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.