a, a kind, generous person, and they're trying to be, be a rat bag or a crook or a an evil doer. And, and, and it's, [00:25:00] but we're actually actually very bad at, at, at judging. Other humans and it's and I mean there are many, many high profile cases he go, There's one very interesting one about a CIA spy, a spy who was in the cia.
And he think all these people in the CIA would absolutely know. If there was a spy among, among them, and they didn't. The person was just so good at hiding it and everyone just assumed, well, she seems like a nice person. She does all sort of nice things and, and does her work, and she's really commended and she like commended by the president, one of the presidents this going back 20 or 30 years.
But, you know, one of the presidents will, you know, she got, gave her like some fast award and it's like, and yeah, at the same time she has a complete spy. For Cuba. It's like, you know, and, and you know, everyone just just assumed that, Oh, it's just you a nice person. It's, they must
Scott: be nice. And so we have these flaws.
All of us have these flaws in our decision making process. And you've looked at things in the past about people who, yes, they've had their [00:26:00] flaws and we've talked, they're not perfect characters, but they've created. Amazing outcomes through decision making process and their resilience. So what do you think are the key things that sort of maybe stands in the part or the key lessons that you've learned?
I think one,
Brad: one of them is that they're very good at building teams that have very simple goals. Mm-hmm. like a single goal. And that goal of, of whether it's Amison taking a team of, of seven people through the Northwest passage. Northwest passage is a was the sea route that has been desired for over 400 years.
And, and famous people like Sir John Franklin and all these different, Henry Hudson, all these different explorers and adventures, tried to find it, which is literally a sea route that goes from from Greenland across Northern Canada. To the top of Alaska, to Asia, and no one can see no one because they're all the little islands and all [00:27:00] these ice formations and it's very hard to, it was impossible for people to find a, a secret through and am is like, he studies it and studies it and go like, the secret to this is a small team with a single purpose, which is we're going sale a various, Everyone's like, No, you can't take a small ship through that sort of ice crusted, you know, all these islands, A lot of unmapped areas.
and yeah, there, there are places where this, the water is so shallow, you, you, that you only have a few inches of water that you're, you're, you know that. And so a small boat can sail better than a big boat. But it's, it's, it's just a fascinating story of someone saying, Oh, you know what the, the, the secrets A small team that's very focused with a mixture of, you know, typically these teams were all white males.
But he, the teams were diverse in that some people were naval people, some people were scientists, some people, they had all these different skills and he was able to form me Teams, Shackleton did the same, [00:28:00] kept us gotten into the same, He formed teams that are made up of multiple different types of skills and backgrounds, different nationalities.
Then and, and as we said in the Antarctic and. With Amison and the Northwest Ps there happening to be all white males, but within that structure, they were, they were quite diverse. And so diversity singleness of purpose was, were key, key elements.
Scott: So, so for leaders today, say, like, look at your team, say, how can you then bring those, that diversity, the strengths within that team, into that team to say, it may not be, Gender diversity.
You may not have racial diversity, but you do have cognitive diversity and skills based.
Brad: right now. What's interesting is that so, so sometimes we think of diversity as just being, well, we're just ticking boxes. Mm-hmm. So we've gotta have different people. And what our studies showed [00:29:00] is that it's not about ticking boxes.
And a few of, there are many other studies that by other people have done this as well, which is that that diversity gives you diversity of. Gives you diversity of reactions. So where one, one person, if you took a all people being very homogenous, they may all react in the same way as opposed to someone else saying, Wait a minute, what about this alternative or that alternative or, or what if we took this approach or that approach?
And so diversity gives you strength. It does is not just a box of tick exercise. The more homogenous the groups were, the more challenges they had. And we saw that you see this in some of the various Antarctic and Arctic expeditions. Like why the, the ones we studied there were six. There were two by Shackleton, two by Scott.
One by Robinson, one by Mosson that we studied in our first book. They were quite diverse in terms of, of being this, this mix of scientists and military people and, and other people as well. So it's what [00:30:00] Chap, you know, one of his exhibitions that still awake. So it's like, so then you got, there's like random guy, he just shows up because he's been starving in a closet for a couple days and then when they, they're heading down towards Antarctica.
This guy, this young man staggers out of, out of the, the closet being like, you know, I'm one still on the ship. And what's funny, the good Shackleton did say here, so this, that slightly over. Young man and Shackleton drags him up on deck when a friend of all the other men and says I'd throw you overboard if I could, but I can't.
But I'll tell you, if we ever get into trouble, you'll be the first one we eat. And ,
Scott: that's, that gives somebody confidence. Isn't that, Sit again, Please don't get into trouble. Please don't get into trouble. Right. Great. Cost quite high. Exactly. Okay, so we've got a diverse group and I, I totally agree with you and I'm, I'm a great fan of inclusion and getting people involved in.
If you want a system to change or a system to evolve, get the system involved in the conversation which comes from like appreciative inquiry and appreciate, appreciate those people around you [00:31:00] and sort of dig out their strengths and encourage 'em. Okay, And this singleton, of course, a very clear purpose.
What are we doing? What we're
Brad: trying to achieve? There was one other thing as well, which was they always had a second in command. Mm-hmm. . Even in a small team, sometimes even in a team with three people, you'd have a team lead and you'd have a person who was the second in command. Now whether that was designated as a second in command or whether it was.
Sort of just a facto based on the person's experience or knowledge or, or skills. And especially in situations where you had seven or eight people and you had a team and you had a second in command, you'd be like, Why do you need a second in command is such a small team. The what was happening, and actually I've, I worked, the company I worked for prior to retiring was.
German software company and so like a hundred thousand people in the company. But the, the team I was in was fairly small and I was reporting someone who was a second command and, but I often also report to his boss. And so I had this sort of strange structure, but I was very similar to [00:32:00] what was in the Antarctic was, was that you could go to the second command and say, I don't really understand this task.
Now, I wouldn't necessarily wanna go to my boss and say that the boss's or his boss or I wouldn't wanna go higher up in the company and say, I don't really understand this task I, but you might wanna say, Hey, I don't understand this task, or, I don't like this person I need to work with. Or, We've got this inter personal conflict that we need resolution on.
You can go the second in command. Without bothering the main guy. Mm-hmm. . And the main, main moment, and, and I think this is where this second command structure works really well in that it gives you the ability to take a grievance, take a challenge, take a problem, and resolve it without. Someone going like, So that's a ding on your mark cuz you don't know how to do that.
Or you're just a troublemaker or you're just, or you're just lazy or, or it's just not getting done and all of a sudden you, the person's procrastinating. Procrastinating cuz they, they haven't [00:33:00] been able to say to someone, I don't know how to do this. And all of a sudden the deadline hits. And it's not done, or it's not done well.
So it's just like a, it's a, So that's another, another criteria, another method that they used.
Scott: So have a deputy second in command, somebody that people feel comfortable talking to and approaching with. Some of the, I'd say maybe more operational day to day issues. They're, they're, they're facing. Exactly.
Exactly. And then, so then the person in the leads is, is doing the, say, the more leadership strategic type of stuff and not getting bogged down into that operational stuff. Right. Oh, and then any micromanages listening. Any micromanages listening today. Right. Okay. We're gonna add something
Brad: else. Right. And and one of the other things was, was never giving up.
I think it's not about, N not when you hit a dead end, it's not like saying, Okay, this is a dead end. [00:34:00] I'm going to stop. It's like this is a dead end. I'm gonna try something else. And so this never giving up. It's not necessarily saying You're gonna go on a straight line. I'm just gonna keep going, going, going, going to like collapse.
It's going to keep going. Then I'm going to hit obstacle and maybe I'll try to break through that obstacle, but maybe I'll need to go rounded obstacle or maybe I need to change, change course completely. And I think we, we saw this with some of the things Brunelle was doing. We saw it with some of the things Roosevelt was doing and, and the explorers that, that the, the main thing was perseverance.
It was, but perseverance doesn't mean just bang your head into a wall at time, after time, after time. It's trying to be like, Okay, I've tried and now I've hit this wall, and now I'm going to turn sideways and try to get another route through. and, and I mean that there are very real instances of that where you hit a CVAs field and [00:35:00] you're trying to go through a, a glacier and there are CVAs and you go like, Okay, we just need to start going sideways.
We can't go through, don't wanna fall on kvass. So we just need to start going sideways until we get by away from the kvass field. Mm-hmm. , which is sort of a visual way of thinking out, but those sorts of similar sorts of things happen in, in all rocks of life.
Scott: Okay, so we come a against something perhaps we weren't expecting or some challenges.
And it's not necessarily saying, Right, this is the path I on, I'm not gonna change. So we say, would it be something like sailing? So, you know, like I've gotta go over there and I'm here. That's the route we've picked, but the wind's changing or something's happened, so we've gotta attack and adapt.
Brad: Yes, exactly.
Exactly. But it doesn't mean you give up and it doesn't. And so even when we look at Shackleton's, Story of getting to, trying to get to the South Pole and saying, We're not gonna get there, but we're gonna, we're gonna plant the flag at 96, 97 miles from the South Pole. We're gonna go [00:36:00]back, We're gonna live to see another day.
We're gonna set another expedition. We're gonna try again. And it's like, you know, so, So, yeah. So we didn't make it this time. , but we achieved something and now we're gonna go back and, and try again. And it may be several years that we get a chance to try again. But it is that sense of, of constantly trying effect there.
There's a wonderful story of, of in the, from the endurance expedition where the ship gets crushed in the ice and the men end up getting stranded on it's long story to get them to the, where you've got 22 men stranded on Elephant Island, which is an uninhabited. Large well basically large rock in, in near Antarctica.
And Shackleton and, and five other men take one of the largest of the, of this lifeboat. And the largest lifeboat was only 23 feet long across 800 miles to the roughest seas of the world and sail at the South Georgia, which is an island that isn inhabited. They get to the island that isn't inhabited [00:37:00]after 17 days.
You know, terrible storms and, and terrible conditions. And they arrive and they arrive on the wrong side of the island, the uninhabited side. So they have to three of them, of the six men. Three. Stay with the, the small boat and three walk across the uninhabited, unmarked, uncharted mountains to get to the whaling village.
I think, Okay, well then everybody's saved, aren't they? Because you've got the 22 men on Elton Island. You've got the other three on the uninhabited side of South Georgia, and you've got the whaling Village on South Georgia, and the whalers can just sail around. They could easily rescue the other three men, but you still have the 22 men on Elephant Island.
So the whaler set off in a ship to go rescue the 22 men on the Elephant Island 800 miles away and they can't get near Elephant Island cuz all ice in they, So they and Shackleton goes, they go back and so Shackleton, so that's first attempt. [00:38:00] Shack gets another ship, tries again. They can't get near Elephant Island through of the ice.
Tries again, gets another ship. And he is going across like, he, he starts in South Georgia, then he is at, in the Falkland Islands, trying to get his ship. Then he is in Argentina and, and UA trying to get a ship. Eventually they do. It took four efforts. Before they rescued the men on Elton Island. I mean these, it's like, this is the, you know, just cure, keep persevering.
He wasn't gonna give up until he got his men rescued, but it wasn't gonna, it wasn't easy. It's like, and these sort of, you know, these sort things are sort of inspirational cuz, cuz we do hit obstacles. We, you know, the whole world hit obstacle with, with covid. Now we've been obstacle with, with Ukraine war in a way that, you know, our, our economies are suffering.
Our, we're dealing with inflation, we're dealing with all the, all these high costs of things and being like, Okay, well that's not really what I planned for, but we just gotta deal with it. You know, Just try again, Try something else. Try.
Scott: So, I think, I think one of the things that I, [00:39:00] it strikes me is that what they, that it comes across within the stories you've told is what they do is say it, I heard this so many times.
It is what it. We are where we are. The thing is, where do we go next?
Brad: Yes. They were very good at saying precisely that, which is not blaming. It's just this is where we are today. And how do we put one foot in front of the next and move forward in some way? And I think this is, you know, this was the, the lesson out of Covid.
Mm-hmm. was, you know what? We can look at the dreams and ambitions we had in 2018, 2019 and say, Well, we can't do all that. You know, can't, can't get back to the life we had in 2019. We're just freewheeling. Just, you know, everyone just traveling where they want and going where they want, not worrying about getting covid.
I know so many people who in the last two months have gotten covid and, and it, it's hasn't gone away. And it's just bit like this. You know, just persevering through and being, [00:40:00] I can't get the life I had, I'll just persevere through with the life I've got. Mm-hmm. , same with inflation. It's like, you know, Okay, sorry.
Cut that. You, the, the, for me, cuz now I'm trying to live off my income as an author. It's trying to say, Okay, now I need to reduce my spending. That's right. That, that's what me, it's a p. Decision, it's just temporary for well, inflammation's running high. And, and, and so it, so it's, we all have to make adjustments and I think it's just accepting that, that you can't always ha things can't go back to the way they were.
So you can't blame things. You can't say, Oh, I wish it was different. This is what it is here, Here we are in 2022. It is what it is.
Scott: It is what it is. What's happened has happened and mistakes have been made, and they probably will. Mistakes will be made. I think it's accepting. That big thing is it's about do we accept failure, learn from it, and move on.
So I think there's a lot within innovation, there seems to be a lot of sort of analogies about how these [00:41:00] men made these great impacts and wasn't an easy trip. And it was like perseverance, but also learning and then moving on. So from that lesson, what did I learn? How can, what am I gonna do differently next?
Exactly.
Brad: To try and make it. Exactly. Yeah. There's, there's a lot of great lessons to, to, to learn from, but it's very much that idea of trying not to focus on blame, not to focus on what could have happened and just be, okay, this is where I am today. How do we move forward?
Scott: The become changed the.
Brad: Yes. You can't change the past as we can
Scott: only influence where we go in the future,
Brad: right?
And we can't even predict that. And as we said the very beginning, we. , well, can't predict the future that well. So in a way you just have this present time and be answer a course correct and adjust as you go and just keep persing. And that was, that's probably the biggest lesson of all of it is this perseverance.
Mm-hmm. that that's resilience. [00:42:00] Perseverance and. And the World War and given, given my age we've seen cycles before. We've seen the, the economic downturn in in the 90. There was one in the nineties, there's one in 2008. These things were recurring and eventually the world Star gets through it and there are wars and people get through it.
And
Scott: So, Yep. I changed my job in 1990 recession. I went from a paid job to freelance in 2009. Recession. You thought I'd learn, wouldn't you? , Bit like you. Well it was just one of those things and then you just like, just, Oh, I could have chosen about time, I could have, I didn't. I'm here. Right.
Brad: Make it work.
Exactly. Exactly. And that's what, that's what makes life fascinating and, and. I mean, you've gotta see it as, as a, as a a game. Mm. And you've gotta see it as, as how do I manage within this, within these multitude of challenges and, and just keep [00:43:00] thinking positively and optimistically and, and
Scott: yeah, I think there's a cuz I do Clifton strengths and there's too strong, I've, I've got high positivity, which is always like looking at what could be rather than what has what. Not being, And also I've got high adaptability, which is, you know, I'm, I'm comfortable in the here and now. Mm-hmm. and this level of uncertainty.
So I do think one of the keys that perseverance and you say where we do is accept the level of uncertainty in which we actually do live. Yes. Been unusual in the last 10, 15 years. We've had a lot of certainty, which has been unused to say the cycles. We haven't had these cycles. Come back that used to be much more regular.
Yes.
Brad: Yes. And, and you, it's funny, when you look back at life and you think, you know, I know I was in America, my first mortgage was at 11% and the at that point you had savings and loans organizations that gave mortgages. And the banker there said to me, You'll never get a loan this low [00:44:00] ever again. And interest rates went all the way up to like 18.
and now they're down to like, you know, they, they came down to like 2%, 1% for mortgages at one point, and he was saying he was predicting their future. Like, you'll never see something lower than 11% and now it's gonna, and now sort of rising back up a bit. But there was something that I want to, to say that, that Shackleton was asked was, what are the traits of, do you need to be a polar explorer?
And he said there were optimism, patience, physical endurance, idealism, and courage. And I think that's sort of like a good sense of traits for, for 2022. Mm-hmm. .
Scott: So this is a question I've asked you before. And you were like, Oh, I dunno. Cause we can't predict the future. We've, we, So we, I'm going to ask this question on, I'm never gonna come back and say, this is what you said 10 years ago.
Okay. So we've, you've looked at great people in the past, people who have had a great impact and sort of shown all those traits. If you look back over the last five years or 10 years up [00:45:00] to today, who do you think might be, if you were to do this book again in a hundred years time, who do you think might be the people you would say, these are the leaders?
Of 20 20, 20 22, whatever this region, let's say, this level of uncertainty we've had that I would like to investigate, I would like to, to examine.
Brad: Great. There's, well, certainly Linsky is one of the most fascinating characters of someone who's, you know, not only transformed himself in the sense of being from a comedian to a dancer, to a an actor.
To being a president and actually being a statesman. And he actually moved this continuum and somehow commands the world's stage. It's, it's quite a remarkable transformation for a human being. And, and that, so he's, he's one I think definitely that. And certainly you see people like, I think Tim Cook at Apple is quite a fascinating [00:46:00] character because he's, he's not flamboyant and he is not out there as portraying himself as a visionary, and yet he runs a visionary company and I think that he's quite a, a sort of a soft spoken, enormously successful human being.
And, and I think that's that. And Apple's delves into all sorts of different, different avenues and, and everyone was predicting. In fact, I, I read a study once that said that at a point when Apple Stock jumped 80% in one year, No, probably 70% in one year, 80% of all the articles written about Apple were about how it's, it was fallen by the wayside.
It was not being innovative. It was so, a lot of people dis dissing Apple criticizing it, saying it was never gonna achieve anything. You know, after Steve Jobs died they lost their way. Samsung phones were better, whatever. It's like all these things. And, and yet Apple just kept performing and performing, [00:47:00] perform.
And I think the other is Elon Musk. I mean, he's quite a controversial character, but he's, he's clearly a visionary at one level and, and it's hard to assess him at this stage. I, he, I don't, you know, would he be like a brunelle? I'm not sure. The, I think we'd see, I think we'd easily say my last book was about an engineer explorer and a statesman.
Mm-hmm. . So you had almond sin as the Explorer and Brunelli engineer and Teddy Roosevelt as a statesman. Certainly you'd have zelensky as a statesman and perhaps Elon Musk or or Tim Cook as the engineer. I'm not sure who the explorer would be at this stage, but it's it's a fascinating, it's fascinating to look at at modern life in those terms.
Is there anyone that you'd, you'd,
Scott: I think quite controversial. I might go for some like Therea May. And why is that? I [00:48:00]think because she managed an extraordinary turbulent time in British politics coming in as only the second female leader of the party. Second. Prime Minister. And I think she kind of, and it might be controversial, I think she kind of got dropped in at the deep end big style because they said we're gonna have a referendum.
And as soon as they lost a referendum, then Prime Minister said, Right, I, I don't wanna deal with this. I'm off. And the party was split, so she was trying to manage a split part. But one thing I think about her, talk about the visionary and that stuff about the, and it being the perseverance and the, the sheer determination to do the right.
Yes, I, The circumstances in which she found herself I think would be quite an interesting thing, and how history might view her, I think might be slightly differently compared to how she was viewed currently. I
Brad: think that's interesting. That's very interesting. I hadn't thought of that. The yeah, certainly if they to look at, at Biden as and I think there's a lot to be commended about.
Biden is a very calm [00:49:00] reason approach with everyone saying, Oh no, you need to like take these knee jerk reactions to everything that's happening in the Supreme Court decisions and, and. Prosecuting Trump and all the different, different decisions and he's taking a very steady approach to, to things.
And I think there's some, Therea May was doing the same. I think she was trying to be a steady influence on something where people, where the press and everyone, everyone's asking for, for dramatic action. So it's interesting. It's, it's it's a fascinating. World that we live in,
Scott: I think. I think yes. I think that you could look back in this, this period of time, last 5, 5, 10, probably the next five years I sort, 10 years that decade.
Maybe the 2020s might be as such an interesting decade to look back on in the years. And I think there'll be, there'll be leaders or people who, as you say, Linsky came to the fall very, very quickly because of the circumstances, Ukraine war and how he, how he positively managed his. Way of [00:50:00] doing a very Churchillian, I think, in his approach.
And he is very, very good at Oratory. He can, he speaks well, we can engage with people and he says the actions he has is going down to the front line and actually being, being there at the front line with people.
Brad: Yes. See, I'm sorry. What he showed is some of what. Shackleton said was, you know, optimism and, and patience of physical endurance.
I mean, he just just showed this is bravery. When you look at him, look at Nial. These are people who are just so incredibly brave and we aren't used to seeing this level of bravery. We're used to seeing. People talking about being brave and you see adventures and mountain climbers and it's people doing adventuresome things, but in a world where there's communication in a world where there's, there's rescue and, and so a lot of these, yes, some, some, a adventurers and explorers do die in modern [00:51:00] times, but they do have And they do risky things, but there's a level of bravery that doesn't exist.
And I, and most of the people I've met, right, all of the, the people that have been Antarctic at. Adventurers today have said when I've seen them talk or I've talked with them, they said, We are, we are adventurous. We are not explorers in this Shackleton, Scott Robinson sense, we are not at pat risk.
And yet here we have in Zelensky, in the ney and some of the other people that here we have sheer honest to God bravery and is a fascinating thing just to see it in a world where we many. Haven't seen it in a while.
Scott: Mm. I think also the difference between leaders who say, and they, they do it from like, from a distance, from afar, Right.
This person is there.
Brad: Yeah. I mean, I, I seeing him, seeing Zelensky walk on the streets and, and of of the cities and in, in the Ukraine, it's just, [00:52:00] I'm always amazed. It's like it's, it's. Just very risky. It's, it's, Is bravery in
Scott: action, bravery, perseverance, a bit of patience, and he just keeps banging it.
He, he's and so's a very clear message
Brad: and yes, And one of the things, I think one of the lost arts is, or, or being a great order, and you saw this with, with Teddy Roosevelt, who always had these wonderful terms of phrase, and you had you see this with Zelensky, but with, and you had it with Churchi.
So the way we had Teddy Roosevelt in the early 19 hundreds, you had Churchill in the 1940s, and you've got Zelensky now. But this the, the terms of Frank Mike from Roosevelt with things like trying to achieve glorious triumphs, trying to kajo and encourage Americans at that time to say, The easy life is not what's desired.
The people who make a mark in, in the world are the people who are not sitting in armchairs. They're [00:53:00] people out there getting beat up in, as he would call in, in the arena. You're the, he wrote, he had this great speech called The Man in the Arena, but it's like the person in the arena, the person who's out there getting beat up.
It's not the critics who are criticizing them is the people who are out there and they may not succeed. And, and he had a great phrase called mu dare mighty things that you've just gotta keep going out and persevering, persevering and trying and doing things and, and daring to be great and, and you might fail along the
Scott: way.
I think it's great. I'm gonna try cause I can't remember. There's the, the film, The Darkest Hour, I think it's the Darkest Hour, which is about coming into 1939 and his speech at par. And it somebody, and everyone's like clapping and things going up and somebody says, What's he done? And he says, He's just mobilized the English language.
Brad: Well, that's precisely, and I think we don't have enough of that today. We don't have, we've got Lansky's trying to do it, but [00:54:00] he's But in the, in the western world, the in, in the world, that is American Britain. Where we don't have that great order today. There's no one that's, that is is that Churchillian person right now that And we need that.
Scott: Yeah. Cause that, that, that again cuz people who can articulate the vision and put it in the word and tell stories and do it in a way that resonates, gets people so much more. Yes. And yeah, we could, we could argue about possibly why a made this thing about soundbite politics. We talk about this and we could talk about that.
people still will, if somebody can get up and give arousing speech.
Brad: Yes, absolutely. I think that JFK was able to do this to some degree. Mm-hmm. and yeah. Cause it's, it's a, it's a rare skill and it's a skill that probably needs to be taught more to, to young people. That ability to, to to speak and, and to, to inspire.
Scott: And is it through stories? Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. Great. [00:55:00] Thanks. Pleasure. Just saying thank you very much for your time. I think that's a nice thing to finish on actually. The, the ability to actually articulate and speak and inspire people is probably something you've always got from the past and there are people currently doing it, but the few and far between, and it's, and it may be the way we communicate now with more text, more videos, more this, more that, and everything's the, the, we don't practice that skill as much, so that's maybe why it's less, it's less prevalent.
Learn from the past. Then from the past. Totally, yes. Right. Okay. So, but again, thank you very much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure. Well, thanks very
Brad: much, Scott. You're welcome.
 
 

How Might We Create Mutually Benificial Relationships

In this episode my guest is Melissa Boggs. Melissa helps leaders and employees design an intentional employee experience that bridges the cultural and generational gap between them, increasing engagement and inviting joy for all.
The key to engagement is not “fixing” employees or leaders, but enriching the relationship between them. I help design organizational structures and cultures that amplify the strengths of everyone, changing hearts and minds about what is possible at work.
Melissa shares her experiences and thoughts on creating mutually, trusting relationships that bridge the gap between leaders and employees.
 
Melissas website: http://melissaboggs.com/

How Might We Become Excellent

This episode is 'How Might We Become Excellent' and my guest is Joe Templin.
Joe, has led an eclectic life.
As one of six kids (the only normal one, he insists) growing up in a small town and spending time on the family farm, Joe’s parents (John and Barb) instilled a love of learning, the outdoors, and a healthy disrespect for authority while still simultaneously embracing traditional values of hard work and “love thy neighbour but mind your own dang business.”  This is Joe’s foundation.
He was severely asthmatic but through his work ethic and love of challenge has become a martial artist and ultradistance runner.  He had a speech impediment but has built a career around communicating.  This habit of overcoming limitations is a theme in his life and his writings.
Joe shares his tips and thoughts on everyday excellence.
 
Joes LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-templin/
Joes Website - https://everyday-excellence.com
 
Transcript
Scott: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of how might we and today's Mike guest is Joe Templin all the way from over the pond in the us of a, and we are gonna be talking about how might we become excellent. So, Joe, would you like to introduce yourself to the guests please?
Joe: Sure. So I'm Joe Templin. I am a self-taught polymath in a lot of ways.
I say polymath as opposed to Renaissance man, simply because I can't draw a straight line even with a ruler. As you notice, I've got a little bit of an attitude and self deprecating humor. Everything's funny. I'm half Irish. So that's the way it is. And I am a human Swiss army. I am an ultra-marathoner a special needs parent, a martial arts champion and [00:01:00] author of the book every day excellence.
Scott: Okay. So quite a mixed bag of stuff in there and lots of experiences.
Joe: Yeah. You know, I have stuff to be able to pull out of the cabinet for almost any conversation I had with.
Scott: Okay, so that sort of flexibility is, is held you in good stead, like the experiences you've had.
Joe: Yeah. And also as some of my friends in used to say, I'm the most interesting man in financial services.
Scott: Okay. And not, not renowned for an in full of interesting people. I must admit financial services. No, not written out for you. Okay. So you wanna talk about how might we become. What do you mean by those?
Joe: So the first thing is that excellence is like happiness in that it is individually defined, but there are some consistencies across individuals about what it [00:02:00] constitutes happiness or excellence in a lot of ways.
So for example, Excellence is partially about, is the process of improvement because we all start off life as babies. Okay. We can't take care of ourselves. We cry, you know, we eat, we poop. That's about all that we do when we sleep, hopefully, and that is literally how every single human being on the planet has started.
Whether they become, you know, the most renowned martial artist on the planet, the greatest writer, you know, captains of industry, queen of England, they all started from the exact same position. So how do they determine where they wanna be, what they wanna become and go about the process of doing. That is the first critical component in discovering your own internal excellence, because we all have tremendous capacity that few of us even tap.
In fact, no matter [00:03:00] what I've accomplished, there's still so much more that within me that I could unlock if I truly invested the time to do so. And every single human being's like that. So first we need to start figuring out, okay, what does excellence mean to. And for the person who is sitting there trying to get their degree while raising three kids, it is being able to pass the exams while at uni and then be able to get that degree so they can build a better life to them.
That is the next step of excellence. And that is a very critical thing for other people. It might be, you know, winning that gold medal at the Olympics or, you know, making their first million dollars, whatever it. The first component of excellence is having a vision to be able to start working towards. And you know, that vision as says in the Bible, people without a vision will perish.
If you don't have something [00:04:00] really important that you're working towards, you're gonna found it. You're gonna, you know, find any excuse to not put on the running shoes and go running. You're going to sit there and eat Cheetos and watch the bachelorette. Instead of cracking the book, you're gonna find any excuse possible to avoid doing the difficult things become better simply because that is human nature.
It
Scott: reminds me a little bit. I saw somebody a quote and I can't remember who, who this quote came from. Not, I remember where I slow selling is where I saw the them talk about it. And it says those who have achieved in their lives or high performance they, their common thing, they think they they've identified outside of actually knowing where they're going is you mentioned it a little bit.
There is having or completing the habits that other people don't do.
Joe: Yes, there's a great saying from believe it's Ernie gray talk, they gave a hundred years ago, actually that successful people [00:05:00] do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. And that is whether it's, you know, cutting up vegetables and having those instead of eating crisps or it's spending five minutes, every single morning reading so that you expand your mind and spirit, it is.
Truly, as you know of CTM said, wellbeing is no small thing. Buzz made up of small things. It's those little decisions, the micro decisions, as I like to call them that over a day compound and determine whether you are better or worse over and how many good days can you stack up in a week, determines the path of your life.
Essent.
Scott: So go because what you said, it's not that these people do. That other people are unable to do is that they're unwilling to do. I think there's a big difference between those two isn't there,
Joe: there, there's a huge difference. So for example, I'm a martial artist and we all start as [00:06:00]white belts. We all start, you know, at the very beginning with no skills.
In fact, I being, you know, the CLTs that I am naturally, and I was highly, highly asthmatic. So I did not come on in with this immense athletic talent. But we all started and we all learned the exact same basic techniques. We learned about learned how to stand. We learned how to throw a punch and a kick.
And that's what they teach you in most places in your first couple of classes first week. What have you. And then the question is how often are you gonna practice that? So it's just like your basic language. If you're a sales person, how often are you practicing those basics? How often as a musician, are you practicing your scales so that you get that basic repetition and that basic first punch that I learned.
35 plus years ago, I still do that punch every single morning, a hundred times minimum, each hand. And I've done so essentially every day for 35 plus years, at this point, I've thrown [00:07:00] over 10 million punches with each hand. I don't have to think about it, but I go back to that fundamental and repeat and build off of it.
And that is how I've developed excellence in that space is starting with the fundamentals and then growing from there. And it doesn't matter what profession you're in. If you start with your fundamentals and master them, then build off of them. You can create excellence. And unfortunately, people don't wanna do that because it's too much work and it's not, you know, taking the quick pill and, you know, solving all your problems in 30 seconds.
Scott: Reminds me a little bit of what we said just before we came online, cuz this is totally unscripted and we've only just rocked up and even spoken before is say what could go wrong load to things you can't rewind life, but you can't fast forward it either.
Joe: Exactly. So, you know, you can't microwave the baby, as we say.
Scott: I've never heard that. I don't really want to microwave a baby to be perfectly honest, but so it's not really,
Joe: so it's a, it's a process, you know, it takes nine months essentially from the start of pregnancy until the time [00:08:00] that that baby pops out. So it doesn't matter what you do, you can't accelerate. So you need to just buy into that process.
Becoming a very good musician is a process become, you know, climbing the ranks at. Is a process. Yeah. There's things that you can do to make sure that you are doing it the proper way and sustainable comes out healthy and you're ready for the next step, but you can't jump from step one to step six.
Doesn't happen.
Scott: I would tell you what you might be able to do is accelerate through that process. But you can't, as you say, you can't jump. And I think sometimes it's, we, we look at these things, we've got like life hacks and hack your way to here. It's always like the quick fix that we seem to be looking at, or be given in our lives at the moment,
Joe: it can be quicker, but it's actually gonna be not easier.
So one of the things that we used to say is that somebody can be. Fifth year [00:09:00] agent or, or a third year agent in their first year or in their fifth year. It just depends on how many repetitions that they're getting. So if you're gonna have that consistent hard practice, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule.
You know, you can squeeze that in, but you're still doing all of the repetitions. My TaeKwonDo master taught us that to do a technique. You have to execute a hundred times to understand it. You have to do it a thousand and to master it, you have to do it 10,000. So, you know, you can do it once a day for years and years and years and slowly get good, or you can suck it up and just do it and do it and do it and do it and repeat.
So like, let's say that you have a business where you are in sales and you need to reach out to like a hundred people to be able to get your sales quota for the. Well, you know, if you do that and it takes you to Friday to do it. Okay. But what if you could [00:10:00] find a more efficient way to do that same 100 quicker or you suck it up and you just pound it and go, and you do it on Monday.
So that either gives you the opportunity to reach the bonus round really quick, where you're making a ton more money, or you can take Fridays off and, you know, go to the pub with your mates or go hang out with your sweetie or whatever. So you get to, you know, discipline equals freedom is one of the things that Jackwell talks about.
And it's having that discipline to do the hard stuff over and over again quickly so that you're still gonna be doing hard things, but you're doing hard things at a higher level. And as such, you're getting the better results and that is one of the ways to get your excellence.
Scott: Okay. So we'll go, go back.
Cause we, I think we jumped around a little bit. So we started off with how might we become accident? And we said, and the first thing you said is that vision having that, that clarity about what it means to you. And so it's happiness. It's individualized there isn't yeah, there isn't one definition of success.
Yep. Success is contextual with that and is individualized. Okay. So you work with it, [00:11:00] you get your clarity on what does excellence mean for you? What is that achievement you are trying to get? Excuse me, is it then when you start working on, okay. How do I need to do that? What steps do I need to take?
Yeah,
Joe: because people. For example, join martial arts and they see the black belt and they're like, I wanna be able to do that. Or they saw a movie and they wanna be able to do all the cool stuff that they saw there, like in karate kid or what have you. So they have a vision, but then they start figuring out how to achieve it.
So in martial arts, it's like, okay, you come here and we tell you what to do. And we rank you up over time and you have to do the hard work, but we guide you. If you're an entrepreneur, it's a little bit different because you might have this vision of, okay, I wanna build this NCE. You know, company, that's gonna change the world, but people aren't giving you a playbook of do X, Y then Z, and all of a sudden you're the next unicorn.
So you have to figure it out on the fly. I think it was Peter the, who said that sort of like [00:12:00]jumping off of a cliff and building the airplane on the way down. So that is how life is in a lot of ways. So you need to. Figure out what you wanna do start taking the first steps. Even if that first step is right off of the cliff and you figure it out on the way and then doing what you need to, to build.
Whatever it is that gets you to then fly, whether it is cracking the books and having your study plan and doing the homeworks and all that to pass the test, whether it is taking the time to. Every morning, tell your significant other how much you care about them and having one night a week, that's set aside for just the two of you, no kids, and so that you can invest the time to have excellence in that relationship, whether it is taking the time to stand in front of a mirror and look like an idiot while you practice your.
[00:13:00] Performance or your speech, or what have you so that you improve in that capacity so that you can be excellent to do what you need to do there, whatever it is, it's having the vision, then figuring out the plan to get there and executing along the plan. And that comes back to what we started with with happiness is that one definition of happiness that I've heard is continuous progress towards something significant.
Okay. So if your goal is to build this huge organization and you fall in love with the process of building that organization and doing the grinding work and the occasional great success and setback you can handle, then. You're happier because you are doing something significant over time that could be running the ultra marathon that could be getting your black belt.
That could be, you know, mastering the guitar that could be writing your book. So having [00:14:00]something big that you're working towards, that's significant. And having your process that you're executing on buying into it, having essentially that face, that you're doing the right thing and getting your feedback along the way, that is one way to have happiness, but it's also the path to excellence.
Scott: Quite like what we said is we, we are clear on where we're going, but say fall in love with the process.
Joe: And, you know, the process sometimes sucks. I mean, you're gonna have setbacks all along the way, especially the bigger, the thing that you're trying to achieve, the more setbacks that you're gonna have.
But one of the things that we talk about within startup companies is de-risking how can we break it down to small steps? With short feedback loops that you can know either work or don't work, they either make you better or worse on a very small loop, you know, a couple of seconds, as opposed to a couple of weeks and hundreds of hours of work is one thing.
But if you can [00:15:00] get feedback under five minutes so that you can make the micro changes and have better micro decisions that ultimately is going to improve your outcomes overall, and you're gonna. A whole bunch of tiny little wins, and we actually remember more of our wins than our losses. So having more wins, even if they're tiny, they can add up and have a greater psychological effect than trying to get those couple of big wins.
And one of the things that I talk about very often is one of the ways to be excellent. Overall is a mindset and the mindset is that in any situation, in any decision or micro decision, cuz we make about 10,000 microdecisions every single day, you're basically gonna have two potential outcomes. You can lump, you know, a whole variety of things into these two buckets.
Essentially. One is the easy choice. It feels good in the moment. It's the lower energy [00:16:00]requirement very often. So it is the sitting on the couch playing video games instead of getting up and cracking the book I studying for the exam, it is avoiding the difficult discuss. With that significant other or with your boss or somebody that you need to have that talk with, you know, especially if you have teenagers like I do.
Okay. I see too many parents avoiding those difficult conversations. It is the, you know, eating the donut as opposed to the apple. I love donuts. Okay. Don't get me wrong. I'm a donut feed, but I haven't touched one in a while and I won't until after Easter. So it's that it feels good in the moment. But it leads to the worst outcome because if you have that cigarette and it feels good, guess what?
You just share your life by approximately nine minutes. Okay. You sit on the couch and don't work out and your waistline expands and you get diabetes and you have all the bad problems there. So the path that [00:17:00] seems easy, that feels good in the moment, typically leads you into worse and worse decisions.
Overall, the other. Group of decisions are the hard choices. Generally the right choices, they take more energy, they take more effort. The I'm gonna crack the book and study and pass the exam so that I get this degree and eventually can get a better job. It's the I'm gonna go run five kilometers, even though it's raining out.
And I know it's gonna suck, but it's gonna make me better and give me reserves that I can tap into on other bad days, the I'm gonna pick up the phone and call that one potential client that scares. Okay. So that moment of fear that I'm overcoming is gonna have better results, no matter what, even if I don't get that client, I've still faced that fear.
And that gives me more internal strength to be able to make harder decisions down the road. And that's the way that you build up essentially your mental muscles. To be able to do the more difficult things. So choosing the harder [00:18:00] path, as opposed to the easy path is leads to better potential choices that you'll make down the road.
You know, the problems of a successful individual and the problems of an unsuccessful individual, both of the, which creates stress in their lives, but the person who has $5 million in the bank, as opposed to the person who doesn't have a pot to piss in, guess what? They're making very different choices in life, even though they're both difficult choices that they're making.
And their current situation is reflective very often, not always, but for the most part of previous decisions that they made. So make the best choice at that point in terms of the overall that ends up increasing your potential for the future. So make the more difficult choice now to have better outcomes in an easier life down the road.
And so in bringing this back to excellence in the movie, Deadpool two clauses tells Deadpool four or five moments. Four or five moments is what it takes to [00:19:00] be a hero for us on an individual basis. It's those four or five micro decisions every day that end up determining whether our arrow is pointing up for the day or down for the day.
Scott: So there's a book it's slightly different, but the book about I think it's Tim Roth, Tim Roths wrote it from Gallop and it's about those interactions and how full is your bucket and everything we do has a consequence for us and the other people around us. So if we can try and have that positive, impact's better for us.
It's better for the, environment's better for the people. We react to. Very few of our decisions in.
Joe: Yeah. Like almost none of 'em it's constant, either improvement or decline. And so choosing to do the little things that make you better add up tremendously. You know, one of the examples that I use is that if somebody, through their daily choices, expands expenses a hundred calories per day, more than the, what [00:20:00] they consume.
So that's a combination of what they eat, what they drink, but also what they're doing, you know, are you taking the stairs instead of taking the lift? Are you parking, you know, a quarter mile away and walking in, are you walking to the store instead of driving all or taking the tube? All these little things that add up a hundred calories a day is roughly one pound per month, which is 12 pounds for a.
For the decisions that the microdecisions that relate to essentially a hundred calories a day. So that is literally four or five small decisions as to what to eat. And you know whether to sit on your butt or to take a five minute walk.
Scott: So again, it's all goes. It just seems that there's a common theme around here is, is accepted.
Say the mindset is the decisions I make now. Every single one has a, has a consequence further down the road. And it's about looking at those consequences over the decision you make now. [00:21:00]
Joe: Exactly. And so Conneman ended up earning the Nobel prize in economics for the, his research that led to thinking fast and slow and too often were making that gut reaction too often.
We're making the quick decision that seems easy. And the quick, easy decision generally is the wrong. And so slowing down our processes, which for somebody like me, who's high speed and has ADHD can be very difficult, but a moment of planning prevents an hour of unnecessary work, taking a couple of seconds to evaluate a situation.
Before bursting on in can help avoid a law of negative consequences. So thinking before you speak pausing, before you write that response email, these little things will help prevent the major negative events that will severely [00:22:00] interfere with achieving your excellence.
Scott: So, do you think an important part of what you are talking about there is the ability to create space to respond rather than react?
Joe: Yes. So one of the things that professional athletes talk about all the time is slowing down the game. And so we need to be able to slow down the game of life.
Scott: I think COVID, in some ways has helped people do.
Joe: Yes, because it eliminated a lot of the unnecessary. So for example, before COVID, I was doing a lot of speaking and so I would have three or four remote talks per week. And I was getting to the point where I was doing about two that per week that were gonna be scheduled where I'd be on the road, all of a sudden that disappears.
So I don't have to deal with the travel and all that. So even though that was a potential negative. In terms of lost revenue and opportunities. It [00:23:00] gave me time, you know, not having to have the kids to three different events, every single day created time that we could spend with each other and time that we could do things like, you know, teaching them how to cook a healthier meal, cuz I'd been doing all the cooking up until that point for them.
But I was then able to take the time to teach. So that they can do that sort of stuff now. And now that frees up a little bit more time overall because you know, my 15 year old can turn around and make a nice healthy dinner. So I don't have to do it every single night.
Scott: So again, that's another thing. One thing I, I quite like looking at for people is their capabilities and accepting their capabilities and say, do you wanna achieve this?
But also what team do you need around you to help you generate that outcome? So you, a lot of it we can't do on our.
Joe: Oh, absolutely. So that's one of the reasons why the first or the second day of the book for the [00:24:00] year, I have everybody do a SWOT analysis so that they understand what they're good at and what they're not good at.
And so I know the things I'm definitely not good at. And so I either eliminate them if possible, or I outsource them wherever possible so that I can have somebody else who can do it a lot better than me. Take care of it. And it allows me to focus my time on the things that either can bear greater results within the business or greater personal results, like spending time with the kids or being able to go out and run or take time to write.
And that then allows us to maximize the good in the world by allocating resources.
Scott: Yeah, cause I'm I'm I quite like the, the outlook of strengths for that's basically. Do you know what? We're all good at certain things and other people are good at other things. That's, let's lean into our strengths. Yep.
Instead of worrying too much about weaknesses can say, if you invest in your strength, the, it is like an exponential growth in that [00:25:00] area compared to time invested in areas that you're not so good at. Right.
Joe: I mean, if, if you're playing a complete game like golf, you need to work on your strength so that if you do hit in the bunker, you can get on out of there.
But people are really remembered for how they overcame weaknesses and turn them into something neutral. It is doubling and tripling down on your capabilities and becoming world class within one space. As Bruce Lee said, I do not fear a man who has practiced 10,000 kicks. Once I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
So is going back to that practice idea that I had earlier of becoming excellent within certain arenas, you know, find what you're good at, find your passion, find something like that, and really go with it. And that's how you can become truly excellent in one area. And the mindset of unlocking that excellence is a cross-disciplinary skill that you can apply to other arena.[00:26:00]
Scott: which I think is good. Cuz I think a lot of times we think we learn something in one place and we say, oh, I learned that here. And it just stays in this little box. And the way I look at it is I, I see much more the, the life as a sort of a.to.book. Mm-hmm so, and the dots of what I've learned, what I've experienced and I say, okay, which ones can I draw into this situation?
Which ones are gonna help me now? And which ones can I pull from? So I see learning as learning and it's, it's not compartmentalized into any aspect. It's. These are things I've learned, developed skills, whatever it is. I've experienced that as, because you are a whole being aren't you, you are not a person at work and a person at home, you are a person.
Joe: Exactly. And so, you know, is that a person who is highly conscientious about their work? Is that an individual who, you know, is known for going above and beyond, or for creativity? Because, I mean, if you're highly creative in terms of how you do one thing, then you probably bring [00:27:00]that mindset into other areas.
If you are very focused on being a good. Person in terms of your relationship with your significant other, you're probably going to bring that same sort of concept in some of the things that work in that space, into the work environment. Or into your relationships with your friends or other areas. So it's being able to build these skills that are cross-functional and applicable in multiple arenas.
And that is one of the key tools of excellence because. The discipline to be successful in one space helps out in a lot of ways, the mindset of breaking down to fundamentals like I did with the martial arts that turned around and assisted in being able to be successful in business because I used the exact same mindset.
Right. And then the [00:28:00] consistent practice, the doing the things every day, that was helpful as an athlete. That turned around. And I was able to use that in terms of writing to every single day, whether I felt like it or not sit down and write. And some days it was good writing and some days it was not quite so good, I threw most of it in the garbage, but it was that I'm showing up and doing it every single day.
And having that attitude that comes across and allows you to be successful in multiple
Scott: arena. I think was it, was it Jack Nicholson said the more I practiced the luckier I seem to get.
Joe: Exactly.
Scott: I think that's a good thing. So if you had to sum it up and say a couple, cause obviously you've written the book and, and helping people deliver this daily excellence towards what would you say sort of the key things would be sort of sort everything we've talked about over the last, like 30, 40 minutes we, you would put together and say, right, this is sort of your roadmap to delivering excellence.
Joe: The roadmap is [00:29:00] first figure out what you wanna be. Excellent. Get that vision that we talked about, build a plan, you know, and even if it's a loose plan, even as like star Lord says in guardians of galaxy, I got 12% of the plan. That's actually a good start simply because things are gonna change along the way.
As Mike Tyson said, everybody's got plan until they get punched in the face. And life is gonna punch in the face repeatedly. So you need to be able to take it and keep moving forward as Rocky ball Balla says, but also you need to be able to adjust and change how you're going about it because not getting punched in the face is better and getting punched in the face.
Quite frankly. So, you know, learning on the fly, but then it's the daily focus of I'm going to show up and I'm going to do my work and having strategies around that, whether you are using James Clear's habit stacking, which I'm a huge fan of whether it's applying Pomodoro method to be able to. Chunk [00:30:00] up small amounts and be able to crank through them, whether it's occasionally just removing yourself from the situation decompressing so that you can refill your tank so that you're more effective.
These are all little tools along the way, but they are ways to make sure that you are continuously executing on your plan to get to wherever your goal. Your vision of excellence is.
Scott: Okay. And it, and I, I like the thing about the, having that, that feedback look, which is important in business, but I think it's important for us cuz there's a guy called Elvin Turner wrote book called be less zombie.
And in that one of the chapters is experimentation is the rocket fuel of innovation. Yep. So, and that's what your plan is. We talked about yesterday. We was talking to Kara on a previous podcast. He said, your plan is where you want to go with a load of assumptions, built into it.
Joe: Yes, and you need to then be ready to challenge all those assumptions along the way.
And [00:31:00] remember, the river is going to cut through the rock. It's gonna get to the place that it ultimately wants to be, even if it has to take detours. And that's the way life is in a lot of ways. The analogy that I use with younger people that I'm mentoring, especially like teenagers, like my kids is if we look at life like it is a giant video.
Okay. And our goal in this game is to get to the castle in the end, save the princess, get the chest of gold and all that, you know, that is the main quest. We might have to make all these side quests along the way. You might need to go into the Tavern and talk to the crazy old guy to find some information you might need to, you know, go into this, you know, dark side area to get a resource, whether it's a person or a potion or something like that, you might need to go into the Tavern and sleep overnight to recharge.
Okay. If you look at life like that sort of quest all these side quests, whether it's, you know, the business that didn't work out, that [00:32:00] relationship that failed that class that you took in college, you know, this, you know, interesting conversation with somebody, this great podcast on how do we become, you know, these little side.
Give you the resources necessary to ultimately succeed in the main quest of getting whatever that treasurer is and saving whoever it is that you're trying to save. So being able to look at and say all I didn't waste this time, I was able to be successful in some capacity. And having that attitude is what makes it better off
Scott: overall.
So what did I learn and how can I feed that learning back into where I want to go?
Joe: I'm I'm sorry, I lost you there for one. What did, what
Scott: did I learn and how can I utilize that new learning? To help me move forward and whatever it's. And I think that's, I think businesses here, cause we don't look at that the successful businesses do that in what they do.
They don't look at it as a failure. They [00:33:00] said, yeah, it didn't work, which is cool because it, maybe it wasn't meant to work, but what did we learn? That's useful for the rest or in other aspects of the business that may help
Joe: us. Exactly. So as my father always said, it's, you know, that Pearl of wisdom or excellence that you find from every meeting or every seminar that you attend or book that you read or what have you.
So you find the Pearl, which very often you remember pearls. Come about from something that is annoying, the oyster mm-hmm . And so it develops something from it. So if we can find those pearls in every situation you get enough of those pearls, you can end up having a very rich life.
Scott: Indeed. So again, it's back to mindset.
Exactly. Mindset generates action.
Joe: Exactly. And so it's a feedback loop. So you improve your mindset, you improve your action, you do actions to improve your mindset.
Scott: And you keep that as keep that as fresh. And then you just keep it. You keep your true north, which is where you wanna be in the end. Just keep that you say [00:34:00] exactly.
Joe: And sometimes you might have to, you know, go over a falling tree or round to the ditch or whatever. But if you know where you're trying to get to and you keep going, eventually you end up there. It's like the sailing, isn't it.
Scott: They tack for the wind. Change. They still go that way, but that's the best way to get to where I want to go, even though it's not exactly cause the context and the circumstances and what's around us, that's it.
And the, the, the more experienced, better sailors can read those quicker, understand it quicker and make the adjustments better. E
Joe: exactly. And so, you know, ultimately we should all be pirates, try and get that, you know,
Scott: It sounds like I've never sailed in my life, but you know, I've talked to people who do sail, so I'm kind of using their experiences.
I don't, I don't, I'm not a great fan of getting too wet to be honest. So I, I, I love the water, but it's just too, too cold. As long as
Joe: it's over there.
Scott: No, I, I quite like being in it when it's not cold and I live in the UK, so that's not very often. So when I learned to scuba dive, it was, we dive in and it was like, I couldn't see anything, but I loved the experience cuz it, it was really weird seeing.[00:35:00]
Experience the thing about underwater, I really loved is you experienced life in 360 degrees. Yes. Whereas on the ground, you tend to experience it on the flats.
Joe: You, scuba diving is the closest experience that a human can have to actually fly.
Scott: I can. Yes. Especially if you hit a drift.
Joe: Yep. And so like you you're just there and as, as a scuba diver, it is beautiful because you're literally in this.
Alien environment. Your senses are completely different because I mean, you're hearing everything that's going on with the water. You have no sense of smell. Your vision is very different under there. And you are more in tuned with your breathing and the feel of the environment around you.
Scott: Yes, it's much.
Yeah. The sensory experience is different. Unfortunately, I've got I developed science problems, so I can't scuba dive anymore because of the changing pressures. Doesn't do me many favors, but it was an interesting, especially the drift dive. [00:36:00] The guy told us said, just imagine you're at the cinema and this is the movie reel.
And we just hit, just hit a drift and just followed it. And just whatever happened underneath us is what we watched was phenomenal. So basically it's a lucky dip movie reel. You dunno where you could be a romance. It could be a thing. You dunno where you're gonna get, but enjoy the experience along the way.
It's great.
Joe: It's probably as long as it's slot, not jaws. You're good. Yeah, I
Scott: did. I didn't want the horror movie to be honest. That's not the one I was going for to be done. That was, and the night dive was interesting as well. Cuz then you're massively deprive in your sensory. Even more diving at night is interesting.
So that was all the build up dives we had to do to get our qualifications. But yeah, it was good fun.
Joe: And so see, you know, those experiences. You, you can bring in and draw from, in terms of other things within your life. And that is one of the reasons why, you know, we talked about these side quests and also when you find somebody who has taken a similar side quest, you know, we can [00:37:00] have this couple of minute of deep discussion around a passion for a moment.
That is one of the things that, you know, all of a sudden I'm much more amped up than I was. 45 minutes ago before we started talking. And hopefully it's made you smile a little bit. And so we now have not only a shared experience, but also we both have a better feeling that we're gonna carry forward through the rest of our day.
So this is one of the things about. Doing creating excellence in the world is having these small interactions with other individuals where both of them end up better for it, because we're both gonna go on out around the rest of our day and I'm gonna interact with probably another half dozen people you're gonna interact with at least another half dozen people.
And so we're both in a slightly up pointing arrow for the day and hopefully that. Be shared with these other individuals and that then creates a multiplicity effect. [00:38:00] And that's one of the reasons for trying to make sure early in the day you're doing the right thing so that your mindset is proper and positive for the entire day.
Scott: Yeah, that's great. I mean, that, that really does resonate with that book. Helpful, lose your bucket. Every interaction you have is it's never is rarely, hardly ever neutral, but if it's a negative interaction, it impacts you and the other person. So if you're, so even if you shout at somebody, cuz you're frustrated, you, you, you empty their bucket, but psychologically also damaging your own.
So if you look, if you look at everything, so how can I fill my bucket in the people around me in every single again, it's that micro thing is in it's and there's another guy. Wrote a book about flourishing leadership and that's the same, get that spiral going upwards rather than the spiral going downwards,
Joe: right.
Or it's the concept of lighting other people's candles, because if I can bring light into your world, you know, and I can help light your candle in some capacity, it does not diminish my own. Does it, if I'm extinguishing my [00:39:00] candle for, you know, creating darkness or bad mood or whatever, then that carries over to other individual.
Scott: Absolutely. So there's a, there's a, these things are things we know that it's having that discipline. I think an important aspect, as you say, is that self-awareness as well. Where am I today? How can I create that space so that I can make the right decisions at
Joe: level? One of the things about that is I'm glad that we've had this conversation where we've brought in all these other authors and books and you know, ways of looking at it because the bigger your tool.
The more capability that you have to be able to find the right thing in that moment. So one of your listeners might take away something from our discussion about scuba diving. Another one might take away something about the martial arts. Another one might take away something from about the bucket and by giving an entire Schor.
Of different concepts that all ultimately [00:40:00] help feed the soul, feed the mind, then people will be able to walk away and be full in the proper. No matter how the, what their taste is in that situation. And so that is one of the cool things about exposing yourself to a whole variety of podcasts or books or people, is that it allows you to have a greater choice as to how to go about ultimately getting fullness in your belly and your.
Scott: Okay, lovely. I think that is a great place to finish. I think it's just, as you say, pick the stuff and that's really important. Pick the stuff that suits you and sits on your should as well. Cuz if all you ever ha if all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Yeah, exactly.
Huge toolbox. Then you can choose the right one. That's one works for you as a person. And also then in the context for which you want to use. So the bigger it [00:41:00] is the better charge you have of choosing that. Right. As master Toman, have they have lots of tools. Mm-hmm and they've probably got one. They used the most cuz it's the most effective one for them,
Joe: correct?
Scott: That's it. Okay. Lovely, Tim. It was sorry, Tim, Joe, that where Tim came from. Hello, Joe. It's an absolute pleasure talking to you and thank you very much for your enthusiasm and talking about excellence and say, hopefully people will get ready and there'll be links. In. In the on the podcast from your information from you and your books, et cetera.
So people wanna find out more, just click on the links and you'll be able to do so. So Joe Scott,
Joe: this has been fun. I've learned a lot, be excellent and grow today. Thank you

How Might We Convert Strategy Into Action

My guest on this episode is Karol Papa, he is a certified Scaling Up coach and I uses Scaling Up Methodology™ to help entrepreneurs create mechanics for predictable growth in their business.If you grew your business vastly over the past few years, added new clients and employees, but you began to realize that current management methods are no longer sufficient, the chances are your company's reached the next level of growth and needs new mechanisms to fight barriers to scale.The Scaling Up system was created for mid-market companies to overcome these challenges and set the basis for sustainable business growth. Thus you need to attract and keep the right PEOPLE, create a truly differentiated STRATEGY, drive flawless EXECUTION and have plenty of CASH to weather the storms. Karol helps companies answer the following questions
- Do I have the right people in the company and would I enthusiastically rehire them all?- Is our strategy driving results and would anyone care if our business ceased to exist tomorrow?- How many months in a row have we reached or exceeded our monthly business goals?- Do we have consistent sources of cash to fuel the growth of our business?Karol can help you double your cash flow rate, boost your profitability, increase the valuation of your company relative to the competitors and help you climb to the top in a joyful and meaningful way.
 
Karol's Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/karolpopa/
Karol's Website: https://karolpopa.com
 
Transcript:
 
Scott: Hello and welcome to the latest edition of how might we, and this episode is called, how might we convert strategy into action? Now, my guest is Karol Popa, who I met about 3, 4, years ago now. So Carol, would you like to introduce yourself, please?
Karol: Good to see you, Scott. Good to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
Yes, my name is Karol Popa I'm. I'm here right now in Warsaw speaking. You di directly from sunny city. I'm a scaling up coach. I'm a certified gallops trans coach. This is where we've met with Scott. And what I do is I help entrepreneurs to build mechanics for predictable growth in their business. So you can, you can learn more about that on, you know, look for scaling up, scaling up certified coaches, scaling up community on the internet.
You can find a [00:01:00] framework there. It's designed at the MIT university for. Midmarket companies to be able to just grow faster, really how, how to scale.
Scott: Okay. And I think that's obviously a question that's quite at the forefront of most people when their business starts moving is how, how does this get better and bigger?
And I think we were before we came online, it's one of the things, isn't it? That is something to consider at certain points, the way you work, isn't going to work because your company's growing.
Karol: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like Marsha Goldsman said, what, what got you here? Won't get you there. Yeah. So depending on your growth stage of, of the, how big your company is you need to do things differently.
Like the old ways doesn't open that does not open the new doors. Yeah. So we really need to change and adapt to the new situation inside as well as outside of your organization.
Scott: Okay. And then we are [00:02:00] talking about how we convert strategy into actions, a conversation we had, obviously, before we came online, we deciding what we were gonna talk about.
So why did you sort of want to hone in on that aspect of it?
Karol: I think it's one of the biggest challenges out there when you wanna, you know, grow your company, go grow your company, or, or even achieve your personal goals. So you might know what you want. And then you might think you you've got a plan, but when it comes to the reality it'll oh, you know, always, oh, maybe not always, but very often happens that the reality takes all everything, and, and you actually are not able to achieve your goals.
At least as much as you would like to. So what's the what, what's the solution. Yeah. What's how can you how can you tackle this challenge? How can you be victorious about it? So I think it's a good, good subject to have a conversation around it.
Scott: Okay. So you've said it's more [00:03:00] often than not that people struggle with achieving their plans.
And it's about their say strategy interaction is planned into action. So what do you think are the things that. Cause issues where people actually achieving what they're trying to achieve.
Karol: Right. So like at, at the beginning. Yeah. So first of all, you need to know what you what you want. Yeah. And then you need to know why you want it.
So those two things are very fundamental for you and you, and if you. If you try to think what, what the strategy really is. So just to simplify as much as we can, I I'd say the strategy is how you get what you want. Yeah. And then this implicates, those two questions. So what do you want and why do you want it?
So you need to think about that at, at the beginning. And it's important because this is the one, one thing that. That may influence your [00:04:00] reaching your goals, because if you are not clear enough, what you wanna achieve, then you might, you know, it's impossible to achieve it. If you don't want don't don't don't know what it is.
So this is the starting point. Yeah. If you wanna hit your goals, you really need to be perfect. Clear on what they are. And then what, what helps is another step. So you think about why you want it. We we've just talked about a little bit about it before we started recording about the values and about the purpose.
Yeah. So it's, it's why, why, what do you want to change in the world if you think about your goals that way? So if you can tap into this higher purpose, Of why you want to reach your goals. It gives you more energy. Yeah. About, so you stay motivated, you don't need those outside motivators. It's just fire burning inside of you.
So this is something that moves your engine [00:05:00] toward your goal and, and it will definitely help you reach those goals. So those two things, and then there's this next. Which is, if you know what you want, you have a clear vision, you know why you want it, then you need to figure out how you want, how you will get it.
Yeah. So this is this strategic thinking about the situation. Yeah. So it's about what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What is the situation outside? Yeah, what's the landscape. And who do you compete with? Is there, you know, other people, other organizations, other companies they want the same as you, or are you alone there?
So basically what you need here is the deep understanding about yourself and about the outside landscape and other organisms there.
Scott: Okay. That's interesting. Cause obviously I'll do. When I'm in the middle east and talks, bigger companies. And one of the, some of the things that we talk about is quite the same as you understanding [00:06:00] yourself, like say the C I P D call it being business savvy.
So what's in the business, what's important in our business and what are we trying to achieve? And also the contextual savvy is understanding the context in which we're operating. So you think even, so those principles are applied for if you're a multinational company, or if you are a solo person.
Karol: So.
I think it comes down to, to your individual goals as a, as a person as well, because We know, and we use Clifton strengths and this methodology, or, or this assessment changed my life. Yeah. And, and I know that it has changed lives of other people. So if you know your strengths and you can design your life and your actions on a daily basis around your top five or 10 strands, and you can use it more, you are more efficient and more effective, and then it suddenly Becomes easier to realize your goals.
And it also goes the other way around [00:07:00] because when you know, what your, what, what, what are your strengths then sometimes, you know, your goals change because of that. Yeah. You suddenly realize that something that, that you thought you want it now, you don't don't need it really. There's something else that is more important to you.
Uh, Through the lens of your looking at your strengths. Yeah. So I think it it's, it works the same as for the big international companies, global companies local companies and, you know, down to the individual level.
Scott: It's interesting. You said that what you thought you wanted, you don't need and it's that difference?
What is the difference between something I want and something I.
Karol: Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a difference, but, but it also is a, it, it cha the, the awareness and understanding of yourself changes your perceiving the world, your, your lens, how you look at at the world around you. Yeah. And it might, you [00:08:00] know, influence you in terms of yeah.
What are your goals really? And what is important for you? That's why, you know, this understanding can change your wants and needs.
Scott: Okay. That's one of the reasons. So the first thing is people not really having that sort of level of insight about themselves, about what's important to me and what really drives and motivates me.
And I, I like the fact that you talked about the intrinsic motivat, this stuff that's inside that keeps our fire burning rather than relying on external things to keep you to keep you going. So what is it? I can never remember the guy's name. Oh, I, I can is the the philosopher. He's not philosopher or he was a psychologist and he talks about flow.
Karol: Bet. yeah, Nick,
Scott: but I'm gonna try and pronounce his surname. Remember? No, no, I think he was Hungarian. I may be wrong, but he talks about flow. So I think that could be a tip for people today. Say, what is it that really drives you? So [00:09:00] imagine you were a time where you were fully immersed in something and time just seemed to zip past said what was going on there?
What was it that was causing. Level of immersion in you that it was, it was challenging, but didn't feel like work type thing. That's a wonder, apart from obviously the strengths that you you and I are involved in is another way of people helping people to identify when is it when they are that productive.
And then start looking around that, that the context of that and say what was going on for me at that time. So I can start identifying potentially some motivators and desires.
Karol: Yeah. And it is also connected with, you know, achievement. When you achieve, you are more motivated, you are more happy, you've got more energy.
And if you don't achieve, yeah. If you struggle all the time, it makes you unmotivated. And then if you think about work, And people coming to work and, and they do things that are not, we're born to be doing. Yeah. And [00:10:00] they actually don't have any results. They don't achieve what they're supposed to achieve.
So it's demoing and suddenly they just come to money for, you know, nine to five and take the, take the money and you know, it's not good for anyone. For them or, and, and for, for the whole team as well. So this achievement is a very, very important also element of of staying motivated. Mm-hmm
Scott: okay. So we've got an idea of what we're doing.
We understand why we're doing like then the combination of that. What do you want and why do you want it two really important questions. And then who else is trying to do the same sort of thing as. So we've got that understanding, which is really, then we start developing the strategy is about how do you get what you want.
So what is it you think that stops that plan turning into reality or actually concrete action is delivering the results that we are expecting.
Karol: All right. Uh, So there's one more thing we need to stop [00:11:00] here before we go to, to what stops the execution? What stops the action. Yeah, really? Mm-hmm so we've, we've got the understanding, but now we need to think how to translate this understanding of the situation into our.
Action plan. So we need to figure out what we gonna do and probably what we gonna do differently than those other companies, teams, people. So we can find the fastest and the most effective route to our goals. Yeah. So this is this another element that you need to have. Complete it really. Yeah. To, to, to put it on paper.
So this is if you only got it, you know, just in your head, it probably won't gonna work as good as it can when you put it on paper. So this is another element and, and there is tons of research that tells and, and shows that once you put your plan on, on, on the paper, you've gotta far more bigger chance of realizing it because it, [00:12:00] until you put it on the paper, It's just your dreams.
Yeah. And then you need to, when you're putting in on a paper, it means that you were, you thought it through and you've got like some ideas you wanna. You wanna, you wanna try? Yeah, really. So it's like, okay, I know what's the situation now. What is the best thing I can do now? There are some, some possibilities out there.
Yeah. So you, you, you've got a list of things that you can do. Yeah. And that, that might be a starting point for your strategy planning and a strategy plan. So this is the another one. And then, then we can try to think how to bridge the gap between this plan. That you've, that you've just put on a paper and how to make it a reality.
Okay.
Scott: Cause I do think, and that, I mean, I, I jumps there as well, so I think we quite often jump to. There's a humanism. We wanna solve problems. So we just jump to action without having. And [00:13:00] so you've, you've, you've, you've talked about having a lot of thought before we even get to thinking about converting what we're doing into anything that's resembling action.
Karol: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, and it also comes down again. I mean it might come down to as well as for, for your strength. So when you look at CU strengths, there is this one called activator, and this is the one that you just, just. Tells you do do it. Don't wait. Yeah. So sometimes your strengths might be your a little bit of a, like an enemy in this situation.
Yeah. So it's good to think it through. And when you've got it on the paper you start, you think you've got a plan and now everything's gonna be fine. But then you know, I remember this, this, this quote, when Mike Tyson was asked by the reporter, whether he was worried about a vendor, holy foods, and his fight plan, he answered [00:14:00] that you know, everyone has a plan until they got punched in the mouth.
So basically what Tyson said is similar to the old saying that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Yeah. And this is something. People forget or are not aware of the, that you need a plan, but then there there's this thing called reality , which is often, you know, doesn't want us to. For our plan to be realized that easily and, and the way we thought it through.
Yeah. So this is another thing we need to remember, and this is, this is the, this is I think this is one of the biggest elements of why, why we don't realize our goals because of the, you know, plan and reality. And there's this gap. Yeah. So how can we bridge the gap is, is a question.
Scott: I think that comes down to, I mean, there's lots of research in it with people when they're planning is the biases [00:15:00] in our thinking that influence our planning because they, it is done in a, although we've done all the research it's still done.
As you said, in a relatively sterile environment of our minds, our thoughts, our processes, and not in the real world as it is where things are usually slightly different. Cuz I say, we look at it through the lens of our awareness, but the reality is can be completely different. So I think the good thing.
Maybe just thinking about what you've said is when you have your plan, before you go to action, it's a sit about, and I would say this isn't about converting this to action. I, I would say. And you think you, you alluded to it earlier when you said, try, this is a way of me testing my assumptions. What assumptions have I built into my plan?
Because they, they may be right. They may be wrong. And if they're wrong, how can I then adapt that new knowledge back into the plan?
Karol: Yeah. I think it's, [00:16:00] it's, you've nailed it. Yeah, because then how can we bridge this gap? It's like, so we need tools. We need processes within mechanics. Yeah. That will help us translate this strategy into action and really stay agile or be able to adapt quickly to the changes around us. Yes. So this process of.
Constant testing and the, the hypothesis we got and what works and what doesn't work and what are, what, what tools out there that could help us. And here comes, you know, those things that, that software programmers use and, you know, like using scrum and being agile methods. And this is really something that comes also from scaling up where, where we have these tools designed.
For the organization to stay agile in the situation and how they can execute and, and, you know, measure the progress and, and be constantly in the known how well we and, and if we are [00:17:00]on the right path to achieving our goals. Yes. So I will go through them in a second, but this is the, this is the one of the solutions to look at the, this problem, the way you've just said, how can we.
Our, our hypothesis about how to get what we want and then what tools can we use on a daily basis that will help us do it.
Scott: Okay. And you talked about agility and sort of that, and there's some techniques you've talked to, companies use like scrum and stuff. So do you think that's one of the key elements to helping you actually realize a plan is to say, yeah, your plan's an idea.
And it, parts of it, work parts. It won't work, but it's how do you, how do you test that and how do you, how do you measure it? And then how can you react quickly enough to adapt so that you can take that new learning? Cause to me, that's what it all is. A plan isn't is an idea, a concept and something happens, which creates new learning, which we need to feed back into our planning stage and adjustment.
So [00:18:00] is that, do you think that is one of the key elements that, where it falls down.
Karol: Yeah, I think it's one of the main elements how you can, how you can nail it, how you can be effective in execution and, you know, achieving your goals and also what is required from you to be able to do it and use those tools.
It's really also about being disciplined. Yeah. It's about the discipline. How, because you need to be doing it on a daily basis. It, it needs, you need to create habits around the way around this agile way of doing stuff. Yeah. So this is about working on yourself and the first starting point really is it's like, you need to be aware where your time goes.
Yeah. And, and it goes for the individuals as well as for the teams for the whole organization. So it's like, you've got a plan, you've got tools, and then you, you say, okay, let's do it. But then if you don't [00:19:00] know, at the beginning, at the start where your time goes, so this thing called reality will crash.
You really? I mean, the more, the more aware the, the, the person is about the time Where they spend their time, their, the, the, the bigger chance they've got for success. Yeah. So the first thing I would recommend is like, really use some tools and do the experiment like for, I don't know, two weeks or four weeks to, to really record your activities in life environment.
Like there's this, for example, toggle track. Application, which is a free desktop time tracker and you, you can use it to, and it's also, they've got, they've got a mobile app and it's very easy to use it. And then after two weeks or four weeks, you, you can analyze yeah. Where, where, what, what, what you did and where, where really your time had gone.
So it's very important to do [00:20:00] it like. To record your time live. It's not like, you know, it doesn't work if you see at the end of the day or at the end of the week and try to remember what you were doing. Yeah. It doesn't work that way. So the only way is to do it. Life do it at the moment of your action, which is really like starting to build, start, start, you, you really start building your habit.
Yeah. This is the first one, the first habit to be aware where your time goes and the, the, so you've got a application, you've got a desktop trucker which seems. Very easy, but the hardest way, at least for me and from my experience is really like remembering that you need to put, you know, push this button right now and change the project you're working on and really be be focused on that.
Because if you, if you like do it, like only in a 60% or 70%, the, the results of your analysis won't [00:21:00] be correct. Yeah. So this is the first time Ask yourself, where do my time go every day? Every minute. Yeah.
Scott: Okay. So the analyzing of that, so you're doing it live and, and again, that start building that discipline in that habit of having a, and I think what you're talking about is a much more evidence based approach as well.
It's data driven. So we've got this, we've got our metrics, we've got our testing, whatever you set up is data driven to help you make those informed decisions. So we've done this, we're doing so we've created our first habit. We've managed for four weeks to remember to click on the button to record our time.
So what types of, what sort of analytics would you encourage people to be doing on that information?
Karol: Yeah. And then, and then you can take a look at all your activities. You can. Group it into, into, you know, you, you can make groups out of them and think which things [00:22:00] are really the most important ones like which are the priorities.
Yeah. So this is the first thing, first things first then we go to, to the next discipline, which is working on priorities. So the funny thing is. Not many people know that, but the word priority came into the English language in the 14 hundreds. Yeah. And it was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing.
And it stayed singular for the next like 500 years and only in the nine, 19 hundreds. Yeah. 20th century. Did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities? So we. We, we try to we, we try to how you say . Mm. Trick the reality. Yeah. So it was to be a priority and now we've got priorities.
Yeah. And it means something. Yeah. Even, even, you know, when you think about it. So the first thing [00:23:00] first so you've got your list of activities that you really were working on and it's, it, it usually, it, it's usually something different that you would think you. Thought you were working on. Yeah. So this is the first thing, and then you try to think, okay, so I've got my plan, I've got my goals.
So what is, what are the, the activities that would give me the biggest results? Yeah. So there's this. Prior Al if you remember. Yeah. So 20% of our actions provide 80% of results. So if you look at your list and you, and you just try to figure out yeah. Which activities provides the, the greatest results.
And this is the one method for you to try to figure out what is the most important and what is the most important thing you, you should be working on? Yeah. So the idea of analyzing your time is really about what you should stop doing, what you should continue doing and what you should start [00:24:00] doing that you're not doing right now.
Yeah. And then you, when you, when you, when you figure it out, this is the. Level of your effectiveness. Yeah. Because you are now starting to work on the things that will give you the, the biggest results. And that means that you are becoming a more effective person, the more effective executive as you will.
Yeah.
Scott: Okay. So we are now here, we've got our plan. We know what we're trying to do. We've got some idea of the tasks we've identified our time. We're now utilizing our time more effect. And identifying our top priority singular. Okay.
Karol: What next? And the next step is you need to design your data and analytics and measurements.
So basically how will, you know, if you are on the right path to achieving your goals and here. The help of tools like OS [00:25:00] KPIs and you know, those, those indicators that help you track your progress. Yeah. So I use those two method KPIs, which is key performance indicators and OS, which stands for objective and key results.
So KPIs is like for, if you look at your team or your organizations, like you can use them for. Business as usual. So what are, what, what indicators so shows you, how well or how good your company performs and what should you measure in terms of you know, you're trying to realize your goals. Yeah. So thinking about it.
So if, if I wanna achieve something how can I measure my progress toward achieving the. And it, and you know, thinking about it on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Yeah. So when I, so, so just to give you an example for ex, let's say we are now looking at the marketing function in a [00:26:00]company. So if we know what is the goal for the year and what is the goal for the quarter, we should be able to.
Tell what the marketing function results should be. And let's say in our business, the, one of the most important indicators is leads. Yeah, let's say marketing qualified leads, MQs or SQLs sales qualified lead. So let's say the marketing function should provide like 30 leads, leads, sales, qualified leads in a quarter.
Yeah. So you know that monthly, 10 leads and it's around like two and three leads a week. So if you look at this key performance indicators, week after week, you can tell if you are on the right path to achieving your goals. Yeah. So if you've got every week, the marketing comes with 4, 5, 6 SQLs.
It's great. Yeah, but if they come what, like, like with one or, you know, zero, [00:27:00] then you. Quickly, and this is very important. You quickly can realize that something is not working. Maybe your assumption is not good, or maybe you're doing something wrong and you need to change your behavior quickly. Yeah. So this is like KPIs for business as usual.
And if it comes to OKRs, it's another framework or, or method for achieving your goals. Yeah. So I'd say that for me, the essence of the OKRs is like focusing and aligning your efforts or everyone efforts in the team on achieving the most important goals and stretching. For amazing, which is one, one essential part of OKRs.
This is stretch goals and also tracking the progress to stay on course. And, and I use OKRs for those. Those projects or, or those initiatives, there are more like stretch. So if you spot a spot, an, an opportunity [00:28:00] and you wanna, you know, grab it fast, you can put an OTR on, on that initiatives. Or if you spot that something is not working properly or correctly in your business, like for example this marketing function, you can put an OTR and try to fix it, fix it quick as As well as you can test your hypothesis with the OTRs.
So you've got data metrics and analytics, and which is the, the next habit you, you need to develop. Really? Yeah. So you, you think about how to measure the progress toward our goals and how to measure it on a daily or weekly basis to, to be informed if we are on the right.
Scott: I think it just a bit, I'd like to add that.
Just be careful of what you measure. Yeah. So be very clear what you measure and does that align with what you are wanting in your organization to grow? Cause one of the things I say, whatever you measure, and if you build your reward structure around those measurements [00:29:00] generates behavior, and really think if this is what we're gonna reward people on based on these metrics to achieve these goals.
How might they act and is that something we would really want in our business moving forward?
Karol: Thanks. Yeah. And that's, and this a really great point, Scott, you, you just mentioned about, you know, be careful what you measure because what you measure is get done. Yeah.
Scott: Peter drer, wasn't it? What gets measured gets managed.
Yeah. And right. I think it's Peter drer.
Karol: Yeah, it's bit trucker, but it's, what's get, what's get measure, get managed, but as well, what you measure gets done, which is a little bit different, but you know, when you start measure something beware that, you know, it might happen. Yeah. Uh, Faster than if you wouldn't.
So I've got this example of fast food, fast food restaurant, and it was like the management. So did this one. One restaurant was like they, they worked until the midnight and the every day they had a lot of [00:30:00] you know, Wasted food or, or, or like the food they, they would need to throw away because nobody bought it in the restaurant in, in, in the late evening.
So what they come up with was they put this indicator on this measurement that how much. Food we waste. Yeah. So, so the management for the, for the restaurant figure out that if they stop selling fast food, from 10:00 PM to, to 12:00 PM. They wouldn't have this, you know, wasted food. So when, when customers come to the shop to the restaurant, they would, they would need to wait.
Long minutes until they got the the meal, because you know, the restaurant stopped serving fast food from 11 P from 10:00 PM to 12:00 PM. Yeah. And they realized this you know, this goal, they, after like few months, they didn't have wasted food, but. The behavior that, that this, you know, indicator drove in customers [00:31:00] was that they realized that there is no, it's not fast food anymore.
So they stopped coming in. Yeah. And the result was that they lost customers because of this measurement. So it's really about the thing you said right now. Be, be careful what you measure.
Scott: Something I did. Cause it is, it's not what you want people to do, but what people might. What we want people to do and what they should do or could do is sometimes very, very different again. So, and I think sometimes we just see something, oh, we've got bad measurements or we've got eight, an indicator that's poor.
So we're just gonna put another metric in to stop that happening without really thinking it through. And that may be where you're. Okay. Okay. R's coming. That can stretch a different type of performance to rectify that part of the business, rather than saying, just stop having food wastage, which will drive improved performance.
Looking at really ways that we can behave better to achieve that, but not [00:32:00] damage. As you say, damage, the reputation we have with our customers and sort of the consequences, the knock on consequences. Okay. So we're measuring, we're really careful what we're measuring. We're thinking about the behaviors that that measurement was, is likely to generate.
And what's the impact of that. And is that something want, and then we reword one. I'll just go onto, go on. Can I just, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Thing is one of my favorite KPIs. I've got introduced to this by a guy called LV terms on a previous podcast and this, I think it was from 3m. So this is off the top of my head.
So it might not be a hundred percent, right? So they've got a KPI that 30% of their profit have to come from product from every division have to come from products that are less than four years old. Now, if you just think as a measurement and think what behavior might that start generating an organization?
I think that's an extraordinarily clever KPI.
Karol: Yes. And it's all about innovation. Yeah. And
Scott: it's also because it's every division, it helps collaboration cuz I is every division's gotta be successful. So let's share what we know so we can help each other, but [00:33:00] also it stops holding onto products that stop falling off.
So some of this behavior that we've had in organizations about holding onto things that aren't driving sales and always, we need to innovate today for tomorrow's targets. I think it's a very, very clever
target.
Karol: Yeah. And if you think about the 3m purpose, which is solving problems in the innovative ways, it's all connected and it's all aligned.
Yeah. So it's great. And
Scott: who would've thought the stationary. So
Karol: I'd say it's how you design your your, your communi.
And having ability to work on problems in a collective way to use your brain, like you know collective brain power. So this would be the third element for, you know, just bridging the gap between [00:34:00] strategy and execution, how you design your. Meetings within the company. Mm-hmm so what do you do on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis?
Yeah. And how you design those meetings, who is in, in each of this kind of, of a meeting who is on daily list, who's on weekly, monthly, quarterly, and what's the agenda. What, what the results should be after each of the meetings. So starting with the dailies is, is just. 10 to 15 meeting minutes meeting for your team.
And it's basically about what is the most important thing for the day. Yeah. What's the daily priority and it's, it's about that and the communications. So everyone in the team knows what other people are doing. Yeah. And then you've got weeklys and this is about. Measuring and communicating the progress on quarterly priorities.
Yeah. So that everyone in the team knows if we are on the right track. We check our KPIs. [00:35:00]And if we are stuck somewhere, we've got, we've got time because this is like 60 or 90 minutes meeting. We've got time to solve one or two problems that that made us stuck somewhere. And you should think about it in terms of the year.
So you've got a chance to solve like 50 or 100 problem. In a year that helps you move forward, which is something great. Yeah. Mm-hmm and then you've got monthlys and quarterly, which are more like more strategic, really meetings with more people. And you can think in a quarterly actually you can, you can learn and you can think what went good.
What didn't work. In this period in this 90 days, what you can change to be more efficient and more effective in the next 90 days. And you can plan your next moves. Yeah. So, so this is this medium rhythm. Is this really like the heart rhythm or, or, or, or the beat for your company? [00:36:00] This is the place where you test your hypothesis.
Yeah, mm-hmm does it work? Does it not work? Is it still worth pursuing what we are doing or maybe we should stop doing it because it doesn't make sense anymore and you don't need to wait till the end of the year. To make this decision because of those tools and those processes, you can make it quick and, you know, you can stop doing stuff that, that are not necessary.
And if something has changed, you can adapt quickly. So we all been through the, the, the start of the pandemic here and in business, you know, it was like, like earthquake and companies that had those kind of processes and tools were more able to adapt quickly. To the new situation and the companies that work in the old ways stuck there and, and had bigger problems.
Yeah. So this is all about the communication about solving problems and about doing it in a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly [00:37:00] basis. And, and yeah,
Scott: I like the fact is that you, you've given a very clear definite thing of what a daily, a weekly and a monthly and a quarterly meetings are designed to do.
I think most people just have these meetings about that sort of clear agenda and. Clear understanding of what and why they're having these meetings.
Karol: Yeah. It, it's, it's really important. And you know, the greatest, I mean, maybe not the greatest, but the great thing about this design is also that when you introduce or when you implement such a design into your company, suddenly uh, it makes other.
Meetings irrelevant. And, and, and then that you, you suddenly gain lots of time for real work and working on problems and solving stuff. Then just going to the meetings that are unproductive. And this meeting rhythm one of the results of, of using it is, is this, you suddenly get, get more time. So the, the rule over time is that if you [00:38:00] are not a person, that your work is about meetings, like if you're not a salesperson.
Yeah. But you are, you work on different things and you look at your calendar and there is like more than 25% of your time is in the meetings. So something is wrong.
Scott: I think if, or in some big companies you gave them that they think 25% of my time is outside of meetings and 75% is in meetings. And you think, well, what are you doing about from meeting?
Unless the, and I mean, I remember you was talking to somebody who was a, there was, it was a relatively small company. I think there was about 15 people working in it. They had a weekly meeting, it went on for two and a half to three hours. And I said, what you doing? I said, we have this meeting, but you talk to people why they get us to know, just have this weekly meeting, it's boring.
It takes me and everyone realized it was add, just added no value. So they just swapped it. And they just said, I don't want to know. What's not what the update, just tell me, does anyone need any help? And that's when they changed the whole meeting. So go [00:39:00] around is, I don't wanna know where you are in all your projects you're working on.
Cuz it's quite a project based thing I said, but if there's anything you're not quite where you are, what type of help do you want? And then anyone in the, the else in the room. Can offer assistance based on that stuff that you are telling them. So it became much, much, much quicker, much more informed. And actually, as you say, started solving some of these issues and collaborating cuz every, every department was in that meeting.
Karol: Yeah. And here we are I suppose there's that, that that's the idea how to, how to do it. So, you know, the strategy. How you get what you want. So what do you want, why do you want it and what will you do to get it? And then you come down to, you know, being aware of my strengths, my weaknesses, about the landscape and the other competitors, and then putting my hypothesis into those habits of daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly meetings, measuring our progress to our goals [00:40:00] and working on the most important.
Or the prior thing, which gives the biggest results at the end of the day. And here's the recipe, how you can be more effective in reaching your goals.
Scott: Sounds so simple. Doesn't. Yes, it is. Well, you actually put it in there. It says, and it just seems to make logical sense. Well, you actually do it. So that's bloody obvious.
Isn't it it's seems quite obvious. And then you look at companies, how do you run your companies and not like that, but what I was like, I was thinking also about the meetings. Obviously I work on my own and a working partnership with lots of other people as well is even those things you said about the meeting, you could do that for yourself at the start of every morning.
Okay. What's my priority for. At the end of the week, am I getting on against my key targets? I've got on my, and I know as you say, you've worked out your KPIs and your okays, you know, where you should be. So you're gonna say right, what's on target. What's not on target. And then you can look at what's working.
What's not working. And then, okay. 90 months let's have a more in depth review of what's happened over the last quarter and then planning to Q2 or the next quarter. So it's, even though you say they're meetings, I still [00:41:00] think it's. You can easily integrate these into very, very small teams or even individuals.
I think the whole process is it is quite interesting. Cause you say you're a scale up coach. The whole process is can work from one person to a huge organization. The recipe doesn't change does it.
Karol: Now you can use it for yourself. You can use it for a small team. You can use it for big company.
Scott: You just have to design it differently depending on the size of your organization.
And what's important. How do we measure, who needs to be on these teams? How, who needs to be involved in these decisions?
Karol: Yes,
Scott: that's it. That's amazing. I do. I've never done this. It just seems so simple to me. And I love it when people explain stuff and I go, oh yeah. So simple. So SIM, so it's simple. So, so simple.
There you go. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, Carol. It's been an absolute pleasure. So as, as always, we always have a good chin wagon. When we get together talking about holidays and different parts of the country. And when you travel, you try to make me feel jealous because you're in somewhere it's hot [00:42:00] and it's not for me, but I think the.
Tables might be turned over the winter because you were still in Poland.
Karol: Yes, we were. Thank you. thank you for having me and I, you know, I keep your word for coming to the island. You know, I
Scott: will, I will come and say hello. No worries. It's it's a holiday and we're warm. I'll come and say hello. Yeah, I'll pop over no problems.
That will be, be my pleasure. And thank you very much for the invitation. So obviously if you wanna get hold of Carol or speak to him about anything he's discussed, his details will be in the transcripts on here. So please just get the details off him. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you young man.
And thank you very much for your time.
Karol: Thank you very much. It was pleasure. Thank you.
 

How Might We Improve Relationships on LinkedIn

Welcome to the latest edition of How Might We. On this episode my guest is Phil Coley and I discuss how to build better relationships on LinkedIn. Phil shares his thoughts and experiences and some analogies with dating.
He provides some great tips and advice on using LinkedIn to develop relationships that can help grow your business.
Phil has over 30 years experience in direct sales both B2B and B2C Phil works with a number of different business sizes from solopreneurs to multi-million pound enterprises advising on the SIMPLE principles.SIMPLESalesInformationMoneyPeopleLeadershipEnergyHis business portfolio includes a sales & marketing agency, accounting practice, digital publishers and a number of website businesses.Phil has strived for a work life balance and now run my businesses from here in France thanks to my amazing team based in the UK and our dedication to process and people.
 
Phil's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-coley-business-plus/
Website : https://iplussales.co.uk
 
Transcript
 
Scott: Hello and welcome to the latest edition of how might we, and this edition, we're going to be talking about how might we improve relationships on LinkedIn and my guest this week, or this episode is Phil Coley. So Phil, would you like to introduce yourself?
Phil: Yeah, no lovely to be here today, Scott, thank you for inviting me yet.
So I'm Phil Coley from business plus group of companies. So we have a number of companies in our portfolio, but it's one of my key interests is sales and marketing. So we have a company called hopeless sales marketing, and we help our B2B clients get more engagement on LinkedIn, get more leads and help to grow their business.
Scott: Okay, so you are you as a field that you're very familiar.
Phil: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. No inside that. And I, I suppose I've been linked on, been on LinkedIn for many years now when I first started and stayed on it.
Scott: Oh, I I'm a [00:01:00] veteran no less.
Phil: Yeah, it makes me sound a little bit old, but yes, I would say I'm a LinkedIn, the
Scott: guy.
Okay. So it's interesting. You talked about the relationships with LinkedIn and I think when a lot of times you talk about people, we talk about engagement. We talk about the importance of relationships in business. So why do you want specifically want to talk about that in relation to LinkedIn?
Phil: So I think.
Maybe I'll just take it back a step. I think it's, it's, let's look at sales, but even before that is on my professional background, sports psychology has played a huge part of my life from university all the way through. So I've taken an active interest in people and I've certainly taken active interest in people in sales.
And there is that age old thing that, you know, people buy people and yes, I understand that. And I think that's, there's an element. And when I look at LinkedIn, I look at what LinkedIn is. LinkedIn is a networking tool. Is it a social media tool? I don't think so, [00:02:00] but I do think it's about people and it's about.
Probably people apart from a profile picture, that's very faceless. And to be able to make that work, then you've got to work on the relationship online and using LinkedIn in a way that's probably different. And you would know, you know, we've got those, those three key things of making that first impression, which is the visual or.
You got the auditory, how you sound, and then you've got the words, the words that you used and people then build a picture of it and that way, and actually that's probably how I relate it to link to.
Scott: Okay. So how important you think it is for that first impression that we have.
Phil: Oh, I think it's hugely important.
And I think what I can probably look at is I can look at those mistakes on LinkedIn and I can look at suddenly. Now there are LinkedIn gurus everywhere, LinkedIn, this and LinkedIn that, and the majority of those people are talking [00:03:00] about. Posts. They're talking about how to get your posting right on LinkedIn.
And I'm like, well, that's, that's fine, but you, first of all need an audience. So you need to reach out and start a relationship with somebody. And so I think that's where a majority of people probably get it wrong on LinkedIn. And I think in terms of how might we, I think, you know, I think about how might we start a relationship with somebody in a business.
That's not just, hi, I sell widgets. Do you want to buy them? And that's where I think too many people make those mistakes.
Scott: I made, I think most of us I've done it in the past as well. You've contacted somebody and you'd go straight into sort of trying to get something from them rather than giving something to them as well.
But the amount of my inboxes on LinkedIn is hi, thanks for connecting. And then about two days later, here's an email. Do you want to buy from me? Does it work?
Phil: No, no, it doesn't work at all. And I, I mean, yes. [00:04:00] Do do, do I, do we, as a company have a process on LinkedIn? Yes. Yes we do. But have I honed that over the years?
My sales training and LP trading sports psychology trading, probably. Yes. And to hone it into, let's just take a step back and go forget it's LinkedIn for a minute. If you were looking at, say the dating game, then there's a whole array of different. Strategy is one can use when you're dating, you know, you certainly bump into somebody in a, in a scenario and then you might ask for their number and you're a little bit coy about this.
And then you'll. Text them or ring them and they'll have a conversation. There's a whole array of different stages that you do to, you know, trying to date somebody or even just build a relationship, build a friendship. And for some reason, people seem to forget that on LinkedIn and they just forget those kinds of processes and they go out the window.
And that's where I think so many people become anti LinkedIn and active messaging because there's so many people doing the [00:05:00] same thing without.
Scott: So I quite like the analogy you had with dating. So I know when we were talking about what we were going to call it, there was a, there was some talk around dating, and I can't remember what it was, is like, don't ask for something on your first date, where you were starting from.
And it is, I mean, I've been to face-to-face networking meetings as well, and people have done the same say hi, I'm nice to meet you. You're new here. And it's like, okay. And then just straight into. 'cause I think if they've been around, they know everybody, and then you turn up as a new person and everyone was like, Ooh, you person let's go and not build a relationship, but let's go and actually sell to this person.
Phil: I think you're right. I think there's two scenarios there, which, which, which you paint and you paint really well is I think in those face-to-face networking. Yeah. Either people do prey on you as new, new, fresh meat and go, right. Let's pile on in, and let's try and sell to you. But I also think as well, I think, you know, people cluster, and I think a lot of people in those networks and scenarios will be chatting away with people.
They know cause they built the relationships and then somebody new comes in and a lots of the time you see a new person [00:06:00] just sat in the corner, just drinking their cup of tea, going, what do I do? And I suppose in a way LinkedIn takes away some of those elements. Cause it's, it is faceless and it's quite easy to.
To send a message, but you've got to realize why you're sending that message. What's your ultimate aim. And I think on LinkedIn, I'm sure people want to build networks and they want to build networks because maybe they're looking for a new job. Maybe they're looking to sell their products, but maybe they're, maybe they're trying to improve their brand awareness as well.
And I hate to use this phrase, but it's a phrase that's being knocked around all the time about personal. And I'm like, okay, there's this personal brand, but actually at the end of the day, we're all individuals and we just want to meet other like-minded individuals to create relationships, whatever those may well be.
Scott: Yeah. There is definitely a move in 19. I've seen about this personal brand and me personally, I, the wording you could possibly say. Is it [00:07:00] as, as true as that what's that make it quite false. But I do think the messaging across that is quite important. Is it everything you do in LinkedIn creates a reputation or perception.
So that's the way I kind of look at it and say, what's the perception you would like people to have of you. And then how do you, how do you ensure that what you do consistently is aligned to that reputation that you would like to have?
Phil: And I think for me, I think that there's two fold and. LinkedIn is, is morphing and changing all of the time.
And I think that down to people, to the feathers that is changing, that is that LinkedIn isn't a social media platform is a network networking or a relationship creating. Platform for business people, but business people are still human beings. And I think there needs to be a mix of your personality, who you are.
I don't think there needs to be a mix of, well, I'm going to have scrambled egg on toast and light with a bit of salmon that people aren't interested in [00:08:00] that there's other platforms for that. But I think people are interested in what you're, you know, you're a family person, you are, you're a sporty person, you know, w w you know, those kinds of things.
Understanding an individual I think are key, but I also think, and really resonates with what you talk about trust is for me, I, I tend to use the eat principle eat, which is you need to be seen as an expert. You need to be seen as an authority and through doing that and creating that, that then people start to have.
In you in your subject area. And that's, that's where I tend to look at LinkedIn and I, I, I hate using the word and I've already used the word once already in this podcast is Gury, I'm just like, come on, you know, just what, what a title to be, to be using, you know, you as a person, you need to represent you as an individual and who you are, but also, you know, in your business sector.
Are you an expert, you know, are you an authority? And [00:09:00] therefore people will, will trust you. And that's where I think is you need to understand both sides and you as a new, as an individual personally, and what you represent. And then also probably what you represent from a business.
Scott: So I think the interesting thing you've done those as this duality of it is a jet I do trust is something that I'm quite keen on and done a lot of work with.
And it is, and I think sometimes we concentrate on one and not the other, which is we tend to concentrate too much on building that credibility about others. I'm an expert in this field, which is important for people to approach you, but it's also the, I like about you. What you said is about that, the human element of that connection as well, which I suppose that comes back to that relationship.
You were talking. So
Phil: yeah. You know, I think he does. I mean, you know, let's, let's be realistic now 20 years ago, where were we with any of these kinds of social media online kind of platforms? You know, we weren't, we were human beings talking to each other. We were people who would sit, bring on a phone, you know, mobile phones, We're obviously very relatively advanced 20 years ago, but it's still [00:10:00] quite a new phenomenon.
So I think the art of conversation has changed and the way used to communicate has changed, but we're all human beings. And I think if nothing else, the last two years. I'm hoping people have appreciated human contact and, you know, humans conversing with each other to be there as a support. And that's why I think that you are dualities, as you mentioned, is so important now, you know, We've all been through something together.
Every single person has been, not necessarily touched by every single person has been impacted by what's gone on in the last two years and probably what's going on right now as well in the world. And we're all touched by that. And we're all human beings. And I think we can easily lose our personalities and morph into something that we're not something we're deemed to be.
And I think that's where things like LinkedIn, you can share who you are and you shouldn't be scared of.
Scott: And I think there is when you talk [00:11:00] about people that are, there is much more personal stuff coming on, but what you said earlier about do people really care about what you had for dinner? So do you think there's a line between where you share what you are or who you are as an individual on something?
I think too.
Phil: I think so. And I think. You have to be wary. Do you have to have a strategy? Not necessarily, but you have to have a conscience or or your own kind of level of how much you want to share and by sharing what will happen. And I think too many people post things up forgetting what the ramifications of it could be.
And I don't mean that in a really negative. But sorts of way, but you just got to think about, well, when you send some, what's your audience going to think about, and I think you do need to have a consciousness about what you send out, but I think there is a line and it's about. How much you want to expose yourself online to people seeing some of your strengths and some of your [00:12:00]weaknesses.
And I see lots of people do lots of raw things on LinkedIn and that's great, but I think there is also the time where you can show who you are and there's nothing wrong with sharing. A time in your life or sharing something about you or your family or your friends that, that may resonate with others.
And I think the sharing of people supporting causes or supporting friends or remembering friends, I think is important because that shows you have a caring side, but you do also just need to make sure that it's done in the right way. And it's not done for self publicity. It's done for a reason of, yeah, this is who I am and I'm quiet.
Scott: So there's a couple of things picking up on that. I like the word I would use is how it is relevant.
Phil: Yeah, relevance. And that's a really interesting question because [00:13:00] it might be relevant to you. Is it relevant to anybody else? I think relevance let's, let's look at it from another point of view on that relevance.
I think lots of people are. Using content calendars. So they are going, you know, today's pancake day, this Sunday's mothering Sunday, or it's going to be the Equinox. And I think that's great to give you some kind of guidance. Towards some kind of engagement or how sorts of comments, but actually so many people are doing the same.
So you occasionally need to look at things from different point of view. So is it relevant to your audience? Is it relevant to you and is it relevant to who you are? So if you're going to say, and I'll use a personal. If I'm going to comment on something to do with the deaf community, I am doing that from twofold.
I've become heavily involved in the deaf community and working with them to help them in the business setting. [00:14:00] And that's not come from a. A family connection in any way, shape or form. It's come from meeting somebody who was deaf, who came to a networking meeting. So six years ago and came with an interpreter.
And actually I've created a great friendship that person now over six years, and I, you know, we we've done walks together. We'd run together. I got to know his wife really well. And I count her as a friend as well. And they've got two amazing children who aren't there. I would pay something up about the deaf community.
Cause I like to promote the document you see, because I'm not there, but I really engaged with what they do. So to me, that's relevant and probably to some of my audience that's relevant, but that that's me highlighting a cause that's relevant to me and hopefully it's relevant to others. So that, that would be quite a good example of not jumping on a bandwagon.
That's just relevant. Yeah. Cause
Scott: I think for things that happened, don't you? So if there's an event, cause it is again, listen to what the people in LinkedIn said is make your posts [00:15:00] relevant and really what's happening in the world. If you got something major going on, everyone jumps on that bandwagon and everything is related to LA pancake.
How can I do what I do around pancakes? I think, I think if I was a bit creative, I probably could do something creative and probably funny, so slightly off kilter and just using the pancake as an analogy, but that's probably.
Phil: I think. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I think, I think with that, you, you know, probably you'd be clutching at straws to make it funny and would it be relevant to audience?
And for me, if you suddenly went out and, you know, there was something happening in the world and you were like, well, you know, there was this time where I was negotiating with terrorists, you know, people would go really. I didn't know that, although they can read it. LinkedIn profile. They could have an understanding what you do and that's probably relevant to your audience going.
I didn't know that. So when Scott talks about talking with people, it probably comes from a good, good area of what [00:16:00] he's on about. So I'd say concentrate more on what's relevant in your past that people is pick up and go, gosh, this guy really knows his stuff. He's an expert in it, rather than trying to see how you can negotiate making the right pancake.
Scott: Oh, we could do that. Can we negotiate? So the pancakes and everything else, there's a good debt negotiation. So I've got all the titles coming up, they're all over the place and see what we could do. It'd be all over the place. So it's quite interesting. I think also in, in relationships, we'll go back to how we can build relationships or what relationships should look like in LinkedIn, or could look like, I don't know the word should, because it will be different.
Yeah. I do think sometimes that we put we're encouraged to put posts out that relevance and everything else, and it kind of bays like it's again, a phrase I'm not so keen on using, but I am going to use it. Cause I can't think of another way of saying it is like clickbait or like bait is another thing.
How can I get, oh, that's whatever. So I get hundreds and hundreds of likes and the metrics I use about my success in LinkedIn is about how many people see my posts [00:17:00] or what likes they have, et cetera, et cetera.
Phil: I think for me, you know, clickbait and all those lead magnets and all those kinds of phrases.
Who are you actually trying to hook? You know what, what's the whole reason for doing it now on LinkedIn, you've got your first connections and you've got your second connections. So if some, if I put something out there and you like it, you share it, then your audience sees and goes, well, what, what Scott shared?
And then they could, that gives me some views. And then do I get any people from your audience like it? And the second connections then do I connect with them? So, you know, that, that kind of spider's web of, of engagement and, and use. It probably just says, well, Scott likes what this guy likes. Let's have a look at it and see if there's any relevance.
Will you pick up something from that baby? But for me that I go back to what I said at the early stages of this was it's not necessarily about posts. It's about. Creating connections and your posts are predominantly [00:18:00] keeping your first level audience engaged, which is great. And it depends how many you've got in your connections and followers.
But for me, the real essence of how I use it in and how you should use LinkedIn is who do you want to be? Connect? Who is your audience? What do you want to do with that audience? You know, do you want to create more business contacts? You want to create more, more friends? Do you want to create more consumer type connections as well?
And I think a lot of people forget that element and say for me, I know. That I will probably have a 12 to 16 week period developing a relationship on LinkedIn, somebody, and that's, that's a very conscious way of connections and that will involve some messaging and the messaging is done in a certain style.
It will also be some liking sham share. [00:19:00] And also some commenting alongside that as well. So it's taking that step from seeing somebody in the pub and go on, look quite nice to, oh, I've got their number two. Maybe we'll go for a meal or maybe we will go to an event. Maybe we'll go away for the weekend. Who knows?
So it's that back to that whole dating knowledge, you know, and I think, you know, if nothing else, people just realize that it takes time to build relationships online and often. And actually, if you understand that, I think you'll get a lot further than using LinkedIn to create a thriving community online.
Scott: Just a question then, how keen are you on these automated processes? People have in like building connections and building relationships.
Phil: If I'm honest I've looked at them and I've dabbled with them in the past. And I think for me, where that whole area has now gone, it's now gone [00:20:00] back to the whole human elements.
And I took a business decision 18 months ago, where we do telemarketing and we do a lot of tallymarks in B2B that actually we completely stripped down and I'll tell you marketing. He said, everything's going to be on LinkedIn. And within that strategy, We are manual. Connecting talking messaging with people.
We have no automation anymore. And the reason we've done that is how can you build a meaningful relationship through automation? It would be like what's the dating thing. Tinder would be like that Tinder thing where you swipe right or left on. I'm just not down with youngsters on that, but you either swipe one way or the other and actually in a way it'd be like, Can you build some AI that would say, or are you going to build, you know, are you going to swipe back though?
Right? That to me is where the automation, I think that doesn't work. This, the beauty is still in the eye of the beholder, so, and that's the same on LinkedIn. You can make a better [00:21:00] conscious decision to connect with a person, then any piece of AI or software.
Scott: Okay. So, I mean, I know why they sell this. These solutions get started time-saving is that you can have this, you can do.
And again, I think is that funnel process, isn't it. As I get somebody who's meets your target audience, do this, do this. But even though I've seen stuff that I think this definitely sounds like it's automated and I still think you can make that interesting to a degree.
Phil: Yeah. I mean, you can, to a degree, you can only make it interesting on the first.
Because the next attempt. So you have no idea what some of this coming back to say. So if somebody comes back with a thumbs up or good to me, or, oh, by the way, I was looking to sort of naturally to buy what you sell the automation. Can't take that into account. So on that first, first connection, and you send a message.
Yes. Automation can play a part, but after that, definitely not because how, how can the [00:22:00]automation decide what. Would want to say and do with that particular person
Scott: within how they've responded to you? It's how they respond to you, how you're going to speak to them. Correct? Absolutely. They're. So to me, I agree with the automation to.
Because again, it's just time-saving, you can help, you can target who you need to target. Once you've worked out who your target audience is, you can put a message out there that will get them possibly, hopefully for safe, as written well, peak their interest and encourage them to contact you. And then once they do that, then you can take over and sort of start building, as you said, that relationship.
I think it's interesting. You say that we can build relationships on multiple different levels in LinkedIn. So it's about the instant messaging liking somebody's post sharing. Commenting on things they they've written and you say that's a conscious effort you have of building those relationships with people, utilizing all that.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely. I think you've got, you've got all of that available to you. So, you [00:23:00]know, and again, I, you know, I won't keep using the dating analogy, but it's true. You know, if you're doing a, like in a way it's a bit of a week, it's a bit of a week to some of it, just see if you can get their attention.
Whereas if you share something or comment on it and by sharing and commenting, it's a very similar process. You're actually going a really light court and you say, and I think, you know, you're really good at what you're doing. And I really want to share that with my audience, because if you know who you are and what you are.
And I think, again, that's where I think a number of people get it wrong. And, you know, I could talk for hours on the LinkedIn algorithm, but it, outside of the algorithm, you know, alike is a very small token. Whereas a share, but in particular, a comment or share with a comment, actually, you're taking the time to engage for a reason.
So either you're flirting with that person because you want to try and do business with them, or you genuinely want your audience to go, do you know what? You should have a look at this? Cause I think it's really interesting.
Scott: I quite like the other thing is [00:24:00] interesting for me in what you're saying again, or go back to trust is one of the aspects of trust is to be selfless in building relationships.
So I think if people see what you're doing as only to benefit you, so yeah, I'm new to you. So as I'm new, we're going to see lots of comments and lots of shares. If that happens, then I'm just going to drop off and ignore you. And I think people will see through that as a. Your entire way of doing it has only to benefit you as an individual.
So the thing you said that was interesting about that, being genuinely thinking what your, what this person is saying is going to be interesting to my, or.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I, I do a lot of networking majority of that now online, but I've always, I've always looked at networking and I've probably networked NAF or easily 25 years and across networking.
Always sticks with me. You know, I think many people in business will have done BNI as a networking way. And I have I don't do boat BNI anymore, but I have, and I [00:25:00] know others have this happen. One of the things that I always remember is they all say that givers game and that's something that stuck with me and it's, it's always something that.
Within any networking or any business community that I'm in. I'm always looking to see how I can help others or introduce somebody because ultimately we'll come back to you and that's, that's just about relationships. And that's just probably takes me back to, you know, even current day let's, let's say, you know, if a neighbor.
I haven't, I'll give him a hand. I don't expect anything in return. So, you know, if they want something moved or the car's broken down and they pushed that you just do it. Cause that's the nice thing to do. And you're not ever looking for anything back, but you never know they might in the end, return that favor.
So I look at it the same way in terms of on LinkedIn. If somebody is looking for something I'll, I'll try well, go and speak to so-and-so and it's not me trying to sell anything. It's just going, well, I know somebody in my network or I'll share it in my network. That to me is [00:26:00] probably probably about that whole trust things.
You know, if you just curse, you're so nice, you know, but that's, that's one of the first things we can ever do in building trust is just be courteous, respectful to others. And you can go from there
Scott: as simple as that. Yeah, it is. It is not complicated and it really is not complicated. I think before we came online, I just said the tagline I could neck, but you want, I'm going to give you some kudos for this conversation.
Simple flight simplify, the CA the complexity. And I think and this goes back to the automation and the thing is, as, as people we are motivated to do something either to achieve or avoid simple as the complexity is what we're trying to avoid, or what we're trying to achieve is. And I think that comes down to your relationship.
If we don't try to work out what that is, how can we build that relationship?
Phil: Yeah, you're right. It is all about that. And I don't think anything has changed or [00:27:00]nothing's for me is really changed you adult. And, you know, I recently was talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and everybody's got needs, you know, from that the basic needs of, you know, heat and food and water and shelter all the way through to a feeling.
Self achievement and accomplishment, the everything else in between. And we can overcomplicate. Building relationships. And I think today it just gets over complicated because there's so many different ways to build a relationship as you and I both just said, it's simple. It's just simple. You know, you just go back in time and look at how did you build those relationships in years gone by and nothing's changed.
You know, we haven't changed as human beings. Just the tools around us have grown more complex.
Scott: The principles are exactly the same. Let's strip it back. So how can you get to know somebody online and be able to, we could do this, you could do that. So we'll just find out. And again, it depends on what you do and where you are [00:28:00] cause then LinkedIn gives you, as you say, it gives you multiple ways.
You can do videos now called you can do video calls. You can actually, you don't have to type, you can actually send, leave a voice message for somebody and those types of things. That, again, it's, it's just those simple things that. Individualizing that approach help you stand out because so few people do it.
Phil: Oh, absolutely. When you say so few people do it, you know, currently to date, there's over 800 million users on LinkedIn, but when you look at the statistics of those who are regularly active on a daily basis, you know, you're looking in single figure percentage. And that just says, there are so many people who are voyeurs or lurkers on LinkedIn.
And I think there's about there's about 35% of LinkedIn users will pay something once a month. But then everybody else is really active is, [00:29:00] is around the one or 2%. So when you look at the same, much more people could be doing. And yes, there are loads of tools on LinkedIn, but you know, for me, it's like, well, just get out there, start connecting with a few people, you know, start to build your network slowly, say hi to a few people.
Like what they, like, what they talk about. Maybe have a zoom coffee with them, or actually have an hour of physical coffee with them. Find out what they do. You know, just, just some real simple way. We can do it, but for me is LinkedIn is just a goldmine of opportunity to create, I mean, funnily enough, I had a message come back through this week and we'd connected with somebody and, and sometimes the people have got common names.
Sometimes you can connect with them cause they cause they write and I manually connected to somebody and I didn't actually see where they lived and I just flipped the name and the name was a very common name and he came back to me. Nice to connect again, Phil, we used to sit next to each other in business stats.
And so I was like, [00:30:00] right. Okay. Nice to see you again. So anyway, but that's a great example in the suit that we, we suddenly we chatted again, but that just shows, you know, it's people do remember you. And I suppose I'm lucky in one way, I've got an unusual surname and there's not too many of us apart from a country Western singer in this.
It was called Phil Coley. So he's probably just a little bit more famous than me, but it's, it's, it's interesting. You can easily trip back onto people and restart relationships as well as make new ones.
Scott: Again, I was doing a coaching session with somebody the other week and they were talking, I know they were talking about looking for opportunities and, and say, who have you worked with in the past has had a good connection with them.
I said, when's the last time you connected with them? I said, then I can go and ask them if they've got a job. I said, when's the last time you spoke to them? I know two years ago, I said, I just want you to run. I just want you to think about this. Imagine you're sitting in your office, somebody you haven't seen for two years knocks on the door and says, excuse me, if you've got a job, how are you going [00:31:00] to respond?
And he's like, oh, it's not very good. Is it? I said, no, because you're demonstrating here. I'm only talking to you because I want something from you. And it's amazing how, even in normal conversation, because. We do that quite often. We, we, we, cause we, we do know a lot of people it's about when you connect and how do you keep that cadence with people?
That's going to keep it fresh, but still keep it. I'm just talking to you. I'm not in it for anything. I just say, Hey, you're getting unfilled. Where's it going on? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's it. It's just a five minute. I said done dusted, just touch base with people as well. I think that I'll be taking tips here to actually improve my LinkedIn, because I'm not great at this because I I've been on it for a week.
I'm one of these, I just post stuff. And then just talk it, talk to a few people. So what's your view on numb? So again, you were talking about metrics and because obviously you're into sales, you're into marketing. So metrics are really important aspect of what you do to measure success. So what types of things would you be looking at it within how successful you are on LinkedIn, sort of in that relationship?
Phil: It depends what it depends, what you use LinkedIn for if I'm honest. So say from my [00:32:00]perspective, I've got many thousands of connections. I haven't got tens of thousands connections like others, because for me, it's about. A lot of the time it's quality over quantity and others will have a huge quantity that you're going well, what are you actually going to do with safe for me that the key metrics either, I don't necessarily look at likes and shares of my posts.
So I'm not, not that worried about those. It's nice occasionally to see views come up. I get really good views when I pay some kind of family or some kind of nature or whatever kind of image. And I know I can get rid of thousands of views for that, but again, it's like, it's nice to have, I don't do all of the time.
So the key metrics for me, and this does come from a sales perspection is I look at my connection requests, my messages that then turn into. And for me, I'm not into thousands of those. I'm into tens blocks of tens [00:33:00] that I go, right. I've connected with those people. We've had a meaningful conversation over a three-month period and I've actually spoken to them.
We've actually spoken. So for me, that's a real key metrics for me because I want to. To folded. And again, it's still resonating with very much your words. It's it's about trust. So I want to a spoken to somebody for them to trust me and me to trust. So for them to say, they're an expert in cybersecurity and for me to chat to them, go, gosh, you really do know your stuff so that if anybody ever says to me, do you know anyone in cyber?
I know this person, then that's that's for me as a metrics because then I can share somebody to them. And actually then some business might come from it or I might, might put them.
So for me, that's, that's the metrics, but also as well with what you were saying to me, we did speak a little bit about clickbait with magnets and [00:34:00] things like that, but it's also having a purpose and a reason to message somebody or to speak to somebody is you have a great podcast and talk to some really interesting guests.
And actually that's a really good way for you to engage is you can offer people the opportunity to come on your podcast. Even if they didn't want to come, they were like, oh, that's really nice. It's got to think of me and ask. And that's a great way of building a network and not being intrusive to anybody.
It's just going, Hey, I think what you do is really great. I'd love to have a chat with you. And so that's a really nice way, way to build. And now. You know, for me, I'm, I'm lucky we've got a business owner platform that we can interview people on. And for me, it's, we always have free content on there, and it's always great to talk to other business centers and go, we'd love to interview on that.
So it's a very software. I've talking to somebody without being some kind of hard sell, so have a reason. But for me to answer your question, the metrics for me is not about likes. It's not about views. It's about actual [00:35:00] conversations that probably you can't see on LinkedIn because they're in the messaging or they're actually on a zoom call or a fake
Scott: are quite yet.
It's interesting. Listen to your metrics because it is, there's a process there isn't I I'm going to find my audience. I know why I want them on linked. Because I want to build my network so I can, and the space listening to things like that, you're a part of the business owner group is that if I can find people that can add value to another part of my business, I'm not trying to sell something to this person.
I'm just saying, can these people add value to other parts of our business, but to do that, I need to get to know them. And this is how I'm going to measure that.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's why for me, it's been so. Over the last two years of having the right strategy on LinkedIn, we've picked up a number of new clients from LinkedIn.
And some of those actually just from LinkedIn, you know, we picked up a cup of, couple of. 20 million plus turnover companies from [00:36:00] LinkedIn. I didn't know who they were. I mean, one of them is a household household name for one of their divisions and that's not me, Greg. And that's just me going well, you know, I know how to use LinkedIn.
And that was probably all you could use when we were in the midst of lockdown is. There were some online networking, but actually just reach out to people. Everyone was scrambling around and I think everybody was happy, quite happy to talk to anyone. You just make the opportunity, but you still needed. I still iced.
It needs to have a process. And I think anybody using LinkedIn properly, you need to have a process.
Scott: Yep. And I think you just care about the relationship. So we'll go back to what you said. And I think the, the ma he's right at the beginning, he said, what are you in LinkedIn? Yeah, what you're trying to do, are you trying to sell, are you raising awareness?
Are you doing, are you doing what are you doing for, and then that helps you identify that audience you need. And then from there, okay, well, do I need them to do, to help me achieve my goal? And then how do I measure how successful I am being in what I'm trying to achieve and helps them look at the process.[00:37:00]
Phil: Yeah, absolutely. You have to have a process. And as I said, you know, in mid part of this was, you can have one or two different aims of LinkedIn and that's fine. There's no, there's no reasons that you can't. And what's really interesting to me is senior executives and CEOs. Larger organizations, be those charitable, be those footsie one hundreds or blue chips or whatever you want to call them.
How many of them have a poor presence on LinkedIn? Because they don't have the time. So that's not a criticism of them, but they don't have a time. And actually they don't have a process of how to make that work. And that can also be set the same on other social media channels for celebrities and personalities.
Cause you know, it's not the. Posting, they've got a media team or a marketing team because they got no strategy. They're just putting stuff out. And then there's, there's one or [00:38:00] two really good examples of that recently where organizations were individuals have put something out that was completely not their view.
Because they don't communicate with their marketing team or the person running their thing is not, I have nothing against people running it. We've got a number of clients. We actually do all of their they're posting and they're sharing and they're connected, but we work with them really closely to understand who they are, what they like outside of work, you know, what they do so we can speak as an authority as them.
But I just see so many people get that wrong in big organizations and they got a lot of learnings.
Scott: I think it's part of what we said about that personality. Isn't it. And everything you say is can indicate a view and an opinion. And it's about to me, it's about that consistency as well. So if it is a person talking about their views and as a consistency that builds credibility in them, and you want to get to understand them, but if it's other people [00:39:00] without understanding where that person's coming from, then their personal views will aren't suppose to some, they might just do it in a corporate language.
But it's saying things that perhaps are not. And I think we look at it also, one thing I think is an important aspect of what you've raised there is about using other people, but for me, and is one of the activities I do with people. And it's about really understanding the impact, which goes back to what you said earlier.
What is the impact of relevance, of what I'm about to say? Okay. So one of the activities I ask people to do is just, just imagine you are just about to type something up you're just about to hit, send, how comfortable would you be saying that in open court? Just say my Lord at the end of that statement, or your honor, or whoever is in your jurisdiction, wherever it is it globally and say, how comfortable would you be in an open court?
Say no in front of a judge with a barrister and the person you're talking about with the [00:40:00]people you're talking about, sat in the same room,
you got any ounce of uncomfortable nursing thinking about that. Delete what you're going to say or rephrase it.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely. I agree entirely with you. And I suppose that also texts on to a common question or a common mistake. People make. Is when you post or how much you post them and, and all of that.
And the, the key for me is, you know, sometimes, you know, less is more, definitely less is more particularly put some thought behind something. And it's very easy to take a picture and add a sentence, but it's actually a lot harder to. Have a good image and probably write 200 words on LinkedIn and post it out and think every part through.
So I think it's not only that, but also as well. The, the, the other thing is the seems to be particularly on other social media channels, but LinkedIn is start to get the same where people seem to think you have to keep [00:41:00] creating new content. And when you're trying to build an audience and you're trying to do a bit of brand awareness, or even look at that whole.
Is, there's only so many ways you can rehash something. And, and I take people back to, I grew up in newspaper. Appetizing days is one of my first jobs. And that, that was, you know, cutting face it, trying to bring people, getting to take adverts. And actually in those days, a lot of big appetizers carry the same ad for a period of time.
You know, they don't change the actor. They keep the same ad because repetition. Builds to engagement because you see the ad so many times and the same hours on that television ad, you'll see the same ad for a period of time. And too many people on LinkedIn constantly trying to change stuff. It's like, well, actually just reinforce what you do and actually sharing the same post.
Not every single day, of course, but maybe the same post once a week for seven or eight weeks. [00:42:00] You just don't know when somebody is. LinkedIn. They're not on LinkedIn at the time you post waiting for you to post. I can guarantee you that
the cup of coffee. Well, I'm sorry to shatter your illusions. Sadly. They're not.
Scott: Well, I've never thought of that. It's it's again, it's if you, if you step back and think it just makes so much sense. And again, it's the principles, isn't it. Advertising has been around brand awareness has been around for eons. And it is that repetition about sending that message off and then getting that message drummed into people.
And I think it's the old thing about marketing, isn't it? As you got seven connections before, or was it seven times we've got to see something or whatever it is,
Phil: 77 touch
Scott: points, seven touch points before. So do they, if the risk is, as you rightly say, if they're all different, they say, well, what you, what you say.
Yeah, whereas that [00:43:00] consistency in what you're doing. So one of the things I could ask you now, as he, this, this could be feedback on what I was doing and whether it's going to be good or not. So I might, I might take it as a free consultation. So I started thinking about what I was trying to do it obviously I'll talk a lot about trust.
And one of the things I thought I tried to create an avatar on LinkedIn, as I talk about this. And according to Alex, cause I thought it was important because that's all about leadership that I had a name that was both male and female could be used by men of women. Cause I didn't want to be one or the other was in too much it's about Marilyn and or I can't really talk about female perspective for too much authority.
So I wanted somebody, I could say I'll Alex and one post will be shame on paste. It might be here. It doesn't really matter, but it's about, so Alex is a leaders of what I talk about is why doing it. So and then talk about Alex in that experience, then the sort of aspect around trust I want to do. And put into that person.
So the consistent thing is this person. Yeah. That's an idea that I'm playing around with at the moment.
Phil: Yeah, I think, I [00:44:00] think in essence, those kinds of things work and it probably takes me on to how people use LinkedIn in terms of kind of case studies. They tend to, you know, in case that this can be really, really nice, but a lot of people, I actually had this conversation yesterday is a lot of people think when you say something like case study or try and put yourself in the shoes of the personal, trying to reflect that, or as you are with an avatar.
It's not, well, it's not necessarily just about an individual as a case that it's about where did you make a difference? So where did you make a difference for somebody is, is sometimes the better way round or how did I make a difference versus sector? What I potentially would say for what you're doing with the avatar?
I think it's, it's, it's a great way of doing it, but actually it's it's sometimes if you're going to change the. Sometimes somebody will go lung short, Alex was a she last time and now it's a heat. So people might just go, did I miss them? So in some ways it's quite good. Cause it makes them think, was I reading it right or not?
So, [00:45:00] so I think the avatar side is good, but it's only if you're comfortable with that kind of way of looking at it. I mean, there's so many different ways you could do. There are so many different ways you can take
Scott: it. I get just, I dare, I cannot this. I is something consistent. And I've got to say like, like a lot of things I talk about is expert.
Just experiment. Does it work? Doesn't it work? Does it. And if it doesn't work, when you can change it and do something else, what would be lost is that at least the messaging is still consistent in that.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely. I think the one thing that's changed over the last 5, 10, 15 years is you can test lots of people now talk about, and there's principles come from engineering and manufacturing and research and development to be fair, but it's, it's all testing say.
And B split testing. There's so much of that now, so you can test, you can test and see how. Things go. As long as they're not too contentious, you can test a number of things on LinkedIn and you can test messaging, can do batches and messaging and just tweak it a little bit and see, does that engage with somebody?
And you can do batches of 10, 20, [00:46:00] 30, and 40 to get some kind of feedback in it and a feeling on it. And I think. Yeah, it was just worth playing around. But I just want to go back to what we were talking about in terms of the advertising message. And one of the, and again, I date myself slowly. The younger audience would have no idea what I'm talking about here, but an audience for certain age would be one of the most memorable advertisements is of a cowboy with a cigarette, with an iconic sort of background mountains in the background and the black and white one.
And that's one of the most iconic attributes of its era. And. For me, when you look at that, then the majority of people know the small group, it was a mole graduate and they really didn't change their cigarette advertising away from that for many, many years. And that's just an iconic one because they used it time and time and time again, because it was all about brand awareness.
So, you know, It's there in history that don't always have to keep changing it. You don't have to keep changing content. [00:47:00] And that's where too many people mistake and they don't get on with LinkedIn because they go, oh, I just can't keep creating content. It's like, just get three or four and stick with those for a while.
You don't have to be a marketing.
Scott: I think we'd not marketing as a lot of people are like, somebody like me, I just work on my own, my own company and say, there's lots of things we have to do to try and do that. And there is there's learning from marketing is about sales is all these aspects. And we are, if we are honest with ourselves expert in what we know and kind of floundering in the other areas as we're sort of splashing around in the water, trying to just carry on swimming.
So it's quite nice to say, to be successful. You don't really have to be an expert. Just these principles that you say that you can run with.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely. And I think. You know, I I've said yes, we handle people's social media and we do LinkedIn and those elements. Yes, yes we do. But actually the bulk of what we look at is just trying to engage and start creating relationships, you know, can we, can we send [00:48:00] a series of messages and caught somebody that turns into a telephone conversation or a zoom meeting or actual physical meeting and they go, do you know what?
You might be able to do something together, you know, just keep the whole thing simple. But I think every time. Not everybody has a majority of people or a large majority of people think if I do amazing posts, it's going to go viral and I'm going to be a millionaire by using LinkedIn. That is completely the wrong platform.
You've got the, you got the wrong thing, but the one thing you have gotten LinkedIn is your audience is really easy to define and really, really easy to find. The biggest make mistake you can make is get that first moment. Because you only get one chance on that first impression.
Scott: I'll go back to that.
This is important for you. I think you said about trust and this is what I think with the automation is key. That that first message is really important and how it works. And I'll go back to it because I talk about trust. You don't know somebody, and you said at the beginning, [00:49:00] people bypass. Yeah. So if anything else you do off, listen to this podcast, please don't smell on your first or second message.
Phil: No, no, I'm probably never sell on LinkedIn. Just use LinkedIn to, Hey, it's going to have a, do you fancy a call? You'll never get, you're never gonna, you're never going to sell something genuinely and I should know.
Scott: That's what you do for a living, not settling. You build a reputation and you say the sales come.
So I'm assuming that you've talked about, you've got clients on LinkedIn is not because you're going to approach them is because if they've engaged in your content and then they've come to you and say, Phil, I'd like to work with you.
Phil: Yep, absolutely. Yep. One of the ones in question was they were shifting their marketplace significantly in COVID.
From the entertainment and hotel industry cabs and they needed to get out and they came straight in and go, we want to do telemarketing campaign. You see you do it. Can you help us? Yes, we can. So yeah,
Scott: so [00:50:00] taking the ends and I think this is, again, goes back to these networking meetings as well. Don't try and sell in a networking meeting, actually just network with people, say, who can I help?
How can I, how can I become some somebody. That helps other people, but if they need somebody, who's got my expertise, they'll come to me or they can refer people to me other than my three thousand four thousand five thousand, 10,000 connections and sell them something.
Phil: Totally. Absolutely. You know, that, that's the key thing.
And I will say as well, I think just get back to physical networking. You don't walk up to somebody tapping them on the shoulder. Oh, I'm here to sell you a photocopy and like, who are you? They would just look at you and go, who are you? But actually, if you just went up, shook their hand and said, hi, I'm new here.
What do you do? You'd be amazed. It's lap principle. We're trying to take into LinkedIn is just shake some of this hand, ask them what they do.
Scott: And an interesting question. Again, it goes back to selflessness and I heard this from somebody else. I thought it was really great when somebody connects. They might send a connection [00:51:00]request and just say again, I think it's always worthwhile writing why you want to connect with this person as well.
It's whatever it is, either we go to the same networking meeting or we work in the same area or I've, I've seen some of your posts, I think to really interesting. Yes. It takes time, but again, there's that quantity over quality over quantity approach. And then when they say yes, can I say great ticket? I think somebody I spoke to that might be Jack said, well, he says back, which I think is really, really nice.
He says, thank you for allowing me to join you on network.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of the time there's people that they don't even send any kind of message. Just let it hang there. So for me, if someone's. Going to connect with me and they accepts my connection request. I'll certainly message them and say, thank you because that's key.
And for me, most of the time, it's a thank you. How can I help you? Who can I introduce you to my network? That's that's where I will, will take, as part of my processes is. [00:52:00] To use that. But if you just Willy nilly out, connecting with people, cause it's back to the dating game, it's back to somebody. Somebody is, somebody is like, I really liked you.
And then you just go, you're not there. They're like, what did I say? What did I do wrong? Why do I bother absolutely negative impact or later. That
Scott: is just, again, it's that first impression. So I, and I liked what you said earlier is just have a reason as well. So the advantage as you say for me, and I've never really used it, although interestingly enough, my podcast has enabled me to get connected to some amazing.
Yep. And it normally is. I might be doing, especially when I started, I'd have a guest and I say, oh, fell out of a filter. Okay. And they say, oh, I know somebody, you might want to talk to who you might find an interesting person on your podcast. And it's amazing just by doing that, the amount of people I've had the great fortune of having conversations with.
And I would never have got it without reaching out and just talking about.
Phil: No, and, and to be intimate, [00:53:00] to be fair, right. Because you'll ask me the same question. Anyway. I've already got two. That would be amazing for you to speak about. We'll obviously talk about that after
Scott: we finished it. And there is another option.
Another thing I learned many years ago as well is if you give something to somebody and again, so you might give something to free. Cause I was going to write a program for somebody else say right there. It is. Have it as a, if you think this is useful, who else in your network do you think this would be beneficial to.
Okay. Pass the details on to them. So it was not even coming through me. It's helping people choose who they think what you've got would be beneficial and I'm introducing it to that freebie. So it's not, again, driven by me being all salesy. It's all about help, help, help, help, because you've found it useful.
Who else do you think may find it?
Phil: And that's back to relationships that if, if you said to somebody, oh, I think you should talk to Phil, the person, you know, trust you and goes Scott, most trusted. So yeah, I'll chat to him. So it's all about relationships. It's how you can build relationships that are long-term [00:54:00] relationships.
And it doesn't matter if you built them online, you can still be really strong relationships online as much as you can face to face.
Scott: Absolutely. So I think it's trust relationships, reputation, and eventually.
Phil: Yeah. And probably the one I would add to is repetition,
Scott: repetition, because that builds it. Yup.
Yup. Okay. So if we were to say we've nearly done it so far, I want to sum up what we've been talking about, about how do we build, how might we build those relationships, improve our relationships on LinkedIn. What would you say to somebody who does it as part of their job and is very successful at doing it?
Phil: I'm going to go with a really old fashioned sake because it is so apt today, just treat others the way you'd like to be treated yourself,
Scott: says about yep. So treat people how you would like to be treated. So again, that's that consideration, is it think about what you're going to do and what would, how would I like that happening to me?
And if it's a no, don't do FSEs feel free to.
Phil: Absolutely. And so, so [00:55:00] I allowed a little bit and Nissan, so that is, you know, if you're going to message somebody, do we all hate getting these sales messages first off? Absolutely. So make sure you don't send them in the way that you don't and then equally, if somebody does connect with you, would it be really nice if somebody, when they can access?
Thank you. Well, why don't you do the same as say thank you. And then also, how can I help you? How can you, how can I help you? Is a very underused.
Scott: Because it's normally, how am I looking for you to help me, correct? Yep. Yep. So again, it goes back to that selflessness, isn't it? It's how can you serve your network?
I think is a good way of looking at it. Yes, absolutely. And as people join in and see them as people, it's been an absolute pleasure that hour flew by.
Phil: I didn't know. I loved it, Scott. No, it was really, really nice chatting to you. And again, I think work you're doing is, is amazing on that whole thing about trusting.
We can't lose sight of. It's the basis
Scott: of everything,
Phil: isn't it? [00:56:00] Yeah.
Scott: Okay, lovely. Thank you very much. I feel for your time and absolute pleasure and all the links to everything we've spoken about on your various details will be in, in the transcripts underneath this, on wherever you're listening to it, but definitely where we publish it.
Okay. So thank you very much for your time.
Phil:
Pleasure. Thank you again, Scott. You're welcome

How Might We Increase Trust In What Businesses Say About Sustainability

On this episode we discuss How Might We Increase Trust In What Businesses Say About Sustainability. My guest is Hannah Keartland, Hannah helps bold purpose-led leaders build a sustainable business by showing where to start and what steps to take.
In this episode we discuss the rise of the sustainability agenda and the current lack of transparency and trust. Hannah brings some great thoughts and insights into focus and tips on how organisations can increase trust in their sustainability claims.
We’re at an exciting point in history. Some people are calling this ‘the sustainability revolution’. Markets are being shaken up – these are the times when great innovation happens! That can be scary. It’s also exciting. Your business needs to be resilient to the risks and grab hold of opportunities. I'll help you do that. I can help you go faster than you can on your own.
 
 
Hannah's LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahkeartland/
Hannah's Website : https://keartland.co/
B Corp Website : https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/
ORB Website : https://www.orbuk.org.uk/
 
Transcript-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott: Hello, welcome to the latest edition of how might we, and on this episode, my guest is Anna Kirtland and we were talking about how might we increase trust in what businesses are saying about sustainability, which is an interesting subject and quite a topical because of what's happened recently. So, Hannah, would you like to introduce yourself, please?
Hannah: My Scott. Thank you. So I'm Hannah Kirtland. I help professional services, businesses know what steps to take to become more sustainable.
Scott: Okay.
Hannah: Short and concise. That's enough. That's enough
Scott: for an intro. This is me. That's it. Okay, so you talk about sustainability quite a lot and helping businesses be sustainable.
So why is it important to think that we, that, that the topic you talked about is about how do we trust them? What businesses say about sustainability?
Hannah: I think that there has been so much greenwashing that I think [00:01:00] we know that the public want to make sustainable choices. We're seeing increasing evidence of that.
But the moment it can be really hard for them to make those choices because without a huge amount of research, because there's so many businesses have been saying, here's my green, this my eco that we're going to be net zero by this stage, or this is a net zero product. And actually, if you start scratching beneath the surface, you can discover that there were loads of caveats.
And that makes it really hard to know which products and services out there genuinely. Helping the planet. There's also, there's a big difference between a product that's less bad than the competitors and one that's genuinely good. And there are very few products out there, but a genuine Nygard. And just because something is a little bit less bad than the competitor doesn't mean that it's the right thing that you should be buying.
So we need to be able to trust businesses because we can't. There are people out there who will do lots [00:02:00] of research into everything that they're buying, but most people don't have the time or the inclination or the knowledge to be able to keep doing research. You can't be walking down the supermarket with your phone out, checking every single claim and every single brand and every single product.
So we need to be able to trust what businesses are saying to us. Imagine if we, we knew were going around Tesco and we know that Tesco is screened all of its suppliers and is only stocking products that are. Created sustainably packaged sort of sustainably not causing deforestation et cetera, et cetera.
If we knew that we could walk around the supermarket trusting Tesco, knowing that we don't have to then think about that, but we are making sustainable consumption choices. But at the moment, we're in a stage where there are, there are the vast majority of brands. You cannot trust what they're saying. You need to be digging under the surface because there's no consistency around what net zero means or what, what people actually companies [00:03:00] actually mean when they're saying something is sustainable.
Scott: So, and that's an interesting thing, cause I do think we're actually in a crisis of trust in a lot of areas about how we communicate and what we say. But it's interesting that we talk about sustainability and you hear this word and this, the language around it, that zero and everything else. But if we don't have a consistent understanding of what that means.
Does that give organizations and to a degree, I suppose, governments some leeway in claiming how compliant they are with something, because there is no set standard or a acceptable what this actually means
Hannah: at the moment. Yes. And certainly historically, yes, that's changing. So there's more and more regulation coming in.
And since January, this year, we've had the green claims code in the UK, which has come in and we still that's all about businesses making environmental claims. So we saw only in the press, it was last week. They've had one of their adverts pulled because the [00:04:00] claims that they were making were not seem to be backed up by the right level of data.
So we are going to see more of that. So we've now got green claims code is a really interesting thing at the moment, keeping a watch out to sort of see whether it has. Which businesses get pulled up on that. But there that provides a lot more regulation around what businesses can and can't say, and their, their marketing and what claims they can make.
And if, for example, can you have a picture of a car driving against a nice wooded green background? Does that subconsciously give the consumer the impression that this car is good for the planet? You know, therefore is that not allowed anymore? These are all sort of questions that are being debated at the moment.
I think it will be really interesting. And then in terms of net zero transition plans, in terms of the financials, there is much more regulation coming down the line. Now that will start to give us more consistency and compatibility, but we're not there yet. Which means that one company's net zero can be totally different to another company's net [00:05:00] zero it's only when you start digging into their reports, into their website, into all the detail that.
I can understand exactly what it is they're talking about. And the reality is we can't expect people to do that.
Scott: No, it's interesting. You say that. So I think there's an opportunity for organizations. So if they could jump ahead before the, before they forced to, and actually have that transparency and say, this is what we're doing this, and we're working and that's what it is.
Then there's a potential opportunity for them to have that sort of jump on the competition when it arises.
Hannah: Yeah. I think it's really interesting. So at the moment, there are a lot of businesses making voluntary disclosures, and then there are equally lots of businesses that are waiting to be waiting for it, to be mandatory and to do what they're told to do.
I think it'd be interesting to see the way the market perceives that. So if you get ahead of the curve, You start disclosing being more transparent, being really honest about what it is you're doing, the impact that you're [00:06:00] having before you have to, does that start to build trust within your consumer base?
So I saw a really nice social media post yesterday from Tony's chocolate, Tony, and they were talking about the percentage of child labor in their supply chain. And they were then really honest. They said, you know, this is the amount, this is the percentage amount of child labor that we have within our supply chain.
And actually, you know, compare that then with the chocolate industry at large, the percentage they would have, the reason we have got this amount within our supply chain is cause we expanded supply over the last year. We've taken on some new suppliers we have now worked with them to understand where there is child labor.
We are now working with them to eliminate that over the next year. So we will bring that percentage back down to zero. But they were being totally transparent that there is child labor in their supply chain. And that, that is an issue throughout the chocolate production industry. And they are, this is what they are now doing.
This is their target that they're trying to get to. This is the timeline they've [00:07:00] given themselves. This is the, this is the plan. They weren't trying to hide it. And that for me as a consumer, that builds trust because they're not trying to gloss over an issue. They're not trying to make out that they are perfect.
They're educating me at the same time, but they're the fact that they're sort of demonstrating that vulnerability makes me trust them more. They don't have to tell me that they didn't have to put out a social media post telling me that, but they did. And they, therefore, I trust them more because I know they do more than they have.
Scott: And I think that's an interesting point is around trust is I know what you have to do. And if you go that extra mile, I say voluntarily, build that, buy more trust with consumers. And I think sometimes that fear is what stops people, because if they have to start reporting this and have to lift the lid on their supply chains, they're going to go, we don't know what we're going to find, and it could be absolutely horrendous.
And then what are we
Hannah: going to do? [00:08:00] And the supply chain is such an interesting part of this because most businesses, even if they're manufacturers, most businesses, the vast majority of their carbon emissions are what's called scope three. So either within their supply chains or in the way their products are used and then disposed of by consumers and that's really hard to calculate, but we have to, because we can't just ignore that because then you're ignoring the full impact of the business.
But at the moment there isn't consistency around how people are measuring that and disclosing it and creating plans around it. So yesterday there was a report that came out an annual report called the corporate climate responsibility monitor and it was critiquing and ultimately criticizing a lot of large businesses zero plans.
And they had a question in there that is what has really stuck with me from that report, which essentially said, if everybody did what you're doing, then would we reach net zero? [00:09:00] Which I really liked because they were talking about the fact that businesses will they'll try and fudge the issue by maybe putting the most carbon intensive pieces of equipment that they own into a subsidiary.
And then not including that subsidiary within their reporting, or you might have. Remove those most polluting activities from your own supply chain, we, your own operations and then work with the supplier in another part of the world. So all of a sudden that's within your supply chain, it's not within your business, so not report on it.
And so they're externalizing the most polluting parts of their business. And the reality is if everyone did that and sort of fudge Dave written, he didn't and brushed it under the carpet, then we're not going to reach net zero. It's something for me, it was about, we need to stand back and look at the whole system and, and be really honest about how do we all need to behave in order to be [00:10:00]responsible businesses.
If we are going to together, do what we need to do. And the reality is if we all behave like that and sort of fudge it over and brush it under the carpet and on honest about what's actually going on and what the size of the problem is, we need to tackle that. We're not going to achieve what we need to do, but equally we're going to undermine trust in the whole system.
Scott: I mean, it's interesting to see that some of the clients around the motor industry and stuff we're already from, so it's bleeds you. I may well be wrong, but it was just something I read. I think it was one of the large car companies saying, oh, we're going to be fully electric or hybrid by some not 2030 or something.
And I thought, well, you're going to have to be there. You can't actually sell you. Won't be able to sell a petrol or diesel car pretty much in Europe, possibly. I don't know about the rules in America, but a huge chunk of your [00:11:00] market will disappear from you with these cars. So it's not, and it's not a big fanfare thing.
I think for them to announce, this is what we're going to do is you're going to have to do that because that's the new laws that are coming out with. You've got no choice. If you want to operate in that marketplace, there is not. And it's interesting. I was on a previous call podcast talking to a guy called guy, and he talks about generation generation said coming in.
And obviously there can be much more prevalent in sort of the numbers over the coming years. And he said, now their attitude is they can really, they can sniff through marketing BS and being sustainable will not be a badge of honor, but be expected.
Hannah: Yeah. And I think they'll ask tougher questions. And so in terms of the figures, so millennial and gen Z are going to be 72% of the workforce by the end of the decade.
And when they're inside, they're asking tougher questions already within the interview process. But equally [00:12:00] once they're inside a business, they're not, they're not just sitting there. Putting up with it. They're going to be activists within the business. They're expecting they're expecting a totally different way of doing business.
And I think that's, that's one of the things that is going to actually make businesses sit up and respond because they, they need people to work for them. And if you can't attract the best people, you are not going to remain competitive. And it's much harder. I think, to hide things from the people who are working with you every single day than it is from your consumers.
Scott: Well, I decided to consumers is that most people don't know who owns block. You've got a brand and you say, I'll buy this and it, but the same company owns both of them. Do they? Yeah. They rebranded, marketed, whatever it is. Cause they they're just pitched at different levels. So our understanding of the complexities of big, especially big businesses we've got no idea.
Where did that money go? How do they do it? And how these things work. So what [00:13:00] about, what's the opportunities then? So if you think about like the medium sized business or the business going into that sort of area, because quite often, like these reports and we talk about the global companies and I think sometimes that gives an opportunity for smaller businesses who are potentially more agile, but also can have that story and connect to their audience quicker and better than larger organizations.
Hannah: I think there's two different elements to it. There's the process element. And then there's the human element. And I think they're both really important. So from a sort of process, point of view, it's really important that they, they know the numbers. So they've got a really clear idea of what does the state, what does sustainability mean to them and how do they measure up against that at the moment?
And then where do they actually want to get to? And what does good look like in terms of really specific measurable targets and how do those pan out over a period of title? So it's not just saying we want to get to this point in [00:14:00] 30 years time, it's saying this is where we're aiming for in five years, 10 years, 15 years.
So they're mapping out that journey. They've got numbers against it that they can then be held accountable to and they could talk about, and then they've got a really clear plan for how are they going to hit all of those different numbers. And that, that plan is then available to the public so everybody can see it.
Everybody can interrogate it. It's all kind of complete. And in one place, you're not going to dig around the website in lots of different pieces to kind of piece it all together. It's got to be easy to understand. It's got to be really clear. What's in scope, what's out of scope how you're going to measure all of those metrics.
So that you've got those, you know, these are the assumptions we're making. This is the methodology we're using so that there's no fudging around at all. These are the numbers, this is what we're going to do. Put it out there, completely transparent, completely open so that there's, anybody could come along and then measure and get the [00:15:00] same result.
So like you would get with your set of accounts, but because there isn't the same rigor at the moment around all of this, as there is around a set of accounts, it's about being really transparent about these are the, this is the way we're measuring it. This is the plan we've got. And then it's about, as you go on that journey things, aren't going to work out exactly how you thought they were going to work out, but being completely transparent about that, continuing to report on it, continuing to measure, as you said, you would, and then go back out and say, okay, we said, we were going to get to this point by the end of this year, we haven't actually, we've missed it by this amount.
This is why we've missed it by this amount. This is what we've learned. This is what we're doing to get back on track. Not trying to budget, they admit mistakes, they share learnings. They recognize that this is a journey that it's really complicated, that nobody knows the answers. They don't pretend to be perfect because nobody's perfect.
None of us know how to do this and that sort of humidity and vulnerability and [00:16:00] honesty. They're okay with that rather than trying to present this perfect image
Scott: I got. So it goes back to that fear of failure. Doesn't it. And trusting that, you know what we are in my experience, if something goes wrong with a company, with a person or an individual, whatever it is, if somebody actually else ends up saying, I'm really sorry, I made a mistake, but generally quite forgiving that people were saying, okay, that makes sense.
I can understand what you're doing. And as I said, that authenticity and what they're saying, as you say, and this is why this is what we're planning to do about it. This is where we're moving in the future. Yeah, I believe that's the way forward. If that's where you want to go as a business. Cause you'll never attract people who want to get involved in that because you're totally open and transparent.
So a quote, I can't even begin who said it. I love quotes. I can never remember who tells me where I read them from a very few stick, like the names he said there's a war on talent and talent one. So the war [00:17:00] on talent is talent, talent as well. We're in this case of the world changing so fast and the skills necessary to move companies forward.
And then there's the gen ed and the millennials coming into the workplace and working in. And then I suppose having more senior positions in organizations as well, may help in that transition to that more transparent reporting obsess.
Hannah: And I think the reality is while the external context has changed.
So a lot of people who are maybe close to retirement now earlier on in their career, It was just more stable, whereas it, it just isn't anymore. It's, we're in a very rapidly changing external environment and therefore we need to manage and lead in very different ways. And so that, and it's, it's complex and you have to do tests in there and you have to experiment, you can't create a strategy and then deliver it because [00:18:00] you don't know what's going to happen when the strategy hits the market.
And actually as the market then evolves and you suddenly have COVID or a massive new technology comes online, there's a banking collapse or whatever it is, these things are happening and you have to respond to those, the strategy we're not in a stable marketplace. And so it comes back to that vulnerability piece again, I think, you know, especially in terms of environmental sustainability claims.
Nobody knows how to do this. Nobody's done it. You know, there are some businesses that are far more advanced, but you know, it was that interface have done brilliant knee in the world of carpet manufacturing. Well, unless you're a carpet manufacturer that operates in exactly the same places, you can't copy what they did, you can learn from it.
But all of us are going to be sort of muddling through trying to work it out as we go along and testing stuff out, seeing what works and what doesn't work. And that [00:19:00] requires a very different sort of leadership to the maybe more command and control leadership that might have been okay. 20, 30 years ago.
Scott: Okay. So to build trust, we need to change the way we lead it to say that except we are going to make mistakes. And it's about the opportunity to learn from those.
Hannah: I think so. Because I don't think any of us are going to get this right. But I think having the humility to go out and recognize that this is a journey.
So for example, speaking to lots of businesses that have become B Corp's the thing that they consistently say is it's a journey. It's not about getting the, you know, going through the process, ticking the boxes, getting the certification, sticking it on your website. It's about a journey. And actually now we've started on the journey.
We suddenly see how much more we need to do. And the journey of now we've got the certification. The journey is only just beginning [00:20:00] and transparency is a huge part of the B Corp. But I think that's really interesting, you know, and I'm finding, you know, the more, you know, I've been working in sustainability for years, but less so in environmental sustainability.
And the more I learn, the more I realize that I don't know. And I, you know, I. I think that humidity is really important because we've got to collaborate on this. We've got to pull in other people who are experts because none of us can be experts in absolutely everything. It's such a sort of complex ever-evolving space.
It's about collaboration, experimenting learning, which is a very different type of leadership to knowing exactly what you have to do and then implementing it.
Scott: Okay. And just to, for those who might not know, can you explain what B Corp is?
Hannah: Yes. So it is a certification that a business can get that, so shows that they are signed up to a sort of better way of doing [00:21:00] business, that they adhere to various principles in terms of environmental principles in terms of How they engage with their community in terms of how they treat their staff in terms of their governance.
And you can apply for certification and you go through quite a rigorous audit process. And if you become a B Corp, then you're some part of that wider community. And you can say that you're a B Corp on you know, on your recruitment materials, on your multiple materials. And that, that can really help to engage a certain type of consumer or a certain type of employee.
Scott: Okay. So that could be some ways that organizations say, how can I help prove, will build trust in I'm doing the right things. I know I am, I'm trying. And instead of just saying, I'm doing it like, cause I I'm certified that these are the principles of which I'm following. So that could be a way that certain organizations can demonstrate that sort of, and to build that.
Hannah: Yeah. And even if, if people weren't ready to sort of commit to that [00:22:00] journey, they've got an assessment that you can do for free the B impact assessment. You can go into their website, access that for free, and it goes through all of the questions you'd have to answer. And already that can start to give you an idea of where you might have gaps, what you might want to work on.
So that can be quite if you're doing that kind of baseline measurement of where are we, what might we want to improve? That can be quite a nice place to start. And you could still even talk about that. You don't have to be going through the whole process, but even sharing that you've gone through that questionnaire.
You've used it as a way of identifying opportunities to improve sharing that with your employees could be hugely powerful.
Scott: So that could actually open people's eyes and just say, cause sustainability, if you talk about what is sustainability and all this jargon, that's around it because it seems wherever we do something, we create a whole new language around stuff, and it's not an area or a field I work in.
I would say, what's the difference between net zero and carbon and this and that? I don't know. So if they use something like the B-Corp and say, this [00:23:00] will give us an idea of what good could look like, all the areas we could look at to sort of embrace the sustainable approach to business.
Hannah: Yes and no.
So B Corp is,
is one set of measurements and one way of looking at a business if you want to look at sustainability in its broadest sense, then why I think one of the best places to start is the sustainable development goals developed by the UN. There are 17 of those and they are pretty comprehensive in terms of all the different things that might fall under sustainability.
So you've got things in there around equality, diversity biodiversity water. Climate and carbon. Whew. How, how does industry work? We've got huge range of different things that could fall under the sort of broad title of sustainability. And one of the ways that I would always start with the businesses to sort of have a really honest conversation with the leadership to say, [00:24:00] what do you actually want to achieve?
So at the moment, a lot of the talk and a lot of the regulation is around net zero net zero. And that's where a lot of businesses are feeling pressure at the moment to remove to reduce that impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. That may be all they want to work on at the moment in terms of sustainability.
And that's okay, but let's admit that up front also to have a really honest conversation around why are you doing this? Are you doing this because you want to tick a box and you want to be compliant, or are you doing this before? You genuinely think it's the right business thing to do, or are you doing this because you want to have a much broader impact beyond making a profit and you want it to be genuinely integrating impact into your entire business and operating model.
Let's be really honest about that up front, because that's going to impact your entire approach because if actually it's about being compliant, we're not going to [00:25:00] push this as far as we might, if you want to transform your whole business model and genuinely try and tackle some of those big, sustainable development goals.
And I think that that level of honesty upfront is really helpful as well. That's why,
Scott: as I put it, the scope is narrow. So it's, this is what we're actually doing it for. And then once we understand that and we, if we say to people we're doing it because we have. And I don't think many businesses will actually put that in the literature.
Probably not. We are compliant. Give it, give us a clap. Is it? No, I don't think so. You're doing over and beyond, but what they see in the vision of what they're working towards. Cause we talk about that, that we mission and vision of organization is, and they could do it. So they could actually do that around that sustainability thing as, as where do they see themselves as contributing to this, this area of business or society?
And where does that? Cause I was working with a company in America. I was fortunate to be invited along to help co-facilitate some work and they're very much around their sustainability. They see about one how they do business with their people, but also how they connect to the community. [00:26:00]Yeah. And that was the two parts of them.
It was about how we treat our people and, and how we, how we pay back to the communities in which we are. And they, they put an awful lot of emphasis around those two aspects of their business.
Hannah: Yeah. I mean, going back to what you said about B-corps, there are two big aspects of B Corp. There are questions around those and to become a B Corp, you don't have to tick every single box.
And it may be that there will be businesses that focus much more on their people in their community, but maybe don't score so well on environment. That doesn't mean that they won't become a B Corp. It might mean that there are gaps there, and that's an area they want to work on afterwards. But with all of this, I think there, there is something about businesses recognizing upfront, where they want their focus to be, because we can't all do everything.
We can't all be tackling all of those 17 sustainable development goals. It's about having an honest conversation about what sort of business do we want to be, where do we want our focus to be? And then building a plan around that [00:27:00]
Scott: because there's something called the organization for responsible business in the UK, which is aimed at SMEs, who haven't got the sort of the budget to look at.
Some of those things just to give them guidance about, okay, these are the things to. There is a rent. So cause again, a lot of people might think, well, is that response? Is that something for me? And I do believe like I run my company from a spare room, cause obviously a lot, what I can do is mobile and virtual, but you still take some of those responsibilities.
Like where do I get my stuff from? How do I, how do I dispose of stuff I don't use anymore? How do I engage with my stakeholders and the people I work with in a, in a more ethical way. I still think there's principles of sustainability can be applied across from a business of one person. So we just say these big multinationals that were in the news the other day, the report that you mentioned, Australia enough, I sent you, I sent you an email about it just as you were sending me an email about it.
So I was in there. It was quicker because obviously my big focus is on trust and about how we build trust and relationships with people. [00:28:00] Yours is more around sustainability and trust in a very clear aspect. So, if you were to say to a company you want to build sustainability, you want to build trust.
What sort of tips would you give them? I know we've sort of covered some what sort of things you think would be interesting for them to look at?
Hannah: I'm worried I'm going to end up repeating myself, but I, I think they need data. So there's so much, if you look at you start sort of focusing in on what businesses are saying about sustainability. So much of it is generalizations and wishy-washy being really specific and having the data that starts to build trust as it to say, okay, we're in a drill down into your data, you know?
Okay, we've got these emissions, but what are they actually coming from? What are the different activities that we're doing? Where are they, where are those emissions coming from? Break it down really granular and say, This is how we're going to tackle each of those. These are the targets in each of those areas, and we [00:29:00] will report back to you in a year and show you the impact we've had.
So you're not hiding it in generalizations, but you're, you're getting into the sort of hard data, which, and reporting in a consistent way that really, really helps. So data on all of this is really important and being really consistent on what your assumptions and methodologies are, and being really transparent about what those are.
Some of the, no, this is more for larger businesses, but some of the best ones will be then sharing that data in a downloadable format so that other people can take it away and interrogate it and do their own testing on it. So a lot of this is slightly different, but a lot of the sort of leaders in the fashion space, you can now download a database of all of them.
Factories where their clothes are produced. You can download that from their website and then you can interrogate that, so that, that can then [00:30:00] be run through various systems. You know, if you've got reporting of human rights issues in factories, in Southeast Asia, that can be run against that report.
And you can find out which of the businesses that are setting garments made in those factories. So it's that sort of transparency and that data and that granularity is really key, but equally in the way you communicate that data, making it understandable to the general public. So you were talking about jock and there is so much jargon in this space.
So how do you make sure that you communicate it in a way that people can understand? So, yes, it needs to be consistent. It needs to have data, but don't try and kind of bamboozle them and hide it. Jargon and complexity because it's very easy with sustainability to get very technical very quickly. And so there's a huge role for communications people here in terms of how do you communicate it in a really accessible way.
[00:31:00] So that's all the data bit and having a really clear plan, what you're going to do against it. And then it's, then it's this honesty. It's, it's being transparent with people about what have you done? What's worked what hasn't worked, what are you going to do next? How are you going to make that doable? Why, why do you think that's realistic?
Because there's equally there's, there's plans out there at the moment where you couldn't look at it and think, how are they actually going to make that happen? Is that actually realistic? And so it's putting something out there that. The peop the general public can look at and say, yes, I understand that.
And I actually think that is genuinely achievable, but equally something that's ambitious. So not doing what you said in terms of promising that you're going to phase out producing petrol and diesel cars when that's something you've legally got to do. But how are you going to push yourself further?
Another thing, which is a whole minefield in itself is around offsetting. So if you've got carbon emissions all you becoming net [00:32:00] zero by just paying to offset all of those, or are you becoming a zero because you are fundamentally changing your business and driving down your emissions. And that's an area which I think we're going to get much more scrutiny off because you know, if you're planting trees, but then the trees don't start capturing carbon for 20 years, but equally the whole forest might burn down.
Then it's. Just a bit of a fudge and, and there are better ways of doing carbon offsetting and there are less good ways of doing it, but it's, I mean, an example, we haven't talked about BrewDog yet. I thought they might have come up earlier,
Scott: but that was another issue.
Hannah: I mean, there there's a lot of contention there lost forest up in Scotland where they haven't actually planted any trees yet when they do plant the trees, it's going to take a while for them to actually be doing anything useful.
And even the plans to develop the forest, I've got loads of questions around them in terms of how are they actually going to do it in a, in a way that is [00:33:00] best for carbon capture for biodiversity, et cetera, et cetera. They bring in experts who know how to actually do this properly. And so then the question, I mean, obviously looking at that in parallel with everything else, that's come coming out about BrewDog and all the stuff that hasn't come out yet.
Is it just a marketing tool? Are they just doing that? Like so many of the other things that appear to have just been marketing to. Is that loss for us, just a marketing tool and it then undermines the whole, the whole piece.
Scott: I mean, I think you can say there is another example of an organization that says every time they sign up a new customer, they're going to plant a tree and they may well plant a tree and they unbelieve.
They do. And I think there is that you can see in the marketing, there is a shift in marketing towards at being attractive to people who are concerned about sustainability and the, and the planet. So you've got, I definitely think in marketing, you can actually see this sort of shift from more consumers driven.
So, or that sustainability approach again, is how much would that impact on an organization? The [00:34:00] sales, I think, I think it's utility warehouse. So every new customer, they will plant a tree.
Hannah: Th there are calculations that have been done as to how many trees we would have to plant. We can't plant enough trees to deal with the amount of carbon we're pumping out. Like there's just not enough space in the world to do that. And then it
Scott: will be better for them to say, what we're doing is every day we signed people up, then we should, they report how much of their energy renewable, how much of their energy comes from gas, how much energy that they sell to us.
And I don't know if that's doable because of that thing, but again, that's about that transparency, isn't it? And it could be that we aim to so big company, can they invest in renewable energies, sources, and bits and pieces, or give people instead of planting a tree that might cost 50 quid? Are they going to say, right?
You can get a discount on making your house more, use less energy, which if they sell energy, that might not be a good plan because it might reduce that. But there again, it's that [00:35:00] there are just, as you say, there's so many different ways to approach this. I think sometimes th th th the tree thing seems to be flavored with.
Hannah: But I think what you've said there is really interesting around would they want to help people reduce their energy bill, because actually what they're doing is sending energy. And that is one of the biggest challenges of this whole thing is that yep. There are huge opportunities for businesses to do really well.
There are huge opportunities for whole new business areas. Equally. There are business models that are not going to do so well in the you know, when we moved to a more sustainable world businesses are going to have to innovate. They're going to have to change and there will be service lines that will not be able to exist in the way that they have.
And so you have businesses that are grappling with things like, well, actually what we do is we sell energy. So why would we want to help people reduce their energy? And yet a company such as octopus. They have been [00:36:00] running a campaign for the last month or so helping giving tips and helping a lot of their customers to reduce their winter gas usage by X percent, giving them tips every week, doing competitions who can, you know, who can reduce their gas bill the most versus their normal usage.
And so that, to me, that then builds up my trust in octopus because actually it's not all about them and just making a profit and Patagonia at the same where they, they do a lot of marketing, which is saying, you know, do not buy our products, you know, mend them or recycled them. And they recognize that they're part of the problem.
And they are then trying to tackle that and that they're transparent about it. And they basically say everything you buy in terms of clothing is bad. We can't pretend that there is not a good thing to buy everything you buy is bad. We'd rather you bought something that was going to last and that you then mend it.
And then when it's finished, you [00:37:00] can send it back to us and we will recycle it, make it part of the circular economy. But this is one of those things that we have to grapple with. And we have to come up with new business models because because it doesn't, it doesn't there. Isn't a neat answer to all of these questions.
And there are things that companies didn't have to strategically grapple with and work out well, how we can operate differently. How does our business model need to change in order for us to remain competitive? But when you then get a business like Patagonia, like octopus that do something that looks like from a financial point of view, it's the wrong decision.
That to me, that massively builds my trust in them because what they're doing is totally aligned with what they're saying around. Sustainability.
Scott: And I think that's, I mean, I talk about trust and you talk about the owner state, which is, which is so important, but it's the consistency, the consistency in actions and the message that they both S they, they, they, they just support each other or the way that every decision because the [00:38:00]businesses, how does this feed into our sustainability?
How does this feed into our messaging? Is it a good decision to make? And I think management asking those questions, leaders and organizations may change some of their decisions based on that. And a simple thing to look at is look at someone like BrewDog, and they set themselves up on these high values and principles, and then we're going to change the industry, et cetera, et cetera.
And they've gone through the mill over the last year. It's been about a year of drip feeding, negative content stuff that come out in Fairplay. The guy runs through dogs come out, so they'll have to learn more. But then the next thing came and I said, I have to learn more. And I have to learn more now that, that apology and I'll have to learn more is only going to take them so far until people want to see.
Changes that are tangible to the general public. I think Facebook is another example of how many times did they apologize for what they do, how they do, how they operate as a business ethically. And then saying, yes, we've learned we've made mistakes. We've made mistakes, but you need to do something different so slightly off topic there, but still ish is about that trust.
And the sustainable model [00:39:00] is we have, I don't think
Hannah: it is off topic though, because I think they're examples as well. So I mean, Coke is an example where they've come out and made a set targets around reducing plastic waste and there's big bold claims. And then they haven't got anywhere near to them. And so they sort of moved the goalposts.
There's not a, and then they start talking about something else from a sustainability point of view, rather than I think really leaning into it and owning it and recognizing the problem is. It starts to feel that like a marketing thing, rather than a goodness, we genuinely recognize this is a massive problem.
And we are part of it. We need to be part of the solution which is an organization like Patagonia, the, all of the work that they've done within the fashion [00:40:00] industry and collaborating with competitors to really try and change. The whole industry shows much greater leadership than I think we see with Coke.
Scott: Another thing. And also interesting enough. No, we talked about the energy. It was an octopus. You said, if you think about it, what they actually might be doing is creating a more sustainable business in the way that energy prices in the UK have gone through the roof. So what's the chances of some of their customers down not being able to afford energy and therefore they can't shut them off.
So that puts a strain on their income. Whereas if they can get people to reduce their energy bills, less customers are actually. Default, therefore they might be securing a cashflow better by doing so they do two things, one secure classified, but also as you say, massively build trust because they're saying, you know, we're helping you and helping you pay, and there's the cost of living crisis and we're doing our part to help you.
We're supplying one of the products, especially at very much more expensive. It used to be, and we can help you reduce your need for it. [00:41:00]
Hannah: And then also, I mean, I think in that industry, there is such a lack of trust in the big oil and gas giants, octopus will capture market share. And so their growth will come that way rather than through each, you know overcharging each individual customer.
They can reduce the bill at each one, but they will then attract more and more of them.
Scott: So, yeah. So although it sounds counter-intuitive, as you think about it as a longer-term strategy, it's probably we're positioning ourselves and we are doing enough to create metrics. At the beginning, we talked about this opportunities exist in this crisis of trust.
I think there is in there in institutions and big business there. I think there's a massive crisis of trust and there's enough stories. You can talk about BrewDog. We talk about, say what Koch said and Coca-Cola, you can tell whether the report that came out yesterday, we can talk about VW diesel game. We can talk about the financial crash of 2009.
And some of the actions company's been taken to court and found guilty of all [00:42:00] sorts of things they shouldn't be doing. And it's just littered of big corporate breaches of that trust. And I think there is there opportunities for somebody to stand up and just say, do something that's stands out so much that you will be you're in a space.
You're talking about these companies and I'm talking about them. So they get in free public. Because we're saying, we're basically saying we support what they do. Look at this. Great. Isn't it? What they're doing is fantastic. And they may not even be customer, not be customers of theirs, but we're going to be talking about them in a positive way.
Hannah: I think what you said there that was really relevant is around it being long-term because sustainability in its broadest sense, it means doing something that means that you can continue for the long term. And there is a financial element of that. So it's about sustainable in terms of the environment.
So you're not kind of messing things up for future generations. So you're operating in a way [00:43:00]that you can keep going forever and ever, and ever it's sustainable in terms of people. So in terms of the relationships you've got, whether those are with your employees, whether they're with your suppliers, whether you're with the community, with your consumers, you are engaging with them in a way that they will want to continue to engage with you for the long-term.
And that trust comes into that passively. And then you've got to be financially sustainable because if you've not got a business model that's financially sustainable and you're not making enough profit that you can be investing in innovation and then reinventing the business, then you're not going to be here for the long term.
So sustainability is about that long-term piece across people and planet and profit, and too often businesses. Aren't thinking about all three of those, you know, whether that's the environment and operating in a way that's not learning long-term sustainable for the environment, but [00:44:00]equally people, there are so many examples of businesses acting in a very short term as way, and burning bridges and damaging trust, and that is going to harm their brand and their reputation and their ability to be here in the long-term.
Whereas these businesses that we've been talking about are playing a much longer term.
Scott: I can never get the word rights. So please it's been stress ambidextrous. So ambidextrous, so business ambidextrous, falsity. Is that a word?
Hannah: Oh goodness. Which is
Scott: about, yeah, we've got a business model that can operate today, but also be sustainable for the future. And is that about having, having your eye on both?
Hannah: Yeah. And that's, that's what we talk about a lot in the innovation space in terms of having an ambidextrous business model. So you've got sort of dual strategy. You've got the business today, but you're always got an eye on the future and reinventing yourself [00:45:00] and spotting what the next opportunity is.
And it's not all focused on the here and the now,
Scott: because I think you've talked about something that's interesting, the game back, and some of you said about how we change it. Please correct me if I'm wrong at the moment, organizations have got a responsibility to do well for their shareholders, I believe.
And it's sooner than they're going to change it. They've got to do well for all stakeholders.
Hannah: There's an old at the moment that they already do have that responsibility. But there is there is a campaign going on at the moment for the better business act to officially change it in law. So section 1 72, if the company's act changed that so that there is an official responsibility to all stakeholders
Scott: and that would, that could force a total change in focus of organizations.
Hannah: Yes, because they would be legally. So if it's applied, it would be applied retrospectively toward existing companies. So every single [00:46:00] company overnight with suddenly have a responsibility to all stakeholders, not just to their shareholders.
Scott: Which is probably the next legal argument that would come from that. And it would definitely broaden our thing about impact. Because obviously I work in lot of the space of people I've worked with as is that leadership role about it was about how do we treat people in the workplace and build that trust.
And it's not. So my sustainability, although they say I'm in the field, I'm more about that people sustainability and the sort of thinking about that side of it, but it's not hug a tree.
Hannah: You know, I think this is really hard to tree anymore, to be honest.
Scott: But I think there isn't a lot, not, this is all about hugging softly, softly, and be nice to people who are fluffy, fluffy, but we're hard business people.
But I think as you said, well, sustainability is about creating a business that is sustainable.
Hannah: The reality is as well as the more and more that we learned about climate change, but businesses are [00:47:00] not going to be able to operate in the sorts of scenarios that we might be looking at. So suddenly that makes it onto a risk look like that's, you know, we're in proper business territory. This is like, this is a risk that you're going to need to suddenly start looking at your financials and devaluing assets on the balance sheet and putting in massive provisions or finding ourselves in a world where it's uninsurable or your insurance premiums are sky high, but that we're talking, we're not talking tree hugging, then we're talking proper business numbers you know, supply chains that decimated because of floods or fires or displaced people, or, you know, whatever it is.
You know, those are sort of cold-hearted business conversations and we
Scott: just need to have a look at where the supply chains are at the moment and what we've happened and the impact of the, sort of the impact that's having on business models, how we operate. And are we going to be moving from that just in time scenario to a more localized business model?
Is that sustainable in the future? So I think there are some [00:48:00] really hard questions for companies to.
Hannah: And I think that's the challenge with all of this is they're hard questions. It's really difficult. There aren't clear answers and it comes back to that vulnerability piece. Again, of leaders being comfortable to say, I don't know the answer.
I'm working with my team around me. We're all, you know, I need a multidisciplinary team. We'll come up with the best possible thing that we think we need to do next. It might not work, but if it doesn't work, we'll then work out what we're going to do afterwards. But they're not pretending that they've got all the answers and they're going to be perfect.
And they're okay with that. And they're okay with being completely transparent about that
Scott: humble inquiry, the book in which you are reading, I do breathe. That is, I think one of the greatest untapped untapped resources with organizations is what's between the ears of its staff.
Hannah: It just takes such a completely.[00:49:00]
They talk about in humble inquiry within they're coming at it from the perspective of the U S culture. But the UK culture is not a million miles away from that. The culture has defined how we are within business and this need to be right or wrong, black or white. That makes it very, very hard to do a lot of this stuff because it's not in bred within our culture to not know the answers, to make mistakes, to then stand up and say, you've made a mistake.
And we're seeing that we do not want to go to politics, but you know, we see that within, we see that within politics. Don't we get this inability to stand up and say, I'm really sorry. I messed up.
Scott: Well, I think, and maybe go into that. But I think also the, the I don't think the media helps because they tried to set politicians up and then say, oh, you said this you've had a U-turn and they do a big thing about it and make a commitment for the next five years.
So we're asking politicians to make commitments when really actually in reality is nigh on impossible to [00:50:00] make those. But I, I'm definitely not going to, but I mean, it's, it's an interesting place for both of us to watch because of what we say about the sustainability and that transparency and that sort of trust and having it and looking at how politicians are leading and saying, well, they're not setting a great example.
So again, I was talking to Jeff Hudson. So, and when he says is that there was such a distrust, there was a trust research that goes on every few years. I can remember the company. He does it again, knowing something, but not knowing the resource. So I do apologize. And the level of trust in the big institution.
Is seriously been eroded and COVID, hasn't helped that that's even worse. So people are now expecting businesses to step up and fill that trust void.
Hannah: So the Edelman, the Edelman trust barometer,
Scott: and that's what missing there's businesses that people are actually saying to businesses, please step up and fill this gap that exists in our trust because we [00:51:00] want to believe in what people are telling us.
Hannah: Yeah. No, and I think the businesses are going to play a huge part in all of this. I think so
you're right. That people are saying that they expect businesses to play a big role in terms of sustainability tackling climate change, et cetera. I also think from what I'm hearing that that's, we need that when we can't sit here and wait for. Everyone's got a role to play and businesses are going to play a huge role and therefore we need to be able to trust what they're doing or there's something I, so I get, cause I notice it comes back to that Tesco example.
The beginning, if we want to achieve mass behavior change, we need to make it really easy for people. We need it to be the default option. So if you're, I don't know, you're investing your pension. It default goes into a sustainable investment fund, which it doesn't at the moment. If you are [00:52:00] buying food in the supermarket, it defaults to sustainable options, et cetera, et cetera.
And so you have to make a conscious decision to want to make the non-sustainable choice. Whereas at the moment, the sustainable choice is not the default, the vast majority of the time. Whereas if we want to achieve mass behavior change in the whole population, we've got to make the default. The sustainable choice, because most, but you can't expect the vast majority of people to be doing all the research and the thinking or paying premiums, et cetera.
And that's where business comes in because businesses are the ones who have the ability to decide what the default options are most of the time, because they're the ones who were selling the products and the services.
Scott: And they're also very good at influencing buyer behavior.
Hannah: Yes, exactly. But if they could influence it in the right way, then that's how we, I think we will achieve mass behavior change, whereas trying to change millions of people's behavior.
Billions, if you look worldwide, that's very hard. Whereas actually there are far fewer [00:53:00]companies if we change companies' behavior. And actually one of the things I think we're going to see is that the procurement policies of the NHS and other public sector organizations have big corporates, they are starting to change.
And if they start demanding of their suppliers, But they have to change as well, and they need to hit certain sustainability targets, certain standards, and that their suppliers need to, it's going to, that's going to trickle all around the world that I think is going to be one of the things that's going to be one of the biggest drivers of all of this.
Scott: Well, that's interesting, but how we choose. So it's talking to somebody a while back about sustainability. He said, and he was talking about ESG and it was talking about the same things you would at the beginning about that lack of clear understanding of what this actually looks like, how do we measure it?
What are the metrics we can use? Whereas we've got accountancy, we know those rules. That's how we calculate. That's the figure. And if you look at it, you can pretty much work out what it looks like. But one of the things that you said in this can be driven by investors [00:54:00] and purchases. So it's basically where does the money come from from businesses?
And if the money is much more driven towards that choice about how we're choosing to invest. So go to the investment companies and say, why you invest in this? And they changed their ethos about who and how they invest them. Look at angel investors and saying, do you know what? I'm not, I don't want a company that's going to become a unicorn.
So it's not about, don't give me a strategy about how you're gonna grow in sell. Give me a strategy about how you're going to grow to sustain. Then I'll invest in you. Then that changes the whole ethos about how we set companies up, because that's the only way we're going to attract the money to build what we want.
Hannah: And we are starting to see shifts. So there's more and more funding funds that are screening for what's called ESG environmental, social, and governance. We're seeing more and more in the procurement space. So I'm speaking to an increasing number of people who are saying that they're being asked about this within their tenders, the NHS in a few years time, every single [00:55:00]organization that works with them will have to have a sustainability plan and we'll have to be regularly reporting progress against that.
And that includes, you know, one person coaches working with the NHS is going to be absolutely. And that's just, that's going to, I think that's going to have a big domino effect. Wait,
Scott: who doesn't supply to the NHS of somebody who supplies the end. I mean, they're enormous organization now, if they actually then, and I think this could be a good an area where there could then become some sort of understanding and standardization of what sustainable it looks like.
Cause they would have, they might say, what's your sustainability plan. And they might then put against key areas, which will then drive that sort of, okay, this is what it's going to start to look like. And it gives us sort of standardization of language
Hannah: and there is, I mean, there's a lot more regulation coming down the line as well.
So there, you know, there are, there is a lot of work I got on there. So I think it will all be happening in parallel because it's partly driven by the investor community. They [00:56:00] need to be able to compare apples with apples and at the moment they can't see. There's. I mean, there's some new financial regulations that are coming on in just a couple of months, time for large companies in the UK, so that there is more and more of this coming down the line.
I think it's all going to be happening in parallel. What we can't have, we haven't got the time for is to be waiting for government and regulation to change. And then everybody else following in line it's it needs to be a bit of a sort of messy transition where we're all doing bits and bobs in parallel.
And we need to be comfortable with that messiness, which I think again, we're not always comfortable with, and it has to be a messy transition rather than a really neat ordered one because otherwise that's going to take far too long.
Scott: I don't think I've had a seismic change in anything has been orderly
if you look back on it. So when, when we changed, when we changed industries and Wednesday, but that's normally been forced by technological advancements or stuff people have had to, this [00:57:00]is a choice, isn't it about. There's a, there's a change is necessary, but we can't see, it's not driven by the here and now we're still by the short term, ism is driven by what is coming down the line and we're getting to the point of no return, which people kind of know, but there's a, and I think about people's behaviors and motivations who was sitting and go well, what's coming is probably known the impact is not a hundred percent known, but it's a long-term in the future.
Whereas I make decisions now the impact is going to hit me now and be impacting to me now. And it could be positive and it could be positive, a possible negative.
Hannah: And that's the whole bias thing. Isn't it around.
Scott: And it's about how we, how, how do we then have a community? How do we commute? I think I wrote in a blog is I, how do we communicate the impact of or what we're trying to do within this in a way that's going to map into that type of understanding of what motivates behavior, rather than we all kind of know we've got.
It's like, you might say somebody, I kind of know I'm overweight and I know it needs. And when I'm in my sixties and [00:58:00] seventies, that will impact on my health potentially, but that knowledge very rarely will change my behavior today.
Hannah: I think it's, I think it's going to be a mix of there's going to be drivers.
There's going to be things forcing it. You know, whether that's the war on talent, whether that is the regulations changing, whether that's your investors or your customers telling you need to change. So there's all those kinds of push factors forcing you. I also think there are a huge number of opportunities.
So we're going to be creating various people say, you know, this is one of the biggest opportunities for the economy that we've seen in ages. It's going to be whole new sectors, developing whole new needs for skill. I mean, if you go out now and you know, there's lots of free training available on this, you can upskill yourself and you could probably go and get a job they're recruiting like crazy into this sector.
There's jobs being advertised every day. And there's not enough people to fill them. So probably you can get into a job without being as qualified as you might need [00:59:00] to be in other sectors. And it's a hugely growing area. So there's, there's a lot of opportunities for businesses to create whole new products and services that are meeting this need.
And it's about seeing those and recognizing where your assets and capabilities can deliver new streams of value rather than hanging on to what you're doing now. But that again takes a type of leadership that is willing to make that shift and willing to is that Ambetter ambidextrous organization?
Yes. You've got the business model. Now that's paying the bills, but what's it going to look like in 10 years time, if you're in a fast fashion business, that's not likely to exist in 10 years time. So how do you take your assets and your capabilities to do something completely different, but which will have huge amounts of value in a zero
Scott: carbon.
And I think there are, let's say there's some industries that are going to be absolutely decile. The industry model, the fashions. One of them may be transportation, how that operates and functions like logistics, [01:00:00] automobiles, definitely because of what's happening. I think not just the R and D in about how we're changing, how we look at transportation and how we transport ourselves.
And even the business models. If you think about cars, their business model is built on. They don't make a lot of money in selling a car. They make a lot of money in servicing and looking after a car because they basically inherently go wrong. Cause there's so many moving parts, so many less moving parts in electric vehicles.
So the whole thing's about servicing and all that, that, that type of industry what's going to happen to that you think, well, that's in trouble, but then you say, well, what skills we got knowledge of cars. And third, could we then turn into, as you say, what do we know and where, where can that skill sets or that knowledge we have, or that capabilities capacities?
How can that service this, these new potential. Interesting questions for companies to ask themselves. I think Margaret weeklies said the question is isn't your glass half full or half empty it's what's in your glass who needs it and how can you get it to them?[01:01:00]
Hannah: And that's where the long-term thinking comes in.
Scott: And you can say that to people we are transitioning from, yes, we're involved in this and we are transitioning to this area. Again, it comes back to that honesty and that trust and believe in what these companies are actually telling us and doing it because there is such an opportunity for them.
Cause we have this crisis and these opportunities for them. And if they were just honest, it would be nice. Wouldn't it? So as a kind of, as I said, that's not a bad wrap up really? Is it, is there anything we'd like to finish with them as a result? How can we increase the businesses?
Hannah: I think, I think you sort of wrapped it up there.
I think we've talked about, I think we've talked.
Scott: Okay. Well, I'd just like to say thank you very much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure. It's been nice to get you on here. I've been asking you for bags is quite nice for you to actually come up. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and your ideas around it, and [01:02:00] all the details for you will be in the comments below.
So thank you very much.
Hannah:
Thanks Scott. You're welcome

How Might We Become Aware to Help Others

In the latest episode of How Might We, I am joined by Mark Hammond. Mark is the owner of Connectivity Consulting, and he specialises in enabling highly effective teams by transforming how those teams behave.His passion is for enabling a team and their leader. His experience is that by transforming the behaviour of teams, shifting the entire dynamic, I can embed a change in culture and performance. He achieve this by doing things differently. His approach is powerful, as are your outcomes.
Mark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-hammond-a0103714/
Marks Website: https://connectivityconsulting.co.uk
 
Transcription:
Scott: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of how might we, we're going to be unusual this time. We, we're not going to decide on the title until the end. So it's going to be quite an unstructured chat around things of purpose, vulnerability, and leadership. So on this episode, my guest is mark hammer. Good morning, mark, would you like to introduce
Mark: yourself by Scorpio?
Mark Hammons and I am. This podcast with Scott after having met him. And we just connected and had a really good conversation share quite a bit have a lot in common and I agreed to come on and talk a little bit more. Me I'm I run my own business it's called connectivity consulting and I focus on helping people change.
Pretty much similar to what Scott does. I work with teams mostly in that evolved after 25 years in corporate. But I, I tend to [00:01:00] focus on really helping people to shift their awareness within a team and then help that team to shift. And that includes the leader. And I linked that to sorta things like sustainability purpose And innovation, it's sort of a process, so it's not very linear.
And I've I've had to learn, be open to a whole lot of learning in that process. So yeah, Scott and I got talking about some stuff and so here I am. So it's been It's been interesting just to come out, come on and just find something to talk about. And but it makes sure it has meaning and purpose and some focus.
So that's a little bit about nameless. You feel you'd like a little bit more Scott, but this there's plenty of me on, on my website and LinkedIn, and I thought maybe could use this time to talk about some good stuff.
Scott: Okay. We could, obviously we can we'll put your your links to your website and stuff on the, on the page.
So people are more than welcome to do so. Yeah. So you talked about change, changing and working predominantly with teams, but obviously the important thing is you said it's about the leaders to change within that team as well. So and the adaptability before we came online use the word vulnerability, [00:02:00] which has definitely been sort of gaining a lot of traction sort of on things on LinkedIn and sort of people talking in, in the sort of personal development, leadership field about talking about vulnerability.
So what do you think vulnerability is?
Mark: So, this is just my personal view. I think it's, it's many things. And when you, when you start looking at something like vulnerability, it would be easy and comfortable to categorize it as, as a thing. But if there's anything that I've learned in working with different teams and different people, it's many different things for many different people.
But broadly, I mean, probably the best. The best sort of approach I've heard or unread of is, is that by Brandon Brown and a couple of other people that she's spoken to. So for me, you know, for me personally, I think vulnerability is, is when you're willing to take a risk with something that you, you have that that's going to make you feel.
But you [00:03:00] that as you put yourself out in that space, you can notice a physical reaction. You may notice a cognitive or mental reaction to that. But it it's something that might make you feel a little uncomfortable in whatever your comfort zone. I, I'm not going to curve from. You know, putting your trust in somebody that you haven't done before, it could be raising a difficult topic.
It could be challenging somebody on something. So it's many different things, but it tends to have an emotional response or an emotion. A very strong theme of strong is the right word, but it tends to come with an emotional component. So for me, it's when I start to feel uncomfortable and noticing the things that I do to distance myself from being uncomfortable.
That's when I started to pay attention. So it brings with it a number of things. So there's a, there's a strong emotional component to it. And I, I sort of broadly categorize it as when you start to feel uncomfortable. And it tends to have quite a bit to do with trust. But again, it's not, it's not exclusive to trust. So yeah, it's Brenda Brown's definition, I'm going to see if I can pull it up briefly so we can [00:04:00] have a, I can be a little bit more specific. Cause I was just running through my mind. What is, what's the best way to define it?
So ground Brenda Brown, I think in a book from 2016, says the emotion and the experience during times of risk uncertainty and emotional exposure. And I love that one. There's a more technical one, which is from Maya luffa and Robinson, I think from 2007. More research-based vulnerabilities manifest in a willingness to be honest and open to learning by accepting our own fallibility and thus taking responsibility for one's own actions, be more responsive to others and sharing responsibility.
So in answer to the question, probably somewhere in, in amongst those two.
Scott: Okay. So, I mean, I quite like the thing about that, being that vulnerability about taking responsibility. For ourselves and then saying, this may be uncomfortable for me, but I'm going to have to do it, but I understand where I am and what I can do within that space.[00:05:00]
So was it the muscling somewhere versus the, you've got your comfort zone sometimes in, outside the comfort zone, that's where the magic happens. And it's about this it's uncomfortable at times.
Mark: Yeah. And I saw playing just a little bit on the weekend with my daughter. She was, she's doing a diving. So springboard diving course.
And it came from jumping off a pier somewhere in Croatia while back, and she loved it, enjoyed it. And so she decided to take up a diving course. And so she was in the springboard and they had asked the class to go up to the sort of three meter and then right to the very top one. And she said, you know, I've done.
I was, and she's 12. So she said to me, I was feeling really nervous and anxious about it and scan of it. And I said, so what did you do? She said, well, I didn't want to look bad in front of the rest of the class. And I also knew that I could do it cause I've done it before, maybe not as high, but I felt quite anxious and uncomfortable with it.
And I said, so, and what happened when you did it? And she said, well, I felt a lot better and was a little nervous going down. But she said, I felt a lot better when I did it. Cause I knew I could do [00:06:00] it. And I said, yep. And to your point, Scott right there. And once you take that step into the, into what we perceive as the unknown and potentially the uncomfortable and potentially some of the risks we might perceive that comes with it.
Sometimes, I mean, granted not always, but sometimes there's a sense of relief afterwards of actually it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. That's what my daughter said to me. She said, I got out of Wharton and I looked at him and went, I can do that. And so to your point and learning unfolds and, and something beautiful starts to happen and I don't shy away from those words.
The learning, the learning that starts to take place as we take a step forward, as we make the choice, as we start to connect with those decisions, as we start to connect with how we feel about stuff that there's, there's some real purpose in there, and there's a whole level of learning that comes with that.
And that's, that's not sort of, make-believe soft and fluffy. It's probably life giving a little tap on the shoulder going, come on. I think maybe we we, we, we need to take a couple of steps down here. I ain't gonna force you. But [00:07:00] he has a choice and then we make the choice. We make the choice to either shy away or engage with it or play with it or think about it or circle back.
Or my sense is life. My experiences life always come back and use it. Broadly. Life, life comes back gently. When, when you, when you when you least expected and gives you a tap on the shoulder and says, okay, come on on, stay in your comfort zone all the time. So,
Scott: I used to work with somebody and he had a great saying.
He said everyday every day,
Mark: Yes.
Scott: Every day is a school David, so it'd be willing. And there's another one I liked. I mean, I love my quotes. I can't remember as this. I mean like a lesson, something that happens to you and experiences the lesson, doing something different is a learning.
And I think that goes back to what you say is that we, we have these experiences in life, whatever they may be. And what do we do with that knowledge, that new experience that we've gotten? How could we then use that to move ourselves forward in such a way? And I liked strengths. I, I think we've talked before about the, the Clifton strengths.
Yes. So I'm one, I'm a coach for them. And the interesting thing is it's [00:08:00] accepting that yes, you are stronger at something, but there's areas that maybe you're not, and it's not about trying to take time to work on our weaknesses, but it's basically how can we leverage what we're good at?
To overcome our challenges. So instead of spending our time trying to develop, so I'm not an organized person, I'm not a dude. I'm not a sort of a, somebody pushes things forward. I'm much more about give me some ideas, do it play around with things, and then I'll say, well, I can't do that sort of stuff very well.
So there's no point in giving me to do lists, to do lists, state, to do, to do lists. They don't ever get to done lists, kind of just stay there. It's not worth what works for me, but sitting there going, okay, once I've done this, I can then move on to something exciting, understanding that how I work helps me manage that, that better so I can adapt my workflow to my strengths and what I like.
So I think that comes back to what you're saying about that vulnerability as well. And just saying this isn't a strength of mine. That is, but then again, it's about how, the way they leverage their strengths to overcome the challenges of.[00:09:00]
Mark: The vulnerabilities, that is a great teacher. And it shows up in many ways. I mean, let's, let's put it out there, love loss across the whole gamut of life. So, you know,
it's, it's many different things for many different people, but so One way of, of vulnerability becoming becoming real for people is, is there's a technique I I'll use with time with teams at a certain point in their, in their process and then their journey and then the work that they're doing together.
And that's very much engages the individual, but you know, for me, the, the piece around working with the team. That the individual is, is getting it from, it's not getting it. Sorry, is, is, is experiencing something for themselves, but also themselves in a team environment. So they are seeing how they how they impact and influence the team.
So as they shift and change the feedback, the context from right there in front of them, that's a [00:10:00] very rich piece to work with. And you were talking about your preferences and your styles. So whilst vulnerability is something that we not always comfortable with. It doesn't always have to be something which is sort of deeply personal.
So there's many techniques. So telling a personal story and sharing deeply I I've heard some CEOs and board members and executive teams speak really deeply and personally about And love and loss and their journey through life where you could hear a pin drop in the room because it was so powerful.
And they had been working with people for 10 to 15 years. We had no idea, no idea, but yet when they connected with these people in this way, the thing that started a nudge was was people really started to connect and listen. And appreciate and understand so that they're sort of use the word broadly, but the Hemi humanity and the, the connection with the loss of the connection with the joy.
I mean like a simple, simple thing, but like a wedding in a wedding is a time of great joy sometimes. And you could see the room lights [00:11:00] up on them. And they were talking about getting married to the person that I loved. And, and then a little later in the story, there was something around where they lost a loved one.
And you could see people go with them on that journey so that they connected very deeply. So it's, it's like you were just talking to it's many different things from, for each of us, so it can be a personal story or it could be simply putting a difficult issue on the table. So, what do you want to talk about?
How is this issue getting in the way for you? So it doesn't necessarily mean need people to show up with. With the past, but there's another way of getting them to come into the room where it has a real context and allows them to be a little bit more present with it because they have a view and slowly allow them to experience coming into talking about something, which might be quite meaningful, but they don't feel like they can.
And it goes back to that different, that vulnerability issue that we were talking to. So it's, it's fascinating to see this, this [00:12:00] process unfold because one of the things I was thinking was it, it is a process. And as, as we, as people go through the process, it's taught me a lot, but I can't assume what the, what the journey is for other people.
I can see the outcomes, but I see, I see people becoming aware. I see people in sung to experience and notice different things like acknowledging different things for themselves. Like for example, a leader would goes. I'm just, I'm giving too many solutions and I need to keep quiet because when I keep quiet, I see, I see a completely.
Piece unfold or merge or whatever word you want to use, but I see something shift and change. So when I remove my input and I create a space, something else emerges, other people start to talk and I get to learn something. I get to learn something which is you know, John has an idea or mark has an idea, or Scott has an idea where his thoughts or views, or I get to see that there's possibly too much silence or I get to see that.[00:13:00]
One person's talking too much other than me or. Actually there's a whole range of views and perspectives that when I keep on giving mine, I miss. So that vulnerability shows up in terms of quite simply saying, I need, I need to stop talking. I maybe need to stop giving the solutions. It can be that pragmatic in a way.
But it's not always easy to do, cause that might surface feelings of lack of control or not, not adding the value that people might ascribe to a role or that they feel they have to do. And as they let go of some of those pieces and to become aware of that, that there are feelings of vulnerability that might emerge And so it starts to unfold and you were talking about tasks, give me a task list and I'm going to get tasked.
I ain't going to get done. We've learned that, you
Scott: know, you may have yeah. Repeated behavior and saying guys has gotta be, there's gotta be a better way of doing this. But it's interesting. Cause we were again talking before the role of leaders in organizations changing and this isn't, I think it was applicable for [00:14:00] whether you're a small business or a large business either way.
Yeah. My personal view now is, is, is, is much more about who you are as a person rather than the role that you play. I think some of that perception is the leader has all the answers and the manager. So some would be, should go to for the answers is changing. I think COVID has been a catalyst for some of those changes that were already happening.
Yeah. And the different ways we work as it may be required a different way of doing it.
What's your thoughts on that?
Mark: Yeah. Again, it's, it's quite a it's a big area. So let me take a few little pieces from that, which, which possibly be the sort of joined up link, but
I think COVID you you're spot on. I think COVID has has, has provided something for people, which is context. It's a shared context. We've all been through it. Okay. So analogy would be whilst we were all on the same ocean, we might be in different boats rowing, but we've all been through. COVID being the ocean and the way we we've all had to experience it.
And we've expensive, many [00:15:00] different ways. I've got friends and families who've lost, loved ones as a result of it or lost their jobs or so it's had an impact. And that experience that, that understanding that awareness, that knowledge is not limited to leaders anymore. In fact, it's, it's opened up. A whole range of insights to everybody.
So leaders, I think are not just title and role anymore, as you were talking to. We are now all in the position where we, we've got to think about how we move forward and how we engage and talk to each other because there is no going back to the past. People might want that and strive for it, but too much has changed.
Know though the, the absolute meshing together molding together of working and home. That's just transformed everything. I think we were chatting about this when we first started talking and what that's done. I've had ladies say to me, I just do not want to get on a plane anymore. I've seen my daughters.
I've seen my children. I've seen my sons grow and I've seen them changes as young [00:16:00]people and. I don't want to miss that anymore. And yet other people feel like they just want to get back to the security of the pasta and get back into the office and all that comes with that. But so much has changed. I don't think it's ever necessarily going to be the same experience again.
So it's it's whilst people are yearning for that in the way. It may, it may have a similar, similar structure, but it may not have the same feeling or emotions or, or, or experience that comes with it. So, yeah. It's so it drives for me it's it's. Created something where people can go and say it in team meeting, hang on.
I actually need to be working from home and because of a, B and C I'm for leaders to turn and shut that down and not enable that conversation. And there are some who we're still doing that. I mean, there's been calls for you. Absolutely. You have to get back in the office. And in a way that's been imposed.
Now, if you start imposing something, when people have awareness that it's different, [00:17:00]there's going to be a response and there's going to be a reaction. And that's invariably resistance and resistance shows up in many ways. And what we're seeing is the great what are they calling it? Where people at the great resignation where people are living.
So the, my sense is we have experienced something which has given us A different focus, a different purpose. If we're choosing technology and become aware of it. So leaders in that space, it's not tackling and roll anymore. It is two degree because people in leadership positions still need to sign off budgets.
They still need to sign off decisions that those practical elements, but it's the emphasis I think, has shifted onto leaders. The spotlight is on them. You have the kind of self-awareness to have the presence of mind, to learn how to be authentic, to learn how to be present, because those are the skills they're going to help them to connect with people and have those conversations where they can navigate some of the stuff that's out there that wasn't typically in the workspace or, or seen as soft and fluffy, or were [00:18:00] seen as the domain of HR.
It's not anymore. And those are broad categorizations. It's everybody. So leaders really do need to figure out how they're going to show up as people, because the glaringly obvious point now is, is if you can have those conversations, you're going to be at a disadvantage. And that that comes from building your awareness, building your self awareness, learning how to have those conversations, learning how to connect with people.
So, so there's points of connection become far more. Of of of flow both ways. It's not a N it's not anymore a single one way direction. It might be perceived that still exists. But I think the the reality is the person who's being told you can't, as a board example, you can't work from home anymore.
You have to be in the office that person's going to. I just don't agree with that. And they may not articulate it. They may just go inside. I just don't agree with that. And it could be any kind of scenario. I just don't agree with that. I've seen it [00:19:00] working and I'm going to, I'm going to go find something else.
So in business that comes to the cost comes in a cost on time, a customer capability, culture, all of these things. And that's, that's the other piece that has really rapidly emerged is. As you, as you as leadership is changing the awareness of how it has a significant impact on effectiveness, effective behaviors, culture, how people are willing to trust you, how people are willing to show up and give you the ideas. Those leaders we've figured that out and how that, how they can, how they can really step into that authentically.
They have a distinct, competitive advantage as both as an individual, as a leader. In the team and for the organization. So, yeah, I agree with you. Leadership is just it's it's it's, it's not a, it's not a, sort of a right here's leadership. It's getting from a, to B. It is exponentially shifting and changing.
And we're seeing a lot of those, those w we're seeing that play out [00:20:00] globally and local. In how leaders don't really show up and address the issue on the table. I'm so sorry. You can just say on, I've been rattling on, you got me thinking. So I
Scott: think he's good. I like thinking it reminds me of the Stephen Covey quote not the one who wrote the seven habits of highly effective leaders, but his, his son who wrote speed of trust.
And it is that he calls it a trust dividend or a trust tax. So if you've got high trust, Then businesses easier and cheaper, quicker and cheaper. If you've got low trust businesses, slower and more expensive for the various reasons that you've identified. If, if somebody doesn't trust what you're doing or that breakdown to come to, you have to come back to the office and be like, well, I've been working from home for 18 months and why do I need to come back to the office?
And then there's that potential resistance, as you say, can manifest itself in multiple ways, but generally it's going to have a negative impact on how they do. Hmm, which is going to cost the organization in time or money
Mark: or both,[00:21:00]
and then mutation brand, you know, there's all these, there's all these different pieces that start to play out. But you you're spot on. I love that, that that trust piece that you've just mentioned, because that is in the work that I do with my clients and the it becomes very evident very quickly, whether there's trust there.
And it's not a, it's not a sort of a. Cognitive or way mental mental arithmetic of we trust each other because we've known each other for 15 years. Okay. Let's, let's introduce a little bit of conflict and see what happens. And that's one test of, of real trust is if it's tenure based or it's actually based on people making themselves vulnerable to each other, you know, to, to Brown's quote of the emotion that we experienced during times of risk, when they start to make themselves vulnerable to each other.
And it, and it is maybe asking some tough questions. And in uncertainty and that real test trust gets formed when people start to listen and acknowledge each other. I mean, I work with teams where they don't even acknowledge each other's perspectives. That seems to be this technique where people have [00:22:00] adopted where they just talk over each other.
So there's something introduced somebody talks and never get acknowledged. I never quite get heard. There's never a questioning of what they said. And in a constructive, insightful sort of curious way, something just gets layered on top of. And that's considered productive. That's considered effective broadly.
And then people wonder why this there's so much chaos in this. And it comes down to this, this, when you have trust, you actually get real listening, real hearing, real acknowledgement. Oh, so that's what you meant. Oh, and I appreciate that. You also lost somebody. So this might be playing. Is that playing?
Yeah, it is playing out for me as well. I feel like I'm going to make my space safe because I've lost somebody and I'm really feeling nervous and anxious at the moment. Okay. I get it. I get it. It's a lovely video that Renee brown from brown Brenae brown does about empathy, where there's a bear standing next to a, another small animal and they sharing the pain of loss and and [00:23:00] and the, the basically they, they sh they tell the story of, of their pain and another animal comes in and it's available in nutrients to remember, it'll come to me.
And there's absolutely no compassion or empathy displayed. And the, the other person comes in, let's call it a person comes and goes, you want a sandwich versus going, I get that. You guys are talking about something which is really painful and difficult. And, and I can see that you really in this I mean, I'm, I'm happy to share because I've been in a similar position versus trying to.
Avoided number two, et cetera. So there's absolutely something in how we've got to connect with each other in a different way. And this trust component you talk to is so vital. And yet we, we, there seems to be so much assumption around. We have trust and yet it plays out in so many ways. When it's not there, I I'm almost would go so far to say that people use it broadly.
But when I work with. It's something I really focus [00:24:00] on. And I don't know if it's because people are feeling very vulnerable with it or they forgotten about how to do it, or they don't know how to do it. Or there's so much information about them, about how they should be
learning, how to trust people, particularly in a team environment. It seems to be at times it seems to be quite a revelation. Because the other piece here is, is if you want to get through conflict, trust is what's going to get you through it. And we were talking about vulnerability and how it unfolds and how the lessons come to you when you, when you, when you go on this journey and trust is exactly the same way because they all connected and they all do the same.
They all sort of broadly sort of connect and then take you on a journey. And I appreciate it. I'm not courting any ref, any religion or any research, but just from what I've noticed is when is when people start trusting each other in team. The then got to clear some of the interpersonal stuff, but then they can start having [00:25:00] those conversations, which are really meaningful and really powerful because they've really learned to trust each other.
They can then introduce the topic issues, which then she being avoided and. And it doesn't mean that it has to get aggressive or loud, but it, where, where people have learned to listen and hear and let go of some of their pieces and make themselves vulnerable in that space, man, things start to happen.
And we were talking earlier about how, how those lessons start to emerge and it leads to progression. It leads to people sort of moving through their stuff that was sort of six years out, slight exaggeration start that sort of like a year out for businesses and small teams. And small organizations at their Stripe and get to, if they sit down and have the right conversations with each other, I see this back in corporate teams, those issues suddenly accelerating and come onto the table.
And innovation starts to merge because people are willing to trust who put the ideas on. Well, what about, what about this? What do you mean by that? I I've never thought of that. And there's [00:26:00] this piece in here, which I think is really interesting because it makes me think of this. And we start getting sparking is what I call.
So you get this, get this organic innovation, just simply from people learning how to listen and trust and connect differently, but there's work to be done in this space because it's not always something people find easy. It makes them feel vulnerable, I think. And so they may shy, shy away from it, but as you would, you're talking to so, so powerfully earlier, You know, when you step into this and you start pushing a little bit, what comes, what, what is given back?
I think as part of taking that risk, what has given back is that the process shows you it's not all that bad and actually there's a huge amount of benefit that can, that can come from an auto, I mean, deep. Better understanding, feeling heard, feeling listened to learning how to listen, learning how to acknowledge finding out the best shed and common purpose that healthy conflict is actually really important.
And that conflict can be a positive thing. A healthy conflict is where [00:27:00] you stay connected in a disagreement rather than what typically happens is you break apart. So as I'm talking, I'm just thinking, okay, how do I evidence a little bit more around? What is, what are the benefits of being vulnerable in building.
And really doing that. So hopefully that's, that's done to come through cause it's, it needs to be more tangible, I think for people and the tangibility comes from practicing it and walking in it.
Scott: Yeah. There's something you said that sparks something on me, but then I don't think it's appropriate. No, when you hear something you think, oh, that's interesting, but then you say something else.
That's interesting. So the stuff that was interesting before I said, I'm not going to build on that now because it's not, the moment is not there and I forgot it was, but it's definitely around what you're saying. And around that trust and. We have an assumption of that. We trust people because we work with somebody for however many years and we know each other, but the question is, do you trust them?
And it's not linear. It's not a yes or no black or white, because you might trust somebody with your car keys, but you don't trust them to finish the project on time. You might trust them to finish the [00:28:00] project, but you don't trust them with some information about yourself because you think they're going to gossip so that I don't feel safe giving you that information because it's going to go somewhere on that one.
And I can't remember the guy's name, so apologies for whoever wrote this, but one of the best definitions of trust I've ever seen is where you are willing to give something to somebody that may harm you. So the question I would ask anybody, and again, looking at what trust is, is trust associates and it's perception as well.
So it is fluid and it's a perception and it's subjective. Is to say, what are you doing today that demonstrates you are worthy of somebodies trust? I think if we flip it around and say, that's what trust is, I've got to be worthy of. You've got to be, feel safe to share something with me. So what am I going to do to demonstrate that that's okay to do what am I going to do today?
And every day. Cause it's that consistency as well. And as you say, it's about, okay, I'll listen to your ideas. I won't shut you down. I'll if you tell me something, [00:29:00] I'll get. When I'm talking with my opinions, they're based on something, or I just say, this is just my, from my experience, this is what I think, but at least your quality qualifying.
So you're not just throwing stuff out there. And I think importantly mean what you say and say what you mean.
Mark: Yeah. There's a, there's something in it for me, which I think comes back to awareness. And I'm struck by when I'm working with teams is where people just seem to talk. And talk and talk and they don't seem to realize that they've been talking for five or 10 minutes and people around them have just gone.
Quiet. Here we go again. So I'll use myself as an example. Okay. Mark has been going on now for 10 minutes and watching teams with people. People just go quiet and then sort of get completely disconnected. So that there's something in this trust and vulnerability piece, which is, is it linked to awareness that, that there's something about how you've got to give this to yourself, [00:30:00]acknowledge it for yourself created within yourself, which is such an integral part of everything we talking to now that that lesson starts within us.
So that awareness starts within us giving ourselves a little bit of trust, giving ourselves a little bit of vulnerability. Is the catalyst for being able to see it in other people and see it more broadly in teams or, or, or understand how it's going to work. And until we've given that for ourselves.
So for ourselves it's all a little theoretical now, again, it happens in many ways. So but I, I watch as people who have. I'll use the example I've just spoken and spoken and spoken, and it has no relevance to what, what people were actually on. And they've completely disrupted the conversation, taking them off in a completely different direction.
No, one's really quite sure what it is. So it's in those moments that I, that I, I encourage people just to pause and stop and. [00:31:00] And I have to do that quite delicately because it can be quite a shock to him to be told. Just take a, just pause, take a breath. Think about what you need to say, because you've been speaking for the last 10 minutes.
So as, as I have, as I hold that space for an individual, I feel vulnerable because I don't know how they're going to react. I don't know what's going to happen, but I have to trust myself. I have to trust myself that there's a process playing RTI that I've seen before, and I've got to trust that. So I make myself vulnerable.
I put my trust in the process. I put the trust in myself in my own knowledge and that I present that to that person gently and delicately because you know, they're going to be in front of their peers and others and just gently say, what could you get if you paused and listened to. So to your point earlier, what's in it for me in a way, where does the perspective start to shift and change with God's to creating more awareness for people.
And I feel this is a really important [00:32:00] part of this, as well as vulnerability awareness trust there. So let's start to work together and we need to be able to give this to ourselves. Cause that's part of the journey.
Scott: Yeah, I agree. Definitely every journey starts from within. And I think what you were saying in the beginning about teams as well.
So I think organizations were sitting there going, no, this is what we're going to do from management downs of staff is not going to work because the staff, I think, half of the space to say, how does this play out? Absolutely Megan, to be in it. Once Ivy, once I've worked out, what is going to be for me, then how can I make that work for me?
And if we can work that way with T. And it doesn't matter what size of organization you are, even if you're a manager of 10 people or you're mad, or you're a team leader of five or your, a company that's got 30, 40 thousands. We can just bring everybody along. And sometimes, sometimes you think it's easy yet.
If you're a smaller company, but I think that even big companies can because you have smaller teams. Yeah.
Mark: The [00:33:00] principles still apply. You still got to shut. You still got to show up for the individual, no matter how many you have report reporting into you still to show up and figure out and go on the journey of how do I show up?
What happens when I show up? What do I enable for myself when I show up? So there's a process. It's it's. It enables all sorts. I mean, there's a wonderful picture. I saw once at a great friend of mine should have been, it was a river in Germany and the sun was arising the distance and it was reflected through the water.
But in the water, you could see all the movement from the current. So whilst this was it appeared to be a static picture that there was a reflection, there was movement. There was. It's all sorts of things unfolding and playing out, even though it appeared static. And I think it just really captured for me our internal process and becoming aware of that.
And not letting us over, not letting it overwhelm us all the time and then wondering, well, how did I get here? And it's the first stage of awareness. I did something I've ended up here. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. I'm [00:34:00] not sure how I got ya. And it might be you repeat that or you might go hang on. I noticed that something happened about five minutes ago, somebody said something or something was done or, or something triggered me.
Now you can go back to that point and go, okay. So when that happens again, I can choose something else. So here comes the self-awareness it comes to trust. Check comes the the whole process doesn't to, to play out a little bit. I mean, it's not terribly complex, but it, it is a, it is a process of acknowledging, noticing, experiencing rather, and that takes a whole body approach.
That's not just a. What I mean by the head is we think so much. Sometimes we forget to, we get to use the rest of our facilities now, our capabilities. So, so checking in with, hang on, hang on. I'm really getting nervous. I'm sweating. My voice is starting to tremor. There's something going on. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's just need to take a deep breath and just pause and reconnect with myself.
And make a different choice because [00:35:00] I don't want to end up being angry. So that's real awareness. That's where trust can be built. So you can literally articulate that and say I'm starting to feel quite nervous about. The, for example, the numbers, aren't adding up the way that they should. And I, I'm getting quite uncomfortable with this.
That's a, that's a beautiful way of introducing. I'm starting to feel uncomfortable with this. And I'm not sure what we, what we're really going to do with this, but we we're going to need to fix figure this one out. And that could be a small team for a small corporate or sorry, small organization or for a corporate.
But those principles of stepping into that space, being a little vulnerable, building the trust, checking with yourself, that process applies to everyone. And there's the individual leaders. 'cause when we notice that for ourselves, we can stop behaving, choosing, becoming a way in many, many different ways.
So that's the leadership piece. I think that is available to individuals and it is absolutely a leadership piece. It could, it's got nothing to do with title or ankle grade or bonus, or [00:36:00] how we choose to show up for each other and how we choose to maybe have an honest conversation about stuff. Yeah, you can have a joke and a laugh and go down to the pub.
If that's appropriate for you or your friends, you know, or you can go sit in the park and have a good, whatever it is that's relevant. But yeah, there's something here about how, how will we recognize our role as leaders as individuals. We don't need a title and how we lead ourselves into trust into vulnerability and experience at first, because there's something very powerful in that and what it brings to each of us.
Yeah.
Scott: I just want to just highlight two things as that's. Okay. Well, you said it's not complex what we're doing. I might try it. I might, I might question the use of language there if you don't mind. Possibly. I don't think it's complicated, but it is complex.
Because the complexity is understanding all those different things playing together, but the complicated, it's not [00:37:00] complicated. Somethings happens. This creates a trigger. That's created a response and I want to choose how to respond rather than react. But the complexity is. What is it? How am I reacting?
What's the impact on me? What choices do I have? How do I then choose? So, and everybody's different in that space. So Alexa T but I don't think the process itself is complicated, if that
Mark: makes sense. Absolutely. Isn't it, there's an awareness that you're talking to. That you can identify the complexity and that it the different elements to it.
But I can recall a time in my life when I had, no, I didn't have the awareness I have now. And, and I say that with complete and absolute humility, and it's not coming from a point of arrogance at all, because I made the choice. I made the choice to start. I just made a choice because I realized I was. [00:38:00] He wasn't doing and being who I really could have been.
So at that stage, I really struggled with simply figuring out how to trust myself because my life journey had been, I had learned how to protect myself. More than anything else. And that had led me to rely on one and only one person, which was me. So, and, and to, you know, enter a young lady who I'm now married to and I had to learn to trust her.
I have to learn to, I also had to learn to trust myself, to trust her if that makes sense. So. As I was learning that and the loyalty came in and she stood by me when I wanted to run, because I was wanting to get back to something which was more familiar. And I was feeling very vulnerable. I had to learn how to trust that loyalty.
So she stood by me as I went through this, this I [00:39:00] want to run and I want to go back to stuff which is more familiar. She just stood by me and she didn't mean to make it overly dramatic. She just, she just put her hand on my shoulders, basically told me she loved me. And she said I'm here. In words to that effect.
And that's what I learned. So my awareness came from the point of, as I experienced that I started become more aware of, ah, so that's what I I'm actually am okay. In this. So, and as I became, as I allowed myself to experience more and became an, and brought more vulnerability to it and sort of trusting more.
So I saw more, but at the time, The only thing that I was aware of was I'm not feeling comfortable. I want to get away from that. I want to get back to something which is more comfort. I don't want to be uncomfortable. It wasn't complex at all. It's simply was I just want to go back to state where I am, but as I played and I worked with that and I, I noticed it and I became more vulnerable.[00:40:00]
So the layers that the different levels sort of opened up to me. So I think we're fortunate in that we can talk about, and I think it is, it's a beautiful example of that. The awareness of we can work from home, you know, it's just, it's a more simplistic in pragmatic perspective, but. So in a way of, yes, I agree with you, but I think there's more to it than it's and I'm not, you're not saying this it's not a light switch.
I think it's, it's a, it's a gradual increase in, as you put yourself into these positions as a gradual increase of knowledge and awareness where you start to see there's more to it. And sometimes the simplest way of dealing with this is just to take a deep breath and acknowledge it right now. I'm getting uncomfortable.
I I'm either going to say something removed myself oh. Or not say something, but it's a more conscious choice and that isn't always. Or has complexity. Sometimes it is just [00:41:00] very, very simple. I'm not feeling comfortable. I need to get out of this or I need to say something, what am I going to do? So that awareness is, is in the moment.
It's, it's just very, you're in it. What are you going to do? So, yeah, I'm not disagreeing necessarily. But maybe I'm just trying to add a little bit more too, because I think yes. And I'll shut up now. Cause I think at times it can be collected quite complex. Yeah. I mean, at times at times it can be quite simple, simple as
Scott: well.
Oh, I think, I think we have a complicate things and not, and I say that the complexity is just about the different layers that are in there. And as you say, as the redness comes, we can peel back more or less and get a deeper understanding of . I think my mind came from when I used to work in the prison service.
And that's where I developed that level of awareness. And cause you just have to try and I love it again. It's an analogy and I love analogies is I look at it [00:42:00] as I was always looking at how can I calibrate myself to be effective in this situation. So I developed that sort of awareness that I needed to change how I was in any given situation to try to be effective because you'll deal with.
30 to 60 people, although you're trying to get them to do the same thing. It's 36 to people have to find a reason to do it. So you can't, you can't have that same conversation with 36 people and it be effective. So I think it was about me learning that calibration of myself and being a wedge. What this isn't quite right?
This, this doesn't feel the same to digest the day. There's something not quite right. So I've got to be really cautious and conscious of what I'm doing now. So I don't inflame the situation or I can try and deescalate what's going on, whatever it is. So I think that sort of dynamic awareness was bill from working there.
Cause I did that for about 14 years and then building that awareness of yourself and how to, I think, calibrates a good thing, how you can calibrate yourself to be effective on the [00:43:00] engineering, changing, tweaking just a little bit to be effective in the myriad of situations, we would find ourselves in women with.
Regardless of how big it was. Small group, man, 10 individuals, 20 individuals, but they're all individuals. They just are working together as a team. Hopefully.
Mark: Yeah, I'm going to, what's lovely about what you're talking to is the depth and richness of your experiences has a con had a context. You talked to the adaptability and the flexibility of that that'll work with one person, but it's not going to work with another you know, that, that approach of, okay, how do I, how do I, how do I match my style?
Why do I change my style? To best connect with this person. Not because I want to be Machiavellian about it, but purely because I want to connect with them because there's something that's really important. Yeah. So it's a, it's a lovely, it's a lovely, I love the way you explained that and you broke it down.
That's a very insightful, so
Scott: I was Gary Klein says once you gain insight, you can't go back to your old ways of. [00:44:00] Which I think is such a powerful quote. I mean, by that journey, we talk about every new insight, no matter how small or big it is, is that shift in perception, which is then the springboard for the next
Mark: one.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I love, I agree. It's embedded in my DNA now that you know, I, I, there were times when it, where I learned a lesson and then I went back and I, I. It's something again, out of ignorance and ended up hurting somebody or hurting myself and realizing actually, no, that's not something I ever want to do again, because it, it doesn't, it hasn't, it hasn't given me the purpose of the satisfaction or the is something far more deeper.
It just eroded that and took away from it. Some, some kind of essence. And so that, that, that, that was learnt as well. And so it's a great way. You, you, you lay that out, but. This P this piece around you, you can't go back. Not because no one, not because it's being enforced, I'm having, in some cases, in a pragmatic data is going to be enforced like crime or whatever, [00:45:00] but there might come a point where you, but you make a decision and you go, that's just, that's just not going to be good for me.
I'm not going to go back and play with that again. But again, there's many circumstances in many situations. We've got to learn stuff to, to come out the other side. And sometimes we done
Scott: no, and I think it's quite cause I, I think the one way to possibly look at closing this off, when you were talking is about the, you used the word choice throughout this deal conversation as a word you choose, choose, or a choice was used multiple times.
And I, I agree that we'll get to the point is we can consciously be more aware of constantly to. What we choose to do in that position rather than unconsciously making that choice that we're not aware of. So I think that's that other spot. And rather than reacting you say, I can recognize I'm not in a good place at the minute.
I'm nervous or I'm uncomfortable. Let's take a pause. [00:46:00] Let's now think. And then now let's act, I think, just to say building that space, that thinking space though, as you say, that pausing spaces is an important aspect.
Mark: Yeah, this that's great. It's a great place to finish. Cause I think it, it, it brings it all full circle is, is when you, when you start to acknowledge and become aware of and are vulnerable to what is my choice in this situation?
What do I really want to do as you sort of start to shine a light on that, that piece of your awareness? You're spot on You, you become more aware of the different pieces that are there for you. And it's, it's not sort of it's, it's fascinating to me because as you do that, you can, you can start to acknowledge how things might play out.
And there's that piece that we come back to, which is, you may realize that you don't want to go back. It could be, it could be an old relationship, or it could be an old flame and you go, actually, you [00:47:00] know what, it's great Spock there, but actually I ended up worse off. So I'm not gonna, I'm not. Go back into that.
And I'm going to keep an eye open for those kinds of qualities. When when I, you know, those kinds of dynamics when when I meet other people and maybe, maybe I just look after myself differently. So this, this choice pieces in the moment. Well, what is it that's actually going on for me? What do I want to do with it?
But doing it from an authentic place, not a, not a Machiavellian, I'm going to screw you over. And I'm just, and I'm not naive enough to think that doesn't happen. Of course it happens. It's we live in a, we live in an interesting world, put it mildly. But there's something very powerful when you see people stepping into a space, which is authentic.
When it's present, when it's vulnerable and there's a real sense of connection that can be created. And that, that is really standing out. Significantly than the old ways of doing things. And you can see those people who are making these choices differently and they come with, they come with a very different level of thinking.[00:48:00]
And I see it in the younger generation. I see the strength and an awareness that my generation didn't necessarily always know. And I'm fascinated by it because I'm like, wow, wait, what have they, can I look at my daughter in some car and some of her friends and, and that age group at my daughter's school.
And I go, these young girls are, are stronger and have a level of wisdom with them. That that is I've, I'm really pleased to see that's just from again from a very humble place. But different to, to when I was growing up, I mean, there's many reasons, but this self-awareness to bring it back home. This self awareness is such a, such a powerful piece.
And within that is his choice. And when we choose things differently and when we choose something different for ourselves and potentially for those around us, it's it has real. Purpose and there's the link to sort of sustained or sustainability anyway, but that might be another conversation. [00:49:00]
Scott: One of many, possibly one of many.
So what
Mark: do you want to call it?
Scott: And he's got start with with, how might we, so how might we,
Mark: how might we
become aware to help each other
Scott: and might we become aware to help you. Okay. I like that. I'll go to white this time or else I'll forget it. '
Mark: cause I'm probably will. Well, it's
Scott: terrible. You got a record again, is recognizing where it is in memory is not a great one minutes, you know, each other, I think, cause I live in the moment so much anything that happened five minutes ago, that's gone now.
I'm here.
And that's definitely me out, outside, out of mind.
Mark: Just to say, Scott, thank you. And this is the first time I've done something like this. And It's been good to do. And I've really enjoyed it, but to anyone who's listening. Thanks for listening as well.
Scott: That'd be people listening.
Trust
Mark: me. We've read a rattled on a little bit, but I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. Thank you.
Scott: Welcome. Okay, so mark, thank [00:50:00] you very much for your time.
 

How Might We Go Back To The Future With Leadership

TRUST is the genesis of economic prosperity.
 
A lively debate today with Oakland McCulloch, Douglas Lines and Geoff Hudson-Searle, discussing the role of leadership in creating trust.
 
Douglas Lines: Douglas is a senior business leader, executive committee member with substantial global commercial experience, operating principally in financial services.
 
Geoffrey M.J Hudson-Searle: Geoff is a serial business advisor, CSuite Executive and Non-Executive Director to Private and Publicly listed growth-phase tech companies. An author of 5 books including the best seller Purposeful Discussions and rated by Agilience as a Top 250 Harvard Business School authority covering; ‘Strategic Management’ and ‘Management Consulting’
 
Oakland McCulloch: Oak is aRetired Lieutenant Colonel Oakland McCulloch is the author of the 2021 release, Your Leadership Legacy: Becoming the Leader You Were Meant to Be. Based on 40+ years of leadership in the U.S. Army and subsequent civilian positions, Oak highlights principles that will benefit today’s leaders and inspire the leaders of tomorrow. Oak is also well-known speaker who gives presentations on a variety of topics including leadership, success, military history, college preparation and others.
 
Trust directly influences the actions and outcomes of business every day. By embedding trust in a company’s business, leaders generate value for their stakeholders and society more broadly now and in the future. Trust between employer and employee and among employees enhances human capital investment. Trust influences the behaviours of both employers and employees. Deloitte research suggests that employees who highly trust their employer are about half as likely to seek new job opportunities as those who don’t. At the same time, workers are more likely to invest in their own skill building if they trust that their employer will reward them for their efforts. This is especially true regarding non-transferable or firm-specific skills, which suggests that trust can raise the level of institutional knowledge that can lead to more productive work.
 
Geoff and Douglas: https://ib-em.com/
 
Oakland: https://www.ltcoakmcculloch.com
 
Scott: https://theinnovatecrowd.com
 
Blog site, books, news and resources: https://freedomafterthesharks.com/
 
Transcript
 
Scott: [00:00:00]
Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of how might we, and I've got a first, I have three guests with me this time. So it'll be interesting how this pans out the title for this podcast is how might we go back to the future with leadership? So with me today is Oakland McCulloch, Jeff Hudson, cell, and Douglas lines.
So gentlemen, in no particular order who would like to go first and introduce themselves to the lovely listeners?
Oakland: Well, I'm a retired Lieutenant Colonel McCall on. Yeah, over here in America. So across the pond there, as you guys would say did 23 years in the army retired, a Lieutenant Colonel had got about 40 years of leadership experience one way or another.
And recently wrote a book your leadership legacy becoming the leader you were meant to be. And and I'm out on the speaking and speaking tours doing some [00:01:00] speaking, but but excited to be here with, with all three of you and looking forward to talking about.
Scott: Okay. Lovely. Thank you very much.
And I will go international then. So Douglas, you want to go next is our next,
Douglas: thank you. Scott says you can hear my accent clearly, south African living in the UK educated in the us. And actually I have a German driver's license. I think that confuses most, really great to be here with you guys today, a conversation and a topic that I'm enormously passionate about.
Equally like Oak. I have in excess of 20 years experience leading businesses and teams have learned to the good, the bad and the ugly along the way. But I really believe that with great leadership there's great opportunities for, for the world that we live in and certainly going forward. And it's that positivity that each and every one of us can bring in our lives not only in professional, you know, corporate life, but equally in our personal lives in our community.
So really looking forward to the conversation, Scott.
Scott: Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. And Geoff,
Geoff: .Thank you, Scott. It's a pleasure to be here. And I [00:02:00] also a great pleasure to be here with both Douglas and Oak I'm really looking forward to this conversation. My name is Geoff Hudson Searle.
I'm a 30 year executive serial business advisor for growth phase companies. C-suite executive private and publicly listed companies both CEO, CMO and CCO. I've been at NXD for the last 13 years, mainly on around regulation technology and internet security. And I'm an author and thought leader of my sixth book, which will be out 2022, which is called the trust paradigm.
And. As I said before I do have a little bit of an explainer, everything that's, I will be discussing today with, with both Oak and Douglas, I must make clear that these are my personal preferences and they are not of the preferences of any of the companies that I represent.
Scott: Okay.
Thank you very much. See, I only represent my one company, so I never have to put that disclaimer in, this is me. [00:03:00] It's just the way it is. It makes life so much more simple, so much more simple. Okay guys. So we, we had a chat before we came on, live on air I'm one of the, we were talking about the time it was and we said, we go back to the future back to back to the future for leadership.
So, oh, go to you. Why do you think, well, what was it about that title that you liked and sort of what it was suggesting?
Oakland: Yeah. So I think that we have gotten away from producing leaders who. Understand what their job is, and it's not about them. I think we've got to get back to producing servant leaders who, who understand that it's about the organization.
It's about the people who work for that organization. And if they put the focus on that, then the organization will, will do well and they'll get their benefits in the end anyway. But if, if you're becoming leaders and I think at least here in America, we are producing leaders at all levels. In all professions, politicians, businessmen, military, we're [00:04:00] producing leaders who have forgotten why they are leaders.
And it's not about their title. It's not about the power that they get. It's not about the money they make. If that's why you're picking to be a leader, then go do something else because you're going to be a horrible leader. As we see in the world right now, if you want to be a good leader, you gotta, we gotta get back to if we want things to get better in this.
We got to get back to producing leaders who understand that it's not about them. It's about the organization and the people.
Scott: Okay. Lovely. Thank you. Listen, would you like to come in on that, but yeah, I think
Douglas: first of all, I, you know, I'm a firm believer that we live in a, an environment of contextual change that's happening at a rate that we cannot even begin to imagine.
And so this matter of contextual leadership is really profound for me. And I think coupled with that is I do not believe that the past is necessarily the proxy of the future of leadership. I think there's aspects where we want to take the best from the past. But be enormously curious about the future and, and I challenge leaders in every society and [00:05:00] every level of our organization to really continue their journey of personal reimagination, because I don't think leadership is static anymore.
And, and coupled with an enormous amount of curiosity about the world that we live in. And so, yeah, enormously passionate in terms of, of, of going from that past world and the great learnings that are exploded, use those, don't lose them, but bring new ones that compliment and enhance this ever-changing context we operating.
Scott: So don't, don't throw the bath board out with the baby type thing. So let's learn from the past and that's okay. But when we learnt leaders in the past, it was principles, but application was going to change because the world is changing at a pace. We never, I love the curiosity aspect, but I do think that we under under milk or under rag, really the value of curiosity.
In what we do, because I think curiosity is the path to finding new ways of working, working out. What's working, what's not working doing this, [00:06:00] but I think curiosity with care. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's not about challenging, Jeff, would you like to come in on anything
Geoff: that was mentioned? Yeah, look, I, I can't disagree.
You know with my colleagues whatsoever. I think we do need to get back into back to the future and more importantly, the time machine on a few issues. I'd like to, I'd like to talk about some of those issues. You know, we talked about principles, we've talked about, you know, accountability.
I mean, if we go back in history, you know leadership was more passionate 20 years ago. Right. You know, you got to see at the top of the tree with his people or. And you have a lot more passion. You have a lot more care. You, you had value of valued system okay. In your organization, which, which we were not seeing too much today.
And as a Douglas quite touched on, you know, we're, we're at another rating change of pace changes, constant. This is not. Cycle or an event that we're just describing right now, this is constant, right. And that's [00:07:00] changing people's human behaviors, but unless we get back to some basic principles around leadership and then you can get, you can actually get hold of any major.
Key piece of research, whether it's Duke's universe, duke university, whether it's PWC, whether it's McKinsey, I'll tell you that we are failing in leadership. Okay. We're failing because we've got an there, there are many factors that go around that. I mean, most of the discussion points that we're hearing right now is the CEO can't do it on his or her own that we need multiple CEOs in an organization to actually affect true change that can actually be applied to a business that can actually drive growth and performance.
Number one. And number two is, you know, you to them. Debbie W's talked a little bit. I care. Well, I'm a great believer that, I mean, we've got to start listening more. We've got to have, we've got to be more empathetic. We've got to start understanding more. But we're not seeing that we did have that 20.
We had that in leadership 20 years [00:08:00] ago, because that was the mantra. The mantra is, you know, you work for a company and you're not leaving after 12 months. You not leaving after because of the great resign you're you are a part of this organization and you're going to work with this organization and you've got to get promoted.
And eventually you've got to get your gold watch after so many years and you'll retire and have a nice life. Now you're lucky if you have three years in a G and a C suite executive within an organization, and then suddenly you've got changing, I've seen it in some of the large groupers where they're changing divisional leadership every nine months.
Well, how do you expect. Executional change and performance and, and work on things like KPIs and actually deliver growth. If you've got a constant change in leadership and then with it, a constant change in people. So I think there is an awful lot here that we needed to unpack. But I think fundamentally there are some major flaws over, over human behavior.
[00:09:00] Yeah. My human behavior in leadership as well, and, and leadership's ability to actually be accountable and actually execute.
Scott: Okay. So accountability and execution. Cause a lot of times you see all the stuff is easy in the news now is every time you sit, we'll pick up Lucas, I pick up a newspaper who does that or see the newspaper online.
Whatever we do now is about this. This happens, this has happened. This is an apology from this company for this and apology from a company for that behavior and things that they've done, they just seem to be constantly coming. And some of the defense is that senior management teams. So I didn't know, I didn't know this was happening.
It might be. There is that side.
Geoff: But
the other side that I touched on was passion, where is the passion that we had, you know, in entrepreneurs, you know, you see passion because, you know, they will live and breathe their business. Incorporate the very few people that I can think of where I can see. I see sheer tenacity, sheer determination, sheer passion, passion, or [00:10:00] just for the business passion for that people.
Gotcha.
Oakland: Yeah. I would agree with you, Geoff but I want to go back to one of the things Scott just said about responsibility. I mean, we ha we have gotten to a point where people at all levels are saying not my responsibility, really, as a leader, at least as what I've learned as a leader, I can give away all the authority.
I. I can give you all the authority to do whatever you want, all the resources to do it, but in the end, whether it fails or, or is successful is on me. My name's still on the blame line. If I'm a leader and we have gotten to the point now where nobody is willing to take responsibility, it's all about, it's not my responsibility because we're all, they're all so worried about getting to their next level, getting their next promotion, getting their next paycheck, pay, raise that they're there.
They're afraid to take responsibility for [00:11:00] things that don't go well, but that's what leaders do. Leaders are supposed to take the responsibility, whether your unit, your organization, your company, your whatever you're leading does well or not. You okay. Good bad or ugly if you're the leader and we got to get back to people doing it.
And I, you know, and I, I grew up in the army mostly and as a leader and I had a boss who retired a four-star general, who said to me one day when he was a Colonel and I was a captain and he said, Oak, if you didn't make a mistake today, you probably didn't do anything. And he said, I don't care if you made a mistake, is it nobody in the world is perfect.
I keep trying to convince my wife that I'm perfect, but she's not buying it, but nobody in the world is perfect. And it's what he said. He said, I don't care if you made a mistake. What I care about is what did you do after you made the mistake? Did you try to hide it? Did you blame somebody else? Or did you walk into my office and say, Hey boss, I messed up.
Here's how we're going to fix it. And if you do that, then, [00:12:00] okay, let's go fix it. I mean, we've got to get back to that kind of mentality.
Douglas: I think you know, Scott and I can do, if one of the things that I'm very passionate about. Is diversity within leadership and leadership teams. And what do I mean by that?
Well, when you look at a lot of C-suite appointments, especially big corporations, they tend to recruit leaders from the same industry from competitors. And I think, you know, McKinsey did a survey about a year ago and said, well, out of all the, the C-suites, they interviewed 86% of them. I felt that that did not have the right mixture of leaders on their team.
And so I keep questioning this, this, this, and I'll call it dominant industry logic that says, you know what, I'm in the motor manufacturing industry. I need to get a motor manufacturing executive. And I want to challenge that because I fundamentally believe. That's the ability to cross pollinate from different industries with different skill sets you know, has got such richness in it.
I'll give you a real example. I've [00:13:00] been in financial services and the senior banking executive for many years, some of my best leaders had spent time in the military. And why was it? Because they had incredible discipline, incredible focus. And that was as a banker to have that skillset is incredible. So for me, you know, I'm really passionate about saying, how do we change the world we live in?
Because not only does it bring a different perspective, we need us come from different industries or, or experiences, but it brings about something in terms of innovation. And I think when I look at most companies around the world, you know, I think most of them are running you know, run the business or grow the business are the ones that are really transforming the business.
And I was reading an article today about the base decision that Steve jobs ever made an app. The best decision Steve jobs made was he actually said, I'm going to kill the RPOD. I'm not going to kill it because I'm going to launch the iPhone. And he had a great business model. He was doing fantastically well with apple, but the orphan took them [00:14:00] into a different stratosphere in terms of the global expansion.
So you've got to as leaders and with that diverse thinking, be able to disrupt yourself and to disrupt yourself. Sometimes you have to see the world differently. And so bringing, and, and Jeff, you mentioned Rob beginning, bringing skillsets from very different varnish points, creates something unique in chemistry.
And we don't see that often enough, whether it is in corporate laugh, whether it is in a small, medium sized businesses, whether it's in, I'm sure in the military or government departments. And that's something we should be looking at dynamically going forward to change.
Geoff: So I, I, I concur completely with what you said.
I think to me, if you start looking at the word accountability, Responsibility, right. I'm afraid I have to come back to the word trust because if you're not a responsible leader and if you're a leader without accountability, how do you expect to lead others? And more importantly, how [00:15:00] do you expect people follow you?
Look, you know, if you start looking at trust and you start looking at leadership trust, right? You know, you're talking about everything that really evolves around incremental value, accelerated growth, enhanced innovation, improved collaboration, you know, stronger partnering course, better execution across everything you're doing.
But most importantly, heightened loyalty. How do you expect to lead a lead a business if you don't have
Scott: trust?
Oakland: Trust is so huge. And I think, you know, that's, that goes back to the culture and it, you know, I had this discussion the other day with, with a young Young ROTC cadet. Cause in my day job, I'd recruit for army ROTC here in the United States produced the next level of officers.
And I, and I had this conversation with him and I was, we were talking about this very subject and I said you to build that the two things that a leader is most responsible for, at least in my opinion, having a vision where you [00:16:00] want this organization to be a year from now five years from now, 10 years from now, even if you're not going to be around and number two, building the culture of the organization and culture, although it will happen.
If you don't do anything, that's not the culture you generally want. If you want the culture that you want, you're going to have to invest some time, energy, money training to get there. And I think that goes along with what Jeff is saying. If you don't have the right culture where it, and again, part of that is being a servant leader.
If you're a servant leader with the right call. Your people are going to trust you because you're doing the right things. You're taking care of them. You've put their, their wishes and needs and desires ahead of your own. And if you do that, I can just tell you, and in my experience, being in the army, if you do show people that they can trust you and that you've got their best interest, they'll do anything you ask them to do and including charge them machine [00:17:00] gun nest, if that's what you want them to do.
Yeah.
Douglas: Okay. I think you're right. And you know, just when, what was coming to mind when you were talking, there was something that I've, you know, really indoctrinated over many years as a leader, that's vision led and values driven, and part of that, and part of that is trust and embedded in that culture.
It's about lighting the fire and people's hearts, not under their butts. And, and to me, that's something we are, you know, whether you're a leader in a, in a, in a local community or an organization, doesn't really matter. It's the same skill set that you do. And it's amazing when you see it in people's eyes.
When you locked up the heart in terms of that inspiration and in our ma my alumni university in the USG university spoke of this combination of RQ Q and DQ, and we know what RQ and EEQ are, but DQ is decency quotient. And so as leaders that, and Jeff mentioned earlier, this empathy of deeply listening.
But inspiring to do [00:18:00] that, but, but I think without doubt, we all agree that trust is the foundation. I do recall many, a years ago, there was a, a wonderful video clip on YouTube with the light Colin Powell who stood up and spoke about leadership. And the one thing he kept on reemphasizing, and I'll never forget, this was building the trust with the troops.
And without that trust, you cannot lead and any, and you could see that it wasn't a, it wasn't lip service. He actually, I'm sure you would know this. He was, he was in, he was on the front lines with us troops on many occasions. I'm sure, but also the ability to demonstrate as a leader, that there are times when you need to be in the front line with the team.
But if something goes horribly wrong, that you're the one that takes the full accountability. When things go right, you give them the credit. And so there's times as a leader, what you need to be on the field, but, you know, and then pivot back to the top of the hill to, to see the landscape and knowing your, when your people see.
And I will follow you as you rock. He said, oh, they'll follow you wherever you go. [00:19:00] And you,
Geoff: I think you said some very key points that Douglas in, in particular around empathy there's a very good book called creative confidence in inspired Solomon David Kelly who were the founders of IDEO. And they won awards for this book.
And what it really talks about is having reason why it's called creative confidence is because leadership allowing the people to actually be creative, be innovative. I don't really want to talk about COVID 19, but I will talk about it as an event. One of the biggest, most damaging things that we had in business globally and internationally during this event was the fact that people were isolated.
People were lonely. People were suffering from mental. They didn't. So you talk about, you know, the McKinsey 86% issue. I, we IBM did, did did a trust report back in [00:20:00] 2000 and and 20, and we use data pad to do some really interesting work. That report shows that 69% of all people surveyed within the report, didn't trust their line manager and didn't actually trust their CEO.
And that was before the event to think about all of the lack of creativity and lack of innovation before the event took place. I want to just briefly quote you something from the book, which is on page 19, which I really love, and it talks about empathy. Empathy means challenging your preconceived ideas and setting aside your sense of what you think is true in order to learn what actually is true to me, that resident that is always that particular quote from that particular book has always resonated with me.
Run [00:21:00] always resonates because we've got to start getting back to the, what I said earlier, listening, empathy, understanding you could question about how leadership actually has communicated with their people are more they should be doing in order to communicate with the people, because all of that falls immediately into one of the largest single most biggest problems in the world today.
And that's trust.
Scott: I want to go back to what Douglas said, if you don't mind. And I think what's, and it comes back to what you said there too, about the empathy in that, and it is about, and it goes back to what I said as well about servant leadership. I think one of the keys about leadership is to be selfless.
That's one of the key traits that you can do. So in the trust model, I've developed a lot of research around trust from various different people in my experiences from my time in the prison service is if, if you are people always look at motives. [00:22:00] So if you want, if you are motivated by your personal gain, over asking people to do something to chances of them actually wanting to do for you is minimal.
If they can see that you're motivated by the greater good, whatever that might be, then that's going to help people follow that because they say, yeah, it might be a bad decision, but there's no ulterior motive. There's no hidden agenda here. They're not doing it just to get something for themselves. So I think that selflessness is important.
And what you said, Geoff about the communication and one of the key things in the coach program, I've got. Just an activity and it's called me, myself and I. How many conversations do you have or emails do you receive where the word I permeates the conversation? Yeah. What that is demonstrating that this person is talking, is looking at seeing things and asking from a personal perspective.
So I would like you to do this and we're supposed to be doing it for you instead of saying to somebody, okay, what do you want to achieve? How can we support you? Getting there? What skills do we, can we help you develop out of what we've got? What could I delegate to you? [00:23:00]That's going to help you, rather than the we're a bit busy.
I've got this job. I would like you to do that, that whole conversation piece in how we actually approach and communicate says to somebody I'm trying to do it to help you, or I'm doing it to help me. I think if we really look, so the emails, you get the, in the email conversations and read it. How many times are you asking people to do something, to help you?
And it goes totally against that. Self-sense so it becomes, it becomes self focused rather than other focus, I think is one of the. That and emotions, the emotional connection, I think are the two biggest drivers for trust. And we concentrate on the other ones, which is our capabilities, our credibility, and our believe ability, because they're easy.
You can put your things up on the wall. You can go to university, you can get your degrees, you can do this and do that. And it comes back to what you were saying Douglas about. I can work for you because I've demonstrated I can, I've done this in an industry similar to yours, so I can slip in and do that.
And it's just going to be easy. So there's this, I think in some ways, those decisions are driven by fear, [00:24:00] fear of not taking the recipe. You've got Edward de bono who's sadly passed away a couple of years ago. He went to, he, he went to a conversation in, I think it was involved in a conference with someone like shell and he asked a question like a beginner increase productivity in their Wells.
And I think there's something like 300% by just asking. Because he didn't work in the industry. So he was curious, I said, why'd you do that? Can we do it this way? And somebody says, never thought of that. Hang on a minute. Yes, we can. Let's let's try it. Let's experiment it 300. I think it was some of that 300% increase in productivity per well, from that, be willing to ask questions like a beginner.
Oakland: I absolutely agree. And I always emphasized that leadership is leadership. It doesn't matter where you learn. It doesn't matter where you practice it. If you're a leader, you can lead any organization. Now there's a learning curve. I got it. You got to learn some things, whatever. But, but as [00:25:00] Douglas says, I I'm a firm believer that you can take people from outside and bring them in.
And not only are you now using their unique experience and knowledge, but they're looking at it from the. Different set up through a set of eyes that, that don't know exactly what should be happening. So they, like you're saying Scott, they, they, they can ask those simple questions because they don't know.
And you know, one of the things that I'm, I believe in as a leader that I always do is when I first take over an organization, I just go out and start walking around, talking to people and start asking those questions. So what, what is it you do? Why do you do it that way? Have we always done it that way?
Or is there a better way that you can think of that we can do it. It might make your job easier. If you start asking those questions, you get a couple of things happen. Number one, the people in your organization say, Hey, the boss came down and actually asked me some questions. He may actually care about what I think about.
[00:26:00] Number two, they start feeling like they're a valued member of the organization. And number three is that you might hit that, like you're saying, Scott, you might hit that one question that then changes the way we do everything in that organization, because there may be a better way to do it because the problem that we have in our organizations is the same problem we have in us.
As people organizations have a mental, have a mental memory, just like people do. And we do things because we've always done them that way. I hate that term. If anybody ever tells me, when I ask them, why do you do it that way? And they tell me, because that's the way we've always done them, done it. I just want to reach out and just choke them.
What a horrible. Tell me the desk, the way we've always done it because it works or that we've tried other things, and this is the best way we've come up with. I got that, but just telling me that that's the way we've always done it. Don't waste my time that I don't want to hear that that's just being lazy because that's the way we've always done it.
So if you bring in new eyes, [00:27:00] new people, not afraid to take chances to take a risk. You know, as Rommel said, you know, who's one of my heroes feel Marshall Rommel. You said, you got to know the difference between a risk and a gamble, a risk you can recover from, if it doesn't work, your gamble, you're done. So, you know, you got to know that difference, but if we got to take, be willing to take those risks so that we can bring in that fresh blood, those fresh eyes, ask those good questions.
Like Scott said, if we do that, then along with building the trust and the culture and taking care of people, then I think, you know, we're we're, we are doing the right things at that point. And the sky is the limit of what we can.
Geoff: I think there's another point here and at the beginning, Douglas talks about the pace of change.
And as I said, I think change is constant now, you know, it's, it's, it's kind of, which also then stays the leadership needs a reinvention. Okay. And one of the things [00:28:00] that, that command and control that we used to have in leadership is over those days are over there longer. And I think that culture, which Oak talks about is incredibly important because when we start talking about culture, we've got to start thinking inclusion that the little guy or the little girl at the back of the room may have a voice, may have some incredibly important side.
We need to, we need to listen. We need to empower them. We need to bring them in because they need to be included. And the, the, one of the big problems with great resign is because nobody wants to. Even think about inclusion. It's back to that. I skull that you said earlier, me, myself scenario. No, it's got to be about we us on that journey on that path.
And culture is an important part of all organizational matters today. And particularly with leadership, [00:29:00] there's more importantly that you practice. This is not something that's reserved for the C drive and for the shelf, it's got to be a living, breathing subject matter that people in any of the effects behavior, because it's all about, you know, it's all about let's say personality trait, but it's all about, I mean, trust is is an output of behavior is how we behave.
We are now talking about ethics and we're talking about morals. I've never stopped talking about ethics and morals within corporations within corporate. Right. You know, why are we now starting to talk about it now? You know, is it because, you know, antitrust laws, are they, have they just been made policy in 2022?
No, they'd been around forever, but the fact is culture by main boards, boards of directors from the top down and the bottom up have got to be exercised. The only way to do that is that they're living and breathing with the organization. We start [00:30:00] looking at businesses that have adopted culture in a number one, and I have got a, a very strong emphasis on within your organization, how you behave.
So the people they hire, the sort of people that, that are on a, on a trajectory for growth and change and development, all of the sort of people that have got a future. They're not interested in the current resign because there's purpose. They get out of bed in the morning. It's not just for a paycheck.
As I indicated to this is, this is about, you know, I'm a part of something. I will be a part of greatness. I'm being part of something here today. I'm passionate about what I do. I love what I do. And more importantly, who I work with now, now, now that needs to be considered. And I think, you know, like I said, leadership I said earlier, leadership is becoming impossible for some and, and [00:31:00]Douglas, you, you quoted those statistics.
They're not wrong. They're right. In every way, shape and form leadership needs to be reinvented. Raving vented authority needs to be reinvented. Otherwise corporations are going to come to a very expensive and.
Douglas: Jeff, I think, as you were talking there, I mean, it came to mind and, you know, I think all of us in our journey so far in life, we we've come across good leaders, great leaders per leaders.
And I've always seen a common trait in a great leader is having the combination of intelligence, but wisdom. And what does that mean? So intelligence means maybe asking 10 smart questions. Wisdom goes up a couple of notches because wisdom is asking one deeply refined question and coming back it's about two to the, the, the, the importance of asking a really deeply refined question.
To, to get to that [00:32:00] level of thinking of deep wisdom is, and listening and empathy different. You mentioned about it's this philosophy. I really believe in called contextual leadership and within contextual leadership as the war that's going on around us. But within that is I find that great leaders have supported self-awareness they appreciate the impact that I have on others and how they can influence others in a positive way.
And so that's something for me that's is, is, is, is a real journey of which I'm curious on around always improving one's understanding and the curiosity of the world around us and what's happening around us, but equally knowing where we are, am taking myself out of that situation, see it for what it is and the ability to go back into that complex world that's changing and to lead in that complex world in a manner in which.
Values-driven and envision lead. And so I think this combination of, [00:33:00] of deep wisdom with self-awareness and of course the trust, the harm, moral fiber, et cetera, et cetera, you know, becoming the bedrock. Of of where we're going to just, you know, something quirky that you were talking about, Dave Kelly, and now I love his YouTube video and Dr.
Doug Dietz on that, if anybody wants to ever see it, it's creative confidence, just go to YouTube. But, but it's actually been proven that as we grow in life is that children at the youngest age are the most curious and the most. And our education and conformal Lifelight, we start to embark on, as we go through schooling and university takes away their creative confidence that they've Kelly speaks of.
And so it's, somehow you've got to get that territory back to you think back a five-year old and be curious back a five-year-old and ask her a really ridiculous question that nobody's asking. Because I can tell you that Elon Musk does it, you know, Steve jobs in his heyday did it, these great innovators and [00:34:00] leaders, you know, did it in their, in their day.
They had other quirks as well, but that's something I think that is also all of us to, to appreciate in ourselves. What does it mean to you to, to oneself?
Scott: Can I put a couple of points there, one other, what does this several one is I think one of the greatest unlocked things that we have in an organization is the collective genius of the people who work there.
Absolutely. That is about how do we unlock that? And now I come from, I love appreciative. And I think that's definitely a model of helping unlock that because it's, it's curiosity and inquiry, but we're working on strengths. What are we good at? What's valuable. How can we contribute? And so those types of things, again, is asking questions that are generative, not negative in the concept of that.
They're designed to create generative thinking and generate solutions and go back. We said about that genius. There was a, I can't remember the name of the guy who was a, he was asked, I think by NASA to create a test in the sixties, fifties and sixties for them too, because they were solving problems. We didn't even know [00:35:00] they had, when they jumped, put a man on the moon.
So I don't know what you're going to try and solve yet. Cause we didn't have it. We'd done it, what problems we're going to come across, but we need people who can solve problems. We don't even know we've got. And that goes back to that, having that creative thinking and he did this test and they used it and it was very successful in selecting the right type of people when he said it's really simple.
So we did the test and he did a longevity study. Five-year-olds 98% of five-year-olds passed a creative genius. Well at the time these same people got to, I think it was like, you never quite remember the figures here to be exact, but they got to about 17 or 14 and the percentage had gone down to about 17%.
And then he gave it to a group of adults, average age, about 31 creative genius. The people who pass at creative genius level was 2%. And I think it goes back to what you say, Douglas and what you're saying about that, that, that learned memory in the lone way of doing stuff. And we have people from the same industry because it creates, it creates same type of thinking, which doesn't that.
And we all are creative. [00:36:00] Everyone. I think we have a very narrow definition of creativity is what we think greater is about arts and science and music. And that that's a part of creative. That's expressing yourself through music, but we are all creative because if you can imagine, you can create and we can.
Oakland: I would agree, Scott and, and I, you know, I had a, I had a boss who retired a four-star general, who so obviously way smarter than I am. But he, he used to tell me, and it goes, goes into getting the ideas out of the people that like, like just said, you know, we're not using the entire organization's experience, their knowledge, their creativity.
And he always used to tell me, oh, a good idea is a good idea. Whether it comes from a private, the lowest ranking person in your organization or a general. And then he'd say by the way, A bad idea is a bad idea. Whether it comes from a private or a general, the highest ranking person in the organization.
And so what he was trying to tell me was use everybody in your organization when you have a [00:37:00] chance. And so, you know, one of the things that I I'm adamant about when I'm in charge of an organization, if I have time, if I got an issue, I've got an idea, I've got something that I'm trying to figure out or come up with a better way to do things.
I call all my junior leaders together. And if I have time in the ability, I'll call my entire organization. If it's small enough and I'll say, okay, here's what I'm trying to do. Here's what we're trying to do. Here's the problem. We, as an organization have throw me some ideas of how we can fix this, how we can do it better, how we can change it.
And then, you know, one of the things that I've figured out over the years of doing that is that I'll take a little bit of this person's idea and maybe a little bit of that person's idea and a little bit of that one. And then I'll throw some of my stuff in. And we actually come up with a good solution.
And the key to that is that when we do that, it's no longer Colonel McCullough solution [00:38:00]or just solution or Douglas as solution. It's our solution. We all got skin in the game. Now we all can't help came up with this solution. So let's work really hard to make it work. And I've, I've found that over the years, that's the best.
That's always worked best for me when when I was in a leadership position to, to dig into that experience and that knowledge of everybody in the organization, rather than just use my experience in my knowledge.
Douglas: It's quite interesting. Cause as you were talking there I was connecting the dots in my mind about what you was, you were speaking of it in that innovation example and design thinking.
And again, you know, Dave, Katie is the king of design thinking and, and, and, and one. Now that you have empathy, which is the beginning stages of design thinking is empathy mapping, getting everybody's views and perspectives into the room, and then align a creative environment and using post-its and LIGO, who knows what else to solve a solution [00:39:00] together.
And it's actually in a way it's got to start going back to being a five-year-old. I've actually be part of an innovation session where at the end of the day we, we, we actually use Lego to, to present it back to the group. You know, what is it that we propose as a new business model in this industry?
And our saw executives are 40, 50 years old. You hadn't touched Lego in 30 years, you know, couldn't stop with it at the end of the day. And it's sometimes you've just got to break free of the stigmas and what's it what everybody has to be seen to be look like as leaders we can, you know, it's important to show your vulnerability as a leader and, and again, you know, that whole philosophy.
The sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the digits, you know is, is always so powerful and, and you hit it, you hit it, you hit the nail on the head with that analogy.
Geoff: I, I like that. What you've just said diverse. And then that reminds me when I went to idea's office and playing around with the Lego bricks.
Right. And, but I think when you start talking about [00:40:00] creative creativity and in particular Dave Kelly's and Tom Kelly's book around creative confidence, which when I read it back in, in state really inspired me. I think we have got a problem. I think the problem is not on the creativity side.
It's actually on the confidence side. And I think that the cost of confidence, right, is the big. And in the last two years, 24 months, I say that that cost has gone up even further because the erosion of confidence makes trust way more important, right?
Scott: In the, in the whole, whole scheme of things.
Geoff: We need to necessity trust and the trust multiply, which, which I've always spoken about.
And the action to be more effective is about rebuilding trust, right.
You know, the, the
whole the whole nine yards. And, and if we don't the cost becomes even greater. So from where I'm standing, you know, I'm talking about [00:41:00] that person Oak in the room at the back of the room who never gets noticed, it's putting his hand up and just that, not, not, not even to have the ability to be able to ask a question to senior leaders, Right.
It has to go through several tears and the men they're never heard. Right. You understand, or, or the ability where you're working remotely. And there was a lack of creativity, but they're sitting behind a screen. So again, but even, even middle tier management, they don't want to speak out because they're not confident enough that they're going to be heard or understood.
And then by the time it gets all of that, mish-mash gets convoluted to senior management and then goes to board. It's no big surprise the border uninspired, right. Because there's a lack of engagement, but there's a lack of engagement because there's a lack of confidence.
Scott: I think going back to that ability to engage, [00:42:00] if you could say to somebody, you can hopefully fill it in, like you've done and put people into a meeting which is called and say, I want your opinions, but if you've never, or rarely in your day-to-day thing, enabled that to have.
It's not going to all of a sudden happen because you're in a meeting you're asking people to speak up. Absolutely.
Oakland: I think that's why you gotta be out there. Leaders have to get out there and talk to people. I mean, if you don't do that on a re on a semi-regular basis, as often as you can, then you're right Scott, but it just words, then it's not action.
It's not that nobody trusts you, that you are actually you care.
Geoff: And just one more on that. I agree wholeheartedly with that. And I remember when I was a chief exec. Public listed company. I used to do the coffee run and it was, I said to the secretary at night, I'll get my own coffee. I go to the coffee machine, pour my coffee, go around the whole flaws and office areas.
I talked to people and they were shocked that I that's, you spoken to them even more. [00:43:00] So I'd go out to the, to the county offices, I'd go doing exactly the same. Right. And I had an open door by the way. I also had an open door policy that anybody could come into my office. Anytime I would start work for them.
Sit them down, start to listen and understand what was going on. Sorry, Douglas, I don't want it to say that it was I think, I think that that needs to be more apparent, but you need a higher level of emotional intelligence in order to do that because somebody that has no emotions. More on the IQ academia side, you'll find the office will be closed and they'd be looking at the spreadsheets.
You know that right? The wisdom intelligence is making the right decisions. Douglas, you know that right to making the right decisions. You could actually say that with some of the things that we've talked around, listening, empathy, understanding communication could fall within spiritual intelligence, but you're never going to get to trust if you can't actually encapsulate or [00:44:00]integrate those, those intelligence practices into human behavior.
Right. So
Oakland: I agree. Sorry, I cut you off Scott.
Scott: I'm just the host. That's fine. So it's usually far more important what you said, doctor and I quite liked what you said. Talk to us about that. So when I was in the prison service, every time you walked onto a landing, you were never sure what it's gonna be. Yeah, every day was different.
So you couldn't be the same. So I think in those environments, what you really learn, what you really learn is that dynamic assessing what is this like compared to what it was like yesterday? What is this lad I'm talking to now? What was he like yesterday? Is there a difference? Do I need to alter how on what I'm saying to him to gain that influence over this person so that he can comply with the instructions voluntarily and willingly?
As you said, I did, some of the things you do is if there's a machine gun post over there, somebody shooting us. Do you mind going and [00:45:00] stopping the police have been very naughty. You're asking people to do some real high risk situations. There are life threatening. So again, in the prisons, when you're working that sort of environment, not, not as high risk as running a machine gun, but every day was slightly different.
Oakland: Yeah. I would argue on, on a day-to-day basis, your, that job is much more difficult than most of us in the military, but anyway, but
Scott: not probably not. We do have some programs over here was the presence that's. Most of it would be I was drinking tea, having a chat and somebody walking in every now and again, the reality of it is it's completely different to what people say, but yes, you walk in, you're on a landing with 70 people.
You're unlocking them, come on, let's go and get your breakfast, going your dinner, whatever it is, go to work. And you've got somebody who's they want into a life sentence, and you've got somebody who's in day 15, have a 30 day sentence next to each other. So you can't be the same with those two people to get that compliance and together.
And they've got to is about that calibration. I call it calibration and we calibrate in the moment with [00:46:00] what we're trying to achieve. Where are we? And then being able to read, what am I doing now? And are these actions helping me or hindering this event? Or what do I need to do different to create a different outcome?
So it's really has been quite attuned to looking at this person, if they react in the way I expected to, if not, why not? Cause they normally do. Okay. Maybe the and we didn't know because you haven't been offering, well, maybe he's been told his mom's just died as, I mean, he's been refused access to, he wasn't allowed to go to the funeral and then you're in the morning and morning and he's, he's not in the morning is he, he's not having a good day.
So you've got to really quickly sort of do that analysis and that sort of live dynamic assessing in that situation. And then I'm in it. What influence am I creating in this situation? Am I helping or hindering? And I think that goes back to what you were saying. Doug is having that, that real intuition in that fine awareness of impact.
And if you go into supermarkets or shopping mall, You can see where generally [00:47:00] we don't have it. Cause what we do is get focused on what we want our targets. Like I want to go and get the, the, the the middle car. I'm going to go get the, the the meat or the food I want. And we just go towards where we're going.
And we force other people to get out of our way, because we're not aware of what they're trying to do in that environment. Just watch people in a supermarket and see how enclosed in our little environments we are. We don't really look at the potential impact of our actions. And I think sometimes that's the same as when we're in work and we're leading people.
If we can just create that, help people create that sort of looking outside and Seneca. I want to get there, but this person's going to cross that. If I do that, I wouldn't stop them so I can just wait, let them go. And I can go. And therefore I'm working effectively with that person aware of where they're going and I'm not interfering in that, but I'm still achieving my goal.
So I just thought at that time, Scott, just
Douglas: I'll ask you a question. If you don't mind. We reversed the roles here. Let's make it fun. I would think also in that environment, which is enormously complex probably I agree with Oak it's probably a lot [00:48:00] more complex than, than what most people face in most leaders face is the importance of, of composure and not reacting too quickly.
And because sometimes human beings and as leaders, we, we, we can react quickly and certainly if your buttons are pushed and if it's a sensitive topic, but you know, one thing that is a great trait of a leader is the ability to have composure, to assess the situation and then to deal the situation. And I would think that's something that you've developed in that approach every morning, when you walk in there is to expect the unexpected, but to compose yourself, Then, you know, go through that process in your mind of how to approach an individual or a community of people.
But probably in your case, I would think you even more you even more developed than, than most leaders, because of just that the complexity of this
Scott: environment. Yeah. I think it gives you the opportunity to really, and the thing goes back to what we're all [00:49:00] saying about that self-awareness and to be a good leader, because there are people in that position who wouldn't be flexible, who didn't react, who didn't stop, maybe not aware of that awareness and the impact.
So the environment gives you the opportunity to raise the level of awareness to raise those skills, but it's still whether you choose to or have the capacity and the curiosity to actually develop and adapt within it. I still think as a personal choice, there is the option and I've seen people who worked in prisons and they were, they were that's it, the rules, and there's no flexibility with them at all.
And I've seen people with. And they have massively adaptive in the way they work and they're highly effective. So I think the, the, the environment provides the opportunities down to the individuals, capabilities, capacities, and willingness to whether to take that onboard and to then develop on that, which comes back to what you're saying about being that.
And I think Jeff as well, that hide heightened level of awareness and wisdom and do an end sort of develop [00:50:00] from
Geoff: that level of, of wisdom. For sure. Right. But it's also, you, you know, you're not going to get to loyalty with others unless you providing a solution.
Scott: No, and I, I found the most effective way when I was working with prisoners is to say, get them on your board in the journey, because it's not about me telling them what to do.
Cause you've got rules. You've got regulations. You can tell them, you can tell them all day if you wanted to. And it's fine. You would probably get a level of compliance and you do get a level of compliance, but really the British, the British legal system, our whole judicial system actually sits on that concept of cooperation.
It doesn't sit on a concept of authority and power. It really does sit on cloud because you think about it. You're working on landing. When I was at Bellmarsh, I think we had some nine 11 staff and 200 and 300 prisoners, 250 prisoners, 11 staff, [00:51:00] and we get, you've got gates. You've got process. You've got procedures, don't have guns.
We don't hold guns. Where we had was when I first started, whether we had a wooden stick.
Geoff: Just for the record. I mean, Douglas and Oak, probably not aware of Belmarsh. She wants to explain what Belmont she is. Cause it's a very high security prison.
Scott: It's unusual in a high-school prison because it also does what we call local stuff as well. So there's about, I think from memory is about eight high security prisons.
So they, they hold the high risk. So there's special units within all of them that are designed to do that. And so Belmont is one of them based in Southwestern, Southwest London, which it will ask them. So I worked there for a few years which is interesting. I also found that working with, cause I've also worked with every category of prisoner that exists in the UK.
So people on drug rehab, people on short-term programs, people on long-term. And I think that's where I learned collaboration as well, working on a wing where we had people who were on really long-term drug rehab programs, because their stories were horrific. These people had serious, [00:52:00] serious drug habits.
And we worked in partnership with the prisoners on that unit, the charity that was running the program and us as the prison staff. And we had to find a ways how we could sit down and collaborate and cooperate to make that unit work. If we went through the normal processes and say that and stuff. So yes, we had discipline.
Yes, we had to do that, but we had to look at ways of applying it in a way that would still reach what we were meant to be doing. I rules and regs, but also helps support them rehabbing and finding. So it was massively working with multiple stakeholders and collaborating and finding ways forward, which was really interesting as well.
Oakland: And I would argue that, you know, we go back to trust. I mean, those people have to have some kind of trust that you do have some.
You know, you, you want them to succeed. You want this to work. So, so they have to have that trust in you as well. If you want them to voluntarily [00:53:00] do things like you're saying, instead of the authoritarian, you're going to do this because that's the rules and that's the law. And if, if you can build that trust, like you're, you're saying that you did then then I think that you're, you're on that right track.
And it goes back to the trust piece stuff that, that Jeff talked about in the very beginning. I agree with that.
Scott: Yeah. I think trust is the basis of it all. But if working with them like holders, and if you can get an agreement, you're coming from someone from a different angle, goes back to what you were talking about, Jeff.
And you've got to trust what people are doing, but you've got to go into that collaboration with that empathy to say, I've got to understand where you're coming from and you need to understand where I'm coming from and how can we work together to get that common goal? That's right. We need to ensemble the common goal is to have that language of per.
Okay. Now what I've done, I can't bring everything. I've got lots of stuff. I've got to bring into this. It's got to work that I am there's rules and regs. I've got to follow the stuff you have to follow, and they're not mutually exclusive and they don't combat each other as how can we get [00:54:00] those to work together in a way that makes sense.
So you could, you could, that's a great Lego activity, by the way, you can get, these are my rules and regs and Lego. There's your rules and regs and Lego lets how we can put these Lego pieces together and create this thing that we're trying to do. And I think that was, that was really interesting sort of 18 months or two years, 18 months, I think I've worked in that unit 18 months of my career.
Really interesting. And it sort of, as I say, a lot of what you were talking about, different people, different perspectives, being open with each other, empathy, sharing what you could give and parts of yourself to get parts back as well. So as a leader, it's not just about the business and transactions.
It's about that emotional connection. So you gotta be willing to give something of yourself to get something back. Got. You're a person, the people you're working with people it's about what do you give to yourself and then find out what you're comfortable giving to your, about to yourself, to other people find your boundaries, and then you're comfortable going into those conversations.
Not thinking about it. It becomes more natural.[00:55:00]
Geoff: Yeah, I agree. I guess I got a final thought. Which for me, there are an awful lot of risks at the moment, Brian, and, but the risk has always been around forever. I think leadership is not saving just for business. I think I like to talk about leadership at home. I like to talk about leadership in business.
I like to be, think about leadership in life. And I think that with all of that said, I think we are responding strategically to a very interesting phase of life at this moment. Which needs, as we said earlier, Douglas, it needs a high degree of creativity, I think authenticity I think openness.
Right. But more importantly, a willingness, right? So that willingness to look beyond the obvious in addressing the issues and the threats. But I think with all that said, I think there are, there are opportunities for, for, for the minority [00:56:00] that decide Darwinism, flexibility, change adaptability, and more importantly, courageous leadership at that point to be able to include others and take them on a journey which will be inclusion, but also to better, better, a better place of growth development.
And, and. With empathy, you get happiness. People are happy. People won't be a part of something that they're happy and they've got growth, they got mindset, they got attitudes. And they got learnings. And I think all of that is in
Scott: incredibly important. Okay. Thank you very much, Jeff. Okay. If you got a final sort of Roundup you would like to finish with,
Oakland: I, again, I think this has been fantastic and, and I agree with everything that's been being said. I think we got to get to the point where people, you know, as we commissioned brand new lieutenants out of here, [00:57:00] which is our job, the last thing I tell them is go out there and make a difference because leaders make a difference in everybody's in, in, in every day, leaders have the potential to make a difference in the people's lives that.
Influence in the organization. And I think that's the, that's the difference between the average leader and the really good leader is the very good leader goes out there with the attitude that they want to make a difference, a positive difference in people's lives. And then the organization every day, you want to do that.
And if you, if you enter every day doing that as a leader, then you're building the trust. You're building the culture and you're actually going to help people. And if you help people, like Jeff said, if they're happy, they're going to do more for you. They're going to, they're going to like being it there and in your organization.
And, and it just goes back to that. Cause this is a privilege being a leader is a [00:58:00] privilege. And I think some leaders have forgotten that, that it is a privilege that you get to lead other people. And so you should make an effort to make a difference in those people's lives, a positive difference every day.
Douglas: Yeah, I think, first of all, thanks to, to yourself and Oak and Jeff are wonderful and really thought provoking conversation. I actually just want to continue. We Oak left off and really to say that I think each and every person in the world through the last two years, I'm sure. And I speak for myself, but I'm sure we all in the same space as deeply reflected on your life.
What makes you happy? Why does it make you happy times when you've been done and come to when you've been up? And I think for me, it's, it's made the world, whether it's through the great resign and, and things like that, but people want to be here. We don't, nobody comes to work to not do well. And so for me, I think we've got to the silver lining after these last few years and in many, but one of them I think is that I think [00:59:00] people have come with a stronger self awareness of what makes them happy, what drives them, and they laugh and their purpose and the opportunity for leadership to seize this and to really harness that energy that comes with that happiness and to align it.
And I would sign up, sum it up to say is leadership has an opportunity to burn the free fuel of this awareness of deep purpose on the bedrock of trust. And to be happy because that's what we want to be. Thank you. Lovely.
Scott: Thanks very much. I would just like to say, oh God, sorry. You can just say all I would just say, so thank you very much for gents for joining. It has been an absolute honor and a privilege, and the first time I've had three people on. So thank you. So there's me dipping my toe into the sort of head talk type territory. So hopefully it was a running excuse, any mistakes or errors I made on the way my view on leadership is to, for leadership and trust is two simple questions or two simple things to look at trust the look at the word is trustworthy.
[01:00:00] It's not trust it's trustworthy. So why questions? And it's what you do every scene. Again, single interaction you have with people influences that. So my question to lead is when I do some coaching occasionally, so I'll ask a simple question. What are you going to do today to demonstrate you are worthy of somebody's trust?
Geoff: And just to finalize on that, if you have you find somebody, you know, and I think we should be more caring. Yeah, like Douglas said, people have been through a lot in the last 24 months. If you can make one significant change to one person you've effective, positive change. Right. And that's surely what leadership is all about, right?
We're with the people that we have to reach out to people we have to care to be. We need more care in society. I don't mean look, when people are down, it's not just about making the next paycheck. It's about supporting loving and helping people. [01:01:00] Okay. Through all times when, when they're in, when they said celebrate, but celebrate when they're having a good time.
But when the down surely we should be there for our colleagues, our friends and the people that really matter to us most. And I think that that's an important role for lesion
Scott: compassion. Yeah, it's all bad. All right. Again. Lovely. Thank you very much. And thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much for listening.
Oakland: Thanks Scott. Appreciate it.